Jeez, Get A Life!

I’ve been remembering this week about my earlier years, which for me is unusual. Much of my childhood is just a big blur to me and I seldom have clear memories of actual events let alone recollections of the atmosphere and culture at home. I was thinking about my older sister; specifically how she had long, straight hair a beautiful chocolate brown. My hair by comparison was wiry, dark brown and unmanageable and hence kept very short. That led me to comparisons of our weight - my sister is slender and I’m not. She always seemed so feminine and me so awkward and tomboyish. Like most teenagers my sister was self-obsessed and selfish and this was the biggest contrast between us. I was very outwardly focused. For me pleasing people was paramount. To say my sister and I were constantly at loggerheads is to understate the depth of our mutual hatred.

The point being I came away from that experience with a belief that slender, feminine women are cold hearted bitches. More, given my own experiences, I believed they women have to be cold or they would be vulnerable. It’s ironic that I spent so much time trying to keep safe that I forgot to protect myself from the person who was doing the most damage - me. I wonder now how many of those thoughts and beliefs (”I’m fat therefore I’m worthless”, “no one will ever love me unless I’m thin”, “when I’m thin I’ll be happy”) resulted from conflicting beliefs that I must be thin, yet thin equals horrible, effectively keeping me in my nice safe rut.

I seem to be looking back a lot lately which is counterproductive since the goal is to actually move forward with my life. I’m in the process of cleaning out my house as we’re moving in a week. I’m so excited to be moving in with my boyfriend and I just love the house we found. Equally I’m freaking out about all the changes and maybe that’s why this stuff comes up. I remain hopeful that it’s healing (rather than wallowing) and I’m finally clearing some of my erroneous beliefs about fat.

I’d love to know what thoughts or beliefs other people have exposed as lies, so please share if you can.

Thanks for reading,

LISA

Filed under: About Me on February 18th, 2009 | No Comments »

So, once again, blown my posting schedule and let myself down. It seems to be a constant theme in my life; at least to date. Anyone would think I’m actually scared of success given the willful way I consistently sabotage my efforts to move forward.

In all fairness though, I’ve been a preoccupied with …. well my boyfriend actually. We’ve been looking for a house together. I know that theoretically I should be freaking out - after all, I’ve been single for nearly 15 years and we’ve only been dating for three months - but instead I just feel so convinced that this is the right thing to do. I’m so happy and grateful and frankly amazed.

Let me give you a little background here; I was attacked for the first time when I was 12. At the time Dukes of Hazard was my favorite show. Somehow I got hold of a checked shirt and a pair of denim cutoffs a la Daisy Duke and wore the outfit with the shirt tied under my newly developed breasts. I felt beautiful and young and full of life even though I was just babysitting for a family up the road and in all honesty the toddlers weren’t that impressed. I felt good though. Then, the Grandfather of the family came home early, alone,  drunk, and tried to rape me. I managed to fight him off and run home. I didn’t tell anyone because at the time I was more frightened of my father and how he would react than a potential rapist.

That was my first real exposure to men and sex, and given how I already felt about my father, it pretty much sealed how I expected to be treated. Consequently it was the first in a long line of awful interactions and woeful partners. For the longest time I’ve felt so guilty about some of the things that have happened to me; felt that I must have deserved it. For the way I dressed, or acted or, and this was the big one, the way I looked. It’s been the core of my eating since … well since I was 12. I look back now and see that the men who treated me badly did so for reasons of their own that have nothing to do with me. I was simply the victim they were looking for, and for me, I was the victim because I expected to be victimized. I believed that men would treat me badly, hence they did. That belief was rock solid in my mind.

The other unshakeable belief, the one that made me vulnerable to victimizers, was that I was ugly and worthless because I was fat. And since it was my fault I was fat it was my fault they treated me that way. I spent 15 years trying to loose weight so that I could have a partner who wouldn’t treat me badly.

When I first began visualizing what I wanted it was a surprise to me to find what I really wanted, really, with all my heart, was a partner. A lover, a friend, someone who loved me and wanted to be with me. And not the harmful, toxic love that I’d experienced in the past either. I spent a long time thinking about how it feels to be loved and I got to say that was a pretty good time.

The shock of actually attracting that love into my life was huge. The fact he finds me attractive despite the fact I’m fat was just mind blowing. That’s not even right. It’s not despite the fact I’m fat; he sees me as beautiful exactly the way I am. I’m aware it’s a reflection of the fact I can see beauty in myself, now, but it’s still so wonderful.

So, I’ve been consumed with looking for homes, working and being with my love any chance I can get and ignoring my posting schedule. But now I’ve posted, so, yay me!

Have a good day.

LISA

Filed under: About Me, Law of Attraction on February 12th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

I’m absolutely Gobsmacked - which is a fancy Australian colloquilism for shocked speechless. For the longest time I believed that I was nasty and wrong and unworthy because I’m fat. It’s a profoundly widespread belief that fat people need to loose weight because their laziness and lack of control is costing society a fortune in health care costs and … well, let’s face it, they’re just plain ugly. I believed that idea and spent so much of my life feeling like a failure because no matter what I did I couldn’t be thin.

It’s all rather a shock to find that I was being fed a line the whole time. It turns out that being fat is not a death sentence or in fact detrimental to my health, being attractive is more dependent on your state of mind than the shape of your body and, biggest shock of all, fat people do actually have successful happy lives filled with laughter and love and, god forbid, sex!

Admittedly this is not a new idea for me as I’ve been slowly reading more and more ‘notes from the fatosphere’. The more I learn the more outraged I become. Take for instance this very informative article on the obesity virus. Sandy Swarc of Junkfood Science gives an amazing overview of the source of this massive media story, managing to put the whole thing into the perspective it deserves. It’s a money making scheme. A business. Further a business that doesn’t actually have much of a foundation in science. And this is just one example of the many, many ways in which a ‘cultural trend’ is being utilized to make money at the actual expense of my well being.

So, basically, not only have I been shaped since infancy to believe that as I’m not little I’m therefore not worthy, but now I’m being manipulated by pharmaceutical companies to believe I’m at deaths door and/or an unholy drain on societies already stretched resources.

All simply so they can make a bucket-load of money at my expense. Thanks for nothing!

LISA

Filed under: Fat Acceptance on February 3rd, 2009 | No Comments »

Frankly I’m only writing because I promised myself I would, not because I have anything particularly interesting to say. That seems to be a trend for me lately. I’ve hardly written a word since my Mother visited me last October.

Prior to that I’d been writing a blog about dressing your body shape. I very much enjoyed that blog and it still gets a fair amount of traffic. I had a lot of affiliate links up there but hardly sold a thing. My plan was to write about subjects that I like and make money from my writing thereby allowing me to travel the world and live the lifestyle that I plan to come to love. I don’t quite know what it was about my Mother’s visit that changed the way I felt about it.

For a while now I’ve been working on self acceptance and reading about the concept of intuitive eating. Working with my Mother (she had recently lost a lot of weight and wanted to buy new clothes that were different from what she would normally wear) I felt very challenged about those new ideas. I wasn’t ready to espouse them. I don’t know if I am now either but I feel a compulsion to keep reading and researching and applying the ideals in my life.

Of course October was the month that I hooked up with my boyfriend as well. I have not had a relationship for close to fifteen years so it has been a shock to say the least. I’ve been awash with the most amazing sensations and whenever I have free time I just want to bask in being with him.

My goal is to build a successful business that can support my family. I plan on doing it right now. So I guess it’s time to stop pussyfooting around and get on with it. Check back next week and I’ll let you know how I’m progressing.

LISA

Filed under: About Me on January 27th, 2009 | No Comments »

Not much has been happening for me over the last week. In fact I think I’m rather drifting along. Especially over the last few days. I feel somewhat … bored, maybe. I’m back at my various jobs following the holidays but on ‘light’ duties. I feel like I’m half-heartedly ambling along with no particular direction in mind.

I’ve been reading about obesity of late. Or more precisely the myth of the obesity epidemic. I’ve also been reading notes from the Fatosphere and Linda Bacon’s Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth about Your Weight. I’m shocked at what I’m reading and I feel so angry and just plain manipulated. I’ve been trying to memorize the quotes so tell everybody I meet all about it. I think I’m becoming a fat activist. (Huh! I’m fat and an activist and an activist for fat rights. That’s funny).

Of course I have no idea how to be an activist. An frankly given that I’m one for hiding in the corner am not sure how exactly that’s going to work out for me. Still for all my fear and shrinking away I feel strongly that I need to add my voice to the growing ranks of the dissenters.

Well … that said …. how do I proceed? I know I would like to start a blog on the subject - initially anyway - so I think it’s probably a good idea to find out what is currently out there. I also feel that Australia is right there with the US and UK in terms of hounding us fatties so I would like to find out about the fat acceptance movement at home.

So … that’s where I’m at. Just generally drifting along but I guess in a vague sort of direction, which is OK for now because I’m having a good time. I’m in love but not ready to live with my love, my teenagers are finished/finishing high school and going through the angst of moving on and my business is in its infancy. I have no choice right now other than to keep on keeping on. It’s an oxymoron - I feel so much change looming and yet I have stay as I am in order to get to the spot where it’ll change. Weird.

Filed under: Fat Acceptance on January 21st, 2009 | No Comments »

I’ve been dithering around with this blog for about a year now. I write, I edit, I critique (endlessly) and then I delete. For some reason I just resist moving forward. Secretly I think I’m trying not to draw attention to myself, somewhat ironic behavior in someone looking to establish an audience for their writing. My convoluted thinking aside now is the time for me to take action, so …. here goes.

WHERE TO BEGIN?

Over the last couple of years I have been slowly but surely making changes in my life without actually seeing any results. On the surface this may seem contradictory, and well, it is, but it’s also been hugely helpful.

I’ve always been a ‘glass is half empty’ kind of person, not because of any particular personal bent toward pessimisim, rather because I’m afraid. Some times I’m flat out terrified but mostly it’s just an underlying feeling of anxiousness that permeates my entire life and makes even the simplest things that much more challenging. As a result I’ve stayed comfortably in my rut secure in the knowledge that the reason I didn’t achieve my dreams was because I was such a boring, ugly, unworthy person, and lets not forget, FAT.

In November 2006 I watch the DVD The Secret (Extended Edition) and things pretty much started changing. Rather things didn’t change, but my thoughts sure did. I actively changed them. It’s true I thought I would manifest my destiny in the first six weeks and was disheartened when it didn’t happen but luckily by then I’d discovered an unusual side effect of all this thought monitoring; I felt happier and less fearful.

Its been two years now and things are starting to change. Sure I’m not fabulously thin, incredibly wealthy traveling the world with gorgeous men throwing themselves at my feet, but largely I think that’s because deep down, that is not what I want. I have been on holiday to Thailand, my bank account is healthy at the moment and after being single for nearly 15 years I’m dating a wonderful man.

SO WHAT NOW?

Given all that its a surprise that lately I’ve been feeling anxious. I’ve just spent two leisurely weeks touring Australia with my lover so I should be fantastically relaxed and energized. And I kinda, sorta, am. Equally I’m feeling raw and uncertain and just plain uncomfortable. Change is coming. And, although I’m frightened, I welcome it, I embrace it, I really want to direct it. And as important I really want to capture it in words, both for my own experience and because I want to share with others through this blog.

I’m making a commitment. I will update this blog at least once every week for the next 50 weeks to keep track of the changes happening in my life. Whoa … accountability. Oooh, scary!

Filed under: About Me on January 13th, 2009 | No Comments »

I had a conversation recently with a friend about my views on weightloss and self acceptance. I’ve come to believe that diets are toxic and the best way to achieve lasting good health and happiness is to accept myself just the way I am and get on with having a life. Hence the impetus for this website.

I’d just had a visit from my mother with whom I’d already discussed my plan to accept myself at the size I am. Her response: “That is so depressing”. This is the kind of ambiguous statement she makes that reinforces to me how unacceptable she finds my size. I should clarify that she does not, nor would she ever make any direct comment about my body shape. It’s always obliquely referred to and then only in passing.

What she does do is constantly criticize her own body and talk about diet and exercise. She has recently gone from a size 8 to a size 4 and still feels there are things to criticize. I didn’t once hear from her that she feels wonderful, that she loves how she looks, although I know she does. And that’s great. Everybody should feel good about themselves.

For me a whole host of emotions swirled to the surface. I felt frustrated and confused but mostly I felt ashamed. As if I were somehow letting the side down by not shedding the weight.

I caught up with my friend and discussed the trip with my mother and how I felt and it was great to get those feelings out. Then the conversation shifted to other things. What struck me is how much we discuss our own bodies and other womens. My friend talked about how the women in her rowing group were all ‘bigger women’ and they looked up to her for being slender and pretty. She mentioned another mutual friend was going to have a breast augmentation. We discussed her own hatred of gaining even the slightest amount of weight which followed a comment about how Madonna looks so hard and unfeminine. I was astonished at the amazing array of body conversation, much of it conflicting, that we managed to have over an hour. In all that time though I felt none of the confused mix I’d felt in the few brief conversations on the topic I’d had with my mother.

Living Self Acceptance

So where does that leave me in my quest for self acceptance. I know that my friend thinks my size is unattractive and frankly I don’t give a damn. I know my mother thinks my size is unattractive and that cuts like a knife. I suspect much of that though is unresolved issues and my constraint in discussing how I really feel with her, and her with me. Body size and image has become a charged issue between us.

The thing is that I’m not just accepting myself like I would the weather. Oh look, it’s raining, oh well, nothing I can do about it so much endure? At first that’s how it was and my mother was right, that was depressing. But that’s not acceptance, that’s martyrdom. Real acceptance comes from being who I really am. I’m big. I have big curves and lots of them and I love it. It feels a bit like declaring a sudden interest in Nazi indoctrination. Oh my god, you’re fat and you like it!

And I do. It’s an integral part of who I am and I’m actually kind of cool. The most wonderful thing about it is that in accepting myself I accept others as well. We come in all shapes and sizes and I can see beauty in that now that I could never see before. What’s truly attractive though is feeling good about ourselves.

Thanks for reading,

LISA

Filed under: Body Acceptance on October 23rd, 2008 | No Comments »

In the beginning there was the word, or more accurately the phrase, and that phrase was, “my life so totally sucks”. I’m fat, I hate my job, I’m broke, I’m chronically single, I never get to do anything and I’m soooo bored.

I’d like to say that this particular stage only goes on for a little while but sadly for me its been about 20 years, which in the life cycle of a tree is probably not that much, but for an actual person, not so great. I was miserable. All the time. And misery begat misery which begat - well chocolate cookies actually, which I rather enjoyed at the time but then felt guilty about - which begat more misery and so on and so on. Round and round and round it went.

The Aha! Moment

When was the one definitive moment when suddenly everything was better? Well actually there wasn’t one; it was more like an accumulative process. I was (still am) a learning groupie. In the past whenever I felt down, otherwise known as all-the-time, I would read a self-help book looking for that elusive something that would flick the switch and enable me to live my life. I’d implement whatever was suggested and hope for the best. And sometimes I did feel better, though usually not for long. The despair had a way of creeping back into my life, like an abusive spouse I was too weak to kick to the curb for good.

In November 2006 I was given a copy of the DVD The Secret which was not so much an aha! moment as it was a solid smack upside the head. It contained the final ingredient I needed to start pulling things together. There were three key things that I took away from the DVD; 1) thoughts become things 2) my emotions are indicators of my thoughts and 3) I think all the time.

I realized that I was thinking a lot of negative, painful stuff, a lot of the time. I worried about silly things endlessly; in fact recently I’ve come to understand this is one of the scripts I run to stop myself from moving forward. I actively began changing my thoughts, using my emotions as a guide to find the thoughts that made me feel good. It turns out being happy is a skill just like any other and though it took a fair bit of effort to actively think positive thoughts it actually gets simpler the more I do it.

So, What’s The Problem

Um…where’s the change? I feel happier more often, and I’m incredibly grateful for that, but I’m still fat, single, isolated and where is the money? I feel like I’m stuck in an enormous rut that’s proving seriously difficult to climb out of. Every time I try I feel myself tumbling back down. And, honestly, I’m really not that upset about it because it’s nice and comfortable at the bottom of my rut.

It’s so ironic. I spent so much time getting happy for the express purpose of attracting what I really want into my life and now that I feel I’m on the threshold of actually attracting it I’m scared spitless. And it’s killing my happy buzz. What I’m doing, in my fear, is reverting to those old scripts, the ones that make me feel miserable, in an effort to keep myself in that rut.

The biggest script, the one that causes me the most pain and the one that I most want to change is about my weight. I’ve always believed that for me to be really happy I would first need to lose weight. If I could be successful at losing weight, at finally, once and for all, taking control of my stupid, uncontrollable, chocolate craving body, it would be the catalyst for amazing change. I’d feel strong and attractive and confident. I could get over whatever issues were keeping me single and I’d finally have a body that would attract a man. I’d suddenly have the confidence to write and have someone read my work. And I wouldn’t be so consumed with fear all the time. It would be a magic cure-all. I would be happy and connected and loved if only I would get rid of the fat.

Jeez, Get A Life Already!

It’s been 20 years. Longer. I’ve finally got to the point where I’m just saying enough. I cannot keep obsessing about my body and blaming my size for every little thing that has or ever will go wrong in my life. And I won’t allow it to keep me in that rut any more.

I’ve had this conversation with myself many, many times and usually it’s a prelude to a new diet and exercise regime. Not this time though. Lately I’ve been reading a lot about health at every size (HAES) movement and body acceptance and I’ve garnered enough information to know that this is the route I’m opting to take. It’s time for me to come to terms with how I feel about being fat and accept myself just the way I really am. It’s time to let go of the endless rejection. It’s time to get a life.

That’s what I intend to write about in this website. It’s something I feel will make a great deal of difference in my life and I hope, through writing about my experiences, that I can inspire other people to accept themselves as well.

Thanks for reading,

LISA

Filed under: About Me, Body Acceptance on October 3rd, 2008 | No Comments »

Hi there;

Why have a blog on your own name? I once read this story about Madonna and how, before she famous, she used to wander the streets and spray her name on walls so that she would get used to people she didn’t know knowing her name. I have no idea if there’s any truth to this story but the point is that it resonated with me that she took steps in advance to prepare herself for fame. So that’s why my own name as a domain. To prepare myself for being recognized.

And what makes me think I’m going to get recognized? That is my intention, just exactly as it was Madonna’s. Not that I’m going to sing, for which you should all be very grateful. What I am doing is building an online business, learning about web 2.0 and generally getting involved in the web. And who knows, it’s always possible that I might be very successful in which case it’s a damn good thing I bought the domain when I did.

I have another blog that I’ve been working on for the last few months, about dressing for your body shape, and I’m enjoying it immensely. The random stuff that I’m spending much of my day looking at is not related to that subject, although some of it is just really interesting. And a lot of it really moves me in some way. I wanted a portal where I could collect this random stuff and more particularly a space where I can write my reactions to it.

I don’t intend to market this site mainly because I suspect that could be really difficult given the multiple subject matters, but if you happened to stumble across it, welcome and thanks for reading.

LISA

Filed under: About Me on July 22nd, 2008 | No Comments »