Feelings

Lately, I have been having a conversation with a young person about feelings. I grew up in a family that didn’t do feelings. Well, that’s not true. Men were allowed to be angry while women were allowed to cry. For many years, I did my best to avoid feelings. I drank and used them away. I also thought I ate them away. However, I found that when I overate and didn’t beat myself up, I was still left with those uncomfortable feelings. So, it wasn’t eating that stuffed the feelings, but rather turning to an emotion I knew well: shame.

As hard as it has been, I have learned how to handle feelings. So, when this young person asked me about feelings, I had quite a bit of experience to share. Here are some things I have learned about feelings:

1) feelings are neither good nor bad; however, acting out our feelings can have negative or positive consequences. For instance, there is no harm in being angry. In fact, anger is a normal reaction to being hurt or endangered physically or emotionally. However, if I lash out in anger, then I have hurt another -- a negative consequence. If I process my anger instead, no problem. On the other side, feeling loving and acting on it can make relationships to others closer.

2) feelings are not facts, but they are sign posts. Just because I feel like it is the end of the world, doesn't mean it is. However, they do tell me that something is going on: maybe I'm tired or hungry, maybe I have done something harmful to someone else, or maybe I've let someone hurt me and am stewing about it. Whatever, they tell us that something is going on, but it may not be what we think it is.

3) Feelings have to be processed; if I ignore them, they don't go away -- they fester. I can process them through prayer and meditation, journaling, talking with someone, etc. Sometimes, I need to move them through my body. Like with anger, I have to physically get the anger out: cry, beat pillows, a fast walk, a vigorous dance.

4) I can't handle feelings without God's help. I have to ask for help feeling the feelings and then processing them.

5) Feelings will not kill me, though sometimes it feels like they might.

6) I have to practice feeling feelings. As I practice, I get better and better at feeling them, and they become less and less scary.

7) sometimes, especially for new feelers, it can be hard to identify feelings. For help in that area, see this graphic on identifying feelings. At first, I could only identify anger, sadness and happiness. Now, I have a whole gamut of feelings.

8) This, too, shall pass. This is even more true for feelings. As old as I am, I still have days where I'm angry in the morning, ecstatic at noon, and sad by dinner. Now, my highs and lows have mellowed a lot as I clear up my stuff, but they are still there. All feelings will change eventually.

9) How to handle a feeling: a) identify it. b) look at it's source (old stuff, new hurts, etc.). c) journal, pray or talk about it to someone. d) feel it (turn on music and cry, beat the anger out in pillows, dance around the room in delight). e) identify any cleaning up that needs done (is there an amends to be made or a problem to be solved?). f) rinse and repeat until the feeling goes away.

10) We numb feelings in many, many ways: drinking, drugs, video games, self-attack, sex, tv, being a human doing instead of a human being, etc. etc. I had to become aware of how I numb. None of these things (except for drugs) are horrible when they are done in moderation. So, if I need to numb a little bit, I go right ahead. I just make sure I’m conscious while I’m doing it. And I don't do it too much or those feelings will come popping out in weird and nasty ways. I allowed myself to numb a whole lot while I was working on a big project this last year. Now, I'm having to deal with funky emotions coming out.

Resisting Exercise

My resistance to exercise didn’t come from laziness or fear of being ridiculed; instead it came from a sense of dis-ease. I had a really hard time slowing down, being present, feeling my body. For so long, my consciousness stayed outside my body, like I withheld myself from my body. Somehow, enjoying the feel of my physical form, claiming every inch of me, made my skin crawl. The only way I could exercise was to meditate, and the only way I could meditate was to exercise. For me, there was a spiritual aspect to actually being in my body.

I finally get it. For me, one who has avoided the presence of my own body for most my life, exercise is a spiritual practice. I must exercise not because it is good for my body, but rather because it is good for my soul. By practicing connection to my own body, I’m practicing connection to my higher power. By becoming aware of my own center, I’m practicing a quiet mind. By being in my body, I’m being in the now.

All my life, I tried to make exercise about the physical. For me, it just isn’t. It is about my connection to myself, the world around me, and mostly, my higher power.

Practicing Joy

Think of how much time we WASTE on dieting and body hating. We are this incredibly blessed nation; we are one of the few that have too much. So, we assuage our guilt by not allowing ourselves to enjoy any of it. What if we decided to be grateful for the girth god gave us and concentrate our energies on service, love, and imagination instead? What if we quit hating our bodies and choose to create instead? How many problems could we solve with the $58 billion spent on trying to be thin every year? Where would we be able to go? What would we be able to do? We could change the world.

Many of us have allowed the fear of fat to suck the joy out of our lives. We no longer enjoyed food, instead wallowing in the guilt of being “bad” if we eat a carrot because it has so much starch in it – only feeling virtuous if the food we eat is so laden with fat-reducing and sugar-reducing chemicals to where it tastes like a sewage treatment plant at worst and nothing at best. We have allowed this fear to take the joy out of our bodies: keeping us from enjoying movement, from loving our own rolls and lumps, from enjoying sex with our partners.

What would happen if we took back those joys? Imagine enjoying every bite of every bit of food you put in your mouth. Those “forbidden” items that your body and soul so craves, gobbling them down quickly and in large quantity so that no one would know you were being “bad.” Instead, try delighting in each mouthful, each bite. You may find that you eat less; you may not. You will find your life sweeter.

Imagine enjoying the feel of your body. If you crave sex, imagine enjoying it by yourself or with your partner. If you want to dance, dance. If you want to sleep, sleep. Imagine allowing your physical needs to get met.

Now, many people believe that, if we allow ourselves to enjoy life, we will become hedonistic. I was hedonistic at one point in my life: selfishly taking everything I wanted. Trust me, it doesn’t feel good emotionally or physically, and most especially, not spiritually.

Do we really think that God wants us to feel deprived all the time? As a recovering alcoholic, I seldom feel deprived of alcohol, usually only when I am in a bad place to start with. I don’t believe in a god that desires an ascetic lifestyle; I believe in a god that wants me to be unbelievably happy. So, this holiday season, I am going to enjoy. I’m going to enjoy my body, and I’m going to enjoy my food. I hope that you will do the same.

Happy Holidays!

Fear

Fear can be the greatest weapon of those who perpetuate fat hate: fear that we are somehow wrong or broken, fear that we are not lovable, fear that we are not worthy.

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain. (From Frank Herbert’s Dune)

To fight fear, I find that two powers help: faith and love. The reality is that fear is always either getting bigger or smaller; it seldom stays the same. Every time I give in to fear, the fear gets bigger. Every time I face a fear, that fear gets smaller.

I have heard that I cannot be in fear and faith at the same time. Personally, I have not found this to be true. I have been terrified, but had the faith to face my fears anyway. I believe they call that courage.

Fear comes into play in with fat in so many ways: the fear that I will eat the world, the fear that I will never be loved, the fear of ridicule and negative judgment, the fear of mental and physical bullying, the fear that I am somehow broken (FUBAR: Fucked Up Beyond All Redemption). I have found that these fears are either getting bigger or smaller. If I face them, they get smaller. If I run from them, they take over my life.

Today I choose to face my fears.

Handling Negative Attitudes of Others

I wanted to talk about name calling and others negative attitudes towards us. In a way, I think my whole journey into accepting my own fatness has been letting go of what others think of me. I used to have a base fear that I am unlovable and unworthy. I used to let other peoples’ attitudes towards me reinforce that belief. I no longer choose to do so.

First off, in my experience, other peoples’ attitudes are very, very, very hard to get beyond. It takes study, conscious thought and practice. Actually, I’ve been working on letting go of other’s opinions of me for at least a decade. For me, it is an emotional and spiritual thing. I’ve done 12-step work, therapy and all kinds of spiritual work on it. It boils down to: the better my self-esteem, the less I care what people think of me. People usually can’t bother me today unless I’m already feeling down about myself. There are some specific things I’ve learned to do that help with that situation, however:

1) Use a mantra as protection. When someone says something nasty to me, I can say to myself “I am beautiful, lovable and worthy” or “I am a lovable child of God” and that helps.

2) Envision a shield of protection. I came up with a shield of light that lets love in but keeps negativity out.

3) Envision the words as a bottle of poison. I have the choice to pick the bottle up and drink of it or not. Usually, I say “no thanks.”

4) Ask myself if I respect this person. If I don’t (and if they are calling me names, 99% of the time I don’t), why should I care what they think of me?

5) The most powerful place, and one I’ve only succeeded at doing a few times, is the place of compassion. If someone feels the need to lash out at me, they are usually quite miserable. Remember “hurt people, hurt people.” The few times I’ve been able to look them in the eye and calmly, compassionately say something like “I hate that someone hurt you so badly that you feel the need to hurt me,” their jaws drop and they have nothing to say to it. It feels so powerful, because I know they can’t touch me, and I do truly have compassion for them. I have to be in just the right place to do it, however.

Anyway, I hope some of that helps. Remember, practice is the watch word. I don’t think we get beyond the internal belief that we are less than, which society has feed us from the first second we got fat, easily in any way. It is an uphill journey, but one well worth taking.

People have told me that I am less than since I was 7 years old, because I’m fat. They make snide comments to me. They treat me poorly. They make fun of me. I am left with a choice. I can take those words and let them be poison inside my own soul. I can believe what they say. Or I can leave those words and choose to disbelieve them. I always have the choice to internalize that belief that I am less than. Or, I can choose to believe that I am beautiful, lovable, worthy, and fat. It takes time, but eventually, I have come to believe the later.

HAES for the Spirit

One thing that fat acceptance has done for me is taught me Health At Every Size (HAES). We focus on HAES in the physical realm, but it is important to remember that HAES works best if we apply it to the four aspects of our life: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.

On the physical level, I try to feed my body what it wants and needs while moving for the joy of it. Coming from a background of dieting, this focus can trigger disordered eating if I am not careful. Also, I must balance it with the other aspects. For example, if exercising or eating a particular way puts a great deal of pressure on my emotions or spiritual life, then I might need to back off the exercise.

On a mental level, I try to exercise my mind with new ideas while feeding my imagination. Reading things that challenge my world view is a great way to handle the first part. Movies and books, especially those that stimulate my imagination, can often do this as well.

As for my emotions, simply honoring and feeling my feelings is a hard enough practice for me. I used to have a hard time dealing with emotions – especially new emotions (I really wallowed in self-hatred in the past); I drank and drugged and beat myself up so I didn’t have to feel those uncomfortable feelings. Today, I have many different tools for feeling my feelings, so I do it rather well. But, some days I still find it challenging. I exercise this area by interacting with people, especially in close relationships. Just loving another person is a powerful daily exercise of my emotions.

On a spiritual level, I feed my spirit while challenging it as well. I spend time with spiritual groups and in prayer and meditation which feeds my soul. I read spiritual philosophy and hang out with people that challenge me to grow spiritually.

For me, I must take HAES as a holistic approach, not just focusing on the physical. If I do narrow my focus, I may find myself out of balance in other areas. Do I do this every day? No, just keeping up with life is all I can do some days. However, the more I practice it, the better it works.

Introduction

The purpose of this blog is to explore the intersection of spirituality and Fat Acceptance (FA). If that appeals to you, welcome. If that does not appeal to you, I welcome you to frequent the many Fatosphere blogs that explore other ideas.

My name is Liat (Love In Action Today). No, that is not my real name. In this blog, I want to talk about things – things like recovery and spirituality and advocacy – that require my anonymity on such a public level. I will speak from place of spirituality; not from any religion, but from a generic place of spirit. Though I subscribe to no particular religion, I am a member of Unity Church (metaphysical Christian). I believe that the majority religions, especially the mystical aspects, have validity in some form or another. However, I am hardily anti-fundamentalist (in any religion).

I call my own personal belief system “potpourri spirituality.” That is, I take a little bit from all kinds of spiritual writings: Judeo-Christian along with Eastern (Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, etc.), some New Age, and topped off with 12-Step Recovery. I love the mystics in all religions. Feel free to share your own experience, strength and hope in whatever form it may come, but preaching or attempts at conversion will not be tolerated.

I have been actively studying FA for over seven years now. Before that I spent 30 years, from age 8 to 38, trying to get skinny. Most of that 30 years I was an in-betweenie wearing size 16-18 and weighing about 170-190 pounds. Right at the time I started exploring FA I got very sick with a weird thyroid disease which made me gain about 100 pounds. Today, I weight in the 275 range, wearing size 24-26. I have my thyroid disease under control so my weight seems pretty stable these days. I have found peace with that bigger body as well.

I also have a history of 12-Step recovery. At the writing of this piece, I have 15 years in Al-Anon (for friends and families of alcoholics) and 14 years in Alcoholics Anonymous. When I could not find peace with my body, I tried Overeaters Anonymous and stayed “abstinent” (not eating any forbidden foods) for six years. I never did find peace with my body or food through OA, hence the exploration into FA. I believe in the 12-steps, but seeing my body and food as the enemy never worked for me. That being the case, I have looked for ways to merge FA and the way of living I have found to work in other areas of my life.

If you are interested in such topics, hang around. Maybe we can have some interesting conversations! Whatever your viewpoint, please always remember “to take what you like and leave the rest. “