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For Every Decision Maker in the Fashion and Entertainment Industry: *“Hie thee hence, and enter upon thine aft-ward portal with that selfsame, diminutive nether member that doth define thee as pateful namesake!”

7/20/2018

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* Note: Thank you Chris Berthelson for helping me to express myself with aplomb. I do try to avoid the F-word as I believe that it is not only coarse, it has actually lost its power due to a large percentage of people in the last decade or so using it as a filler (the way some people use, "Ah...."). I have mixed feelings about this because I think it might be that Six Feet Under, my favorite television show, started the F-trend. My title is coarse as well, but I think it is beautifully disguised in Old English.

And the cycle continues...

When I had a baby girl, I prayed she would not be born with the family propensity to be "rounded." (I'm referring to my side of the family, not my husband's). Not because I would love her any less if she were to keep her adorable baby fat beyond the age where fat is considered adorable, but because I understand better than most how it feels to be a curvy girl in a society that adores small women.

I grew up in the seventies. It was widely believed that excess body fat was caused only by poor diet and lack of exercise (the obvious implication being that fat people lack willpower and are lazy). In the 80s and 90s, Oprah's show led many to believe it was a psychological or spiritual problem. I must have some unresolved anger or spiritual imbalance!

Currently, body fat is understood to be affected by diet, physical activity, psychology, genetics, quality of sleep, hormones,  consumption of antibiotics (the pink stuff) as a child, food additives and contaminants, some auto-immune disorders, race, hormones, baby formula (Instead of breast milk), and many necessary medications. To me, that all means that body fat percentage is highly complicated, and that scientists truly don't have a clue.

In spite of science's slightly better understanding of obesity, my daughter and her teen-aged peers receive overt and covert messages every day that tell them in no uncertain terms that thinner and smaller is better.

In the chapter, "Do Something About Your Weight" by Carol Schmidt writes:

"A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Women's dieting has become what Yale psychologist Judith Rodin calls a 'normative obsession,' a never-ending passion play given international coverage out of all proportion to the health risks associated with obesity, and using emotive language that does not figure even in discussions of alcohol or tobacco abuse. […] Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women's history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one."
Since the age of seven or eight (when I began to show concerning signs of "roundness") I personally have spent every day of my life thinking about this. I have looked at myself in the mirror with disapproval perhaps hundreds of thousands of times. I have subjected myself to dangerous medications in order to force my brain and body's appetite into submission. I have dieted, fasted on juices, and suffered overuse injuries from too much exercise. In response, some rebellious part of my body and/or brain has often taken over and binged in response.

I was finally able to get off this merry-go-round of misery by happening upon a psychologist who actually knew how to quickly and effectively treat eating disorders. Dr. Joanne Diacogiannis was the sixth (seventh?) eating disorder specialist I sought treatment with. There was no looking for clues of childhood trauma or analyzing my dreams. She just told me what to do and I did it. It worked. Competent eating disorder treatment didn't make me thin, it just made me sans disorder! She understood that the pressure to conform to the thin ideal gave birth to the disorder, and a whole host of resentments against society (but that's another story).

What might I have accomplished in these fifty-two years if I had not given my power to this ludicrous social dictate? I like to think of myself as a reasonably intelligent person, but my young self was no match for the thousands of messages I got from family, friends and non-friends, television, film, and fashion.

Now, with a young one of my own I see the pattern ready to start all over again (in spite of the the body positive movement). And I see my own self-consciousness and lack of self-esteem regarding my body affecting her. And worst of all, I see the depth of her vulnerability about her body size (and as I know you are probably curious, she is a normative weight -- but not "thin"). My first instinct is to help her conform: exercise class, up the vegetables, lower the sugar. Ridiculous. She was born happy, healthy, and with an appetite. Her appetite is not the result of a repressed anger or spiritual imbalance. It just is. And it's fine. What is the alternative to saying it's not fine? A life like mine? Could fighting her own nature possibly work any better for her than for me? I don't think so. I think that the answer is ultimately for my daughter to learn forty years earlier than I did to tell society (including those who would pressure her to lose weight for her health) to, "Hie thee hence, and enter upon thine aft-ward portal with that selfsame, diminutive nether member that doth define thee as pateful namesake!"

I can already hear some of my readers thinking, "But she should be exercising, eating more vegetables, and lowering sugar intake." Well of course. We all should do that, but as a response to dissatisfaction with the size of one's body, it becomes problematic. And for many, it leads us down a path that is far less healthy than if we had never bothered to begin with. I want my child to have a life free of "normative obsession," but I fear it may already be embedded into her young mind.

The thin obsession is deeply ingrained in our society. Seems hopeless? Here's a little something you can to help, and it's easy. Click on Rosalie's name below.

From Rosalie Nelson: I’m a 25 year old model, a clothes size 8. The girl in the picture is me. When I walked into one of the UK’s biggest model agencies last year they told me I ticked all the boxes except one -- I needed to lose weight. So I did. Four months later I lost nearly a stone, 2 inches off my hips. When I returned to the same agency they told me to lose more weight, they wanted me "down to the bone".
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*Schmidt, Carol (1994). Do something about your weight. In Alison M. Jaggar (ed.), Living with Contradictions: Controversies in Feminist Social Ethics. Westview Press. pp. 220--222.

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आध्यात्मिक जागृति  (In English it sounds so... impossible)

7/19/2018

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I have a colleague who described her trip to Peru as "life-changing."

Just at this moment, I don't have the resources to spend thousands of dollars on a women's empowerment trip, yet I have been hoping for something like that -- something that could open me up spiritually, induce spiritual awakening. These last three years I was sinking. My customary approach when I have spiritual, physical, or psychological difficulty of any kind is to blame myself, but this time my instincts tell me not to. I had a job that was literally sucking the life out of me and I believed I had no choice in the matter. I also was unable to see how destructive it was until I left.

The moment I submitted my resignation letter, a process of clear vision and opening-to-spirit took place. I only wish I would have left sooner, but there's no point in regretting what I can't change. My work was not all bad. I did bring some light and humor there, and I believe I helped some really wonderful souls. My contribution was likely not so much to their academic knowledge, but certainly I made some difference psychologically, and maybe even spiritually. There are some beautiful children there who are under a number of dark influences. Their parents are closed off to their own good grace (or as Allison DuBois would say, "[stewing] in their own dark energy"). The children are still attracted to the light, yet it's as if their parents have blindfolded them. They don't do it on purpose; they are just so overwhelmed themselves that they can't help their children open up. Sometimes I think it has something to do with location. Most live in a certain area of the Lehigh Valley that has a heavy energy. I remember reading of a young psychic woman who suffered palpably when she entered a certain geographical area because of an abundance of negative or chaotic energy. I'm not psychic, but I am sensitive to the energy of a neighborhood, or even a single room. Something just isn't quite right about that area.

The wonderful thing is that as soon as I made a decision to leave, my world opened up. I had been feeling unwell in a number of ways. Is there one word that means physical, psychological, and spiritual? I can't find one, so I'll make up my own word in the meantime: sphyirological (sp = spirit  phy = physical p and ological = psychological).

So, I had been feeling sphyirologically weaker since September of 2014 when I started there, and by September 2017 I think I was literally dying. I had decided to leave by March 2018 or so, and the healing began the day I gave my notice: 5/2/2018. Maybe I should celebrate that day - new holiday?

The amazing thing is how quickly everything began to get better. It wasn't an immediate healing, but considering how low I was, it seems miraculous to me. I have a new energy for nearly all areas of my life, and I feel excited to greet each day. I'm not exactly content; It's more that I feel motivated, ambitious, and enthusiastic. I'm living with integrity. And suddenly I possess a sentiment that can be particularly difficult for human beings to have: self-love. I have never felt such a sense of peace with who I am and what I can contribute to this world.

I quit that job with no other good job prospect. I quit that job when I knew I needed the money. There was no earthly logic to that decision. Though I had a few niggling doubts, I was not genuinely afraid. I had higher powers on my side, and I knew that everything would be better. And what happened? A beautiful job where I can stay healthy and be of real help to others came along so fast! I won't say it fell into my lap, because I am the one who asserted myself to ask for the job. And when I had the chance to interview and prepare for it, I put my whole heart into it. I prayed. I pushed all kind of green-chakra-heart-energy into manifesting it. And I got it. And I (mostly) knew I would. I still get scared that something might make it fall apart, but a higher percentage of my psyche knows that it's going to happen and that it's going to bring good things -- not only to me, but my students, employers, and colleagues.

I've always regretted that I am not psychic the way some might regret not being able to do math or play a musical instrument. Well, I'm not very good at math, but I got an A in trigonometry. And I'm not psychically-gifted the way some people I've met are, but I listened to my intuition for once and look what it's done for me!

New lease on life!
New leaf turned over!
Green-chakra-heart-overflowing
I'm in love with life again.

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