Life is a game of...

Let me tell you a story. This is a story about you.

You are around 11 years old. You’re sitting with the rest of your class in the gymnasium. It also doubles as the cafeteria, but the tables and benches have been carefully folded and put away and the lacquered floor swept and mopped to its highly reflective sheen. You are nervous and distracted. You are unintentionally eavesdropping on the hushed conversations going on around you, jealous of everyone else’s apparent calm. P.E. is NOT your favorite class. You hate that you are literally the fattest kid in school, let alone your class. You hate that no matter how good you do, you can’t ever keep up with the other kids; they are all faster, stronger, smarter and way more agile than you. You hate P.E. and you hate where you are. You hate the cavernous quality of the gym, where even the slightest sounds echo off the walls, floor and ceiling. You try not to even think too loud for fear that your thoughts will begin to echo around the room. And if it’s so open, why is it so hard to breathe?

You hear the door click and you whip your head around with everyone else, all conversations immediately stopping so that even the silence seems to echo around you. Your senses are sharpening and your breathing increases almost imperceptibly. You watch your 60 year old, past his prime – but probably still more athletic than you give him credit for – P.E. teacher walking in, pulling some gym equipment behind him.  As comprehension of what he’s dragging behind him hits you, you feel like a trap door underneath your stomach has suddenly been released; your heart jumps up into your throat and you are barely aware of how your muscles have tensed up as your heart rate steadily increases. You see that he’s pulling a wire cart loaded with balls - big, red, rubber balls with small hash marks stamped across the surface, increasing their grip, but making them feel rough. Tiny beads of sweat begin to form on your forehead as your thoughts are dominated by the one word that spells your imminent destruction – Dodgeball.

You look around at your class and you see the familiar range of expressions. Some kids are rolling their eyes, as if to say, “dodgeball? again? it’s so boring, don’t you have anything new for us to do?” Some kids are looking around, as if they too are uncertain what to think, apparently apprehensive. And then there’s always one or two kids that are looking around the class with hungry, greedy eyes. They’re already evaluating everyone in the class and deciding who are the easy targets - the weak links. They look at you and they smile an ominous, “grinchy” smile that can’t – and doesn’t – mean anything good. Your anxiety gives way to panic as the blood rushes out of your head into who knows where.

You already know the outcome. Everyone will be gunning for you because you are the easy mark. You stand out no matter where you stand. It doesn’t matter how you turn, there’s ample mass to target. Because you’re fatter than everyone else you’re also slower than everyone else, which means it doesn’t matter if you try to hide behind someone else, they’ll be able to move out of the way faster than you. You know you can’t back up to the wall because the opposing team can still see you and 9 times out of 10 the coach will call you out anyway. You toy with the idea of making a kamikaze play – walking right up to the line with no one else around and just stand there – exposing yourself for the easy target that you are and just wait for the sting of the rubber as multiple balls slam into you like heat seeking missiles.  But exposing yourself hurts more because you know the other kids will be aiming for your head and face, not just your massive gut. Clearly, no one seems to understand that you have feelings. Maybe they think that your extra layer of lard protects you from physical and verbal threats, but it doesn’t; if anything, the opposite is true. Not that they’d care about that anyway. It’s kill or be killed in dodgeball.

All you can do is lumber around in a panic, bracing yourself in fear for that inevitable rubber smack stinging your skin and being “out” for most of the game, i.e., the pathetic loser. Ever since your first game you’ve known that life is like a game of dodgball and you end up in life just where you end up in dodgeball…

The End

Okay, this isn’t a story about you. This is a story about me and it’s actually a true story. This really was my experience and it I share it here to illustrate one thing – fear. While the feelings I felt during dodgeball were clearly amped up, those feelings are and have been constantly with me. I feel that anxiety every day. Every morning I wake up with the panic of not knowing what’s going to “hit” me that day. Being terrified of the uncertainty of what will come, but knowing that something will indeed come – something always comes to knock me down. And while I may not know what it is that’s going to happen, I do know one thing – it’s going to hurt!

I have recently come to understand that I fear pain above all else. In my flawed thinking the presence of pain means that I’m not safe, that something is wrong and that I’m not okay. The condition of not being okay is so painful that I will do just about anything to avoid it – including (as illogical as it sounds) enduring a lesser pain to avoid the greater pain. And what’s even better is being able to “control” that lesser pain to remove uncertainty.  Therefore, I can binge on chips, cookies and other luscious carbs any time I want. It may not make me feel good in the long run (i.e., is the lesser pain), but it satisfies my emotional/physical need to be safe (i.e., avoiding a greater pain). It makes me feel like everything is right and that I’m okay – even if it is just temporary.

The problem is, of course, that this is no way to live. Living this way leads to misery, depression, weight gain and decreased health. It leads to emotional breakdowns as well. These conditions are not how God intended His children to live. It is said that fear is the antithesis of faith and I truly believe that.  My life has reflected more of fear than of faith, which only gives me one more thing to feel bad about! (It’s kind of a bad cycle.)

I’m reading a book called “Self-Compassion” by Kristin Neff, which I highly recommend. One of the points she makes is something she learned from a Buddist teacher, Shinzen Young, that “we can distinguish between the normal pain of life – difficult emotions, physical discomfort, and so on – and actual suffering, which is the mental anguish caused by fighting against the fact that life is sometimes painful.” (pp 93-94) As he taught her, “we can’t avoid pain in life… the key to happiness [is] understanding that suffering is caused by resisting pain.”

The take-away message for me is that the majority of my problems are caused by my resistance to pain and not necessarily the pain itself. I would be much happier if I allowed myself to experience pain WITHOUT interpreting that to mean that “I’m not okay.” The truth is, I can be “in pain” and still be “okay.”

This is supported in the scriptures when Lehi says, “For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things.” There was no exclusionary clause to this statement. He didn’t say there must be opposition – except for righteous/obedient people, then everything is smooth sailing. He said there MUST be opposition in ALL things. (Must is actually a very strong word here - not “may” be, or “might” be, but MUST.) In other words, it is essential that opposition be present, which means – I’m going to experience pain at times and since I’m supposed to experience pain to some degree, there’s no reason to fear it or resist it (i.e., suffer).

As Jesus said in Matthew 5:45 “…for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust.” In other words, no one is exempt.  Of course, a greater understanding of the Atonement leads one to acknowledge that all pains are swallowed up in Christ and, therefore, need not be feared at all.

The irony is not lost on me – how much pain I’ve caused myself by trying to avoid pain. Which is where self-compassion comes in. Offering myself forgiveness and understanding can overcome the guilt I feel for how poorly I treated myself over the years, all as a result of trying to avoid pain. Then acknowledging that pain is inevitable and that’s okay!! The hardest thing for me to do is to “sit” with bad emotions and tell myself that I’m okay. I feel the autonomic response of fight-or-flight kick in and I panic. Since I have nothing to fight, I choose “flight” or avoidance, e.g. drowning my sorrows in a bag of oreos, and the cycle continues.

This process of sitting with bad emotions and still being okay is going to be tough to learn, but I also have hope that it will help me end the cycle of pain I cause myself, that I can be free from fear and that ultimately, I can stop believing that life is a game of dodgeball. 

Happy Mother's Day! (Not every mom is a pop-star!!)

It occurred to me today that I probably post more often about my dad and not quite so much about my mom. So today this is about my mom. (And I know I can say whatever I want because she doesn't read my blog!!!) :)

My mom's life would make a great movie, I think. She's been through quite a lot and accomplished quite a lot and what I love most about her is that her past has never impacted her generosity. She's always giving something away, or buying food for people, or cooking food for people, etc. She's a great example to me of what selfless service means.

I know it's definitely part of her Hispanic heritage, but she's also very spiritual, which has made for some pretty entertaining stories and, I'll be honest, some embarrassing moments with friends. I never quite knew how to deal with seeing the expression on my friend's faces when they'd hear her nonchalantly talking about some heavenly being she either saw or spoke to, like it was common and no big deal (which for her it was/is).

Things haven't always been great between us, but mostly because of me. It was easy for me to misinterpret her behavior due to my lack of maturity/life experience, as well as a lack of understanding her. She's very protective and I often interpreted that as a lack of trust in me. She has a very strong sense of justice and I know I get my "everything has to be black or white" from her because something is either right or wrong, period. That was harmful to me because I would consider my faults and then interpret "myself" as either being right or wrong... and I was always wrong! Hence my need to punish myself for everything!

It's strange to love someone so much who also drives you a little (or a lot!) crazy, but I do love her. Her support and encouragement have meant the world to me!

Tina Neira-Vilches was born in Los Andes, Chile, the youngest of 4 girls. Her mother ran a restaurant and her father was a high ranking military official. When she was 10, her mother died due to complications from diabetes. Her father had several mistresses and was not in a position to care for them, so they lived off and on with relatives, however were mostly orphaned. A year later, when my mom was 11, she met the missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and their message just felt right and as if everything they said just made sense. She often remarked that what they taught was also the way her own mother lived and she felt a connection to her through truly Christ-centered teachings. At the time she was the only member of her family to be baptized. While her sisters soon followed suit, her oldest sister struggled to remain active.

At the age of 12, a friend of hers from school (p.s. my mom's outspoken nature didn't mix well with the strictness of catholic school!), begged her to go with her for moral support while she tried out for a radio contest. My mom didn't want to go, though she was no stranger to singing herself. To her friends chagrin, my mom ended up winning the contest and was awarded a singing contract. She was a pop-star until the age of 17. She wasn't a fan of the lifestyle and didn't feel it was conducive to life in the church, so she ended her short, but memorable career. (She was only kidnapped once and it was by college kids who wanted tickets to her concert, which they got!)

On expressing her desire to come to the United States, one of the missionaries she knew at the time contacted his family and they said they were willing to put her up for a while until she could figure out a more permanent situation. At the age of 18 she embarked on a journey to a completely foreign country and knew no English, that, to me, is true bravery! At any rate, they took her in, fell in love with her and became her family (the only maternal grandparents I knew). The missionary became my uncle! Her new sister, my aunt, was writing to a boy stationed in the army in Germany. He had a friend that didn't "have a girl" to write to and so my mom struck up a correspondence with him. They must have been some great letters, I guess, because he proposed - in a letter; she accepted - in a letter and they didn't actually meet until 10 days before their wedding. (This would be a fairy tale story if they hadn't divorced 22 years later, but such is life and, quite frankly, I'm surprised they lasted as long as they did!)

I suppose life really started for them with their third child, the little boy she had been dreaming of, when I came along! :) In around 1980 her father died, whom, beyond spending a summer or two with him in Vina Del Mar as a teenager, she never really truly reconciled with. In addition to his philandering, he was an alcoholic and abusive to her mother and oldest sisters. She wasn't a big fan of his, to say the least.

When I was about 5 (1983 or so) our family had the chance to visit Chile. It was still very militaristic and she was interrogated at the airport for over an hour about how and why she left Chile. It was terrifying. We didn't know what was happening. The rest of the trip was uneventful as far as that kind of thing, but very memorable in other ways. (To this day I still have nightmares of having my cheek pinched while hearing "Hay, que lindo!" multiple times a day!!)

When my mom came to the U.S. she was a U.S. citizen, end of story. She didn't do much to teach us of her culture. Most of what we knew was that she would occasionally call her sisters on the phone and "talk funny" as well as made food that my friends thought was "weird." Otherwise, we were American and that was that! (Still mad that we didn't learn Spanish when it would have been "easier," but se la vie!)

She's amazing and her life is amazing. I don't know how such an amazing woman turned out such a mediocre son, but I have a great legacy in her faith and fortitude. Love you mom! Happy Mother's Day!

p.s. you can hear some of her music on YouTube if you search for "Tina Vilches" or here is a link to a video of her songs that my sister posted onto YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR69t3QYmKg

Thou shalt be unhappy...

I feel like I have to prove to the world that I’m worthless. It’s like, that’s how I see myself and nobody else seems to agree; no one else seems to be buying into that idea. Which I really don’t get, because for about seven years, I was made fun of everyday. I’m not exaggerating. I was literally made fun of every single day from, like, 4^th grade until I was a junior in High School. Life was hell. Every day I woke up with a knot in my stomach wondering “where it was going to come from today,” or “who’s going to be making fun of me today?” or “how many people are going to laugh when I break another chair again…?” The message of all the insults, ridicule and bullying was loud and clear – “Micah, you don’t fit in here; you don’t fit in anywhere. You’re fat and disgusting and no one wants anything to do with you. We’d all be better off if we didn’t have to look at you.” And I accepted that. They were right. I WAS fat and disgusting. I knew that. I could see it myself when I looked in the mirror. I agreed with them.

Then, little by little, during my junior year of high school, there were less and less insults. Fewer and fewer people seemed to be interested in teasing me. Maybe they were just bored with it. Or maybe they were “growing up.” The strange thing is, while the insults stopped, the message that I wasn’t acceptable didn’t. Okay, so people were no longer making fun of me outright, but there seemed to be a whole new method of reminding me that I wasn’t worth much. It was typified in conversations that I overheard from girls, mostly. They frequently talked about boys they liked and it was always the thin, athletic, good-looking guys they were fawning over. Okay, message received – girls aren’t into fat guys, got it. Being avoided and excluded can be just as isolating and hurtful as being pointed at and laughed at.

I’m pretty sure part of me is writing this so people will feel sorry for me, which has been my “go to” coping mechanism for quite some time. It’s why/how I became addicted to self-pity. It felt great to say, “See? I’m the victim. I was innocent and the ‘world’ did this to me – so everyone should feel sorry for me and even admire me for what I’ve been through,” as if my suffering has been a nobly endured self-sacrifice. What a load of crap! Basically it was me saying, I was hurt, therefore, I’m not responsible for anything that happens in my life.

But then who’s to blame for all this hurt? Who’s to blame for everything going wrong? Paradoxically - Me. It has to be my fault, because I’m the only one that I can truly punish. I can’t punish my parents. I can’t punish my friends. I can’t punish Heavenly Father. But me? “Me” I can punish. “Me” I can blame. After all, I never would have been made fun of if I had been thin. I would have been one of the guys the girls wanted to be with if I had been athletic and attractive. So it WAS my fault. I wasn’t good enough. I didn’t measure up and I had no one to blame for that but me. “Oh, but you have such a great personality,” people have said. Uh… yeah, sure, whatever. Too bad a good personality wasn’t enough to be acceptable, otherwise why would I have been teased so mercilessly? Clearly, appearances are much more important than people are willing to admit.

So… I learned to be a worthless victim, which helped me to survive, but it also made me miserable. It also led me to establish a pattern of reacting to everything in life with a negative mindset. Life is a series of obstacles that are too hard for me. My focus is always on what I can’t do or why I can’t do it – i.e., making excuses (to stay safe). You see, I learned in church that if something was right, then Heavenly Father would help you by lifting the burden and making it light, i.e., making it easy. So if something in my life was too hard, it meant I was doing something wrong, because I wasn’t receiving help. Or, for whatever reason, I wasn’t deserving of help. And the “I’m worthless…” cycle continued. Made all the more painful at the thought that I have a loving Father in Heaven who doesn’t think I’m worth enough to help.

Of course, nobody likes a wet blanket, so I learned pretty quick to “have the appearance” that everything is okay and not to let anyone know that I’m really suffering. So I became a pretty good liar, for the most part. Fast forward to today when I’ve played my part so well that I’ve completely snowed everyone into thinking that I’m confident and capable.  So much so that people actually treat me that way and it’s just weird. People actually treat me like I’m capable and are even complementary at times. What?!? When did this happen? Don’t we still live in a world where I’m the fat loser that everyone hates and is disgusted by? How is it that the same world that beat me down as a little kid, grew up and now treats me with respect? And what, I’m supposed to just change all that overnight? No way! They hurt me. They can’t just change their minds and say, “oh, so now we think you are pretty awesome and we want you to believe in yourself.” What?!? Excuse me?!? You can’t just change your mind like that. If you’re gonna hate me, then hate me and keep hating me, but don’t hate me for a little bit, then decide that you want to change your mind and start treating me like I’m someone deserving of respect. It’s like the worst joke you can play on someone – make them believe they are one thing, then once they have fully embraced that, make a complete reversal and tell them they’re something else.

There are so many hard things about being in this situation, but one of, if not, THE hardest thing to deal with is what’s going on inside of me. There’s that guy inside of me asking, “okay, so the world is giving you mixed signals – but what do YOU want to believe? Who do YOU want to be?” And right now, I don’t know. I’m struggling to know how to answer those questions. I’ve relied on outside opinions to tell me who I am for so long that I’ve lost the ability to choose that for myself. Or maybe it’s in there somewhere, but just atrophied from lack of use.

I’ve believed for so long that I was meant to be unhappy, as if it were an unspoken commandment meant only for people like me – “…but thou? Thou shalt be unhappy.” “Men are that they might have joy… unless you’re fat, then all bets are off!”

The other thing that’s hard is that I played the victim in order to avoid responsibility, when in reality, I am the only one who can be responsible for me, including being responsible for what I believe. Talk about a cruel irony! Being fat wasn’t/isn’t the problem. Being made fun of wasn’t the problem. Being told I was “worthless” wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I chose to believe it. It was MY choice. No one forced me to internalize that belief. When someone made fun of me, I could just as easily have said, “you’re wrong.” But I didn’t. I was/am far too sensitive. I want people to be happy and I’m willing to “be wrong” if it means making someone else happy to be right. But discounting myself has a cost and I’ve been paying that price my whole life.

I was so busy looking for someone else to tell me that I was okay, that I never learned how to tell myself that I’m okay. And no, Heavenly Father doesn’t help by making things easy, but He does help. And He isn’t up there, sitting His throne, waiting for me to mess up so that he can either punish me or intervene, He’s right here with me, encouraging me and doing all He can, in spite of the limitations I put on Him, to help me. Men ARE that they might have joy, but they also have to have bad days. I don’t think that scripture meant that we should only be feeling joy and if we don’t, then we’re doing something wrong. I think it just means that joy is a worthwhile endeavor – that it’s okay to live in such a way that produces joy. This world was created to hold all the good AND the bad and it was a part of the plan to experience both. Things aren’t hard for me because I’m worthless and undeserving, things are hard because I’m human and mortal. Things aren’t hard because I made some horrible mistake by being born fallible; they are hard because that’s just how it was designed. Just because something is hard, doesn’t mean I’ve done something wrong. And besides, from the very beginning, help was there – promised even.

And there’s no denying that I’ve been helped. There’s no denying that I’m still here. After all the crap I’ve been through and all the times I contemplated being done with this world and my miserable existence, I’m still here. (And trust me when I say that the teasing was a walk in the park compared to some other things I’ve been through, it’s just that the other things are far too personal to share at this point!) I’m learning, I’m changing, I'm messing up sometimes and getting things right sometimes, I have good days and bad days, and so on and so forth, and isn't that what this life is really all about?