Fat, Fat Stores

We like to store stuff, keep stuff, even hoard stuff. We're real good at it, and we like to do it. Makes us feel good, feel rich, feel important, feel whatever that thing is for each of us that sparks us, gives us even a twinge of excitement, and hopefully fun. That true human need for relief, respite, even euphoria, from our extremely stressful, difficult lives.

So eating in surfeit we've learned, produces, at least for a brief time, that same spark, that excitement, even euphoria, maybe fun. For many. For far too many.

Eating in surfeit is still a very affordable pleasure. Five dollars worth of fast food will surely fill the emptiest belly. This is cheap. This is obscenely cheap. Hey a ticket to see a good flick to create that excitement, that euphoria is at least ten bucks. And there's the popcorn. Ain't cheap to see a new film. So five for a pig out is a bargain. Obscenely cheap.

Enough of these belly full of cheap pig outs will get you fat. The calories get hoarded. The fat's just hoarded calories. Nothing more, nothing less. It's not bad, it doesn't mean that you're bad, that there's something to feel bad about. It just is. Like alot of things in life. It just is. Neither good nor bad. Truly. Any bad feeling comes from your beliefs/your perceptions about you and your world. About your fat. How you think others think about you. How you think others think about your fat. How you think about yourself, and your fat. Women suffer the most. They have the most bad feeling about themselves, from the bad feelings about the fat, about their looks, about their bodies. More women feel this. Fell bad. Than men.

And I hate when women suffer. It will always mean that children will suffer. The girl children will learn to hate their bodies, feel bad about themselves, think bad about themselves; and pass this on to the girl children they birth.

Women, the surfeit in eating causes suffering. Yours. Not even to speak of the body stuff you've been already told will happen, or has happened. Your mind, your heart, your pain, your suffering, your self reproaches and recriminations. The defeated heart. The pained soul. The self sabotage. These are what truly hurt.

And if you're past the pain, past any hurt, you're still told by a medical one, a medical person, about the fat. About the fat.
And especially the belly fat, abdominal fat, omentum fat. It's there and gets in the way. More than you'd like.

I had to address fat. Here. In full view. I am presently facilitating a group of adults who have not been adult with themselves. They are adults in most all other ways. Cept for food. It's been OK to not take care of business, not be adult, not care about their body. And especially with food. And I know all too well the reasons why. I know the reasons intimately. Money, time, money, time, fatigue, self loathing, abuse, time, fatigue. I know the hearts and minds of the ones who hoard fat. I know your deepest fears and desires. You have been kind to me; you have allowed me to peer inside your being. You have shared your deepest fears and desires, and self loathing with me. You have given me that deep priviledge. I love you. I love you. I love you.

The group is Your Body's Grace. My play on the words of the wise Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. The Body's Grace is his defense of homosexual love, physical, deep, touching,
significant, meaningful love. As is all love. He is a wizard of the highest order, able to create gold from mere words. So my play on the title of his essay is my way of declaring my view of this body. My body. The thousands of bodys which I was priviledged to work with in my 25 years as a dietitian. Your body. Her body. Her beautiful body. I do care especailly for her body, rather than his. Because she suffers more. In every society, she has it worse. She is less than. Regardless of what you protest. (And of course I understand karma and the fact of her maybe being a man in her past life. All karma. Of course. But it doesn't negate her present suffering.) The suffering is all too real, too tangible. Evidenced by lab tests, procedures, self poking needles into your flesh, withdrawing blood, testing your sugar, testing your pee, your blood. The fat is too real and the pain it inflicts is terrible to bear. And terrible to witness. I was this pains' witness for 25 years. I was allowed to see and hear her suffering heart. Her suffering body. She let me in. She told me. I heard. I honor her and what I have heard.

My view of this body, her body, my body, is that it is our only vehicle for knowing the Divine. The Divine Mystery of this dear life. It is our ticket to consciousness. Our brain is our body is our mind, is our heart, is our soul. They are one. Could truly only be one. As we are all one, as we represent the One who we co-create our life, our world with.

Antonio Damasio, the neurologist and neurobiologist writes in Decartes' Error: "...the body, as represented in the brain, may constitute the indispensable frame of reference for the neural processes that we experience as the mind; that our very organism rather than some absolute external reality, is used as the ground reference for the constructions we make of the world around us and for the construction of the ever-present sense of subjectivity that is part and parcel of our experiences; that our most refined thoughts and best actions, our greatest joys and deepest sorrows, use the body as a yardstick."

Heavy stuff. If you didn't finish that last paragraph, don't worry. My first reading of it took me maybe three, maybe more times to get. And I don't get it on the level that Antonio does. But I get it. Of course. I've spent my whole life looking and learning about the body. And hearing.
Hearing pain. Her pain. Her body's ground reference which doesn't work, doesn't function like it's supposed to. Like it did in the past, when she was younger. This very painful body, this ground reference which interprets her too hard, too painful world.

There isn't one person in the group who is devoid of fat issues. Even the several 'skinny' ones. There are six to twelve any given week. They all need aid to deal with their hoarding, deal with the too many things they've taken on. The too many things they have to do. The people they must please. The lack of time. The lack of care for themselves. Going on, doing, caring for, others, others, others. Never herself. She is always left behind.

Except for the spark times, the excitement times, even times of euphoria. Ahhhhhhhh. Then she can truly relax. She relaxes with food. The food is familiar. Oh so very familiar. Such a dear friend. Ahhhh. The relaxation, the comfort. The comfort. The comfort. So dear, so very sweet and dear.

And then the reality.

And then typically the pain, guilt, feeling bad, suffering, again.

It is for you I write this. It is for you because I love you. I love you. I love you.

You must know that it can change. It does not have to stay locked and tight and safe and permanent. Even rigid. Oh the rigidity. The tightness. The inability to be fluid, to be flexible, to move. You must know that it can change. You must know this. In some place deep inside, you know all of this. Of course. And now to trust. The next step is trust. Yourself. The next step is trust that you can change. It is possible.

So I write these words for you to see. To know. To understand that it is your mind which locks you in. Tight. On a schedule. The evening schedule. The evening routine, nay ritual. The time alone. The time for yourself. All to yourself. Always with food.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

eldermuse.net

And I hate that you hurt.