Hello Sarah (@kenaz80),

I saw your post earlier this week, and you’ve been in my thoughts. I didn’t have a chance to respond earlier, as I’ve also been busy with photography this week 🙂 There are some thoughts I’d like to share with you that may or may not be something you can relate to. There is a chance that I’m projecting, but I’ll take that chance 🙂

It looks as if you’re kind of stuck in a reactionary situation. You look at a photo of yourself and you react to it by sobbing. I’m not sure what is the exact conversation that you are having with yourself, but I’m guessing that you are essentially telling yourself that you are not good enough compared to other people and you are ashamed of yourself. Then you react to that reaction and make plans to change everything. Then you react to the idea that you would have to change everything.

Considering that strong emotional reactions can feel like having your raw flesh poked, it must be very painful to go through all these thoughts and the reactions to them. When we are in pain, we tend to grab onto anything that we feel can provide us comfort or save us, and all reason goes out the window. As an example, the Saturday night takeout with a movie. You have this idea that it is both the key to your happiness and the reason why you can’t lose weight. Both ideas are false, but it’s difficult to see that from the emotional reactions.

One part of you is grabbing onto the Saturday night takeout as a nurturing moment, and another part is trying to take that nurturing away from you. In reality though, the Saturday night takeout is probably filling some void. Perhaps you’d rather spend that time cuddling with a loving partner, but since that is missing, the dinner and movie will fill that need. Nothing wrong with that, actually, but the point is that the dinner in itself isn’t your source of happiness (and neither is the potential relationship, btw). It’s a way to nurture yourself. If you felt completely accepted, loved and cared for, you would all of a sudden notice that you don’t actually need the takeout (nor the relationship). They’d be a surplus. But for the time being, you need it, and that’s OK. There is no need to take away a security blanket by force and cause depression which will eventually lead to even a stronger need for that security. So have your takeout. Let’s be reasonable here: one takeout per week isn’t going to make you or break you and thinking that it would is silly. The curry night isn’t going to ruin you either. You could easily balance that out by eating slightly less the rest of the week or on that day. But being reasonable is difficult when you’re having a strong emotional reaction to something. It’s understandable.

So what to do? Well, don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s only going to make things more difficult. Instead of violently going from one extreme to another, try to find new ways of nurturing yourself and taking care of yourself, without forcefully taking away the current ways of nurturing. You’ll drop them automagically when it’s time. Self-discipline, or rather maintaining focus as @amatt stated, becomes much, much easier when you’re not constantly in the reactionary mode. You are expending a huge amount of energy on grabbing onto the idea of food as source of happiness, a relationship as source of happiness and a strict diet as a source of salvation and as a key to having a relationship (and happiness). Paradoxically, those things are preventing you from reaching what you want. But like I said, you can’t forcefully take away those dreams, because you would just end up with more emotional reactions.

So find new ways to nurture yourself. Open your heart to other people and spread kindness. Open your heart to yourself and give kindness to yourself! Stop the self-shaming on it’s tracks when it starts. Absolutely, positively, do not use unkind words when you talk to yourself. Those are like poison that go unnoticed, but constantly keep you down when you want to be lifted. If you can’t say something nice to yourself, then don’t say anything. Just do not talk to yourself with harsh words. Don’t feel guilt over food. Food IS a source of enjoyment and it does nurture your body and even the soul. Derive joy from the things that you do and experience. Other people gravitate towards those who make them feel good and are lovely to be with. They don’t gravitate towards those who are a certain size and feel awkward about themselves 😉 Take in the sun and use that energy to radiate joy in your surroundings. Sarah, as one woman to another, your vulnerability and desire to love are great feminine features that drive men wild 🙂

Being genuine and open to other people are much, much more important than your weight. I recently got reminded of this; I went out a week ago and saw some people after a long time. Between then and now, I think I’ve gained around 15kg. I was expecting that perhaps someone might mention that, but I decided to not get defensive or go into hiding, and instead just be myself and spread the joy I was feeling over such a sunny day. Nobody mentioned my weight, and instead I was constantly hugged and shown appreciation and even got rather heavily propositioned by one man (who has interestingly always dated stick thin models). And I must stress that he wanted to start dating, not just have sex. When I was thinner and had a more defensive attitude, there was no shortage of propositions, but they were mostly for sex, and trying to have a relationship was really difficult because I did not love myself and I had a really low self-esteem. It is now starting to be very clear to me how much more important an open heart and an open mind are compared to what kind of body you have. Even the body will look different depending on how you carry it and how much you love it. This self-acceptance then reflects onto others and when you love and accept others, they will feel good and they will want to hang around with you for as long as possible 🙂 I wish I had figured this out a long time ago before all the pain, but perhaps the pain was needed to really understand how love works.

Anyway, I really hope that you can slowly let go of the pain and anguish and fill yourself with love and acceptance. You don’t have to force it, but take baby steps. Every small moment when you don’t give yourself hard time or you feel joie de vivre will accumulate and will eventually allow you to let go of the security blankets 🙂 The world wants to see and experience you, so stop making it so difficult! 🙂

• This reply was modified 10 years, 5 months ago by The Ruminant.