More Thoughts On...My Current State of Fatness

I've gotten some lovely and interesting response to my last blog post ("My Current State of Fatness"), and I want to say this in response. I have no illusions about my weight - that it would be healthier to be at a lower weight, or I'd have more options for clothes shopping, or more people might be attracted to my physically.

I'm just not sure why I should feel bad or ashamed or hate my body. I'm not sure why the energy of hatred, of this kind of subtle violence against my body, against myself, is somehow required or expected. Does my health improve, or do I have more clothing choices, or I'm suddenly more appealing because I hate my body? Because I'm willing to carry around a burden of shame as well? Because I internalize other people's judgement about weight, and their own fear or shame?

I'm pretty modest, but I have been regardless of my weight. And maybe if I were thinner and more toned, I'd be more comfortable being seen in a bathing suit. But my experience with most grown women is that they feel a level of self-judgement or discomfort at being almost unrobed, even for seasonal reasons. I'm not sure I have any goal that includes wearing revealing clothing, or that a change in my weight would make me feel differently.

My observations about myself aren't political. If they fit in any category, it is in the spiritual, of being a soul living in a pretty wonderful body that is carrying extra weight, but I'm just not about to negate all the rest of the good stuff over this particular thing. There are so many reasons one might not be fond of me, and maybe somewhere on that list is my weight. But it's probably not at the top. And there are lots of reasons one might like or love me, and weight is probably not at the top of that list either.

So I'm just trying to keep some useful perspective about my life, myself, my body. My body is amazing. It supports and sustains me in life every day (so far), allowing me to give expression to who I am, to connect with others, to laugh and write and learn...so much amazing stuff. It breathes and digests and circulates and repairs itself, all without any direction from me. My arms offer the warmest hugs, my legs are strong from all the walking I do, my brain is sharp, and my heart is bigger all the time

This seems like some pretty good stuff, and I feel so lucky that all this can happen - in this very body. It's not perfect, but this is the human condition, and we all share in that reality. I don't hate myself for all the other ways I'm not perfect; I think I'm just going to keep being ok with who I am, or at least as ok as I ever am, knowing how much work there is yet to do on the self.

Because I know that on the spiritual journey, there are already so many challenges, so many difficulties in navigating how to be the best person that I can, that I simply don't need to create any more on my own. And because I know that love is what brings out the best in each of us, not fear or shame or guilt. And I want the best for me...and for you too.

My Current State of Fatness

I am pretty fat right now. I haven't always been, and I might not always be, but right now, my body is pretty big...bigger than I expect a lot of times. I don't hate it, or myself, because of it. I also don't have some inspiring story about loving my body this way, or at least loving it differently than if it carried less weight. Because this isn't about acceptance or love or self-esteem. I'm just noticing what it feels like to be me these days.

I don't think things magically change if my body changes. I'm not my body; I'm the soul residing within it. But I do live in it, and lots of people see it before they see anything else about me. Which is just how it works. We all do this - look at each other, and evaluate what we're seeing based on our own preferences and values. I get it...I do the exact same thing. It takes some real work to be able to just see the light within and not get distracted by someone's body. If people do or don't like me because of my weight, it's not so obvious to me, and I get attention from men on a pretty consistent basis, whatever that tells us.

To me, my body - this body, at this point in time - is the external manifestation of some internal state where I have created a lot of space around me. There's extra physical space between me and other people with this extra weight I'm carrying. And at least in my mind, it's also psychic space as well that keeps me from being so close to the surface, not quite so visible and vulnerable.

I haven't psychoanalyzed all of this with any exactness. Mostly it's an energetic and intuitive sense of wanting to add a layer or two to the incredible exposure I felt as a young woman with the advent of unexpected and intrusive sexual attention. I didn't want this to suddenly be how my relationship with the world was defined, by people's attraction to my body, and that's true today as well. And maybe my body holds onto this truth even when my mind thinks that's in the distant past.

I'm not trying to create an obstacle course of hurdles you have to get past to get to me, but I have always felt that people, with their needs and desires and demands and expectations, could be dangerous. And while I can face things when I need, I've always felt safer being just a little bit invisible, a little distant, in a certain way.

And I think that this weight will lessen when I don't need to rely on it so much to create space around me. When I am comfortable being more visible, maybe more vulnerable, more connected and engaged and available. Because it would certainly be easier to clothes shop if I had a more average size, and my structurally unsound knees would be relieved to transport less weight with every step, and mostly I think I would look and feel much more like who I am energetically than I do right now.

But there's some necessary organic process going on here, and I'm not entirely sure what it is. And I want to honor it, whatever it is, and understand it. Because when I have weighed less it wasn't because of stringent diets or external discipline. It was about unleashing different energies into my life, and into my body, and maybe that's what this is pointing to now.

Use Your Gift

So many of us pray to G*d, asking Him to fulfill our needs, and I think part of His answer at least, is that He has entrusted each of us with a special gift and He is just waiting for us to bring it into the world..that the gifts we keep asking for are here already, held in trust by us. And we are too shy or too arrogant or too innocent about our gifts to develop and share them in the way the world is needing. Next time you hesitate to share your gift, for whatever reason, remember that it just may be the very thing we have been waiting for.