Re: Final message... .Pictures....

[Guest guest]

That's interesting about pictures and perception. I've been horrified of the

pictures my sweetie has been taking of me all summer, and fall, but he keeps

saying, " oh, that's a good picture! " and I've been trying to see what he sees,

and I think it comes down to love. He sees the life and liveliness and smiles,

and doesn't notice the multiple chins and girth, seriously. And I'm trying hard

to be myself in the world. I think about the people I like, or even people I

meet for the first time, and it's certainly not their size that makes me like or

not like them, but how they engage with me. Thinking that you have to be thin

to smile at people and love life and be interested in folks is crazy. Being

thin won't make me happier, really, and I have to let my sweetie take pictures

of me because he wants pictures of me. Weird, but true, I think.....

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> Subject: Re: Final message... .

> To: IntuitiveEating_Support

> Date: Monday, October 17, 2011, 12:46 AM

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> I had a similar experience several months back. In the midst of a very

stressful period where I was eating everything in sight and had pretty much just

tossed IE out the window because I didn't have the emotional energy to deal with

it, I weighed myself expecting to see a gain of at least ten pounds, if not

more. But I hadn't gained a pound. I remember telling my nutritionist how

shocked I was that I hadn't gained because I was so certain I would have, and

she said that when our emotions and hearts are heavy, we often feel that our

bodies are heavy, too. But as we can see, that's not necessarily the case. That

was a revelation for me.

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> As for what you're going through, I get it. It doesn't make sense, but this

process is both easier and harder than dieting for me. There are still days when

I'm hating my body. I had one this week. I had to have head shots taken at my

job because I do public speaking and our officer decided that everyone had to

have professional head shots taken in case we were asked for our photo. I pretty

much run from the camera at every opportunity. I have decades of my life that

have almost no photographic evidence that I existed, so I was not happy about

this. And I hated the photos, even though, I think they probably looked as good

as they could have. But I didn't have a choice. Not surprisingly, I found myself

mindlessly eating handfuls of candy later that afternoon. Hmmmm... coincidence?

I don't think so.

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> Then there are the days when it's easier. The days when I'm not spending every

single second obsessing about food or wolfing down my meager portions of

disgusting diet food that I hate because I'm so frickin' hungry. The days when

I'm not necessarily happy to be stuck in a size 20 body, but when I can

appreciate it for hanging in there with all the abuse I've heaped on it and for

actually being surprisingly strong and healthy in spite of my best efforts to

make it otherwise. Or, the days when I'm shocked to find that I've just pushed

away a half full plate without even thinking about it! Those days are so joyful

to me. I try to hang on to those days and just hope that they'll start to

outnumber the bad days.

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> So hang in there, Sandarah. I think we'll all get there if we can just

persevere. And when we do, it will have been worth the journey.

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> Josie

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> P.S. Hmmm, never read this in high school or college, but think I may need to

read The Iliad and the Odyssey. After all, this journey is no less challenging

than what those ancient Greeks went through, is it?

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