There’s new growth inside
Tiny greens are poking through
In-between the cracks of my heart
Tender tendrils of hope
Pushing promises of freedom
Of joy and release
And of peace at last
I attend to their needs with full study
I patiently await what will bud
I developed a disordered relationship with food practically from birth.
Food and eating have long since been very complicated for me.
Food was never just food. Sustenance. A source of energy.
The act of eating was never just a means to satisfy physical hunger, fuel the machine, fill the tank.
It was security. A best friend. My lover. My mother. My father.
Relief. Comfort. Excitement. Joy. A distraction.
A way to protect my self. A weapon. A protest sign. A lockable door. A “Fuck you, world.”
It gave me a sense of well-being. It gave me something that felt essential to my very ability to exist on this planet.
But above all else, and most importantly, it have me an illusion of control.
And this, above all, was crucial to me.
As a child, my world was out-of-control. Everyone in it seemed out-of-control. Every thing happening seemed out of my control.
Inside of me, good gravy, things certainly felt out of control. Feelings, thoughts. Wants. Needs. All felt huge and to a small person who felt they had no voice and no power, they were simply more than I could comprehend or cope with.
Enter food.
The one area I felt I had any say in was with food. What I ate and how much.
Especially how much. Any hint of the slightest suggestion that I might begin to think about considering becoming open to the idea of portion control still brings up a deep revolution within me. A protest begins without my having to even rally the troops. Big signs flashes in my head: “Fuck you!” “Over my dead body!” “Not while there is still breath in my body!”
You’ve got to be kidding. I’m supposed to let someone else tell me how much I am allowed to eat? What?!
Seriously, I get so defiantly enraged at the concept I literally feel nauseaus.
To a non-disordered person, it may be very hard to comprehend. It may seem or sound absurd.
But trust me when I say that my being able to eat or not eat what, when, and how much of something I wanted was (and sometimes still is) of incredible importance to me.
Almost feels life and death to me to be able to choose and act as I want in this one area of my life. It looks very much like addiction and obsessive-compulsive behavior because it is very much both of those things.
As you can imagine, such a relationship is doomed from the start. It is not healthy. It is instincts gone awry. It is a coping mechanism that brings an initial and momentary satisfaction followed by an ever-deeper, never-to-be-satisfied longing.
Such a relationship with food and eating skews all other relationships. It is a poor substitute for a real solution to the problem. And the problem, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with the food or eating. They are merely the symptom.
So the solution, for me, has not and never will be portion control. I do not weigh and measure my food. (That still sends waves of dread through my body.) I do not label foods good or bad, or blame dieting or fad diets for my problem. Fad diets and the “diet” industry are only potential triggers or tools for my own kinked relationship to food and eating.
The problem was not and never will be my willpower.
The problem is how the funky-ass relationship to food and eating developed the first place. What was missing that led to the kink in my connection to regular eating?
There were circumstances. Maybe something ancestral, genetic, sure. But truly, there were circumstances and my response to them. My best solution for coping happened to be really distorted and led to many years of suffering.
Around all of that, I have done a great deal of work. But in terms of healing, it has come down to this: addressing the part of me that developed such a relationship in the first place.
What did that part really need? How can I help that part trust other ways of meeting those needs? (The second question is almost more important and takes a great deal of patience to answer and to implement.)
I began asking these questions, and learned to really listen for and then to the answers.
The needs and wants came first.
The answer I heard most is that part of me wanting something for herself, just for her, that no one and nothing can interfere with. In unlimited amounts.
This seemed key to the whole thing, this need.
This longing for something just for me, that no one else can have, that only I can have, that no one can take away, mess with or hurt.
Woah. Logically, it is clear when I really lay it out like that that food and eating never had a chance at solving that problem. They do not contain the ability to solve it.
But that part of me was working from a different logic that makes total sense to the information it had at the time. Given the limited resources and the level of maturity of that part of me at that time, I can see how the dots were connected to the one thing that was available and that seemed to work.
Problem is, that part is hungry for something that food and eating can never satiate.
But that is where the real work lies. But as in all things, hard work does pay off. Yes, it does suck to have to do anything at all about a problem that I wish had never started in the first place. But that is just reality and once I accepted that, things began to get better.
That is my job now. To give myself that indefinable…something…and to give it in unlimited amounts.
Sometimes it is my own attention. Support. Kindness. Comfort. Bolstering. Appreciation. Soothing. Excitement. Stimulation. Fulfillment. Fullness. Rest. Recovery. Quiet. Peace. Stillness. A sense of being ok. Safe. Whole just as I am.
These I can give myself whenever, however I want in whatever quantities that part demands, cries for, deserves. I get to pour unlimited amounts of these things into myself, and no one and nothing can interfere or mess with that.
But what about the act of eating? What about that part of it all? That part of me wants to consume, wants to be filled, wants to take in and become one with something.
No, I cannot actually physically have the experience of filling myself with something, taking a substance into my body and becoming one with it.
That is the physical aspect of the whole, and there is another series of solutions to address that part. That I can satisfy in other ways. That is a different blog for another day, perhaps.
But the rest of it, I got in spades to give. Unlimited amounts.
It took some experimentation to help that part of me trust that letting go of the old mechanism for the chance that something new would ultimately be better and actually, really work, for real. That is where patience and gentleness and compassion pay off.
But it is all worth it. The meeting of those needs of my self by myself — that, my friends, I am in control of.
At long last, I have the power that I have so craved.
Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: portion
For JC and anyone else who hates the idea of fucking “portions.”
Sorting through the photos from my past
Looking for clues of who I was meant to be
Before the Great Divide sent pieces flying
Seeking remnants of my essence
Like the blind reading Braille
I touch as if to read my own soul
The twinkle in my baby eye
The curve in my 2 year old’s smile
Was I quick to laugh?
Did I welcome others from a sound sense of safety?
That playful 4 year old with the “Dare Me” head tilt
Did she feel held by the universe?
If I trace these shapes now
Can I create a new form
To slip on like an easy cloak
Made of former me’s?
Or will the lines disappear to take another shape altogether
Made of the me that I have become?
Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: trace
My heart needs a buff
It’s long lost its shine
I tried to be tough
Tried hard not to pine
But enough is enough
I must draw the line
Smooth out what’s rough
Act as if it’s divine
Get rid of old stuff
Start to care for what’s mine
Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: buff
When I was around age 20, my life exploded. My entire world literally blew out from its center.
Looking back, I suppose it was destined to detonate at some point or another.
I oscillate between feeling sadness that it did not happen sooner and gratitude that it did not take longer to happen.
Spiritually-evolved and wise people would say that it happened “right on time. ”
I say “Bite me.”
(OK, I got that out of my system. Sometimes I feel sorry for myself. Maybe we all do. We all have our crosses to bear in this life, right?)
No, seriously, I guess it did have to happen sooner or later.
At that point, I had been away from home for several years…the deep truths that had been bubbling molten hot at my core had had time to gain strength unencumbered by parental presence.
I was also living a breakneck speed: I was a full-time acting student, working a part time job and stage managing productions for the acting company associated with my acting school. I was busy 24/7 and running on fumes.
And then, one day in a bookstore, I was drawn like a magnet to a particular book. (This is the book that was to teach me that I do not chose books but rather they choose me.) It was Alice Miller’s The Drama of the Gifted Child.
I bought it and read it as quickly as I could, and shortly thereafter, the volcano of my psyche erupted.
This book seemed to be explaining things about my experience growing up that I had long since hid from myself. It was as if in reading each chapter, carefully placed barriers were loosed around the nucleus of my being.
In the days following reading it, I felt like the ground I was walking on was constantly shifting and moving underneath my feet. It was unsettling.
Pressure within me began to build, until one day, one Sunday shift in the restaurant where I worked, my internal world just exploded.
Shards of self flew from my core, and in an instant, a horrific revelation from within flew up through my body from my gut into my consciousness in a searing flash and the fairy tale fantasy that I had been living inside my own mind of a perfect family and a perfect childhood turned to ashes.
And, just like that, I was forever changed.
From that day to this one, it has been a whirlwind, rollercoaster ride filled with astonishing kindness, loss, addiction, danger, self-abuse, despair, hope, comedy, tragedy, loneliness, desperation, shock, torment, friendship, mentorship, recovery, love, joy, bliss, confusion, celebration, emptiness, wholeness, perversion, goodness, synchronicity, luck, terror, horror, wonder, adventure, growth, overwhelming gratitude and grace, forgiveness, miraculousness, passion, sexuality, understanding, caring, shifting, healing, working, giving, taking, receiving, being lost and being found, again and again and again.
(I suppose that is simply a life being lived.)
I would not change one moment because if I did I would not be right where I am today.
Don’t get me wrong. Right where I am today is not puppy dogs and moonbeams.
In some ways, I feel like I am only now rising, like a phoenix, out of the ashes of that apocalyptic day.
And as uncomfortable, often terrifying and unsettling as that feels, to be in totally unfamiliar territory in my own surroundings once again, I know that I am indeed in the process of rising, like a phoenix, out of those ashes, and that knowing, in and of itself, is pretty amazing.
I don’t know where I will land, or even if I will. But I know that this is my journey, meant just for me, and I am rising to the occasion.
Prompted by The Daily Post Word Prompt: detonate
I have been thinking a lot lately about trusting life.
I have come to realize that I have been living, but not trusting, life.
What does that mean?
It means that when I was six, things occurred that were so traumatic that decisions were made on an unconscious level that 1) the world was not a safe place, 2) I could trust no one and nothing, and 3) life was not meant for me.
Fast forward through decades of living from the decisions of a wounded child who felt that what had happened was on some level her fault and who also thought that she carried responsibility for the whole world as she knew it.
What does that look like?
It is exhausting to live but not trust life. I am exhausted. I have been dragging my soul through all of these years, cheerleading myself every day to show up despite feeling on deep unconscious levels that life was not meant for me.
It has been a strange dichotomy: wanting to live so badly, to work so hard to have a happy and meaningful life, yet to have an equal and opposite drive in my telling me that life is just not for me. That I was not meant to be happy. To live “in spite of” not feeling as if I deserved a good life or even was a worthy or necessary part of the world.
I have loved life. Needed life. Wanted life. Fought life. Almost killed my own life. But I have not trusted life.
And not trusting life, it has been hard to trust myself. I mean, if you do not trust the very force that sustains you, what can you really trust anyway?
I did, indeed, survive. Miraculous, indeed, because when you live from unconscious wound-influenced decisions from a child’s psyche, you tend to make some very, very poor and unhealthy choices.
I look back at all of the choices I made from those 6 year old’s decisions today, and I am truly in awe. I used to be embarrassed, ashamed even, at how poorly I have managed for some times in my life. But today, I am astounded at my resilience and my ability to bring myself through it all. I survived, and I live to write this.
But I have not yet truly thrived.
I have healed so much. But here I am, having cleared away so much wounding, seeing these decisions that were made about life and my place in it, and I am exhausted.
And it is time. Time to finally trust life.
I have blamed Life for what happened to me when I was six. Life and God. But mainly Life. And I understand why. The pain and shock of what happened was just overwhelming to me at 6. I just could not trust after that.
One of my favorite lines from a play is from Other Desert Cities by Jon Robin Baitz. “Most people don’t have to make a step-by-step decision to stay alive, most people just basically want to live. I am not one of those people.”
I have always deeply identified with that. It has taken me work each day to push through the energies around those early decisions to find the strength, courage and hope to face another day.
But I want to address that. Really see if I can forgive Life — it was not Life that did anything to me. Life is not to blame.
Life has held me through. Life has loved me no matter what. Life has always just been there, offering me breath, love and trees.
I don’t know how I will heal this or how long it will take but I am ready and willing to try.
I can start by making a list of what I think that might look like. If I were someone who trusted life, how would I act? How would I talk? How would I make decisions? How would I love?
Will my smile be different? My laugh? Maybe my very breathing will change.
I am eager to live in these questions, this exploration.
To take my six year old lovingly and gently by the hand and take over the reigns. Give her a soft place in my heart to go play in and reassure her that I got this now. Yes, my child, it is time.
Here we go.
Numb from shock
Arisen from the depths of you-hell
Sooty and scorched
I made a catapult from leftover heart shreds
And slingshot essential soulparts
To the netherlands of the void.
No map, no key: safe from seeking human grasp.
Whatever was left of my battered soul
I tried to serve to the world.
But tough in-spite-of life meat
Makes for a bony bounty.
Anemic and spent
I am calling me back.
There’s a welcome home mat
In my hungry-heart self.
I will feast on my fullness
Grow meaty layers of love.
Then pinked-up and throbbing,
My catapult in hand,
I’ll release to the stars
Any memory of you
To burn into ash as I rise.
I slipped my moorings today
Just like that
All this time they were mine to release
I thought the knots were untieable
I thought only he knew Marlinspike ways
These straining years
This drydock life
Now left behind on the shores of past pain
I have my own anchor now
I’ll set it down where I please
I slipped my moorings today
Just like that
This was it.
The night of graduation. Four years complete. The party had long since started.
I’d taken ecstasy and was well into hours of drinking, running from party to party offering intensely felt goodbyes and impassioned promises of staying in touch forever to pretty much everyone I ran into.
Emotions were high, and so was I.
It was at the fountain, as Deborah and I danced around the falling waters, that he passed by. I realized in that moment that I had been looking for him all night, or perhaps just my body had.
We both yelled out “Heeeeey!!!!” as he passed by, and then I impulsively said, “I’ve been looking for you!”
“So have I!” he stopped and said.
“Let’s meet up!” I said.
“Yeah! Let’s meet up! Your room, midnight,” he suggested.
“OK!” I gleefully yelled at his back as he ran on with his fraggle (gaggle of frat brothers.)
My high ratcheted to interstellar levels.
I’d been in love with him all semester, since the choir ski trip. He finally noticed me one day on the bus when I made everyone laugh by reading a cheap romance novel aloud in a sexy voice.
After that he started leaving me hand drawn cartoons and notes, and then we started meeting up and hanging out here and there.
We never went on dates, exactly. My sorority and his fraternity did not mix, so it was a bit like the Capulet – Montague situation going on. I guess you could say we kept in on the DL, though that phrase was yet to be coined. I was so bedazzled by him that I didn’t even notice that it was happening.
He was just the most amazing guy. I had a huge physical attraction to him and he made me laugh so hard. He was creative and smart and I just got weak in the knees around him.
Though we’d fooled around, we’d never taken to the next level. Not that I hadn’t wanted to.
But I was not super comfortable with my sexuality then. I still felt conflicted about really owning it (all that inherited and social conditioning that a “good girl” didn’t admit to liking and wanting or even having sex.) So I tended to sort of deny my own sexuality while at the same time pursuing it.
But I knew one thing in that moment that night when I ran into him at the fountain. I wanted that boy.
And now here it was, the last night of school. My last chance.
After the fountain, the goodbye tour continued, as did my drinking and drugging. I had no purse, no watch, as I had long ago learned that I would lose anything not on my person. I remember riding on the back of somebody’s green moped through the night to hit all the spots, laughing. I was giddy with anticipation, and hazy with inebriation. In the back of my mind, all I could think about was meeting up with him.
At a certain point I suddenly snapped to attention. What time was it?! It felt late.
I grabbed the nearest wrist and strained to read the time. The big hand was on the 6, and the little hand…fuck! It was 1:30 AM! Noooooo! My last chance! And I missed it?!
I starting running at full speed across campus. Maybe he got caught up too. Maybe he’d be there, sketching funny drawings of me dancing around the fountain,
When I finally reached my dorm room, my heart sank into my gut: it was dark. I fumbled for the key under the mat and entered the room, tears welling in my eyes. I blew it.
Why had I played it safe all semester? Why had I passively let him call the shots? I really liked him. I really wanted him. I may never meet another guy like him again. Damn my stupid Protestant good girl upbringing. I’d missed yet another opportunity to really live.
I closed the door, and as I turned, my body became aware of another body in the room.
My eyes, adjusting to the darkness, began to discern a shape in my bed.
“Cal? Is that you?” I asked, my heart doing flip flops in my chest and my mind, reaching for possibilities. Maybe my roommate had gotten into the wrong bed…was that Kim? No, she was already gone. Maybe…hope against hope….
“Yeah. What took you so long?” That voice. He was there. In my bed. Thank you Jesus.
In what felt like the most bodacious move of my life, I slipped my dress off and stood there, in my naked desire.
I whispered out into the darkness, “I want to make love to you. I know we’ll never see each other again, but I just really want to. I just want this one night. OK?”
I risked humiliation in his rejection or total disappointment in his gentlemanly restraint.
I risked my imagined-but-until-that-moment-still-crucial-to-my-self-delusional-upbringing-repressed-sense-of-my reputation.
I risked my own potentially life-long regret in the light of day.
I took a deep breath, and I think in that very moment, I changed in some very crucial way. I already knew on some level that no matter his answer, it was my asking that would always matter.
I waited through seconds of heart-aching agony and anticipation for him to reply.
“Yeah, sure, me too,” he whispered back.
My entire body sighed in relief, and then vibrated in pure desire.
I walked the few steps over to the bed where he lay, looked down at his face in the moonlight, and began to descend.
I love to jump off cliffs.
This runs antithetical to just about every way I was conditioned growing up.
I come from very fearful people, stoic Protestants who practice “keeping things in the family,” “never let them see how you really feel,” and “stick close to home.” Cautious, careful, deliberate action-takers. Spontaneity? Not so much.
I never questioned it growing up. It was normal to me. Things like traffic and weather dictated activities. Never let them see you cry. Don’t show weakness. Therapy might as well have been witchcraft.
It is imbedded in my code, this desire to avoid potential problems. This fear of something bad happening if you are not careful at all times.
And yet.
I am no adrenaline junkie or extreme sports athlete. While I do enjoy a good rollercoaster ride now and then, I have not been ticking off a list of things I must do such as skydiving and bungie jumping, though if the occasion arose I might do those things.
But.
Years ago, at a quarry in Vermont, I discovered that inside me is a kind of a dare devil all the same. That there are times I want to take risks, when I must, in fact, take the leap.
I love to stand at a precipice and then jump off into a deep body of water. I just love that sensation in my body as I step off into the air, my heart in my throat as an unheralded scream of joy-fear comes out of my mouth. Those moments of being totally free and falling through the air are just so life-filled, so in the moment. I experience the rush of my own full life force. There’s a feeling of being at one with something outside of me and yet within myself all at once. And then, the landing into the water. Being encompassed, becoming one with it in those moments in the muted depths before surfacing. Astounded at having been saved once again.
Maybe those moments are my church, my sanctuary.
For those seconds I am not thinking, not watching, not taking care.
I just am, and I am far from alone, and it feels great.
I know that experience now, and I seek it out in other ways. In my work as an actor. I feel that same way when I fully invest in my character and truly lay deeply personal life and death needs on the line and take that same kind of leap into the scene. My partner and I leap into the air of the play and sometimes find astonishing moments of true experience together. Surprises, places unexpected. When it is over, the same astonishment and gratitude for having landed safely. This is also my church, my sanctuary. It, too, is holy.
My early conditioning and the family encoding have not gone away, maybe never will. I can still catch myself getting very anxious when it is raining hard and I am in the car with my husband, feeling as if we should go straight back home. I carry unwarranted dread around at times like a Pashmina shawl. It can feel comforting and necessary.
But that’s OK.
Today, I consciously choose times to allow my spontaneity to take the front seat, put caution and fear in the back and assure them that “I got this.” I look for more places to find my free-fall worship, and I’m so grateful that I do what I do for a living.
Acting as I know it is not for the feint of heart, and I am honored to embody the lives of people who are fighting to live better lives, love more fully, taking risks to get what they need.
For them, and for me, I am happy to take that step off into the air and see where it takes me.
#freefall #risk-taking #acting
Inspired by The Daily Post Word prompt: precipice
Beyond the Skinny Branches 