Stained Glass Secrets

by: Elexis Penner

Freedom From the Shenanigans

If you don't have food issues, or body image issues, or know anyone who does, you will probably want to skip this post.  But if you do, I invite you in. Be warned, it does not provide a hard and fast solution – I don’t know if there IS one. But I do know that I am not alone in this Ricken fricken arrgghghgg!! struggle. Maybe you need to know that, too.

I have a journal. It’s cute. It’s got flowers on the cover. I’ve used it on and off, filling it up with lines dedicated to lofty plans of becoming a better person – or at least a person I like better.

It contains ambitious schemes of self-improvement in various categories – parenting, housekeeping, scheduling, aaaaaand of course, fitness. One day I found myself flipping through page, after page after page of running logs, food logs, why I ate what I ate logs, all my ‘fail’ days, all my ‘good’ days. Reading these, I felt exhausted and a little like I was drowning. There were stickers. Sheeeeesh.

Every day since forever I have devoted a pretty decent and embarrassing chunk of brain space to my appearance – trying to fix things that aren’t broken.

A few years ago it all came to a head while I was training for a marathon that had I committed to for all the wrong reasons. Marathon training is pretty simple: You run. Like a maniac. The last stretch of training just about broke me emotionally – family, work, 30 miles a week – I’m really not an athlete.

I. Was. DONE.

Anne Lamott says, “… exhaustion is usually the beginning of wisdom and change…” Thank goodness, because it was way past time to start trying to deal with the shenanigans.

And so I have. Started. Trying to deal. Emphasis on trying.

And the shenanigans are these: COMPARING ourselves to some perceived ideal, and AVOIDING feelings and pain and every dang thing by distracting ourselves with donuts and Snickers bars. These shenanigans are connected, and have little to do with will-power. Because I’ve got tonnes of willpower. Oh sure, my husband likes to use the word stubborn – I prefer stick-to-it-tiveness. But whatever, it’s there.

I could say this post is about a concern for healthy food choices, but that would not be entirely true.  I think most of us can get by just fine and live to a ripe old age even without going whole-hog vegan or organic or unrefined or whatever.  This of course, is my non-medical opinion but it worked okay for our parents.

This post is not about going on a diet (the mother of all 4-letter words) or losing weight. We all know how to do that. And as Anne Lamott says in regards to dieting, “Oh, that’s great, honey. How much weight are you hoping to gain?”

This post is about freedom from the shenanigans.

A while back, I had a bit of an A-ha moment. It’s not about over-eating, but it is about self-hate, which is kind of the same thing. And I’ve been wanting to write these thoughts for a while, but I felt like maybe I should make sure I’ve got a handle on everything first. HAHAHAHA!!!!!!! Wowww… good one. So funny.

So here goes anyway…

Once upon a time, I decided to stop hating the messed up pieces of myself. That’s not what I mean. I mean I’ve realized that I am all right IN SPITE OF the messed pieces of myself. What I mean is, that I’ve stopped labeling the pieces as messed up. I mess up – and I hate it – but that’s not the same thing.

Some of us have the tendency to go all or nothing. Now this might come in handy in a game of Monopoly or a Moto-X race, but it is a personality trait that is susceptible to addictiony-type shenanigans.

Suppose there is an ice cream incident. Nothing against ice cream – but say we’re not talking bowl of ice cream (as in singular). We’re talking a half-gallon, straight out of the bucket binge. This of course, has nothing to do with ice cream and everything to do with stress and mood and doing something – ANYTHING – other than facing our stuff.

All-or-nothing shenanigans dictate that we will either dismiss the whole incident, sweep it under the emotional carpet and pull a Scarlett O’Hara – “I won’t think about that today, I’ll think about that tomorrow.” As in, tomorrow I’ll start over and be perfect. And while I’m at it, I might as well finish off the bucket because I’m going to be perfect tomorrow, dangit.

OR we will beat ourselves up about it. Mercilessly. With a big stick.

When I can drop the all-or-nothing shenanigans, I am able to say that I’m not happy about this, but there is no big stick. I might even be able to sit with it and ask, ‘Whaaaaaaaat just happened there?’

So here’s something from The List Of Things I Know For Sure. It’s a short list. After we eat stuff, can we please, please, PLEASE stop telling ourselves how we need to run or walk or jazzercise it off?

In my life, exercise started off as a punitive, calorie-obsessed purge. It was always either go hard or don’t even bother. But the reality is, if your binges rival the State Pie-Eating Champ, you can never out-run what you eat. My super-human ability to toss back whole cheesecakes is a case in point. When I hear women talk about ‘working off’ the cookies or fries, I want to grab them and say, “No! Movement is not a means to punish ourselves!!” As if we need another excuse.

On comparing. This is huge and ongoing and affects everything and cannot be properly tackled in one paragraph, but I will say this – it’s getting BETTER. It does seem like focus on my outsides gets less and less as I get older. I will attribute some of this to wisdom, but also to the fact that time is just not on my side.

A few months ago I took a giant leap towards freedom from comparing. I went through my closet and tossed every single thing that did not fit comfortably. As in, if I couldn’t spend an entire work day in it without gasping for air – ADIOS!! And yes, that included my favorite pencil skirt that was sooooo close to fitting on a good day, but... See what just happened there??!! A good day as defined by whether or not my skirt fit. A-ha.

I wanted nothing in my possession that made me go, ‘Oh, if only I’d lose 5 pounds…’ Nothing. Not one, circulation-obstructing, thing. Freedom.

Sooooo… then there’s the tiny issue of freedom from the voice that says, “Wow, you just yelled at ALL FOUR of your kids in the space of eight minutes. That entire pan of cinnamon rolls will take the edge off…” Here you get the added bonus of feeling like crap about lack of willpower in multiple categories.

Yeah… what to do about that…

What to do about those times when I’m feeling panicked or grumpy or have just had a day, and most likely can be found at the back of my closet clawing and hissing and scarfing down bags of mini eggs – the ones with the weight stated in kilograms.

The short answer is, I’m not sure – I’ll let you know if I get there.

I like what Anne Lamott says about her journey, “Oh yeah, and whenever I could, for as long as I could, I threw away the scales and the sugar.” I think she might have something. There seems to be no off switch with the sugar and the scales tend to give me the vapors.

But there is this. I have been catching glimpses of a path that leads towards freedom from the shenanigans. It’s quite overgrown and tough to see too far ahead, mostly because it is very uncharted territory for me. It has to do with compassion.

In her book Carry On Warrior, Glennon Doyle Melton shares the quote, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” And then she adds, “Even you.”

There are things we may have always been told we weren’t supposed to feel. But as long as we don’t want to feel things – feel them and be okay with them – we will use something else to deal. Or not deal.

But there is something about leaning into your struggle and your weakness and your failure and being okay with it and gentle on yourself. On the surface this might seem like a cop-out. But it produces a resignation and an acceptance, which brings on a peace, which somehow turns into the tiniest bit of clarity and truth. And that is where transformation can makes its move.

This was news for me. This came with the suspicion that God really might be on my side. Richard Rohr writes, “If God is for you a tyrant, an eternal torturer, or with a smaller heart than most people you know, why would you want to be intimate, spend time with, or even ‘participate’ with such a God?” I didn’t know. But I started to think that all my images of God as a wrathful, cosmic police had just possibly been either a misunderstanding or a typo. That changed everything.

This food and body and self thing is a journey and I do not have anything down pat. But every day I stare down my fear of going off the rails and say, “So WHAT…” And the calmness that settles in is a gift.

So this may or may not result in any physical changes. I’m okay with that and I can say it with about 89% honesty. It may or may not result in any improvement of health. It may or may not result in you ever reading anything I write ever again.

But what I feel it will result in – and already has – is less lunacy and more calm. And especially, especially less overall brain space devoted to obsessing over it. Because let’s face it – space is limited. Which leaves me with more energy to devote to other things. ANY other things.

Do I want to be perfect or do I want freedom?

Freedom would be perfect.