Category: Words

Someone at work had a cup of Starbucks with a jacket on it–one of those ones with an inspirational quote on it. You know I have a somewhat rocky relationship with inspirational quotes, right?

This particular quote was from Oprah, and it was about the importance of living your passion. Know what? That comes from such a place of privilege it drives me nuts. Yes, be as happy as you can. Yes, ideally, do something you enjoy if you have the choice. But not everyone has the luxury of living their passion. Not everyone comes from a place of such plenty that they can do that. Some people have to shovel shit and dig ditches. Some people have to work multiple jobs to support their families. They can elect to have a great attitude about it, but you know what? It is NOT going to be their fucking passion. It will be a job. And there isn’t anything wrong with that.

In our world, your passion might not be your work. It might be a hobby or a sport. It might be a sketch pad or knitting needles. It might be laughing with your friends on the back porch. Do what you can to be happy and don’t worry about Oprah thinking you are doing it wrong.

The jargon of positivity also makes me a little sick. Was that negative? Well, I have to balance out the positivity. Balance, they say, is crucial.

What is it that offends my sensibilities so?
I hate the clichés. I hate the sappiness. I hate the positivity that goes beyond reason. I hate the obscure language designed to hide that what they are saying to be nice to people, including yourself, and have a good attitude. You can’t charge money for that though.

I want to talk about in a language that isn’t aesthetically abhorrent to me if I need to talk about it at all.

Ranting aside, I think that focusing on the good in life is great. I think that mindfulness and meditation are great. Credit where credit is due, there is a lot of science backing the idea that people who are rationally positive and who do some sort of mindfulness practice generally do better in life as far as health and happiness are concerned. And professionally, if that’s something that’s important to you.

But then there’s also this: I don’t want to be the fucking dog. YOU be the fucking dog.

Positivity for snide people. That is what I want.

I won’t tell your secrets
Your secrets are safe with me
I will keep your secrets (yes, I will)
Just think of me as the pages in your diary
–Alicia Keys/Diary

Everyone has secrets.
Even people who are open books.

I would never read a partner’s mail, emails, text messages. Not because I don’t think he has secrets, but because everyone does. I would be angry if I discovered someone was reading mine. Hell, I wouldn’t be thrilled even if he asked first.

It gets slippery with all of the phones and other mobile devices. Where I draw the line personally is if a device is face up on a table and beeps or buzzes and I look at it and see a message, that’s OK.

So, if his phone beeped, and it was sitting out and he was in the other room or outside, I would pick it up to see who called and bring him the phone to be polite, but it would never occur to me to just browse through his phone looking for…evidence of something. Well, OK. It might occur to me, but I would never do it.

It would be like opening a letter. I just wouldn’t open someone else’s mail no matter how girly the stationary or handwriting was. I might feel compelled to text him and tease a little about it though.

If you look through even the most trustworthy person’s email or messages you will find something. Maybe they were complaining about the bad mood you were in to their friend on Facebook. Perhaps they texted someone about how hot the new guy at work is. Maybe they said something about the hideous sweater you won’t throw away. My point? Go looking, and maybe you deserve to see what you find.

As a person who has some issues around trust, I empathize.

On the other hand, everyone has a level of mistrust that they can accept from a partner. Some people have no trouble sharing passwords to everything. Others would never dream of giving their email or bank or facebook password to their lover. (Waves, hi. That’s me)

Some people are OK with a jealous lover forbidding them to ever see friends they might consider as rivals. Others would never tolerate it. Some people are even polyamorous, which has got to be a complicated way to live.

Me? A little jealousy is fine. Good, even. Enough to feel like I belong to somebody romantically. Not so much that I can’t go and have a drink with a male friend.

If I said “hey, my ex asked me to go camping with him for 4 days” I would really hope I would get a displeased frown as a response before before saying “I’ m not going!”

It’s not that there is a right or wrong answer, but the level has to be mutually agreed upon.

Oh hell. I was supposed to be writing about secrets.

Well, it’s a long walk back. I guess I will just have to stay.
How did I get over here in Jealousy?

In fat camp, and I should probably stop referring to it as that–it isn’t descriptive of what it’s about in any remotely accurate way, and it does sort of reduce the experience to a joke. Which it isn’t.

What it is, really, is about coming to terms with being able to make choices over the course of your life that enhance it. The focus is health and weight, but the lesson is really that to manage your weight you kind of need to manage your life.

Anyway, the tools are the same.

Mindfulness, stress management, exercise and good choices. Blah, blah, blah. Balance.

Oh, I didn’t exactly finish the first sentence. Wow. Sloppy. Moving on.

One of the things they are trying to instill in us is to stop associating what we eat with the concept of good and bad. Cake is not inherently bad. Bourbon either. Eating high calorie foods is not inherently bad. People who overheat high calorie foods and get fat are not inherently bad.

Bad choices do not equal bad people.

We are discouraged from saying things like “I was so bad last night–I ate a whole bag of potato chips for dinner instead of organic oven-roasted eggplant with kale.” If the instructor hears us using the word bad in that context, she’s likely to ask us if we killed a puppy or staged a terrorist attack or if we just ate too much. It’s an important distinction. It seems like it would be obvious, doesn’t it?

The idea is that everyone will sometimes make choices that are imperfect. People who are successful at long term weight management learn to pay attention, not get upset about a one time failure, and go back to their path without self-hate. If you make mostly good choices, things work out.

Yes, it does also apply to life in general. You are catching on very quickly.

Fat camp is about living your life.

One of the things we talked about was being kinder to yourself. Negative and positive self talk. Both expressions make me want to puke, but it’s the terms, not the concepts. The concepts are good.

In one class, someone said that if our friends talked to us the way we talk to ourselves, they wouldn’t be our friends for long. It made sense, but it just sort of went in one ear and fell on the floor on the other side.

One of the steps the class recommended was to find a personal mantra and I struggled with it. For a couple of reasons. For one thing–jargon. Mantra and positive affirmation are both terms that are over employed. In my opinion, of course. Also, the sheer positivity of it for this cynic was a challenge. Positive affirmations don’t sound like ME, they sound like Stuart Smalley. Who the fuck wants to sound like that? More importantly, who wants to listen to that? Not me.

The first ones that came to mind were “get over yourself, jeez” and “stop being such a self centered dumbass” which were nixed by the class. I eventually settled on “give yourself a fucking break” which is effective in that at least it sounds believable. The class was not convinced, but shortly after I showed them a blog about the benefits of using profanity in a daily affirmation and told them all to fuck off. OK, not the second part. We aren’t allowed to swear in fat camp.

Anyway.

It didn’t really click with me until something happened at work. I did something a little bit dumb. Something minor. I don’t even remember what it was, but I was obsessing about it. I had gone to the ladies room, and as I washed my hands I looked in the mirror and said “You are such a fucking dumbass” to myself and when I heard myself say it, I suddenly I got it. I really heard it.

I call myself names all the fucking time. And I mean it. How can you try to be positive and give yourself that kind of feedback? Hint: you can’t. I finally recognized, really, that I was not doing myself a favor by treating myself like shit. I deserve the same sort of kindness I would provide to a friend. I normally don’t swear at my friends and call them dumbasses unless they’ve done something horrifically stupid.

So I started paying attention. It was not easy. It was more than a little sad. It’s improving. But I have to really stay on it. Isn’t it weird that my default opinion about myself would be that I suck?

I’ve never sucked at anything. Ever. Except eating.

Do you think maybe I could give myself a fucking break about it, and acknowledge that I am trying?

(That was it there. Way to go, me)

Weight management and life in general are about learning to make mistakes, self correct and move on. Move on being the key phrase. Yeah. Letting go is something I am working on. Still. Always. Just ask my boyfriend from the ninth grade. I am good at grudges, but learning to forgive though. It’s getting better. I’m mostly still having trouble with the grudges against myself at this point.

We are nearing the end of the 6 month class, and the psychologist asked us about our future goals, and I mentioned how I am trying to do more things that scare me. Like what? They asked. Like talking to people, I said.

Puzzled look.

“I’m introverted,” I clarify.

Eyebrows raise in the room.
“I am! But not at work,” I clarify again.

“Ohhhh.” They say.
What else?

“Socializing more.”

More puzzled looks.
“Didn’t you just mention that you were wiped out from too much partying?”

“I’ve been doing well at some of my goals, at least. And partying is tiring for me mentally. I’m an introvert. Can you call it a success if I socialized and just forget about the complete dietary and health failure of the weekend?”

For the last class, the psychologist would like us to think about our life values or our priorities in living. I’m kind of stuck, because I’m supposed to list them, I don’t really think I have any. In class, I could only think of things that aren’t important to me. Prestige. Money. Flat abs. I couldn’t think of anything I valued. People, yes.

I guess there are some obvious ones. Love. Sex. Time. Companionship. Independence/self-reliance. Respect. Laughter. Creativity.

Maybe I am not as stuck as I thought.

Thanks for the help! Talking to you always helps clear things up.