Warning: Possible overshare.
So today I was at a Weight Watcher's meeting. The leader in question is a woman who is good at digging a little more deeply into why people overeat to the point of being overweight and obese. She says that many people, afraid of the vulnerability of peeling the layers back, just say they eat because they like food. While this may be true, not all people who like food ingest so much of it that it is going to kill them sooner than later. So there is always something more to it than "I like food."
She shared that many people gain weight as a protective mechanism, especially if they have a history of some sort of abuse in their earlier life. She said that for her, the fat self knew how to stay safe in the world, how to handle things that were hard. This really keyed off something in me as well, due to my own past history.
Now when I was a younger girl, I was touched inappropriately by an older boy while I was at the public swimming pool. However, instead of this being horrible and traumatic, I actually enjoyed this activity and attention. This just goes to show you how much one's perspective and expectations of things makes a difference in what the effect of an action is (or isn't). I found the touching to be pleasurable, and I found it flattering that an older boy would be interested.
I realize now of course that this was probably not the healthiest thing in the world. But at the time, I felt wanted and beautiful, something I'm not sure I had felt from other interactions. (in case you were wondering, the boy in question ended up getting found guilty of child sexual abuse as a much older man, so apparently his target age didn't change as his own age did).
So for me, it is not a history that includes sexual abuse that is at fault for my weight gain. But there is much to be said about me feeling like the physically larger self knows how to handle things. First of all, you can't miss her. She is very difficult to dismiss or to make invisible. I find sometimes I have to relax and let my personality be a bit less 'forward' because I feel my sense of needing to be heard in a room or conversation rising to a point that isn't about being part of the conversation but being validated as having a right to be part of the conversation to begin with.
The larger self also has less fear of starving or there not being enough. Most all of us were told we needed to clean our plate because of the starving children in Africa. But for my family, there were times when there was the underlying fact that if I didn't eat what was on my plate there wasn't going to be anything else to replace it. There was a space for a while where my father hunted, not really because he enjoyed it so much but because that was how our family had food to eat. So I think that fear that permeated through my parents (even if it was unstated), came to live in me. I thought if I was bigger, I wouldn't have to worry about starving. (I also have this issue regarding money, which is related to the same underlying fear)
I have found that feeling hungry or poor has the ability to totally drop me into a fear mode that leads me to catastrophic thinking, as though in the next instant this means I will starve or be lying in the gutter clutching a bottle of paint thinner. Even when I realize that it isn't anywhere near the truth, it still has the power to affect me. Part of my work is being with the feeling, understanding that it isn't real in the NOW, and allowing it to pass through and out of me.
I also think that having a larger self helped me equate that with being stronger. It's not true of course, and now I see very clearly how those two things are different, but at the time there was a feeling that if I was larger (or older) that I would be ok.
Now I am a bit afraid of what the thinner, stronger, sexually potent woman looks and is like. It's a slightly different identity than where I am now. It's probably a good thing that it takes time for the physical reality to shift, as it will give me time to get used to not only my new "skin" but my new interior self.
What I am running into at this point is that I need to be physically stronger to be able to do everything I am called to do in my life, and to be able to channel all the energy I need to be able to channel through my physical form. I've noticed that a number of us are all being called to deal with our myriad of problems and divest ourselves of at least some of our baggage. We are being asked to take better care of ourselves and to "level up."
I'm not sure what we are all progressing towards, but I know there has been a feeling of "push" for many people I know to problem solve in the life category.
So I don't know if this resonates for anyone else, but many of us are being called to something, some future we can't yet see. I am trying to become stronger, and to become ok with everything that being stronger means.
It's taken me a long time to get here. I'm pretty hard headed. But I feel like I'm slowly making progress, having some Ah-ha moments and having some deep shifts in my life that are finally taking root. There has been a big difference for me in understanding something cognitively and to deeply knowing it and applying it to your life in a consistent manner. I guess it will take however long it takes, though I feel like now is the time to be working on it.
And of course, I'll let you know how all of it goes...
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