Feeling more compassionate

[Guest guest]

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