Category: The Pressure to Fix Myself

Keep Calm and Make Informed Choices

Journeying, Not Arriving

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My Head1 Comment

One of the commitments I made to myself when I started planning to do the HCG protocol was that I was not going to treat my HCG detox as a completion point. My teachers and coaches have been raising my awareness to the idea that detoxing can best be considered as a lifelong practice. Obviously, there may be times — like when one does HCG, for example — when you choose a stronger detox movement than others. But the trick is that once that strong movement has been completed, not to treat it too much as an arrival point.

In other words: no need to tell myself “I’ve done this HCG thing, so now I’m all detoxed and don’t need to do anything else for a while.”

But the question of what to do next is very present with me right now. Many, many possibilities.

Keep Calm and Make Informed ChoicesIn addition to being nearly complete with my HCG shots, I’m almost near-completion with my first month of Blessed Herbs. That’s something you can do for 2-3 months at a time, so I’m considering that possibility. The company also makes an “Internal Cleansing Kit” that you do alongside the colon cleanse to help a whole other bunch of organs — liver, gall bladder, lungs, lymphatic system. I found one of these kits when I was unpacking over the weekend,* so I’m wondering if that’d be worth doing for the next month.

Or maybe, rather than sliding directly from one regimented program into another, it’ll feel better for me to spend some time taking advantage of the smaller, more “ad hoc” detox methodologies available to me. Epsom soaks, foot baths, castor oil packs, skin brushing, back to oil pulling (now that oils will soon be allowed to me again).

I could even do some research and find myself a colon hydrotherapist, acupuncturist, and/or massage place up here. Down in Philly, I had my go-to places for these services: after 13 months up north, it’s high time I started assembling those resources for myself again. (And hey, after my experiences in March, I might even look for someplace with an infrared sauna!)

Luckily, there’s no deadline by which I have to figure this next step out. If I have a new plan ready for the end of my shots, that’s cool. If I don’t, I can certainly follow the “ad hoc” approach while I’m deciding what my next detox phase will look like — even if that “next phase” turns out simply to be a longer commitment to the “ad hoc” approach.

But I know this much for sure: my HCG finish line is just and only that. The end of my time on HCG. Not the end of my detox journey.

* Another example of best intentions going astray.

———-

Image credit: http://theincompetentyouthworker.wordpress.com/2014/01/03/why-i-fell-out-of-love-with-two-ways-to-live-pt-4/

When Can You Call It the Home Stretch?

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Practicing in the Heart, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My Head2 Comments

mac&cheese-genieI take my last HCG shot a week from tomorrow. After that it’s two more days of the super-low-calorie food regimen while the remaining hormone works its way out of my system, and then it’s three more weeks of a different food regime — larger quantities, adding fats and oils back in, but still avoiding sugars and starches.

So by one perspective, there’s still a long way to go. And yet, it also senses like enough of an accomplishment to be nearing the end of this initial six-week stretch that I’m kind of thinking of myself as being in the home stretch. At least, on some sort of home stretch.

And at this point, I am ready to reach the first finish line. Because, however fine my physical body is doing on this regime, the emotional body is currently a little worse for wear. All these little daggers of frustration adding up.*

  1. There was an upsetting happening yesterday afternoon, and the emotional craving to self-sooth with comfort food was as strong as it has been since this HCG journey began.  (I distracted myself from the craving with a footbath and a funny movie.)
  2. We let the food stores run very low in expectation of doing our grocery shopping today after church choir — only the last apple in the house turned out to have gone spoiled. So I didn’t have my usual apple on hand for today’s breakfast, which totally threw my morning off to a challenging start.
  3. Mr. Mezzo and I did our grocery shopping together, and as we walked into the aisle to pick up his loaf of bread and English muffins, I couldn’t help myself from lamenting, “I miss bread.” (Bought some spring tulips instead.)
  4. I’ve started reading up on the next phase of dietary restrictions, which are very clear in suggesting that the first week or so after HCG it is best to stay within the same limited list of allowed foods (lean proteins, plus certain veggies and fruits) and just increase one’s portions. Meanwhile, I’m obsessing over something I saw on GMA about shirataki noodles and how I could use those as a way to do “macaroni and cheese” within the new (and looser) restrictions. And I do think the shirataki mac & cheese would obey the letter of the new dietary laws, but it sure isn’t in the spirit of what’s recommended for this upcoming phase.

This is always the mental pattern that I most hated about times I would try to diet or “get myself in shape” by “eating right”: the part where my attempts to eat healthy burgeon into a full-blown food obsession. Ugh.

I was in a detox class yesterday where the teacher talked really eloquently about the ways it can sometimes be unhelpful to approach detoxing through the lens of “eating the right things” in order to prevent the ingestion of toxicity. Instead, it could be possible to acknowledge the fact that one’s system has already ingested some decades’ worth of environmental, energetic, and yes, food-borne toxins, and thus place a stronger emphasis on ridding the system from that accumulation.

I’m holding this teaching very close to my heart today as I try to imagine my remaining weeks in the current and future phases of the HCG experience. I aspire to get back to that more balanced perspective on things.

But right now, I’m feeling a bit on the edge of a precipice. Feeling the grip, the gravitational pull of that food obsession. Thinking about food all the time, maintaining routines and rituals as a way to stay on track (see: today’s upset re: the spoiled apple). Chafing against the restrictions, trying to figure out every clever trick I can to stay just a hair’s breadth within the rules (see: my shirataki noodle obsession), tempted now and again to just say “fuck it” and eat a whole package of Kraft macaroni & cheese with a microwave popcorn and Ben & Jerry’s chaser.

I’m still holding within the boundaries of the protocol. But if this is really meant to be a detox journey for me, then the way any possible other insights have been swept away by all the food obsession hits me as just a tiny bit problematic. Okay, hugely problematic.

But it’s all I got tonight.

* Phrasing inspired by Henry Rollins, Airport Hell: “That’s two minutes of time I don’t get for myself. It’s like he’s murdering me — just a little. Like he’s murdering me with a very tiny knife.”

———-

Image credit: http://bingeeatingtherapy.com/2013/11/15/friday-a-help-obsessed-food/

 

suit of armor

Going Through the Motions

On By MezzoSherriIn Don't you want to be thin?, Self-Acceptance, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My Head1 Comment

I’ve been feeling a bit of malaise during the past couple days. I’m not exactly sure the reason for it — one theory I have is PMS-type hormonal shifts. Unfortunately, as I get closer to the age of menopause, my cycle is getting more and more irregular, so I can only diagnose PMS episodes after the fact. (My bleed will start, and then I can look back on the out-of-nowhere blue mood three days ago and say “That’s what that was about!”)

Regardless of the why, this blue mood is what I’m facing right now.

As someone who’s had a few rounds of clinical depression here and there, it can be hard to hold my patience and composure when I hit my blue days. I still don’t feel as if I have a lot of tools in my arsenal for when this occurs. I try to keep moving through my days and my responsibilities as best I can, give myself some extra forgiveness around my media addictions, allow myself some extra time to rest or sleep. And ultimately, I just kind of wait it out.

Luckily, tonight’s my first evening at home since my trip — and since all the pre-trip craziness to work — so I have a chance to give myself a little TV time and maybe an early bedtime. If I’m lucky, I’ll feel better tomorrow. If I’m less lucky, it’ll be the weekend soon and I can maybe take another look at what I’m feeling and whether there’s a way to ease the sadness.

Because I am aware that this may not be PMS at all, and might instead be the old forces of sadness and trauma that I gained all the weight in order to avoid.

———-

suit of armorA friend recently sent me a link to an unfamiliar author responding to that “Dear Fatty” letter some condescending fuckwad posted to Facebook in response to seeing a fat woman running. Other bloggers have appropriately eviscerated the aura of self-superiority and judgmental assumptions this letter (and other “thinsperation” pieces) is drowning in. Here’s the story from Jezebel, and I hope to have time during the weekend to go pull up some more relevant links and add them here.

This author, Alanna Fero, also points to some of those aspects in the “Dear Fatty” letter, but she also goes on to depict (with searing honesty) some of the traumas she has experienced with sexual abuse and harassment, the ways she has used being in a larger size as a mode of self-protection, and the ways that weight loss feels like an act of betrayal to her younger self.

Whenever I lose 30 or more pounds, which I have done at least a dozen times in quarter century between the ages of 22 and 46, I start to feel like I am abandoning my solidarity with my younger self, and with all the wounded kids in the world, with everyone who has ever lived in that bunker state.  I feel like I am selling out the kid still inside every adult who has ever been attacked for the way they were born, or for the way they choose to make themselves feel safe in an unsafe reality. . . . Sometimes, when I lose enough weight that it feels like everyone I know is talking about it, I experience a panic not unlike when I was pushed to the ground or a wall or a couch as a young girl – and I am so fucking scared and angry, I just wish I had a German Shepherd handy.

Now, my story is not the same as Fero’s, but I have enough moments of sexual trauma and mistreatment in my own life to deeply resonate with the tone of what she’s saying here.

So, if I’m not feeling more cheerful by Saturday, I might be trying to figure out how best to face and unwind another layer of the trauma-body.

Man, I hope it’s just PMS.

———-

Image credit: http://www.rachelrussellbooks.com/2012/04/30/medieval-monday-maximilian-armor/

A Swing and a Miss

On By MezzoSherriIn Meta-Blogging, Self-Acceptance, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My Head2 Comments

cute-marshmallows-unohana-the-fanpop-user-35316539-500-313In my mind, I’ve been much less active on JALC than is actually the case. I’ve done 4 posts in the last 7 days — which, although less frequent than I’d wish for under ideal circumstances, is perfectly respectful for the kind of bananas week I’ve had…

And the only reason I’m taking about any of this is to take note of the strong internal pattern I still have around score-keeping. Figuring out what the standard is, constantly calculating to see if I’m measuring up or, instead, if I am failing. Because part of my system still clings to the limiting belief that to fail is a deeply catastrophic thing to do.

This is all very front of mind because earlier today, everyone in my company had to take the marshmallow test. Not, not this marshmallow test, this one:

The experience definitely got my mental wheels turning about my fear of failure and the ways I let that suppress me and hold me back.

I’m certainly not alone in this challenge.  Since I follow Edutopia on Twitter, I remembered seeing this article last summer:

There is a major disconnect between schools and the real world on the notion of failure. School teaches us there is only one answer for every problem. And if we don’t get it, we are a failure. This dissuades students from trying — they fear failure. We need to teach students how to make friends with failure. . . . Schools have this failure-thing, the F-word, all wrong. They focus on getting the answer, but it is the questions and the mistakes that are actually more instructive. It’s in these spaces where we learn. . . . Education’s focus on the right answer and the grades has made students afraid to ask questions. Deborah Stipek, Dean of Stanford’s School of Education, writes in Science that schools incubate the fear of failure, which causes stress and anxiety to perform, which do not enhance learning.

And when looking for the Edutopia post, I also found an article advising teachers “How to Help Kids Overcome Fear of Failure,” and this excerpt from a new book, Fail Fast, Fail Often:

[S]uccessful people take action as quickly as possible, even though they may perform badly. . . . Instead of trying to avoid making mistakes and failing, they actively seek opportunities where they can face the limits of their skills and knowledge so that they can learn quickly. They understand that feeling afraid or underprepared is a sign of being in the space for optimal growth and is all the more reason to press ahead. In contrast, when unsuccessful people feel unprepared or afraid, they interpret it as a sign that it is time to stop, readdress their plans, question their motives, or spend more time preparing and planning.

So now I have a new book on my to-read list, and a line of internal questioning. Because for all the ways my fear of failure jams me up a lot of the time, it is also true that in some realms, I have a strong experimenter on board. I wouldn’t be doing my consciousness study, or my detox journey, or even the blogging, if I didn’t have that aspect to me.

In some things I can summon the freedom of exploration and expansion, and in some things I haven’t yet made that leap. Now the process is to try and shift more of the latter group into the former.

———-

Image credit: http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/unohana-the-fanpop-user/images/35316539/title/cute-photo

A Culture of Shame

On By MezzoSherriIn Fat is Just an Adjective, Health at Every Size, Practicing in the Heart, Self-Acceptance, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My Head1 Comment

What are all these military people going to do when they lose their jobs? And then I thought, well, hang on: we’ve got all these service industries now, things like psychotherapy, and the military approach to psychotherapy would really be kind of perfect. Really efficient and fast! You know, “Listen, you are nothing. You are a worm. And if you don’t get that mother complex solved by 0400 hours, you are dead meat!”

~~ Laurie Anderson, The Mysterious “J”

Gunnery seargent hartmannWhen I was writing about Fat Acceptance/HAES a couple nights ago and had to stop midstream, as it were, I was very aware that I hadn’t really said everything about fat shaming that I would want to. I mentioned the ways that fat shaming carries negative health effects for the target of such stigma, but I didn’t really unpack the general insanity of fat shaming. Or, to be more precise, the bananas nature of how fat shaming is usually justified as a means of informing/inspiring some poor fattie into losing weight and getting healthier.

Of course, those two concepts don’t even really go together, because weight /= health, but I’m using that phrasing to indicate the double level of bananas that’s going on here. First is the delusion that weight and health are equated, but even if that particular myth were true, I still trip over the insanity of the expectation that shaming and stigmatizing someone will inspire them to make positive change in their life.

Now, just in case you’re silly enough to think that engaging in fat-shaming will inspire some one to get on the healthy-eating-and-exercise train, let me give you a quick hit to a study from back in 2007:

We have seen over the years that it does not work to make people feel worse about their bodies. The data are striking — talking about weight, worrying too much about diet, focusing on it increases risk not only of eating disorders, but also of being overweight.

So, no: shaming not effective. (As Kate Harding once said: Special Delivery from the Duh Truck.)

One more thing: considering how steeped our culture is in anti-fat rhetoric, does a fat-shamer really think that his or her observation of my fatness is something that’s going to be news to me — or to any fat person?

So I’ll admit: considering that these two notions — 1)  fat people already know they’re fat; 2)  shaming doesn’t do anything to build positive choices, but instead just beats someone down — are so very common sense indeed, I’ve pretty much assumed that anyone who does indulge in fat shaming (no matter how prettily it’s couched in concern trolling language), is just kinda being an asshole.

Fat Heffalump pretty fully eviscerated that particular behavior pattern a few months ago when she pointed out that You’re not the First to Tell a Fat Person…  Taking direct aim at concern trolling and claims that “I’m just worried for your health!” she has this to say:

No you’re not.  If you were, you would be standing beside me fighting fat stigma and advocating for equitable health treatment for all.  You don’t give a damn about the health and wellbeing of fat people.  You don’t care that fat people can’t get treatment for everything from the common cold through to cancer because they are all blamed on their fatness and they’re just given a diet, not actual treatment.  You don’t care that the public vilification of fat people causes depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.  You don’t care that fat people are dying because they are so shamed by the medical profession that they can’t bring themselves to go back to the doctor when they are ill.  Claiming you care about our wellbeing is a lie.

And the inimitable Regan at Dances with Fat more recently pointed out that Being a Jerk is Not Actually Brave:

We are aware that you think “Fat bad, thin good, shame the fatties grunt grunt grunt”. We can hear this message  386,170 times every year.  I’ve been fat for 17 years, which means I’ve heard it around 6,564,890 times.  How can you possibly think that hearing it 6,564,891 times is going to improve my life?   Being 6,564,891 does not make you special or brave, it makes you one more doody in a big ole pile of poo.  It is an act of hubris that is almost beyond understanding to not only be a bully, but to ask for credit by claiming that your bullying is an act of bravery. […]

Or you could swim against the stream and treat fat people like the intelligent human beings we are- not like confused misguided sheep who need your strong guidance – and encourage others to do the same.  Let there be a fat person who only hears 386,169 messages about their body because you refused to pile on the shame and body hate.  That’s brave.

But, if I can come down off my own high horse for a moment, it’s worth mentioning that — however common sense it may feel to me that shaming has no positive effect on a person or situation — the fact remains that we do a lot of shaming in this culture.

And not just about fatness. Almost any aspect of life that comes up for judgement and it deemed to “need changing” comes up for that Nike drill sergeant (“Just do it!”) so beautifully satirized by Laurie Anderson, above. And maybe I’m right, sitting in my own little superiority-tower: maybe we’re all just assholes.

Or maybe there’s some deeper delusion we’re all trapped in, to honestly halfway think that the way to change a life’s path is to try and block off the “undesirable” option with a pile of shit and shame.

Something worth further examination.

———-

Image credit: http://rcoll-rorscharch.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-worst-kinds-of-fathers.html

wood-slice-walkway

Going with the Flow and Against the Grain

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Practicing in the Heart, Self-Acceptance, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My HeadLeave a comment

wood-slice-walkwaySome time last week, I posted about having tickets to see Pentatonix this weekend. Considering how much I love the group, I’ve been struck, as the week has worn on, by my emotions about this upcoming event. Because instead of feeling excited or looking forward to the concert, I was feeling much more a sense of exhaustion and obligation.

There’s a lot else going on right now. Three big proposals all due next week: I’m responsible for writing two of them, and also for wrangling a lot of the extra docs in all three proposal packages. And, of course, it’s tax season, so Mr. Mezzo and I need to give attention there. Plus the usual routine of unpacking and laundry and groceries & cooking — all of which I’m well behind on due to my detox weekend out of town and last weekend’s energy crash.

With all of that on my plate, the idea of a trip into Boston’s House of Blues was definitely carrying a whole lot of pressure around it. The time that it would take. The anxiety of navigating an unfamiliar neighborhood and location. The difficulty of being someplace with food and drink I’m not currently allowed to eat, and knowing I’ll have to go hungry because I can’t figure out how to bring my own dinner along into that setting and past the door guard.

I want the feeling of going to a concert to be a happy step out of the routine, rather than another hoop to jump through. But if I was going to be fearlessly honest with myself, “another hoop to jump through” is exactly how it was feeling.

So Mr. and I have decided to take the concert off of our weekend agenda.

I feel some guilt about having wasted the money — we bought the tickets a couple months ago. And we’ve decided to back out so last-minute that there’s no way to resell anything on Stubhub or the like. So those dollars are just gone.

And I’m also aware that this decision goes against much of the conventional wisdom about how to bring self-care into one’s life and how to prioritize fun and joy in the midst of life’s many responsibilities.

But a big part of the self-care I’m learning during this detox journey is about listening to my body and discerning what is (and isn’t) in true alignment with my system. And, for whatever reason, this planned excursion wasn’t feeling in alignment for me. So I want to practice moving with the flow of my own instincts, even if that leads me to choices that seem illogical or counter-intuitive to someone else.

And this way I know I’ve got a good chance of getting to bed at a reasonable hour for all of the next three nights. Which, considering all my early mornings this past week, is a source of joy all unto itself.

———-

Image credit: http://www.katyelliott.com/blog/2009/03/wood-slice-walkway-inspiration.html

Taking this Show On the Road

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Self-Acceptance, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My HeadLeave a comment

wheelsWell, the wheels kinda fell off the cart today. I had all sorts of ambitions — laundry, unpacking, Coursera, neatening up & getting organized, Epsom bath, and lots of precooking for the week ahead. And some of that got accomplished, but not nearly as much as I’d hoped.

After however-many days of self-neglect, I did decide to put the Epsom bath first on the priority list, and the bath segued into a nap — which is part of why my schedule got so off-course. After all of that, I did manage some unpacking and it will be easy-peasy to do a load of laundry tonight. So: partial success.

What concerns me most is that I haven’t done any cooking with all the food and spices I bought yesterday.

The challenge of taking the HCG regimen through the work week was greatly aided by all the food I’d been able to prepare with my coaches over the weekend. It only made sense to set myself similarly up for success during the coming week with a similar cooking spree, but I have completely dropped the ball.

And the funny thing is that this week, pre-cooking and pre-planning are even more important than they were last week. Because this week, I’m heading out of the familiar spaces of home and office.

I have two different AM networking/training events during the work week, and then Mr. Mezzo and I have concert tickets for Saturday night. Of course, there’s going to be “forbidden” food and drink at all these locales: I’m sure both networking breakfast buffets are going to be all about the bagels and Danishes currently off my list of allowables, and I think the concert venue is one of those “two drink minimum” kinds of places.*

So it would very much behoove me to make some preparations to help me get through these events. Instead, I’m having to look at the question of why, knowing this, I let my lazy child run the show and create a circumstance where I’ve stressed myself out in this fashion.

At least there’s a little more time left in the evening, so I guess I’m going to go do at least some cooking, so I can partially dig myself out of this hole.

* For the record, the tickets were bought many months ago, before I knew I’d be making the commitment to the HCG program. I’m not that much of a masochist.

———-

Image credit: https://theplastichippo.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/preparing-for-oblivion/

Red-browed Amazonian parrot

Polly Wants A Cracker

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My Head2 Comments

On the first day of my HCG journey, I had a guide session and my coach asked me if I was having any fears or concerns going into the experience. And I told her: “I understand how the shots help the body detox and help tamp down your hunger so you can reset your dietary habits away from all the sugar and processed stuff. But I’m a little worried because for me, eating all the fat and sugar has never really been about physical hunger.”

I’ve been having some trial and error moments throughout the week, but for the most part I’ve been successful in figuring out how to pack lunch, snacks and supplements to get me through the work day and still adhere to the dietary structure of the HCG protocol.

But yesterday felt a bit like running the culinary gauntlet.

Red-browed Amazonian parrotIn my experience, every office has its own food culture. Where I work now, there’s a stack of take out menus at the front desk: every day someone picks a place and folks make a group lunch order there. It’s a pretty expensive way to eat lunch, so I only ever did it once or twice a week. But we have a standing Wednesday lunchtime meeting, so, if nothing else, Wednesday was always my day to join the group order.

But yesterday — the first Wednesday in my HCG experiment — I didn’t. And as I walked to my lunchtime meeting, I saw folks at the lunch table with their french fries and onion rings, and then I sat down at the meeting table next to someone who’d ordered pizza for himself.

And then later in the afternoon, once all the lunchtime stuff was done, someone decided to fire up the company popcorn machine to make a few batches.*

Man, was I crabby by the end of the work day.

To give credit where credit is due: the HCG held so that throughout yesterday I was absolutely feeling physically satisfied with the lean protein, vegetable and fruit regimen I’m building my meals out of.

Physical satiation levels were fine.

It was the emotional hook that rocked me back on my heels. The ways I participate in office food culture to feel like part of the team when I so often feel alienated and out-of-place in my office. The ways I use salty or sweet snacks to give myself a treat in the middle or at the end of a stressful work day.

It was those patterns that were harder to hold up against.

———-

And at one level, these are absolutely valid ways for food culture to function. Food can and should be a tool for people to bond and celebrate. My family has a whole culinary tradition of dishes for Christmas and Christmas Eve that I treasure dearly. And food can also be a source of comfort.

For me, the tricky part has been in how quickly “comfort” or “bonding” food moments can slip into the land of eating to numb out my feelings and suppress my awareness of life’s and Spirit’s energies. So the scoop of ice cream becomes the full pint, or the serving of mac & cheese becomes the whole box, and the move inevitably goes towards food instead of the myriad other self-soothing and self-caring mechanisms I could choose. Almost every time.

So being separate from the lunch order intensified my usual sense of office alienation, which only made my desire to be eating a BLT club with fries all the stronger. And it was a stressful day, so the popcorn was absolutely emotionally tempting.

———-

When all is said and done, I gutted through it and stayed on course. I mentally concocted an HCG-approved snack I would have after choir practice if I was still craving a salty treat. And by that time of night, I was so mentally entertained by having been singing again that I got home and didn’t even feel the craving for that treat.

So we live to crave another day.

I know ultimately a key way to unwind this emotional hook around eating will be to look more closely at the feelings I’m trying to smother with the food. I’m still skirting around mustering the courage to do that.

Yesterday was shocking enough just to really see how strong my emotional hook is to fat, sugar, and salt. That’s enough world-rocking insight for one day.

* Yes, the company has a popcorn machine. No, I don’t know why.

———-

Image credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Psittaciformes_by_population

I am a rock. I am an island.

Letting Go of the Steering Wheel

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Practicing in the Heart, Self-Acceptance, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My Head3 Comments

One of the things that intrigues me about the HCG protocol I’m about to start is the fact that HCG is a hormone created in a woman’s body when she’s pregnant.

(Nota bene: nothing of what I say next is grounded in medical knowledge, nor is it intended to claim medical knowledge or scientific accuracy. I’m dancing with metaphors here.)

I’m having a hard time putting it precisely into words, but there’s a resonance for me both in the imagined process of a mother’s body producing HCG as part of the protection and nurturance being created for the fetus, and also in the image of the fetus being nurtured and cared for during gestation.

I see myself and this detox journey on both sides of this coin. Certainly a big piece of the journey is to learn to care for myself in different — one might even say “more mature” — ways. To be a stronger mother to myself, in a manner of speaking. (I’m bookmarking that side of the coin for another day.)

Another area of practice and growth for me — which is what’s noodling around my brain tonight — is around receiving support and nurturance, and maybe rewiring some of my old patterns around that.

Let me own this up front: I am not so good at receiving help, support, love or affection. I don’t need to do the detailed forensic autopsy on why that’s so. Take a sensitive girl child, raise her in a patriarchal system with an average life’s share of bumps and bruises and into-every-life-a-little-rain-must-fall, add a dash of intelligence and ambition and you might get someone who decides that her version of strength should be of the “I am Lobo. I hunt alone” variety.

I am a rock. I am an island.So, obviously, some of the sessions I have scheduled for this week’s trip have very precisely to do with the doctor’s consult around the HCG prescription, learning how to administer the injections, all that stuff. But the center I’m working with has a whole team assembled to help give me lots of other layers of support. Tips for grocery shopping and cooking, both within the immediate dietary restrictions of the HCG protocol and beyond it. Other sorts of bodywork and energy work. I’m even staying at the Center’s “guest house,” and the house manager (and/or other center staff) will be helping drive me around to my different sessions and appointments.

I know these folks. I absolutely trust them, and I know for certain that they are going to take good care of me.

And yet. My inner control freak is not entirely happy with the idea of letting go of the steering wheel, both literally and figuratively. And the fact that I am so strongly feeling the limitations of my capacity to receive and to accept — even in something as simple as accepting car rides instead of taking care of myself through a rental car — well, that’s as clear a sign as any  as to why it’s a good thing for me to try and  unwind some of these old habits around false independence and isolation.

Time to try letting the care in.

———-

Image credit: http://www.pixton.com/schools/embed/uneyvcdq

The Fine Line Between Practice and Pressure

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Self-Acceptance, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My Head4 Comments

A couple weeks ago, I saw a sudden flurry of Facebook activity talking about the “40 bags in 40 days” Lenten challenge. Even though I’ve not been aware of the movement till now, I guess it’s been going on for a couple years or so?*

Anyhow, the challenge is concisely summarized over at White House Black Shutters:

A forty day period in the spring (coinciding with the 40 days of Lent) where you focus on cleaning one area per day. In this one area you challenge yourself to declutter, simplify, decrapify, and get rid of things you don’t need. The goal is one bag a day but you can have more or less.

The 2014 challenge officially goes from Wednesday, March 5th to Saturday, April 19th. Sundays are your day off.

Even though this tradition seems to have started among Christian bloggers, the discussions I saw this year included individuals of other faith traditions also taking up the idea as a way to bring inspiration and structure to a spring cleaning/decluttering effort.

I can absolutely see the appeal, and I gave the idea a long think for myself. After all, I’m betting we still have 40 or 50 boxes left to unpack,** and a lot of the unpacking process is about sorting through all the clutter I didn’t get rid of in Philadelphia and determining what’s going straight from a moving box to the Goodwill pile.

But ultimately, I opted out of the 40 bags/40 days challenge for 2014.

I have a well-developed skill of setting high bars for myself. I can take just about any structure that is meant to help in goal-setting and supporting regular practice of a thing — meditation, exercise, decluttering, what-have-you — and I will use it as a club to beat myself with when I inevitably fall short. ‘Cos I’m human, and sooner or later I’m gonna miss a day’s practice. But I’m not yet all that good at forgiving my human foibles, dusting off the day’s “failure,” and getting back into the practice tomorrow.

So it just didn’t sense like I had the internal capacity this year to be kind to myself within a set structure like the “40 bags” challenge. I’ll be curious to see if I’m in a different place when Lent and spring roll around in 2015.

Till then, I’m doing what I am able to do within the boundaries of my limitations. Work weeks are tougher for me to do any unpacking/decluttering, but I’m building better Monday-Friday habits than I had in Philly about simple things like washing the dishes, putting my clothes away (or in the hamper) rather than leaving them on the bathroom floor, and making the bed.*** And then, each weekend day, I try to get at least one more box unpacked.

At some level, these are very much like goals for a daily practice, but there’s just enough softness and looseness around them that I’m better able to let go any sense of “failure” if there’s a weekend where I don’t unpack any boxes, and instead of immobilizing myself in the beat-up, I just get back to it next weekend and keep chipping away.

In my system, there can be something of a razor’s edge between “practice” and “pressure,” but I seem to be managing to keep myself on the right side of that fine, fine line.

* Considering that last year at Lenten time, I was finishing one job, starting another, and doing phase one of the “3 moves, 2 houses and 1 apartment in 6 months” relocation odyssey, I think I can be forgiven for my ignorance of this tradition.

** Small boxes (file box size, for the most part), so it’s slightly less terrifying than it sounds. Slightly.

*** Yes, the fact that these are victories says a lot about the dire straights we lived in back in Philly.