Re: Feeling more compassionate

[Guest guest]

Josie... That was so great to read and thank you! IE has taught us so many

things, but what you have learned (and now shared today) is big. The compassion

and understanding you gave to your co-worker is wonderful and I believe that

over time you will get some of your co-workers to " understand " (by your actions

and example) that it is just not as simple as they think and that there is

usually a lot of pain residing in our overweight bodies. I believe that this

understanding and compassion is also a reflection of the way you are loving and

being kind to yourself that will, for sure, translate to great things on your IE

path.

You rock!

Deb

>

> Had an interesting experience at work today.

>

> Was talking with a colleague about a member of our staff. She is fairly heavy

and has gotten moreso in recent months. This employee has some restrictions on

her physical work due to a six-year-old workman's comp claim and we question

whether these restrictions are still valid as when she's not working she seems

to be able to do all the things she's restricted from doing at work. Though she

also had knee surgery last year and clearly has some mobility issues related to

her knee, she has never provided any indication from a doctor that this should

restrict her work.

>

> So here's where the interesting part comes in. As we were discussing the

situation, my colleague (who is not particularly thin herself, mind you)

starting talking about why this person shouldn't have to take any responsibility

for her own health, when clearly, her increasing weight was making her knee

worse and affecting her ability to work. And how it wasn't right that the rest

of us had to pay for someone who was basically making herself incapacitated at a

relatively young age.

>

> Now, I have been known to be judgmental in my time and when I was being

particularly " good " on my diet and spending hours preparing a week's worth of

low calorie nutritionally perfect meals and dragging myself out of bed at 4:00

am, no matter how exhausted I was, to struggle through a work out, I admit, I

would have been on that bandwagon. I can see myself saying yes, of course it's

hard, but anyone can do it if they *really* want to. It just takes effort and

willpower and discipline. She clearly hasn't made her health a priority!

>

> Argh! How awful is that??

>

> Now, after almost three months of IE and doing a lot of reading about all the

ways we use food as a coping mechanism, I just can't see myself being so

judgmental of others when it comes to weight anymore. It's SO much more

complicated than I was ever willing to admit before and as a result, I can't

criticize her. And even though I really do think she is taking unnecessary

advantage of the workman's comp thing, I do know that the knee injury is valid

and I also know she's currently caring for a seriously ill parent, which is

almost certainly a factor in her recent weight gain.

>

> Although I probably never would have done so in the past, this time I said

something to my co-worker. She was going on and on about how this person should

just be able to " push through " a diet and that she should be eating better and

exercising more. And I just told her that losing weight is really not that

simple. We don't know whether she's tried or not. We can't judge her. To

which she replied, it is simple, eat less and exercise more. And I was like,

sure, simple in theory, but hard as hell in practice. If over 60 percent of the

country are overweight or obese, are you saying we're all just weak-willed and

don't care about our health? That made her pause, though only for a second. At

that point, I told her about IE and that I was doing it and how much more

complicated this was than I'd realized before. And that was probably a mistake

because she clearly didn't think much of IE and when I spoke of some of my

struggles with emotional eating, she told me I was just " overthinking " things

and had to get over it.

>

> Ok, whatever.....

>

> All in all, I wasn't upset by this, I just think it was really interesting.

To see my co-worker spouting the same ideas that I have said myself in the past,

and realizing how quickly we judge others and feeling how wrong that is. Mind

you, I'm not saying I'm now perfect in this, either. I still have my

judgments. For example, I really struggle with the whole idea of the thin

person with bad body image feeling as bad about herself as the heavy person.

That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. How can they feel as bad as I do when

the rest of the world views her as perfect and me as the loser? Or when she can

shop at any store and doesn't have to worry if she'll fit on the ride at the

amusement park or in the airline seat?

>

> But today made me realize that I need to work on this because I know I don't

want someone looking at me and accusing me of not caring about my health because

of my size when I've done nothing *but* diet for over 30 years, to the point of

almost making myself insane because of it! So how on earth can I do that to

anyone else? We really know very little about others' struggles. I doubt that

there's one person in my life, not even my very best friend, who would guess how

much I've hated my body all my life or how much it has affected my self-esteem.

So who knows what this poor woman has been through? I'm not going to add to

whatever that may be by criticizing her for something that is probably the

farthest thing from the truth.

>

> I think IE has really helped me understand this in a way I never have before.

If I get nothing else from it, that's probably a pretty good thing.

>

> Josie

>

[Guest guest]

Thank you, Josie- That was really inspiring and insightful. I'm glad you shared

it.

I don't think any of us are usually truly attuned to the amount of time

(conscious or unconscious)we spend judging others in any capacity. And it

doesn't make us cruel- it's usually just a lack of understanding or something we

do when we feel horrible about ourselves. But being aware, the way you are

becoming, is really wonderful. I have found myself becoming more aware of my

own judgments since IE and can only imagine how often those people who have NO

understanding of food and weight issues must judge incessantly!

I am definitely going to become more conscious of this in my own life.

Jen

>

> Had an interesting experience at work today.

>

> Was talking with a colleague about a member of our staff. She is fairly heavy

and has gotten moreso in recent months. This employee has some restrictions on

her physical work due to a six-year-old workman's comp claim and we question

whether these restrictions are still valid as when she's not working she seems

to be able to do all the things she's restricted from doing at work. Though she

also had knee surgery last year and clearly has some mobility issues related to

her knee, she has never provided any indication from a doctor that this should

restrict her work.

>

> So here's where the interesting part comes in. As we were discussing the

situation, my colleague (who is not particularly thin herself, mind you)

starting talking about why this person shouldn't have to take any responsibility

for her own health, when clearly, her increasing weight was making her knee

worse and affecting her ability to work. And how it wasn't right that the rest

of us had to pay for someone who was basically making herself incapacitated at a

relatively young age.

>

> Now, I have been known to be judgmental in my time and when I was being

particularly " good " on my diet and spending hours preparing a week's worth of

low calorie nutritionally perfect meals and dragging myself out of bed at 4:00

am, no matter how exhausted I was, to struggle through a work out, I admit, I

would have been on that bandwagon. I can see myself saying yes, of course it's

hard, but anyone can do it if they *really* want to. It just takes effort and

willpower and discipline. She clearly hasn't made her health a priority!

>

> Argh! How awful is that??

>

> Now, after almost three months of IE and doing a lot of reading about all the

ways we use food as a coping mechanism, I just can't see myself being so

judgmental of others when it comes to weight anymore. It's SO much more

complicated than I was ever willing to admit before and as a result, I can't

criticize her. And even though I really do think she is taking unnecessary

advantage of the workman's comp thing, I do know that the knee injury is valid

and I also know she's currently caring for a seriously ill parent, which is

almost certainly a factor in her recent weight gain.

>

> Although I probably never would have done so in the past, this time I said

something to my co-worker. She was going on and on about how this person should

just be able to " push through " a diet and that she should be eating better and

exercising more. And I just told her that losing weight is really not that

simple. We don't know whether she's tried or not. We can't judge her. To

which she replied, it is simple, eat less and exercise more. And I was like,

sure, simple in theory, but hard as hell in practice. If over 60 percent of the

country are overweight or obese, are you saying we're all just weak-willed and

don't care about our health? That made her pause, though only for a second. At

that point, I told her about IE and that I was doing it and how much more

complicated this was than I'd realized before. And that was probably a mistake

because she clearly didn't think much of IE and when I spoke of some of my

struggles with emotional eating, she told me I was just " overthinking " things

and had to get over it.

>

> Ok, whatever.....

>

> All in all, I wasn't upset by this, I just think it was really interesting.

To see my co-worker spouting the same ideas that I have said myself in the past,

and realizing how quickly we judge others and feeling how wrong that is. Mind

you, I'm not saying I'm now perfect in this, either. I still have my

judgments. For example, I really struggle with the whole idea of the thin

person with bad body image feeling as bad about herself as the heavy person.

That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. How can they feel as bad as I do when

the rest of the world views her as perfect and me as the loser? Or when she can

shop at any store and doesn't have to worry if she'll fit on the ride at the

amusement park or in the airline seat?

>

> But today made me realize that I need to work on this because I know I don't

want someone looking at me and accusing me of not caring about my health because

of my size when I've done nothing *but* diet for over 30 years, to the point of

almost making myself insane because of it! So how on earth can I do that to

anyone else? We really know very little about others' struggles. I doubt that

there's one person in my life, not even my very best friend, who would guess how

much I've hated my body all my life or how much it has affected my self-esteem.

So who knows what this poor woman has been through? I'm not going to add to

whatever that may be by criticizing her for something that is probably the

farthest thing from the truth.

>

> I think IE has really helped me understand this in a way I never have before.

If I get nothing else from it, that's probably a pretty good thing.

>

> Josie

>

[Guest guest]

Hi, Josie,

So many good things to mull over in your post! I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was finding myself feeling more compassionate, too, about overweight people. It is of course is astounding that I could have felt so intolerant before, because I myself was/am overweight. I do think I "enjoyed" criticizing overweight people because if I could get others to join me in it, it was some sort of validation that I at least wasn't *that* bad. Since doing IE, though, I've been finding myself making a point of smiling at, greeting, or talking with overweight people because I do feel more compassion toward them. And now I realize it's in part because I feel more compassion for myself. I hadn't considered, though, that part of it, too, was that I had no tolerance for their "weakness" because I had no tolerance for it in myself, which is another part of the self-compassion. But you're right. Before IE, I was big into cracking the whip on myself whenever I could, and so I was intolerant (and resentful?) of anyone else who couldn't/wouldn't do the same.

My boss's wife and the VP of our company is my immediate supervisor. She herself has struggled with weight--when I first joined the company she was on Phen-phen and lost weight successfully for the first time in her life. She was so delighted with the drug that she was trying to hoard some after it was taken off the market for being associated with serious heart damage! She managed to keep the weight off by then becoming a bigtime food cop, commenting on everyone's lunch or snack items, but she wasn't above raiding other people's snack hoards when she wanted something sweet. Anyway, in our weekly meetings (just she and I), she often tries to involve me in trash-talk about a morbidly obese employee who is offsite. I'm ashamed to say I used to halfheartedly join in, saying "what a shame" it was that this woman wasn't taking better care of herself, which is just another way of gossiping under the guise of compassion. The last several times the VP brought this up, though, I have simply said I feel compassion for this person because we all know how hard it is to lose weight. The subject then gets dropped.

Another part of the equasion for me is that I'm letting my emotions run their course, and this means actually facing my own shame and feelings of low self-esteem, which I never let myself face before. And experiencing them lets me feel the connection between myself and other people who struggle with this day by day.

Now, about that thin-women thing: I agree; for me this has been something hard to fathom. But so was depression, which is something about which I used to be unsympathetic ("just snap out of it, for crying out loud! was my attitude, though I never actually *said* that to anyone, thank goodness), until I read Styron's "Darkness Visible," his account of his own depression. I'm having the same experience now about anorexia from reading Caroline Knapp's "Appetites: Why Women Want."

There's something excruciatingly sad about a woman who is too thin, i.e., not even anorexic-rail-thin, but just the culture's current ideal of beautiful, when her natural weight is more than that, who still thinks that she isn't good enough. That is PROOF that the weight has nothing to do with this. It's just the current bludgeon we willingly adopt to keep ourselves from facing the complexities of a fully realized, significant life. Knapp puts it this way:

"The formidable social and personal questions that might plague a woman (how to be in the world, how much space to occupy, where to direct her energy, how much to demand for herself) are reframed, minimized, broken down into small, individual questions, palatable bites: how the jeans look, what to order for lunch. You can't worry about Appetite (joy, passion, lust, hunger) when you're worrying about appetite (frosting, fat grams)."

I have a friend whom I love deeply: She's bright (PhD in English literature PLUS a law degree), talented (published author and amazing needlepointer, and health researcher), and a loving, caring person. She's also had two major health threats lately (double mastectomy for breast cancer and double hip replacement), and she got hooked on that damned cookie diet when she was losing weight before her hip replacement. She and her husband (equally bright and talented and lovely person) keep going back on the diet to shave off weight to keep getting back to their cookie-diet-lowest weights, even though her doctor told her he thought she'd maybe gone too far, and she thought her husband had gone too far. But they are STUCK in the obsession to be that illusive too-low weight. She keeps telling me that she and her husband are (big sigh) back on the diet and (big sigh) when they get off maybe she can try the wonderful recipe I shared with her for an avocado dressing. When I ask her why she does this, she mentions all the beautiful clothes she bought when she was at her lowest, and how she really wants to fit back into them again. Which of course is telling: if she'd bought herself some beautiful clothes at her natural weight she'd have been honoring *that* state, but instead she only validates with beautiful clothes an unnaturally low weight, one that she can only maintain by constantly eating only fake, unpalatable food until dinner, and then eating 6 ounces of lean protein and low-carb veggies for dinner: no frills.

Before IE I was pretty impatient with her fretting about losing those last five pounds again. Now I see it as the same struggle I'm trying to escape. We are *all* in this together. There's this ideal of "the blessed community," something that Luther King espoused in the civil rights movement, and something that I think we in the IE movement would do well to embrace: None of us can thrive until all of us can thrive.

Thanks, Josie, for a great post. Sorry I've gone on so long, but you really got me thinking.

Laurie

Feeling more compassionate

Had an interesting experience at work today.

Was talking with a colleague about a member of our staff. She is fairly heavy and has gotten moreso in recent months. This employee has some restrictions on her physical work due to a six-year-old workman's comp claim and we question whether these restrictions are still valid as when she's not working she seems to be able to do all the things she's restricted from doing at work. Though she also had knee surgery last year and clearly has some mobility issues related to her knee, she has never provided any indication from a doctor that this should restrict her work.

So here's where the interesting part comes in. As we were discussing the situation, my colleague (who is not particularly thin herself, mind you) starting talking about why this person shouldn't have to take any responsibility for her own health, when clearly, her increasing weight was making her knee worse and affecting her ability to work. And how it wasn't right that the rest of us had to pay for someone who was basically making herself incapacitated at a relatively young age.

Now, I have been known to be judgmental in my time and when I was being particularly "good" on my diet and spending hours preparing a week's worth of low calorie nutritionally perfect meals and dragging myself out of bed at 4:00 am, no matter how exhausted I was, to struggle through a work out, I admit, I would have been on that bandwagon. I can see myself saying yes, of course it's hard, but anyone can do it if they *really* want to. It just takes effort and willpower and discipline. She clearly hasn't made her health a priority!

Argh! How awful is that??

Now, after almost three months of IE and doing a lot of reading about all the ways we use food as a coping mechanism, I just can't see myself being so judgmental of others when it comes to weight anymore. It's SO much more complicated than I was ever willing to admit before and as a result, I can't criticize her. And even though I really do think she is taking unnecessary advantage of the workman's comp thing, I do know that the knee injury is valid and I also know she's currently caring for a seriously ill parent, which is almost certainly a factor in her recent weight gain.

Although I probably never would have done so in the past, this time I said something to my co-worker. She was going on and on about how this person should just be able to "push through" a diet and that she should be eating better and exercising more. And I just told her that losing weight is really not that simple. We don't know whether she's tried or not. We can't judge her. To which she replied, it is simple, eat less and exercise more. And I was like, sure, simple in theory, but hard as hell in practice. If over 60 percent of the country are overweight or obese, are you saying we're all just weak-willed and don't care about our health? That made her pause, though only for a second. At that point, I told her about IE and that I was doing it and how much more complicated this was than I'd realized before. And that was probably a mistake because she clearly didn't think much of IE and when I spoke of some of my struggles with emotional eating, she told me I was just "overthinking" things and had to get over it.

Ok, whatever.....

All in all, I wasn't upset by this, I just think it was really interesting. To see my co-worker spouting the same ideas that I have said myself in the past, and realizing how quickly we judge others and feeling how wrong that is. Mind you, I'm not saying I'm now perfect in this, either. I still have my judgments. For example, I really struggle with the whole idea of the thin person with bad body image feeling as bad about herself as the heavy person. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. How can they feel as bad as I do when the rest of the world views her as perfect and me as the loser? Or when she can shop at any store and doesn't have to worry if she'll fit on the ride at the amusement park or in the airline seat?

But today made me realize that I need to work on this because I know I don't want someone looking at me and accusing me of not caring about my health because of my size when I've done nothing *but* diet for over 30 years, to the point of almost making myself insane because of it! So how on earth can I do that to anyone else? We really know very little about others' struggles. I doubt that there's one person in my life, not even my very best friend, who would guess how much I've hated my body all my life or how much it has affected my self-esteem. So who knows what this poor woman has been through? I'm not going to add to whatever that may be by criticizing her for something that is probably the farthest thing from the truth.

I think IE has really helped me understand this in a way I never have before. If I get nothing else from it, that's probably a pretty good thing.

Josie

[Guest guest]

avocada dressing??? That sounds wonderful!  Do you /would you share the recipe?Just my asking you about the recipe is huge!  Before I would have thought " there is no way I can eat that...must be too fatty. "

Sue

 

Hi, Josie,

 

So many good things to mull over in your post! I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was finding myself feeling more compassionate, too, about overweight people. It is of course is astounding that I could have felt so intolerant before, because I myself was/am overweight. I do think I " enjoyed " criticizing overweight people because if I could get others to join me in it, it was some sort of validation that I at least wasn't *that* bad. Since doing IE, though, I've been finding myself making a point of smiling at, greeting, or talking with overweight people because I do feel more compassion toward them. And now I realize it's in part because I feel more compassion for myself. I hadn't considered, though, that part of it, too, was that I had no tolerance for their " weakness " because I had no tolerance for it in myself, which is another part of the self-compassion. But you're right. Before IE, I was big into cracking the whip on myself whenever I could, and so I was intolerant (and resentful?) of anyone else who couldn't/wouldn't do the same.

 

My boss's wife and the VP of our company is my immediate supervisor. She herself has struggled with weight--when I first joined the company she was on Phen-phen and lost weight successfully for the first time in her life. She was so delighted with the drug that she was trying to hoard some after it was taken off the market for being associated with serious heart damage! She managed to keep the weight off by then becoming a bigtime food cop, commenting on everyone's lunch or snack items, but she wasn't above raiding other people's snack hoards when she wanted something sweet. Anyway, in our weekly meetings (just she and I), she often tries to involve me in trash-talk about a morbidly obese employee who is offsite. I'm ashamed to say I used to halfheartedly join in, saying " what a shame " it was that this woman wasn't taking better care of herself, which is just another way of gossiping under the guise of compassion. The last several times the VP brought this up, though, I have simply said I feel compassion for this person because we all know how hard it is to lose weight. The subject then gets dropped.

 

Another part of the equasion for me is that I'm letting my emotions run their course, and this means actually facing my own shame and feelings of low self-esteem, which I never let myself face before. And experiencing them lets me feel the connection between myself and other people who struggle with this day by day.

 

Now, about that thin-women thing: I agree; for me this has been something hard to fathom. But so was depression, which is something about which I used to be unsympathetic ( " just snap out of it, for crying out loud! was my attitude, though I never actually *said* that to anyone, thank goodness), until I read Styron's " Darkness Visible, " his account of his own depression. I'm having the same experience now about anorexia from reading Caroline Knapp's " Appetites: Why Women Want. "

 

There's something excruciatingly sad about a woman who is too thin, i.e., not even anorexic-rail-thin, but just the culture's current ideal of beautiful, when her natural weight is more than that, who still thinks that she isn't good enough. That is PROOF that the weight has nothing to do with this. It's just the current bludgeon we willingly adopt to keep ourselves from facing the complexities of a fully realized, significant life. Knapp puts it this way:

 

" The formidable social and personal questions that might plague a woman (how to be in the world, how much space to occupy, where to direct her energy, how much to demand for herself) are reframed, minimized, broken down into small, individual questions, palatable bites: how the jeans look, what to order for lunch. You can't worry about Appetite (joy, passion, lust, hunger) when you're worrying about appetite (frosting, fat grams). "

 

I have a friend whom I love deeply: She's bright (PhD in English literature PLUS a law degree), talented (published author and amazing needlepointer, and health researcher), and a loving, caring person. She's also had two major health threats lately (double mastectomy for breast cancer and double hip replacement), and she got hooked on that damned cookie diet when she was losing weight before her hip replacement. She and her husband (equally bright and talented and lovely person) keep going back on the diet to shave off weight to keep getting back to their cookie-diet-lowest weights, even though her doctor told her he thought she'd maybe gone too far, and she thought her husband had gone too far. But they are STUCK in the obsession to be that illusive too-low weight. She keeps telling me that she and her husband are (big sigh) back on the diet and (big sigh) when they get off maybe she can try the wonderful recipe I shared with her for an avocado dressing. When I ask her why she does this, she mentions all the beautiful clothes she bought when she was at her lowest, and how she really wants to fit back into them again. Which of course is telling: if she'd bought herself some beautiful clothes at her natural weight she'd have been honoring *that* state, but instead she only validates with beautiful clothes an unnaturally low weight, one that she can only maintain by constantly eating only fake, unpalatable food until dinner, and then eating 6 ounces of lean protein and low-carb veggies for dinner: no frills.

 

Before IE I was pretty impatient with her fretting about losing those last five pounds again. Now I see it as the same struggle I'm trying to escape. We are *all* in this together. There's this ideal of " the blessed community, " something that Luther King espoused in the civil rights movement, and something that I think we in the IE movement would do well to embrace: None of us can thrive until all of us can thrive.

 

Thanks, Josie, for a great post. Sorry I've gone on so long, but you really got me thinking.

 

Laurie

Feeling more compassionate

 

Had an interesting experience at work today.

Was talking with a colleague about a member of our staff. She is fairly heavy and has gotten moreso in recent months. This employee has some restrictions on her physical work due to a six-year-old workman's comp claim and we question whether these restrictions are still valid as when she's not working she seems to be able to do all the things she's restricted from doing at work. Though she also had knee surgery last year and clearly has some mobility issues related to her knee, she has never provided any indication from a doctor that this should restrict her work.

So here's where the interesting part comes in. As we were discussing the situation, my colleague (who is not particularly thin herself, mind you) starting talking about why this person shouldn't have to take any responsibility for her own health, when clearly, her increasing weight was making her knee worse and affecting her ability to work. And how it wasn't right that the rest of us had to pay for someone who was basically making herself incapacitated at a relatively young age.

Now, I have been known to be judgmental in my time and when I was being particularly " good " on my diet and spending hours preparing a week's worth of low calorie nutritionally perfect meals and dragging myself out of bed at 4:00 am, no matter how exhausted I was, to struggle through a work out, I admit, I would have been on that bandwagon. I can see myself saying yes, of course it's hard, but anyone can do it if they *really* want to. It just takes effort and willpower and discipline. She clearly hasn't made her health a priority!

Argh! How awful is that??

Now, after almost three months of IE and doing a lot of reading about all the ways we use food as a coping mechanism, I just can't see myself being so judgmental of others when it comes to weight anymore. It's SO much more complicated than I was ever willing to admit before and as a result, I can't criticize her. And even though I really do think she is taking unnecessary advantage of the workman's comp thing, I do know that the knee injury is valid and I also know she's currently caring for a seriously ill parent, which is almost certainly a factor in her recent weight gain.

Although I probably never would have done so in the past, this time I said something to my co-worker. She was going on and on about how this person should just be able to " push through " a diet and that she should be eating better and exercising more. And I just told her that losing weight is really not that simple. We don't know whether she's tried or not. We can't judge her. To which she replied, it is simple, eat less and exercise more. And I was like, sure, simple in theory, but hard as hell in practice. If over 60 percent of the country are overweight or obese, are you saying we're all just weak-willed and don't care about our health? That made her pause, though only for a second. At that point, I told her about IE and that I was doing it and how much more complicated this was than I'd realized before. And that was probably a mistake because she clearly didn't think much of IE and when I spoke of some of my struggles with emotional eating, she told me I was just " overthinking " things and had to get over it.

Ok, whatever.....

All in all, I wasn't upset by this, I just think it was really interesting. To see my co-worker spouting the same ideas that I have said myself in the past, and realizing how quickly we judge others and feeling how wrong that is. Mind you, I'm not saying I'm now perfect in this, either. I still have my judgments. For example, I really struggle with the whole idea of the thin person with bad body image feeling as bad about herself as the heavy person. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. How can they feel as bad as I do when the rest of the world views her as perfect and me as the loser? Or when she can shop at any store and doesn't have to worry if she'll fit on the ride at the amusement park or in the airline seat?

But today made me realize that I need to work on this because I know I don't want someone looking at me and accusing me of not caring about my health because of my size when I've done nothing *but* diet for over 30 years, to the point of almost making myself insane because of it! So how on earth can I do that to anyone else? We really know very little about others' struggles. I doubt that there's one person in my life, not even my very best friend, who would guess how much I've hated my body all my life or how much it has affected my self-esteem. So who knows what this poor woman has been through? I'm not going to add to whatever that may be by criticizing her for something that is probably the farthest thing from the truth.

I think IE has really helped me understand this in a way I never have before. If I get nothing else from it, that's probably a pretty good thing.

Josie

-- Sue on FritzCheck out my blogs at: http://alifeofbooks.blogspot.com/http://suesresearch.blogspot.com

http://suesretirementmusings.blogspot.com/Check out my books on Goodreads: <

[Guest guest]

>

>

> I do think I " enjoyed " criticizing overweight people because if I could get

others to join me in it, it was some sort of validation that I at least wasn't

*that* bad.

Yes, I think you've hit the nail on the head, here. I think that as long as I

could show others that I was working hard to lose weight (even if I never did!)

then I wasn't one of those " bad " fat people.

> And now I realize it's in part because I feel more compassion for myself. I

hadn't considered, though, that part of it, too, was that I had no tolerance for

their " weakness " because I had no tolerance for it in myself, which is another

part of the self-compassion.

This is very interesting. I hadn't ever considered that I might be changing

because I am now more compassionate toward myself. I like this idea.

>But you're right. Before IE, I was big into cracking the whip on myself

whenever I could, and so I was intolerant (and resentful?) of anyone else who

couldn't/wouldn't do the same.

Yeah, ditto again. I can totally see this. If I had to suffer, why shouldn't

every fat person have to suffer the same?

> Now, about that thin-women thing: I agree; for me this has been something hard

to fathom.

> Before IE I was pretty impatient with her fretting about losing those last

five pounds again. Now I see it as the same struggle I'm trying to escape. We

are *all* in this together. There's this ideal of " the blessed community, "

something that Luther King espoused in the civil rights movement, and

something that I think we in the IE movement would do well to embrace: None of

us can thrive until all of us can thrive.

>

Yes, I do still struggle with this one. And interesting that you also mention

depression because two of my very best friends suffer from such severe clinical

depression that we barely have contact with each other anymore and I have seen

what a devastating impact it has had on their lives. It's so interesting the

many ways we create a hell for ourselves inside our own heads! I still don't

fully understand the thin thing and even after years of dealing with my friends'

depression, I don't think I fully appreciate what they go through, either. But

I'm open to trying to understand these things now. And I don't think I ever was

before. And that's a good thing. We could all do with a little more

understanding, in many aspects of our lives, not just our weight!

Great thoughts, Laurie.

Thanks,

Josie

[Guest guest]

Hi, Sue,

The avocado dressing is superb, healthy, and very easy:

Orange-avocado dressing

1 small or 3/4 large avocado

1/2 cup orange juice

3 scallions, trimmed and all but middle chopped

Pulse all together in a food processor and process until smooth. Tastes fabulous! Nice and green!

I sometimes cut back on the scallions if they are large ones. You don't want it an overwhelming onion-y taste (or aftertaste). I'm thinking of trying it without the onions for times when I don't want onion-breath. May not work, but worth a try.

It keeps for several days in the refrigerator. Also good on fish, chicken (or even "neat," by the spoonful, LOL).

Enjoy!

Laurie

Feeling more compassionate

Had an interesting experience at work today.

Was talking with a colleague about a member of our staff. She is fairly heavy and has gotten moreso in recent months. This employee has some restrictions on her physical work due to a six-year-old workman's comp claim and we question whether these restrictions are still valid as when she's not working she seems to be able to do all the things she's restricted from doing at work. Though she also had knee surgery last year and clearly has some mobility issues related to her knee, she has never provided any indication from a doctor that this should restrict her work.

So here's where the interesting part comes in. As we were discussing the situation, my colleague (who is not particularly thin herself, mind you) starting talking about why this person shouldn't have to take any responsibility for her own health, when clearly, her increasing weight was making her knee worse and affecting her ability to work. And how it wasn't right that the rest of us had to pay for someone who was basically making herself incapacitated at a relatively young age.

Now, I have been known to be judgmental in my time and when I was being particularly "good" on my diet and spending hours preparing a week's worth of low calorie nutritionally perfect meals and dragging myself out of bed at 4:00 am, no matter how exhausted I was, to struggle through a work out, I admit, I would have been on that bandwagon. I can see myself saying yes, of course it's hard, but anyone can do it if they *really* want to. It just takes effort and willpower and discipline. She clearly hasn't made her health a priority!

Argh! How awful is that??

Now, after almost three months of IE and doing a lot of reading about all the ways we use food as a coping mechanism, I just can't see myself being so judgmental of others when it comes to weight anymore. It's SO much more complicated than I was ever willing to admit before and as a result, I can't criticize her. And even though I really do think she is taking unnecessary advantage of the workman's comp thing, I do know that the knee injury is valid and I also know she's currently caring for a seriously ill parent, which is almost certainly a factor in her recent weight gain.

Although I probably never would have done so in the past, this time I said something to my co-worker. She was going on and on about how this person should just be able to "push through" a diet and that she should be eating better and exercising more. And I just told her that losing weight is really not that simple. We don't know whether she's tried or not. We can't judge her. To which she replied, it is simple, eat less and exercise more. And I was like, sure, simple in theory, but hard as hell in practice. If over 60 percent of the country are overweight or obese, are you saying we're all just weak-willed and don't care about our health? That made her pause, though only for a second. At that point, I told her about IE and that I was doing it and how much more complicated this was than I'd realized before. And that was probably a mistake because she clearly didn't think much of IE and when I spoke of some of my struggles with emotional eating, she told me I was just "overthinking" things and had to get over it.

Ok, whatever.....

All in all, I wasn't upset by this, I just think it was really interesting. To see my co-worker spouting the same ideas that I have said myself in the past, and realizing how quickly we judge others and feeling how wrong that is. Mind you, I'm not saying I'm now perfect in this, either. I still have my judgments. For example, I really struggle with the whole idea of the thin person with bad body image feeling as bad about herself as the heavy person. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. How can they feel as bad as I do when the rest of the world views her as perfect and me as the loser? Or when she can shop at any store and doesn't have to worry if she'll fit on the ride at the amusement park or in the airline seat?

But today made me realize that I need to work on this because I know I don't want someone looking at me and accusing me of not caring about my health because of my size when I've done nothing *but* diet for over 30 years, to the point of almost making myself insane because of it! So how on earth can I do that to anyone else? We really know very little about others' struggles. I doubt that there's one person in my life, not even my very best friend, who would guess how much I've hated my body all my life or how much it has affected my self-esteem. So who knows what this poor woman has been through? I'm not going to add to whatever that may be by criticizing her for something that is probably the farthest thing from the truth.

I think IE has really helped me understand this in a way I never have before. If I get nothing else from it, that's probably a pretty good thing.

Josie

--

Sue on Fritz

Check out my blogs at: http://alifeofbooks.blogspot.com/

http://suesresearch.blogspot.com

http://suesretirementmusings.blogspot.com/

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[Guest guest]

Thanks, . I know this is my own block and just a huge sign of distorted

thinking, really. I'm so convinced that I'd be happier if I were thinner, that

it's just really hard to understand people who are thinner that aren't

But also, (and I have had this realization before but it really goes to the

heart of so much of what we see in many of the IE books) seeing a thin person

that complains about their weight makes me feel worse about myself. I'm always

standing there thinking that if this person, who's a size 0 (or whatever) thinks

she's fat, then she must think I'm the biggest fattest slob on the planet! So,

yeah, it's really less about that person than it is about how that person's

reaction makes me feel about myself. And it's all still part of the same

disordered thought process.

Thanks for sharing. It's important to hear that we are all suffering from the

same things. Makes you realize how crazy it all is!

Josie

>

> Terrific post, Josie.

>

> I am one of those women you probably call thin. I do understand that my

health isn't compromised by my weight and that many aspects of the world are

easier for me to navigate than if I were significantly heavier.

>

> But still. The food obsession, body hatred, body checking, the restricted

foods, the purging in years past . . . If and when I let those hateful things

go, acres of space will open up in my brain. And spirit.

>

> I don't post here much. But this kind of online community is especially

useful to me. Here I can write about the same struggles, and perhaps be heard.

When I speak to others (in person) about body & food issues, they virtually all

immediately discount my input because I am not fat.

>

> As if how fat we are has any real relation to how much we can hate ourselves.

>