Fear, revisted

Over the last few months I’ve experienced a lot of anxiety. Not so acute as to need medical help, but a constant, chronic fear that just seemed to keep lurking under the surface, like a shark gliding silently under the water stalking its prey, ready to strike at any moment.

I’ve recently been able to name that shark and its name is “not enough.” (Yes, I’ve blogged about this before. Yes, the theme of “not being enough” seems to be a recurring theme in my life. And yes, I really am going to blog about it again!)

For about the last 6 months, or more, I’ve been experiencing a significant pain in my neck, collar bone, and shoulder, especially during workouts (FYI, my trainer has been amazing to help me modify workouts and movements to strengthen my shoulder, while avoiding pain). But still the pain is there. Something you may not know about me is that I believe that most, if not all, pain or injuries in the body have an emotional component. I think that injuries/pain are the bodies way of saying, “hey, there’s something here you need to deal with…;” especially in the case of a long-term/chronic pain/injury.

So I’ve been “asking” my neck and shoulder what’s wrong; what is it that I need to deal with? And I haven’t had an answer until now. For me, clenching my neck and shoulders are a protective measure. It’s as if I’m trying to retract my head into my chest and use my shoulders as a shield – much like a turtle, actually.

Knowing that I’m clenching my neck muscles to protect myself, I have been asking what it is that I’m afraid of. What is it that I find so fearful that I’m constantly trying to protect myself? And after 6 months or so of asking, it finally dawned on me – I’m not afraid of any ONE thing because I’m afraid of EVERYTHING!

The understanding began to materialize as greater realization came to me. To explain my feelings better I need to relate a bit of my history. You see I grew up fat. Not just “husky,” or “chunky,” but fat. Full on, butterball status. When I was about 9, I doubled in body weight for no apparent reason. I realize now that I became “broken” inside from being molested about that age, but since I had fully repressed that memory, I was unable to make that connection. All I knew was that I was fat. And everyone else knew it. I went back to school (5th grade) after summer break and my friends suddenly didn’t want anything to do with me – I had changed too much, too quickly. I didn’t fit in anymore, literally and figuratively. To say I was devastated is an understatement.

I spent the next 7 years being made fun of everyday. EVERY. DAY. Not a single day went by that someone didn’t comment on my weight or my appearance. People passing me in the hall would move to the other side of the hall, so as to avoid me. Strangers, as well as “friends,” mocked me, rejected me and made me know on no uncertain terms that I was not acceptable. And I woke up terrified – every single day. I woke up with anxiety every morning, knowing that I was going to face an onslaught of criticism, judgment, ridicule and rejection, but I just didn’t know where it would come from or how severe it would be; but I KNEW it would be coming.  I didn’t know how to prepare myself; I didn’t know how to protect myself.

So I hunched my shoulders, kept my head down and lived in constant fear of an attack that I knew was imminent, but didn’t know where it was coming from – so I had to “be ready” at all times and being ready meant being constantly under stress. By my Senior year of high school, I think I was made fun maybe only three times, but after 7 previous years of taking a daily emotional beating, I couldn’t let my guard down. I never stopped letting my guard down. I had learned how the world worked – it pummeled you for being you and brought the worst beatings when you least expected them.

Fast forward to today, when I’m 40 years old and I still wake up afraid. I still clench my neck and hunch my shoulders, “turtling,” in order to protect myself. Something else happened to me when I woke up each morning, knowing I was going to face being made fun of and rejected, it made me feel like “I wasn’t enough.” I didn’t have enough energy to fight everyone. I didn’t have enough energy, or words, or fortitude, or strength, to stand up to those who bullied me. I didn’t have enough in me to combat the onslaught of humiliation I faced each day. I didn’t have enough, because I wasn’t enough. It was so devastating to know – and be told on a daily basis – that I wasn’t good enough to be accepted for who I was, that I just didn’t have the energy to stand up to it, to stand up for myself. And then, one day, I just stopped questioning it and I just accepted that I wasn’t enough; that I never would be enough.

So what changed that this issue is only coming up for me now? I think what changed is the multi-year process of attempting self-improvement and needing to deal with some really crucial aspects of my identity; such as dealing with being molested, dealing with being a closeted gay in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, dealing with family relationships, dealing with multiple addictions, etc. All these things I’ve faced and continue to face, but as these layers peel away, they reveal other, fundamental beliefs that need to be dealt with. I think losing weight and becoming physically stronger over the past year has also been a contributing factor. I think my body is saying, “you’re strong enough to deal with this now…” And there’s the irony – I’ve become strong enough to face the fact that I still don’t feel like I’m enough.

When I wake up afraid every morning, I’m afraid of not being enough; of not having enough strength or energy to face the uncertainty of what the day will bring. It is the uncertainty that I equate with "everything;" i.e., being afraid of everything is really just being afraid of uncertainty. I know that the day will bring hardships and trials; and even though I don’t know how bad it’s going to be, it almost doesn’t matter – I won’t be strong enough to face it; because “I’m not enough.” Even as I type this I feel my neck and shoulder throbbing – as if it’s blinking a warning that coincides with what I believe about myself.

My dilemma now is to know what to do with this realization. I’ve thought a lot about it. I have to acknowledge that most of the time I’m not giving myself enough credit. I really am enough, but I’m so focused on what I lack, that I don’t appreciate what I have.

While I know I need to acknowledge that sometimes I AM enough, there is a harsh reality that, sometimes, I truly am NOT enough. I’m not enough in the sense that I have more to learn and that my capabilities can always grow. Sometimes at work, I really don’t know how to help a patient. Sometimes at the gym, I really don’t know how I’m going to get through a workout or learn a new movement/exercise. Sometimes with my family, I really don’t know how to talk to them or open up to them about what I’m experiencing. Sometimes I really am just too tired to deal with any more challenges. But what I’ve never learned was that even in those moments when I’m not enough, I’m still okay. Who I am, as a person, is still okay.

I wish desperately that I could go back to myself as a child and just hold him and tell him that he’s okay. I would tell him that the way people treated him had more to do with what those people were thinking and feeling than with him. I would tell him that there will be times when he’s overwhelmed and it’s okay, because when he feels like he can’t handle something on his own, he’s worth asking someone else for help. I would tell him that he’s not alone and that he doesn’t have to face everything alone.

I know I can’t go back and hold the younger version(s) of me, but I can look inside my own heart and try to learn those same messages now. Yes, I will have days when I feel overwhelmed and like I don’t measure up, but I’m still okay. I may not always feel like I’m good enough, but I can always know that I’m okay as a person and always worth being loved and helped.

This is going to take some practice. I’m not blogging about this because I’ve learned to “master” this skill or because I’m “through” this challenge. I’m blogging this because I’m right in the middle of trying to resolve it and I know I can’t be the only one who feels this way. If you’re reading this and you sometimes feel like you’re not good enough, just know that you aren’t alone. You can talk to me about it and maybe we can help each other feel like we’re okay, just for being who we are, because it is good enough – just being you.

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

I watched a documentary on Mister Rogers today called, "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" and it affected me profoundly. I’m still not sure why. So much so, that I’m taking to a blog post to try to understand it. Mister Roger’s Neighborhood was on the air for 33 years and I was born/grew up right in the middle of it. (It began airing on television in 1968 and I would be born 10 years later, in 1978.)

Once, when I was a teenager, or young adult, my mom remarked how much I had loved watching Mister Roger’s Neighborhood as a child. I thought she was crazy because I could hardly remember watching it at all – and even if I did remember it (which I didn’t!), I would have thought it was un-cool to admit I had liked watching it anyway.

Fast forward to today. I’m watching this documentary and as they begin to show footage from the set, I felt like I was seeing someone that I had dearly loved but had inexplicably forgotten. I remembered virtually everything: the furniture on his porch, the change of jacket to sweater and dress shoes to sneakers, the feeding of the fish, the trolley, the knick-knacks on the shelves (like the castle; the tree-house; the brown, grandfather clock) that would eventually be the life-size set pieces for the imaginary world - the Land Of Make-Believe; a world filled with Lady Aberlin, Daniel the Striped Tiger, King Friday the 13th, (the terrifying Lady Elaine puppet!), Henrietta Meow-Meow, and all the others.

I remembered them all so clearly! Like I had only seen them yesterday, although it’s been years! But as I sat and watched this documentary, something else began to emerge – the realization that, although I had seen the show, I had somehow missed the message. In other words, I could remember what I had seen, but I had no recollection of what I had heard.

The messages I missed as a child were these: You’re special, just for being you; I like you just the way you are; you’re feelings are real and they matter; it’s okay to be scared; it’s okay to be different;

Maybe that’s why I was so affected by what I watched in this documentary. I wondered how could so much of the visual (i.e., superficial) things have “stayed with me,” yet the things that truly mattered were somehow lost on me? As a child, I needed those messages. I needed to hear that I was okay the way I was, but somehow, those messages fell on deaf ears. Here I am, 40 years later, still trying to learn that it’s okay to just be me; only to discover that the truth was there this whole time, I just couldn’t hear it.

I suppose it made me sad. It made me wish I HAD learned those lessons as I watched the show as a child. How different could my life have turned out if I had learned to believe in myself back then. But I can get lost in the “what if’s” and the “if only’s” of my past and I know that regret over what could have been is useless.

I suppose it also made me grateful. I’m grateful that my 40 year old ears are finally opening and hearing the message that I couldn’t hear before. I’m grateful that there were (and are) people like Fred Rogers who want people to know that they matter.

I know there are reasons why I likely couldn’t hear those messages as a child, but I also know that it doesn’t matter how old we are, we still just want to know that we matter. I think that’s what love, time, attention and listening does for others – it shows them that they matter. I hope I can be a Fred Rogers someday, too.

Looking stupid

I’m sitting here, watching my cursor blink on a blank page waiting for inspiration to come. I have been feeling like I need to write for the last two weeks, but every time I sit down to do it, I just stare at a blank page and don’t know where to start. I feel so overwhelmed that I can’t focus. It’s like there are so many ideas inside of me that want expression, and when I begin to open a gate to let some of them out, they all come rushing up and try to exit at once and it's chaos. So I slam the gate shut and wait for a time when the inspiration will just come and I don’t have to fight it.

That day is not today, but here I am writing anyway. I know that it’s time to open the flood gates and attempt to let out whatever needs to be expressed and hope that I can make sense of it all.

I’ve recently been in a tailspin of depression, self-pity and binge eating; you know, the “same ol’ same ol’.” I can pinpoint the trigger for this particular episode quite distinctly. Someone I trust and admire expressed themselves angrily toward me. It’s no use rehashing the details here, because they’ve apologized and the details don’t matter anyway. The fallout within my own heart is what I’ve been dealing with.

At the time it happened, I felt hurt and betrayed and I blamed myself. Honestly, I had no reason to blame myself, but the fact that the message was directed at me made me think it was my fault. Even now, looking back, I marvel that I could blame myself so quickly and automatically. I’ve spent the better part of the last several years learning that when people do or say hurtful things, it has virtually nothing to do with the “receiver” and everything to do with what’s going on in the mind and heart of the “giver.” I know this. And yet, in that unprotected moment when I helplessly received the unexpected barbs of someone else’s anger, I could not see the other person – all I could see was that I had somehow let this person down; enough that they would “reprimand” me. I knew, without question, that the fault was mine; that I had done something wrong; that I had let this person down; but I could not for the life of me figure out what I had done wrong.

The truth is, I hadn’t done anything wrong – at least nothing that warranted such a strong verbal response. Unfortunately for me, self-pity doesn’t need truth to exist; it can make up its own truth and self-perpetuate. And it did. I felt sorry for myself and I blamed myself for letting down someone I admire. I turned to comfort food because I knew comfort food would make me feel better, even if in just the short-term.

And I ruminated. I couldn’t immediately identify what I had done wrong, so I made things up: “I just don’t measure up;” “I’m not as capable as I thought I was;” “that’s what I get for trying to be confident or feel good about myself;” “I’m just not good enough;” etc. These thoughts never lead to anything positive and this time was no exception. But after pondering this experience for several days, something dawned on me – one of the main reasons I was so hurt by this exchange was because it made me feel stupid. I walked away from this experience believing that “I should have known better…” 

This insight may not sound like such a big deal, but it was immensely profound for me, and I hope I can capture why.

For all of my life I believed I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t good enough to warrant my father’s time and attention and I wasn’t good enough to warrant my mother’s praise or affection. I was fat and I lived in a world where I did not fit in. I wasn’t good enough, cool enough, attractive enough, etc. to have close friendships and I was often getting hurt by the frequent rejection and/or lack of inclusion among my peers. I desperately prayed to be attractive, and athletic, strong, confident, witty, etc. so that my dad would want to spend more time with me; so that my mom would stop criticizing everything about me; so that my friends would actually be friends and want me around instead of just tolerating having me around occasionally.

Through a lifetime of putting myself down I always had two things that I held onto that were positive about me – I was spiritually sensitive and I was smart. I’m not talking Mensa level, genius smart or anything, just regular smarts. At the very least I thought I was “smart enough,” and coming from a guy who didn’t think he was “enough” of anything, that was a big deal.

I suppose it was inevitable that this would become a point of pride for me. I would (well, let’s be honest, I still do…) feel angry or highly defensive whenever anyone doubted or questioned my intelligence – like, really angry. It was if I was saying, “this is all I have going for me, if you take this from me then I have nothing….” And I really believed that. The unexpected problem I encountered was that, in order to maintain my identity as a “smart” man, I had to know everything. I held on to meaningless facts and figures, so that I could whip them out at a moment’s notice and “impress” everyone with my knowledge, aka smarts. The problem came when something came up that I didn’t know anything about, because suddenly, I looked “stupid.”

Without really recognizing it – until recently – I had learned to hold myself accountable for all the things I didn’t know, but SHOULD have known. I could subvert the feeling of “looking stupid,” with good old fashioned “shame.” I would rather beat myself up for what I didn’t know (shame was familiar/comfortable), than accept feeling stupid.

For me, feeling stupid and/or looking stupid in the eyes of others is unbearable. I have nothing else going for me, and to have my intelligence taken away is to strip me of anything worthwhile and I might as well find the highest cliff to drive off because I have nothing and will only ever be nothing. My head knows this is wrong, but my heart is stubborn and doesn’t let go of fears easily.

This was the culprit behind my intense, visceral reaction to being “dressed down” by someone I love – they hit me exactly where I hurt the most – they made me feel stupid and like I should have known better. And I retreated. I turned to comfort food and self-pity because feeling mock care is better than feeling no care at all, right? I avoided going to work because my heart was sick. I stayed in bed for two days straight because all I wanted was to stop existing. I vowed never to get too close to anyone again because people you care about can wound you so deeply. I resigned myself to feeling lonely for the rest of my life, because loneliness is better than getting hurt, right?

No, the problem is not my relationship with this person (By the way, I told them how I felt and they responded in a loving, apologetic way, which I’m grateful for). The problem is my relationship with myself – how I think of myself. I thought I was making so much progress and then in one moment, it seemed shattered; as if I was back to square one, or that I hadn’t made any progress at all.

But I know that’s not true. An emotional setback, yeah, that’s what it feels like, but it doesn’t mean I haven’t made progress. If anything, maybe it just means that I’ve made progress to the point that I’m ready to address this underlying faulty belief, and that this “unpleasant experience” was the catalyst to bring this to my attention. I wish I had handled it better, but I guess I can just add that to my pile of “lessons to learn.” And I think there are nuances here I need to work out. It’s okay to be smart, and not know everything. In other words, being smart doesn’t mean knowing everything. No one can know everything anyway. What I really need to do is to learn how to deal with looking stupid. How do I deal with those moments when my intelligence fails me? How do I deal with those times when I feel like I should have known better and I’m left feeling pretty stupid and bad about myself? Previously, I immediately turned to shame, self-condemnation, comfort food and self-pity, but that’s just not healthy (and, ironically, a pretty “stupid” way to handle it…).

Maybe it’s not really the stupidity that bothers me. Maybe it’s the feeling that I won’t measure up or be deserving of the praise of others – that I’ll never be worth the validation I’ve been craving since a child. Messing up, making mistakes, looking stupid, I mean, maybe it’s all part of the same war I’ve been fighting within my heart my whole life – am I good enough?

I can’t help but wonder, what advice I would give someone who came to me and expressed these things? I think I would want to give that person a big hug and say, “I’m sorry this has been so hard for you. It’s human nature to feel stupid (ashamed/embarrassed) sometimes. When that happens, ask yourself, ‘did you do something wrong that needs to be made right? Try to make it right;’ ‘did you do something that you truly need to apologize for? Go ahead and apologize;’ otherwise, if you didn’t do anything wrong and there’s nothing to apologize for, accept that there was something you didn’t know, but now you do – this may be an uncomfortable way to learn something, but it’s still a learning opportunity. Chalk it up to a learning experience and move on. Don’t waste your time hurting yourself, because – even the you who makes boneheaded decisions from time to time – is still worth being treated with love and respect.”

Saying it is one thing, believing it is another. I guess I still have some work to do.

Timpanogos Cave

Sunday, July 29, 2018

BEFORE
I’m writing this in preparation of my hike to Timpanogos Cave today. I feel like this is an important moment for me. For 14 years I lived at the foot of Timpanogos Mountain and for all 14 of those years I lived in fear.

I was afraid that I was too fat to make the strenuous hike to the cave. I was afraid of not being able to make it and thereby proving I was a failure.

I was afraid of getting hurt and thereby proving I was weak.

I was afraid of getting left behind and thereby proving I don’t measure up.

Ironically, I was also afraid – in the instance that someone chose to stay with me at my pace – that I would be holding that person back, thereby proving that my weakness results in the suffering of others.

So I avoided and passed up on every opportunity to make this trek…

…until today.

What has changed?

Well, I have lost about 70 pounds. I am much more active and I move better than I ever have before. While this gives me some confidence that, physically, at the very least, I think I can do this hike, there is still a little bit of fear, because this hike is new, uncertain and I know it will be hard – I just don’t know how hard.

But there is a greater challenge ahead: facing my fears. Doing this hike carries more meaning than simply, “I can do this now because I’ve lost some weight.” This hike means I don’t have to be afraid anymore.

I don’t have to be afraid of being a failure – because I know that sometimes I will fail, but the greatest measure of success is not the amount of success, but in the ability to just keep going – especially when something is hard. (Don’t F*cking Quit, as my trainer has taught me!)

I don’t have to be afraid of getting hurt, because I do get hurt sometimes and being hurt isn’t the same thing as being weak. Getting hurt is a condition, not a reflection of identity. I can get hurt and still be “okay.” I have been hurt, several times, and each time I’ve had a different, visceral, emotional reaction. But also, each time, I adapted or adjusted and eventually, the hurt went away. Being hurt is not being weak, being weak is giving up – and I know now that I’m not weak, because I don’t give up.

I don’t have to be afraid of being left behind. Yes, I will be hiking with people whose abilities far outweigh my own as they are much more active and experienced hikers. And what if they do “leave me behind?” I will remind myself of the futility in comparing myself to others. No matter what I choose to do in life, there will always be someone who is better at it than me. That doesn’t make me a failure and it doesn’t mean I don’t “measure up.” I can get left behind and still recognize that my own abilities have far surpassed what I previously thought was possible for me. That I am truly much more capable than I ever gave myself credit for, as evidenced by the fact that I have chosen to do this hike in the first place!

And what of my final fear? Holding people back, making others suffer? Is it just possible that people may “hold back,” not because they feel obligated to stay with me, but maybe because they actually want to be with me? Maybe they just want to support me. Maybe they just want to encourage me. Maybe it’s not because they feel sorry for me, but maybe it’s because they just want me to know I’m not alone. I can’t determine what’s in the minds and hearts of others, or what their motives might be. But I can stop myself from feeling sorry for myself and I can stop telling myself that my mere existence causes people to suffer. I can choose to believe that I’m not holding anyone back if they are choosing to stay with me. I can let people make their own choices and stop convincing myself that I’m somehow responsible for the actions/feelings of others, because I’m not. 

I have lost weight, and that fat was/is a very real, physical burden. But today I hike to Timp Cave in order to lose a much deeper, and no less real, emotional burden.

Wish me luck!

>>>>>.....<<<<<

AFTER
Well, I’m back – and I did it. I actually hiked to Timpanogos Cave!!

I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to make it from being too fat. But I wasn’t too fat to make it! Actually, I did even better than I thought I would. We had an hour and a half to make our cave tour time, but we did it in 40 minutes. I was shocked! The trail was as they described, steep and strenuous. But I took it at a decent pace and just kept moving. Only pausing occasionally to catch my breath or see the view. I am not a failure.

I was afraid of getting hurt. Did I get hurt? Nope! I actually felt really good through the whole thing and even when we were done, while I was tired, I wasn’t wasted or worn out. I actually think, if I’d had to, I could’ve gone right back up and done it again! I didn’t have any nagging aches and pains. I was able to move well on the trail and in the cave (there are some tight spots in there!). I am not weak.

I was afraid of getting left behind. I think I pushed myself a little bit at the start because I was afraid of being left behind, but then… it didn’t happen; I didn’t get left behind. Actually, just the opposite – I kept up with or was even ahead of the others at times. What is most important to me, however, is that even though I was pushing myself to maintain a good pace, I wasn’t comparing myself to anyone else. I was just trying to do the best I could do, which entirely removed “measuring up” from the equation, period. It’s good enough just being me.

I was afraid of holding others back. This also turned out to be a “non-issue.” I hiked at the pace I needed to hike and my pace was not a reaction to what anyone else was doing, therefore, I did not interpret anyone else actions (i.e., pacing) as a reaction to what I was doing. We shared the experience, but each experienced it in our own way, and that was a great feeling. I own my feelings and experience without being responsible for the feelings/thoughts/actions of others.

Beyond all of that, experiencing the cave itself made the little explorer boy in me very happy! 

At the cave, they were nice enough to let us catch an earlier tour (Thank you Jay Allen!!) and the cave was amazing! Such unique structures and environment; I could have stayed there for hours. It was so quiet and still. You could feel the moisture in the air and see it clinging to walls and ceilings. At one point they turned out the lights and I can’t recall a blacker darkness. I had to hold the arm of a buddy, because I’m afraid of the dark. I waved my hand in front of my face, but saw nothing. The constant chill in the air; pools of water; ravines that drop down to emptiness; mineral formations that seem out of this world; delicate structures that have survived for hundreds, or maybe even thousands, of years; it was all just so unique and surreal.

And I realized something. A year ago, I would not have been able to do this. Well, maybe that’s not entirely true – I think I could have done it, physically, but it would have been a miserable experience. I would not have had the endurance to keep moving. I would have been much more out of breath. I don’t know that I would have even fit through some of the narrow passages in the cave, quite frankly. And I would have been wasted when it was over. As it was, I not only completed the whole trip, but, as I said before, I probably could have done it again. That is a big, damn deal for me!

Not only did I do this (previously terrifying) hike – I actually enjoyed it! I needed to do it to realize that I had nothing to be afraid of.

It was later, as I was driving back down the canyon, and as I was thinking about the experience, I actually hollered out loud to myself, “woohoo!! You did it, man!! You f*cking did it!!” And that was the moment I realized I didn’t have to be afraid anymore, which caused me to tear up a bit, I’ll be honest. Then I did something I’m not used to doing – I told myself that I did a good job and that I was proud of myself for my accomplishment. As far as I can recall, it was the first time a message like that – coming from myself – carried weight. And maybe the first time I truly believed it.

So today was a good day. It was good for my body; it was good for my mind; it was good for my heart; and it was good for my soul.

For years I resisted fear and it weighed upon me like a boulder. Today, I held that fear in my hands and I gave it a place in my life; I allowed it to be a part of my journey. When I did so, I freed it and it drifted away from me, like a mist evaporating with the sunrise. Truly, a new dawn for me, as well.

Of Stupidity and Carbs

I did something stupid recently.

Have you ever done anything stupid? Like, you knew it was going to be a bad idea, even before you did it, but you did it anyway? Well, that’s what I did. I justified my “bad idea” by calling it an experiment: “If I do this, I’ll just see what happens and I’ll learn from it and it’ll be cool.”

It wasn’t cool.

Not cool, at all.

What did I do that was so stupid? I ate carbs.

Ok, I can almost hear you rolling your eyes at me… BUT, I have to explain why carbs are a stupid idea for me.

I don’t villainize carbs. I don’t think carbs are evil. I love carbs; I want to be carbs… the problem is, I have a chemical reaction to carbs that results in an “altered mental/emotional status.” More accurately, sugar carbs result in panic attacks and starchy carbs result in depression. Put ‘em both together and I get into suicidal territory. Yes, my reaction to carbs is that drastic; I’m not exaggerating here. I’ve tested this over and over and over – and always with the same result. Sometimes the reaction happens within a few hours and sometimes it doesn’t show up for a few days, but it always shows up.

This is just one reason a low-carb diet, like a ketogenic diet, has been so helpful for me, because it all but eliminates my drastic mood swings. Life still has its ups and downs, but I regulate my moods and thoughts SO  much better while eating Ketogenically.

So, for the last seven-eight months I’ve been following a ketogenic diet (carbs under 20-30 grams per day, protein based on lean body mass, and fat to round out my calorie needs). I certainly haven’t been “perfect” with it – I’ve had my moments of “carb-loading,” i.e., binge eating, but this time was different. I had bread or sugar carbs EVERY DAY for a week.

So, so stupid.

For the first 3-4 days I was in heaven – tons ’o carbs and no backlash. I thought, “hey, I’m cured; I can totally have carbs now.” But about day 4 is when the cravings started and the “willpower” began to run out. I know the difference between physical hunger and “emotional” hunger and I was becoming emotionally hungry all the time! One poor decision led to another and I just kept eating more and more carbs… Then the nightmares started; waking up in the middle of the night with my heart racing and sweaty from fear/panic; or rising in the morning with a feeling of dread – that if I got out of bed, something bad was going to happen. Then came the depression. Everything in my life seemed bad, wrong, insufficient, an unsolvable problem, hopeless, helpless, like nothing would ever be okay – like I would never be okay. I became angry and annoyed by the slightest things and somehow, I just couldn’t shake hating myself for all of this. After all, I was the stupid one who ate all the carbs. I knew it was a bad idea, but I did it anyway.

I mean, haven’t I lost 70-ish pounds eating low-carb? Yep, I sure have. So haven’t I “earned” the right to spend a week eating whatever the hell I want? Erm… that’s a tough one. I think the problem with that question is in the idea that I can somehow “earn” bad food. Is that the relationship with food that I want? To be “good” so that I can earn the right to be “bad?” And by bad I just mean throw caution to the wind and fly off the nutritional rails… No, of course not! No one “earns” the right to be bad! It’s probably a bad idea (irony intended) to “moralize” food into “good” or “bad” camps, because – for me, anyway – it's too easy for it to become a reflection of who I am as an individual; i.e., I ate “bad” food, therefore I am a “bad” person.

I keep asking myself why? Why would I do this to myself KNOWING it was a “bad” idea?! I think there must be a lot of reasons. I’ve spent so long fighting cravings that I just wanted to give in. I am so tired of fighting the desire for carbs (i.e., emotional hunger) that I just wanted to lose control and not think about consequences or repercussions. I was angry that I’ve been having such bad neck/shoulder pain that no one seems to be able to resolve and I just got angry at my body for hurting for no reason – and I wanted to punish it; as if I was saying, “hey, if you’re not going to work properly and be in pain for nothing more than just moving, then screw you – I’m going to get fat and lazy and just give up on you.”

Which is sad, now that I see it typed out in black and white. What a poor relationship I seem to have with myself. I’m so ready to hurt myself and punish myself as if that’s all I deserved; it’s almost just a knee-jerk reaction at this point. It’s not healthy; it’s not caring, or kind or compassionate. It’s abusive. How did I learn this? Where did I learn this?

Honestly, I don’t think the answers to those questions even matter right now. What matters is improving that relationship. So I’m going to do some really uncomfortable work here and commit to a couple of things:

1. Forgiveness – Yep, I made a poor decision to eat a bunch of carbs (premeditated or otherwise). Beating myself up for it isn’t going to change that, it isn’t going to “pay” for my dalliance(s), and it isn’t going to prevent me from making poor choices in the future. What it will do is reinforce the erroneous belief that I’m an inherently bad/weak person, deserving of self-abuse and punishment. Forgiveness is not ignoring what I did, or trying to remove/avoid consequences; forgiveness is me admitting I made a bad choice, but knowing that I am not a “bad person” because of it. Forgiveness is saying, “I care enough about you that I don’t want you to repeat that behavior, because I don’t want you to hurt anymore…”

2. Embrace pain. This may sound like it’s coming from left field or you may be wondering how “embracing pain” could help me change these destructive patterns. Well, it’s because pretty much all of my dysfunctional patterns are some form of avoiding pain (physical, mental, emotional, etc.). Pain is an indicator that something is wrong. Because of my trauma’s and learned self-abuse, I interpret “something wrong” to mean that I’ve done something wrong or that I am wrong; that I have somehow caused this pain. So when I feel pain, I blame myself for having done something wrong to cause it. Embracing pain means exposing myself to life and being vulnerable; it means challenging my beliefs about myself and more specifically what I’m worth or what I think I’m capable of. Pain is nature’s way of saying something needs my attention, not an indication that I’ve done something wrong or that I “am” wrong. Pain, while unpleasant to experience, can actually be an ally, and one I probably need to stop “avoiding at all costs.” I can be in pain and still be okay.

Deep down I know my days of making stupid decisions aren’t over. I’m certain I have plenty more to make. But my hope is that I can, at the very least, learn from when I’ve chosen poorly in the past and use that feedback to make wiser decisions in the future – especially when it comes to carbs!

You look so good!

I’ve been thinking a lot about the response I got to a picture I posted on FaceBook recently (the picture below). It's a photo of a group of people I was with at a survival course. I am standing in front, so you can see all of me. That photo in particular received some comments about how good I looked. I was surprised, actually, by the number of comments (I mean, it was only 5 or 6, but still…). My weightloss journey has always been aimed at losing about 130 pounds, give or take. At the point the photo was taken I had lost about 70 pounds total, or roughly half of my goal.

The thing is, I think I look the same, mostly. The program I’m on has me taking progress pictures and I have to admit that I do see changes in fatloss, but I also feel like I’m losing it so uniformly, that instead of looking like I’m “reshaping” my body, I think I look like I’m just… deflating; smaller, yes, but the same proportions. Maybe I’m splitting hairs, because fatloss is fatloss and I’m happy to be losing fat period, but my point is how I see myself hasn’t changed all that much.

Well, okay, wait, that’s not entirely true. Actually, the way I see myself HAS changed – enough that I’m writing this blog post, in fact. Maybe I need to make a distinction: the way I see myself physically in the mirror hasn’t changed all the much, but the way I see myself as a person, has changed.

I’ve always had a lot of reasons why I wanted to lose fat. Among them, I’m a little embarrassed to admit, is wanting praise or recognition. I’ve seen so many “transformations” on TV, in magazines, on social media, etc. and those people get tons of attention (and praise) for their accomplishment of losing fat – and I think it’s mostly well deserved praise. But I wanted that too. I wanted to lose fat and have everyone make a big deal about me as well. I’ve even seen motivational posters that say, “Do it for the ‘holy $#!@, you got hot!’” reaction.

Which deep down, I’ve always known is a pretty shallow reason for wanting to lose fat. I mean, yes, we make a big deal about those people, but where are they now? We don’t keep making a big deal out of those individuals, it’s kind of a “hey, cheers, you did great work,” then move on to the next inspirational success story. I’m not suggesting that I think that that motivation is wrong, so much as, I recognize that it’s superficial and somewhat fleeting.

Still, that is something that’s always been a desire of mine and part of what has motivated me to lose fat; until recently. The strange thing about losing fat – for me anyway – is that it has changed (and is changing) my perspective on everything – life, others, myself, what I want for myself, what I want out of life, I mean, all of it. There came a point when I realized that no amount of praise was ever going to be a true measure of success, nor be an accurate measure of my worth. Basically what I was telling myself was that I was worthless because I was fat, but once I lost all the fat, got “hot” and then got all the praise, then it would be okay for me to feel good about myself. The external praise for losing weight was going to be the marker of success and worth. Which, I hope you can infer by now, is not the case, nor should it ever be!

I have learned that I have worth independent of what I look like or what comprises my body composition. I have learned that no amount of losing fat, gaining muscle or praise will ever determine what I’m worth, because my worth is not dependent on that. My worth is inherent to my existence, to just being alive, to being here – to being a creation and son of God.

I’ve always had worth; I just couldn’t see it. I thought my worth was buried under pounds of fat and that I had to lose the fat in order to discover my worth. (In a weird way that totally contradicts my point, that’s actually kind of what happened.) Only I didn’t “find” my worth, I simply understood that I have always had it.

So maybe you can now imagine why it was so jarring to hear people comment on how good I looked. I’m actually getting some of the praise I thought I always wanted; only to realize that I’ve changed. My reasons for why I’m losing weight have changed. My need for praise or recognition has changed, dramatically (which is actually tied to another blog post I’m still working on – stay tuned). It’s also strange because for me, I’m only halfway through my journey. It’s almost as if I want to tell everyone, “wait, hold on, save your compliments, because I’m not quite where I want to be yet – wait until I’ve lost the rest of it, then you can compliment away!”

It’s also weird to receive those compliments, because, damn, if it isn’t nice to hear! (and I kind of hate admitting that). When I posted that photo I wasn’t expecting any praise at all. (The whole point was actually just that I did something really hard/challenging and came away with a sense of accomplishment.) But then a few people commented on how I’ve slimmed down and it was surprising to me to have that pointed out. Though, admittedly, I have worked SO hard (throw in joke about literally working my ass off!!). It’s been an emotional roller-coaster; nothing about this process has been steady or controlled, and yet, I’ve persisted, and that persistence is paying off. (To say nothing of how wonderful my coach/trainer/friend, Michael, has been; I can’t imagine how trying I must be as a client!)

So while I’m not seeing much “physical change,” (as I mentioned above, I still have the same proportions) I am seeing more identity change – or how I see who I am, not just what I look like. I may still be a big guy, but, ironically, being fat is just a small part of who I am.

I’m here at the end of my post and I’m not quite sure what I want the “take home” message to be. I don’t want to discourage people from complimenting me (because, hey, I’m human and I have worked hard and the recognition does feel nice!), but I also want people to know that worth isn’t about what we look like – it’s about who we are and even though we may change as people, our worth never will – it can’t.

Maybe it’s more accurate to say that it isn’t the fatloss that taught me this, but the journey to achieving fatloss. Don’t change your body because you think it will make you worth more, but change your body because of what you will learn about yourself in the process of doing so. Do it because of what you’re worth, not because it will make you worth more. Does that make sense?

Lastly, a heartfelt thanks for those that did complement me – after all, no one had to say anything at all, but they did – and I thank you for it! Even though I no longer feel I “need” it; it means the world to me to know that I am supported in this journey – thank you.

The Two Epiphanies

I recently had an epiphany about myself, or more accurately, about how I treat myself, which I’ll tell you about in a moment. After some time pondering over this epiphany, I was reminded of another epiphany I had about 12 years ago, which I’ll also tell you about in a moment.

My most recent epiphany was born out of some challenges that arose in my health and fitness journey; namely, an ultimately unsuccessful experiment with post-workout carbs (sweet potato, if you must know); an unexpectedly severe reaction to Mother’s Day carb-loading (bread and macaroni, also, if you must know); Which resulted in two days of calling in sick to work, and spending those days in bed, hiding under the covers and not wanting to face life – or even continue life – I’ll admit it, because I thought about it… and then, when I did finally get up the courage to go back out into the world, and get in a workout, I reinjured my knee from an old injury I’d had before (not severe, but bad enough to warrant some investigation).

Basically, I was in the dumps.

In trying to understand why things went south for me so quickly, I came to the realization that my initial reaction in life is to punish myself – for anything and everything. My epiphany was this: “I punish myself for being who I am AND I punish myself for NOT being who I want to be (or who I think I should be…).” When I say punish myself, what I mean is that I am mercilessly cruel in the way I talk to myself and in the thoughts I have about myself, which usually lead to some form of binging or “giving up” on myself in some way.

It was eye opening to me to realize that I put myself in a no-win situation. From this perspective I have been unable to see or acknowledge anything good about myself, such as making progress or even just not giving up sometimes. I could finally see how I have been holding myself back by the way I think about myself. I also saw that I have not been offering myself compassion for when things don’t work out the way I hope, or forgiveness for when I mess up or make poor choices, or even just allowing myself to be an imperfect human. Acknowledging that I don’t treat myself very well, I asked myself how I should think/feel about myself and this led me to recall a previous epiphany.

About 12 years or so ago, this would have been about 2005 or 2006, I was talking to a friend at work about relationships (we were both single at the time). As we ended our conversation she walked away, but then turned and asked me, “so, what are you looking for in a spouse?” I thought for a second and said, “I want someone who can see the potential for what I can become, but will still love me for who I am right now.” Even as I said it, it felt profound to me. That epiphany has been a yardstick for me, for every date or relationship I’ve pursued. It’s also been what I have promised myself I would do for someone else.

Here’s the kicker - somehow, in the last 12 years of my life, I never even once considered that I needed to apply that same attitude toward myself. Not once have I really considered my own potential – because all I could see was who I was not, i.e., who I “should have been.” Not once have I really loved myself for who I am – because all I could see was that who I am (a broken, weak, fat, ugly, man) wasn’t good enough. I punished myself – for being who I am and for being who I’m not.

I don’t know why these two epiphanies occurred 12 years apart. I don’t know why I had the answer for how I should treat myself for so long without realizing that I needed to apply it to myself. But I’m grateful to finally “see” it. I’m grateful because these epiphanies highlight what I need to DO in order to change my thoughts, my beliefs, and how I treat myself. Understanding is important, but it’s only half the battle. Now, I need to actually apply what I’ve learned. I need to see all the potential for what I could become, yet I need to love and accept myself for who I am – as I am – right now.

And no, that doesn’t mean “accepting” that I’m a broken, weak, fat, ugly, man. It means accepting that I am just a man – a human. A normally flawed, beautifully imperfect person who has just as many strengths as weaknesses; who has just as many gifts as handicaps; who has just as many talents as inadequacies; and who just wants to do the best he can in life. That’s worth something in this world and now I know to stop discounting that – to stop discounting me.

It’s wonderful when we can inspire and encourage someone to be more, to achieve more, to excel and to accomplish great things, but more often than not, those same people also just want to be loved for who they are.

Like me.

Aftershocks

Sometime in 1984 or 1985, there was an earthquake in Salt Lake City, UT, a city that happens to lie on a major fault line. I would have been 6 or 7 at the time. I don’t remember the earthquake at all – it happened while I was sleeping. Here’s what I do remember.

My eyes opened slowly to a blurry world of darkness and light. My vision cleared just in time to see my mother with a blanket in her hands, spread out in front of her. She was coming down the stairs to the basement bedroom that I and my two older sisters were sleeping in. She was coming down so fast that the blanket flew out to her sides and she looked like a bird, with wings spread, descending to its nest. She wrapped me up in her blanket wings and carried me - and subsequently, my sisters – upstairs to my parent’s bedroom.

Once all of us kids were safely deposited to my parents bed, my dad came in and moved the bed away from being directly under a support beam, in case it came crashing down on top of us during the aftershocks. He went back to the kitchen to listen to the radio for updates.

I was scared, but I didn’t know why. “The earthquake is over, but there may be aftershocks,” I was told. I didn’t know what an earthquake was; I had slept right through it after all. But we waited for aftershocks and I didn’t know what those were either. I was scared because everyone else was scared. I was afraid of not knowing what was happening to us or not knowing what was going to happen to us. So we waited for the aftershocks.

Flash forward to today and the fear of aftershocks has come back to me, though not in a way I would have expected.

In my life, trauma has been like a massive earthquake; it shook up everything in my life and rattled me to my core. I felt powerless, weak and useless. It arrived unexpectedly and overwhelmed everything going on inside me. The actual events were brief, yet their impact would affect me for decades, because of aftershocks. And there were aftershocks. Emotional upheavals that weren’t as intense as full on trauma, but felt just as powerful, just as threatening and left me feeling just as helpless.

My aftershocks come in many forms: fear of not being good enough; fear of being inherently “wrong” or worthless; fear of being a failure and/or a disappointment; being ridiculed, pointed at, laughed at, or singled out in some way; fear of loneliness; fear of being weak and powerless; and so on.

When I feel these aftershocks, I do what anyone should do in an earthquake - I hide, I cover (or mask) and retreat. Only my hiding/covering/retreating includes isolating myself, binging on junk food, fantasizing about perfection/control over my body and my life, watching movies/tv to escape and so forth. 

But this is where my analogy differs because aftershocks – the inner/emotional aftershocks I’m talking about – aren’t really real. I mean, they are real in the sense that they feel real, and create an emotional/behavioral response, but they aren’t real because these emotional aftershocks are not the actual trauma itself. They are phantom traumas – they exist, but have no substance. They are reflections of traumas that ripple through my soul, becoming real, only because I expect them; I wait for them; I fearfully anticipate them…

I felt another aftershock recently during a workout. I was attempting to do a kettle bell down and up, which I’ve done before, but this time, I was flooded with fear. I couldn’t recall all the steps, for some reason. And even when I did, nothing felt right. My arms were giving out. I wasn’t able to lower or lift my core without some pain in my lower back. I couldn’t control my descent and felt like a sack of blubber, crashing into the ground.

And then the “aftershocks” began vibrating through me: “You’re weak. You’re not even strong enough to support your own bodyweight. You’re pathetic and never going to get this. You’re never going to make progress and you’re going to stay fat, weak and stupid your whole life. What made you think you could do this? What made you think you could get better at this? You’re only getting worse. You were able to do this with a 14 kilo kettle bell and now you have to go back to un-weighted? What a loser.”

I wanted to leave. I want to run away and say, “this is such bullsh*t.” I wanted to drive to the nearest fast food place and shove as much crap down my throat as I could stand. I wanted to cry. I wanted someone to hold me and say, “I’m sorry this is hard for you right now, but it’s going to be okay; you’re going to be okay.”

But I stayed and finished my workout. I went home and ate healthy food. Not because I wanted to, but because I recognized the aftershocks. I saw the phantoms rearing their ethereal heads again, only this time I knew they weren’t real. I knew that they would stay as long as I continued to believe in them and right now, it’s the hardest thing in the world not to believe in them. Aftershocks can be like that. They can keep coming and bringing a host of fears and doubts with them, but it is my belief that if I can see them for what they are then I can accept them for what they are, and I can gradually minimize their impact on my life. I can brace for them, or I can embrace them.

Counter-intuitive though it may seem, embracing aftershocks (accepting that they appear as remnants of trauma) helps me to dissolve them, because it means I can see them for what they are – fears of uncertainty, or fear of things that only “might” be true. I get to decide what’s real for me. Maybe I am weak, but that doesn’t mean I always will be. Maybe I am just a big loser, but somehow, I’m still here and I have to think that that makes me a winner on some level.

What I have learned is that I’m not worthless; because no one is worthless. I have worth, because we all have worth. Our worth cannot be changed and it cannot be diminished in any way. Not even by “earthquake” trauma and certainly not by aftershocks. Even though I still deal with aftershocks, I know where they come from and to some extent I know why they’re here. My challenge is not to be afraid of them when they do show up and especially not to waste my life waiting in fearful anticipation for when they’ll appear next.

And who knows, maybe one day, they won’t show up at all.

The Worth of Movement

Just some background so you know where this is coming from: I have always been overweight. I don’t really remember a time when I was thin, however the bulk (no pun intended) of my weight gain happened the summer between nine and ten years old. I nearly doubled in bodyweight and I went to several doctors who couldn’t explain why. So, I was fat. I grew up fat; I knew I was fat; my family knew I was fat; my friends knew I was fat; and being fat was a problem – for lots of reasons, but my message today is about just one of those problems in particular: movement.

Moving was hard for me – not because I was lazy, but because I felt “lumberous” and awkward. I didn’t move as well as other kids because I couldn’t move as well as other kids – there was so much more of me to move around. I grew up believing that maybe “being active” just wasn’t in the cards for me. And yet, I longed for that. I wanted to be active; I wanted to move as well as other guys my age. I wanted to be thin and athletic. I wanted to move with confidence and ease, like they did.

But I was afraid.

For one, I thought I would hurt myself if I tried to heave my ponderous bulk along the asphalt, whether walking, running, biking or otherwise. Also, after years of being sedentary, I was afraid that I would injure myself from trying to do ANY exercise and from not knowing how to use good form. Of course, my biggest (again, no pun intended) fear was going to the gym. Wow, could there be any other more perfect place where I felt like I did NOT “fit” in? (Pun totally intended this time.)

The gym was terrifying in that there were contraptions that looked more like torture devices than exercise equipment. But more than that, I was afraid of the people in the gym. I felt ashamed of my body and inferior on any given day – but put me next to a hot, muscular, athletic guy and you might as well stick a fork in me, because I’m done! I couldn’t even picture myself in the gym, working out next to these toned, athletic hunks (or meatheads, depending on the gym!). It was a foreign country and even  though the people there looked like their lives were so much better than mine, I just couldn’t fathom trying to learn their language and customs; again, because of fear.

I was afraid of how stupid I would look, not knowing how to work any of the machines. I was afraid of how much people were going to look down on me or look at me and laugh – as if they thought I was fighting a losing battle or wasting my time. I lived with these fears for years. Years and years and years; longing to be like those guys in the gym, but believing that I wasn’t worth it.

And then one day, at the ripe old age of 35, my life fell apart. Without boring you with the details, I had moved states for a job that didn’t work out; I was unable to find a job, living off my rapidly dwindling savings, waking up nightly with panic attacks, trudging through the days in full-on depression and realizing the problem was me – because I was afraid… of everything. And I knew I needed to face my fears.

I decided to start with one of the riskiest and hardest fears I’d known – I bought a gym membership. Man, that was hard! Just going through the doors for the first time was like facing down a charging rhino; but I did it. I met Kevin, one of the lead personal trainers. Kevin was a good looking guy and in good shape – not, like, just walked off a magazine cover or anything, but just in good shape; enough that I felt really self-conscious around him. But Kevin got it – he got where I was coming from and he understood that just coming to the gym was a challenge – it took me awhile to realize it was actually quite a large a victory.

Kevin taught me about using the i̶m̶p̶l̶e̶m̶e̶n̶t̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶o̶r̶t̶u̶r̶e̶ exercise equipment, but more than that he focused on movement and helped me learn the basics of lifting, squatting, pushing, pulling, etc. I got stronger and it felt great. I truly believed that what happened next was a result of me learning to move better and getting stronger. I was meditating one night when I saw in my mind flashes of two experiences that I had completely forgotten – repressed, actually. I recalled being molested by two different men, once at the age of six and once at the age of nine. These memories just about shattered me completely. Why would I connect the recollection of these repressed memories to getting stronger in the gym?

For two reasons: 1) I had proved to myself that I was ready and capable of facing my fears; 2) I was getting physically stronger, which meant I could physically endure the visceral recollection of the harm my body endured.

For those who might be curious, yes, I did seek out and received some excellent counseling to deal with this new emotional onslaught. But I also kept moving; I kept going to the gym. I worked out at this gym for about a year, until I decided I needed to move back home (to Utah). Once home, I found a new gym to go to. You know what? I was still afraid to walk in those doors! Even though I had spent about a year exercising, learning and improving, I was still afraid. What if this gym had different equipment that I don’t know how to use? (It did.) What if there were super athletic people there who look down and me and make me feel bad about how heavy I still am just by looking at them? (There were. [I still remember you, little-blue-shorts-guy!!]) What if I looked stupid or awkward because, even after a year, I’m still only just learning how to move? (I did.)

But it was also this gym that lead me to Craig and Kathryn; where I learned even more about nutrition and functional movement (I puked after my first time pushing an un-weighted sled for 4 lengths of 50 feet each!). I learned even more about the benefits of movement and even though I wasn’t losing much weight, I was moving better, I was getting stronger, and I was feeling better about myself.

Through Craig and Kathryn I connected with Chirofusion (sport chiropractors Chad and Janson) and they helped me understand functional movement even more. Life went on. I ended up moving away for a year, then moving back home and this time – thanks to Chad at Chirofusion – I connected with Michael at Wasatch Fitness Academy (WFA).

WFA is ALL about MOVEMENT! Functional movement – bodyweight exercises, sleds, slam balls, sandbags, kettlebells, TRX bands, and so on, but the focus is always on safe, efficient, proper form and movement. I have had some amazing results from working with Michael, but for me personally, the most profound revelation I’ve had is this: I can move. Even overweight, even heavyset, even morbidly obese (which I have been medically labeled by every doctor I’ve ever had!), even uncoordinated, awkward, uncomfortable me – I can move! And not only can I move, but I can move well. I’ve actually had my share of injuries already and had to scale back, adjust or even omit particular exercises at times, but I kept moving.

Why is that such a revelation? Because I spent SO MANY years afraid; afraid that I couldn’t move, that I wasn’t built for it, that I would never be able to be active. I was never able to see myself in a gym like WFA, because I was afraid I couldn’t do it, or that I didn’t belong there. But I was wrong. I can do it and I do belong there. I belong there because I WANT to be there and because I keep showing up and I keep moving. In all honesty, I still have days where I compare myself to other gym members – and yes, I’m still the fattest guy in the room (for now!) – but I can move! And the more I move, the less there is of me to move!

I don’t mean to sound overly dramatic, but I truly feel that “movement” saved my life. Movement made me stronger; movement gave me more confidence; movement caused me to face some dark memories and helped me work through them; movement has caused me to change the way I see myself and challenged what I believe about the world; movement has caused me to improve my mental and emotional function on every level. I firmly believe that none of those changes would have been possible without challenging myself physically – without movement. For me personally, the worth of movement in my life cannot be calculated.

What is movement worth to you?

Carnocchio

I’m sitting here with an injured right knee. I injured it in the stupidest way possible – extending my leg from a bent position while sitting on the floor. That’s it. I just lifted my leg to straighten it out and felt like it “slipped out of socket,” although I didn’t feel anything move. It took several seconds to work the pain out and I was able to stand and walk on it, but there was a sharp twinge of pain every few steps.

That was yesterday; today is much worse. I can hardly bend it or straighten it. It aches when at rest and “lights up” with pain when I try to move it. I can put weight on it, however, and that makes me grateful, because it means it’s most likely just a tendon stretch or pull and not meniscus damage.

But I’m still mad. I’m mad that I got injured in the lamest, stupidest way possible – not doing anything! It would be one thing if I were injured from an accident or something, but just straightening out my leg? How stupid is that! Ugh!! And then it makes me angry at my body for being so weak and out of shape; especially when I’ve made so much progress over the last few months to increase my health and fitness. This just feels like I huge setback and I’m angry. I’m angry at myself, my body – everything!

And yet… I feel like every physical system has some mental/emotional component attached to it. A “broken” knee means I’m most likely afraid of something – afraid to move forward in life; it can also mean stubborn/inflexible pride. I know I have my moments in struggling with pride, I’m human – after all, but the fear of moving forward is something that resonates with me. I feel stuck in a job I don’t really love – although it’s a good job. I feel like I’m stuck by not really having anything I’m truly passionate about pursuing in life. I’m absolutely stuck in knowing which romantic relationship to pursue and feeling lonely most of the time!

Since I was laid up in bed anyway, I decided to do some guided meditation to see if I could understand what this particular injury is trying to tell me. I was all over the place and saw many images I couldn’t quite piece together. But a few things stood out in particular.

I saw myself at about the age of 9 or 10. This was the age when several things changed in my life – I was molested for a second time, I practically doubled in body weight, I required glasses at that age and I recalled that my knee would occasionally pop out of socket. I remember how much it hurt the first time and how panicked I was. But as it happened from time to time, I eventually grew to expect it and even though I was already not that active, I became truly sedentary, so as not to aggravate my knee further. (I as probably 17 or 18 the last time it happened.) I suppose I thought that not using it was healing it because I never really had a problem with it after that; until yesterday, that is.

What was truly strange was not that I saw myself at 9 or 10, but that when I saw myself, I was lying on the ground, on my back, lifeless – no more than a doll or a puppet – which made me think of Pinocchio; or rather, something like a reverse-Pinocchio. I saw myself as a lively human boy made of flesh (a Carnocchio, I suppose!), but after enduring some traumas, I became lifeless – I turned into nothing more than a puppet. No longer capable of facing life; I shut down and retreated to a place inside myself where I was safe – but unable to fully interact with the world.

I believe that several physical conditions changed as a result. For example, I believe I got fat as a way of protecting myself (fat is a cushion and a barrier, after all); I believe my eyesight deteriorated because I could no longer see a future where I mattered, or where my life could mean anything; I think my knee failed me because I was afraid to move forward to a future that held no promise for me, where I no longer understood what it meant to be a man.

In my imagery, I sat down next to my “lifeless” self and scooped him up into my arms. I held him and cried over him – perhaps I was crying for him. I told him how sorry I was that he had been through such hard things. I told him I understood why he would have shut down and lived a life of hiding his true self from constant fear. I told him I loved him and that he didn’t have to be afraid anymore. It struck me how my younger self had never felt emotionally supported and as I did so, I felt a sharp pain in my knee. That told me I was onto something.

I told my younger self that maybe my knee was initially damaged out of fear and that I haven’t had a problem with it because I’ve lived for so long in that fear – that I couldn’t tell that it wasn’t strong. I told myself that maybe this time, through attempting to improve my health and fitness, my knee became re-injured – not because I’m afraid, but because I’m ready; ready to move forward. But I can’t move forward on broken beliefs, just like I can’t move forward in fitness with a damaged knee. Maybe it’s as if my knee needed to re-break (i.e., break old belief systems), in order to re-set and heal correctly (i.e., “move forward” in life with new, healthy thoughts and beliefs about myself).

This may be a lot of hokum to some people – and maybe it is, but my point is that this experience helped me to reframe my injury. Rather than being mad at my body for breaking down again – this time, I could see it as my body trying to heal from past traumas and helping me to reset my foundation to something healthy and functional. It didn’t take the pain away, but now when I feel the pain, I can tell myself that this is a necessary step on the road to true recovery – physically, as well as mentally and emotionally.

I want to become “a real boy” again – alive, healthy, vibrant and able to direct the course of my life, instead of passively watching it go by, with someone else pulling the strings.

The Double-edged Sword of Why

Do any of the following questions sound familiar:
Why do I keep doing (blank)? 
Why can’t I stop (blank)?
Why can’t I just move on?
Why does (blank) keep happening to me?
Why do I keep hurting myself with (blank)?

We ask why. A lot. I suppose humans are just curious creatures who want to understand everything. Which, in and of itself, isn’t a bad thing. I have been asking myself “why” questions for as long as I can remember. What I have learned is that asking “why” is a double-edged sword.

A little background to put this in context: My whole life I have been a mystery to myself. I suppose it’s just part of being an INFJ* (Meyer’s Briggs Type Indicator - MBTI). I can often read others like a book, but when it comes to myself – I’m illiterate. There are other reasons for which I don’t know myself very well – I won’t go into detail about them, but I will just mention them because they are significant. Having been a victim of molestation, I repressed a majority of my childhood memories – better to lose all memories to hide the few horrifying ones, than remember them all in perfect clarity. Related to that, my body became the enemy – a place that had been victimized, in which I was no longer safe, or comfortable. So I ignored myself. I avoided myself. I distracted myself with “busyness”, dreams of a perfect life/future, and food… lots and lots of food! I punished my body for being damaged, weak and violated. I disconnected from myself physically. I became a mystery to myself.

So when I engaged in – and then couldn’t stop – self-destructive behavior, I naturally asked myself “why.” Why can’t I stop shoving junk food down my gullet like a human garbage disposal? Why can’t I pull my head out of my a$$ and just get my act together already? Why did I do (blank) when I know it’s wrong? The common thread among all these questions is, essentially, “Why am I like this?”

I asked why because I genuinely sought understanding. I wanted to understand myself and why I did what I did. I truly believed that if I could understand why, then I could stop bad behavior or change self-destructive behavior. So I started asking “why.” And I started going to therapy to help me uncover the “whys”. And I started journaling and meditating and praying and talking to others and so on.

All of this was terrifying, and painful, and at times excruciating. Those who have never had the courage to face themselves will never know just how difficult it is to bring light to the darkness we fear and/or try to hide from. Because it does take courage and it does take strength, just not the kind we typically think of. It was difficult, but it was also worth it.

I learned SO much about myself. I DID get understanding and it helped me see the source of so many destructive patterns in my life. The process of asking “why” and turning inward for answers was as healing as it was difficult and I wouldn’t change any of it because of what I learned from it.

But there was a downside. The other edge of the sword.

The “whys” became comfortable. I got good at looking inward. I got comfortable with analyzing my problems and behaviors. So comfortable in fact that whenever anything in life went wrong, I immediately began asking “why;” digging into the tough emotional fodder I was facing and thinking, “well, here we go again! I guess I have a lot more to learn…”

The problem with all of that “asking why,” lies in what I was NOT doing – I wasn’t actually fixing anything.

I thought that asking why would bring understanding and that understanding would bring solutions. But it doesn’t always work that way. Here’s a simple analogy: Let’s say my bedroom is pretty messy and I keep stubbing my toes on things in the dark. I can turn on the light to avoid stepping on hard or sharp-pointed objects. However, the act of turning on the light, while it helps me to avoid obstacles, isn't the same as making my room clean.

For years I developed unhealthy patterns of thinking and behaving – based on faulty beliefs that resulted from traumatic childhood experiences. I needed to understand what happened to me to understand where these unhealthy patterns came from (turning on the light). But in all of my learning/understanding, it never changed my behavior or my actions, because I had spent years repeating and solidifying those unhealthy patterns. I had taken the first step to change, which is to understand, but I got stuck on the first step and never reached the second step, which is to ACT OUT NEW BEHAVIOR (i.e., actually clean my room!).

The trap of asking “why” is that it can feel like you’re doing something, but ultimately it can only take you so far. Seeking or gaining understanding may bring enlightenment, but it doesn’t automatically bring new patterns of thought or action. There have been many times in my life where I was asking why when I already knew the answer and what I really needed, was simply to behave differently; to act instead of to question. Understanding, in and of itself, did not change my behavior. The only thing that can change behavior is changed behavior! 

What’s difficult for me is that I’m a thinker. I like spending time in my head and my initial approach to anything is to think about it first. I know that there are people who are the complete opposite. There are some people who dive in head first and never really stop to think about what they’re doing or why they’re doing it. In many respects, I wish I were more like that. I could do a better job of striving for action rather than getting stuck in “analysis paralysis.” On the other hand, acting without knowing why you’re doing what you’re doing is a little like trying to clean your room in the dark; how will you know when it’s really clean? Sure you might be busy, but you’re not likely accomplishing anything meaningful. In my mind, these are the people who just put their heads down, work hard and get to the end of their life realizing that they just weren’t every happy; never having realized that life could be any other way.

Just in case it doesn’t sound like it – I’m actually advocating for both conditions here: 1) ask why and 2) act. I think it’s crucial to seek understanding, but it’s just as crucial to change behavior. Sometimes I need the understanding in order to see how to change my behavior and sometimes I just need to change my behavior. For example, I may not know why I feel the need to shove burgers, fries and shakes into my pie-hole, but I don’t really need to question “why” I feel those urges when I know that that behavior is not healthy. I can put down the bag of Oreo’s (behavior) without knowing why I felt “triggered” to down a whole bag in one sitting in the first place (the “why”).

The other problem with asking why is that sometimes there are no answers. I’ll never know why the people who hurt me, hurt me. And I don’t need to know. I can still strive for better health – physically and emotionally – without knowing why. I can move forward with hope, happiness and courage without knowing why I went through the sh*t I went through. Because I’m no longer a victim and I don’t need to keep being a victim by “asking why.”

I guess it kind of boils down to this – asking why is good, until it becomes a distraction from action, then it isn’t serving you anymore. Action is good, unless it’s a distraction from knowing why you’re doing what you’re doing, then it isn’t serving you anymore. Ask why, to see what behavior you need to change; or change your behavior and seek the understanding that will give your new behavior direction, meaning and purpose.

For someone like me, asking why can be a double-edged sword, but knowing "why" is half the battle and I’d rather go into battle with a double-edged sword than none at all.


*There is a pretty decent review of what it means to be INFJ here. The “Characteristics” section seems to be pretty accurate for me.