The Devil Wants Me Fat

Okay, so I took the title of this blog post directly from a book I saw at Half Price Books once. I was a teenager and my friend and I were just convulsed over the idea that there was this giant CONSPIRACY by the dark side to make us fat. (When you're a nerdy fourteen-year-old, that's the kind of thing you find funny. Blaming the devil --bwahahaha.)  (Oh, just hush.)

Anyway, what made me think of it is that I've been losing weight. I haven't been focused on it because I was more concerned with becoming healthy. But I've lost almost 30 pounds now, and, most important to me, I've gone down four sizes in clothing. I've been having flashes of feeling really strong and fit --when you think of where I was a mere two years ago, this just seems like the most incredible blessing. It feels like a miracle.

I was trying to find a photo of me when I was at my heaviest but I think I've deleted them all. This was the only one I could find and...well, I also look like maybe I have some mental issues. Y'all, I probably DID. Chronic pain will make you crazy. Anyway, here it is:

August 29, 2010

Something has shifted in my attitude, though. I look at this picture and I feel so bad for that woman.  I remember how unhappy she was, how pain robbed her of everything she prized.  I think of how filled she was with self-loathing and how every step was a reminder of how much she'd lost. I think about how she used food and alcohol to try to dull that pain.

I feel terrible for her.  And I feel so unbelievably blessed to be where I am today, speaking of her in the past tense.

It's an interesting thing, though, how much our brains hate change.  Someone told me that the part of our brain that processes change is located in the same area that perceives pain.  We perceive change--even GOOD change-- as pain.  I really believe that.

I think it's part of the reason people can't make themselves take the first step toward reclaiming their bodies and lives. I know that was the case with me. My mother tried to get me to go to yoga back in Texas, before we ever moved. My good friend Donna tried to get me to go to her acupuncturist for at least two years before I finally went.

I keep trying to figure out  what was it that made me take the first step. What made me go to that yoga class?  I don't know. I wish I did because if I could figure it out and share it with people, maybe it would help other people take that first step. I know I took action when I absolutely couldn't bear the pain of going on as I had been. Maybe there's a way not to have to sink to that depth. I don't know.

A long time ago, I read this book called "Bird By Bird" by Anne Lamott.  It's a book about writing, but I took away an important life lesson from it.

"...thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out in our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder papers and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird."

Take control over one tiny thing. One bird. That's all we have to do today. One bird.

Anyway, here I am, getting healthy and strong and almost pain free. I'm doing things with my body that I KNOW I couldn't do when I was young. It's fantastic!


Still, there's this part of my brain that's worried about all of this change. Yesterday, for example, I accidentally bought a pie. I'm normally very disciplined about what I eat, especially after seeing that video by Dr. Terry Wahls. (You didn't watch that video yet, did you? You should go watch it --you know what a bulldog I can be. Yes, I know it's almost 18 minutes. I KNOW. You deserve to spend 18 minutes watching a video that may change your life.)


ANYWAY: PIE


So, yesterday, I bought a pie.


I ate a tiny piece of it.


I liked it.


But something was very different. I didn't feel guilt. I didn't feel satisfied. I noticed that it tasted good but it wasn't, like, the best thing I've ever had. I'm over it. Maybe there's some key thing here that I've been missing about not attaching blame or joy to food. I noticed it, but I didn't really engage on an emotional level at all. I think "comfort food" is no longer a phrase I can use.


And then my husband came home and saw the pie. In all of the years we've been together, this may be the very first pie I've ever bought. We're just not a pie family --my kids don't like it. Anyway, he started to laugh. "SOMEONE around here is losing weight and it's making her body really nervous."


He was completely right. At first I didn't believe him but this morning, after I ate my very balanced, healthy breakfast, I got ready to leave for an appointment. "Maybe you need a few pita chips for the road, " said my unconscious. (I didn't have them.  I wasn't hungry.) Some part of me is NERVOUS.

May 10, 2012

I noted the impulse, though.  Clearly, the devil wants me fat.

Finding My Plumb Line

I went to a yoga workshop with Andrei Ram last month.  I've been processing it ever since. It was a four-hour workshop, and it included a physical yoga practice, along with meditation and pranayama (breathing exercises) and a talk about self realization.  It was a lot to process at once, actually.  I'd like to go to another one. 

The first thing I noticed about Andrei Ram is his posture. Now, granted, I had just spent some time in Texas with my thirteen-month-old niece (by marriage--my brother-in-law and his wife have a new gorgeous daughter) so I was in a posture-noticing mode.  You know how babies sit with absolutely perfect posture?  I always think it's because their plumb-line to God is still intact.

Here, look:

Jane and her friend Evan were totally smitten by Baby Lola.  It wasn't just me.

Andrei Ram has the same posture as our niece. 

He's a very interesting person, because he lives fully in this world.  He's not sitting in an ashram on a mountaintop somewhere, living the life of a monk and meditating and fasting for months on end.  He lives in this world, with all of its chaos and travel arrangements and noise. He's married. He has a smart phone.

But he has a very different way of BEING in this world.  A very different way of ENGAGING with this world. It's absolutely, completely peaceful.  Picture a giant body of water, completely undisturbed.   There are ripples occasionally along the edges, but the deep stillness at the core is unchanging. He's like that. His way of living seems perfectly aligned with who he is.

It's very attractive --people gravitate to him.  He's a very humble, gentle man, but he has this...essence of something much larger, of a purpose bigger than he is. People want that.

I want that.

I've been thinking a lot about that, actually.  About what it would take to get to a place where that kind of inner peace was just the default way of being.

In yoga, we talk a LOT about alignment.  I've noticed that when I focus on the proper alignment of my body versus achieving the pose, the pose becomes effortless.  (Well, if I can get into proper alignment, I mean.  The getting there can take some serious effort.)

For me, finding yoga was the beginning of a quest to find my alignment, not only in my physical practice, but also in my life.

Among some other things like meditation and a concerted effort at being wholly present in whatever I am doing, I've been experimenting with some dietary changes lately.  (By lately, I mean over the last year and a half since I stopped being in such excruciating pain.) Making these changes seemed like a logical first step to me --I didn't feel that I could seek a different way of being in the world if I was still eating and drinking in a way that made me feel physically ill.

The first change I made was giving up alcohol. This was actually really easy because once I found my joy again, I didn't want ANYTHING to take the edge off of it. I've been tempted to have a glass of wine every now and again, and I've always said that if I want one badly enough, I'll have one, but I just keep coming back to the idea that alcohol, for me, interrupts my joy.  It's been more than a year and a half now, and I'm still sober.

One of the surprising and incredibly welcome benefits of giving up alcohol for me is that I also gave up migraines.  I've had one migraine in 18 months, versus the 5-6 per month that I used to have.  It's like I got handed an extra week every month! My working theory is that I have some sort of latent allergy/intolerance to alcohol.  Let me just say that not having migraines is enough to keep me sober, even if all of the other benefits I've experienced weren't there.  I find I'm also more loving and more patient when alcohol-free. For me, it's been a huge shift in my quality of life.

Next, I gave up meat officially.  This was a barely noticeable since I never ate much meat anyway. (It doesn't really agree with me.)  Initially, I gave up fish, too, but I added it back in because it was just too hard to try to manage my dietary desires with those of everyone else in my family. I already cook more meals than I should due to food preferences and I found that after I cooked for everyone else, I'd just grab a handful of crackers or something, rather than cook yet another meal.  Left to my own devices, I still prefer to be totally vegetarian, but it just didn't work within the context of our family as it is now. That's okay. When the time is right, I'll make that shift officially again.

Then I gave up caffeine. This was the hardest change I made by far.  I guess it makes sense --I was a caffeine drinker for many decades.  But WOW, I underestimated just how potent a drug it is.  (Except when I was sailing through that red light (oops) when it occurred to me that I might need to drink coffee just to stay alive.)  I stuck with it, though, and I feel better. Interestingly enough, once I stopped hyping myself up on caffeine, I started to be more attuned with what my body needs. I started making rest a bigger priority. I started listening to what my body needs when I injure myself at yoga.  (Which I inevitably do, because I still haven't learned how to not try my hardest at every single pose in every single practice. I'm working on it.)

The other big changes I've made, I made after seeing this video.

It's long, almost 18 minutes, but it is AMAZING. I've been slowly incorporating the three cups of leafy greens, three cups of sulphur rich veggies, three cups of color into my daily diet.  It takes work and I'm not to the point of managing it every day yet, but I am committed to adopting a way of eating that makes the most sense for my brain and my body.  For me, that's part of living in alignment with my true self.

Next on my horizon, I've almost given up dairy (which is starting to make me sick so that's kind of a no brainer) and I MIGHT try going gluten-free. Just to give it a try to see if that's part of my true alignment.

I know what y'all are thinking, though.  You're thinking, "I am NEVER going to dinner at Barb's house!" I want to be really clear: I'm not saying it's for everyone. I'm also not saying that if you come to my house you can't have a drink or that there will only be straw for you to eat.  I'm just talking about what works for me. It's about living in the way that is most in tune with my true self. What works for me might be a total bust for you. I'm not passing judgment on anybody--I honestly have no feeling at all about what you eat or drink, except a true wish that I could give you this feeling of peace, this deep stillness and sense of health that I'm beginning to have. I'm just trying to find my path to the way of living that makes me feel the most whole and healthy, and seeing how that affects my way of engaging with the world.

For me, it's taking some discipline, especially in a world that promotes fast, cheap and unhealthy over everything else, but I'm convinced it's the path to get to where I want to be. It doesn't feel like sacrifice.  It feels natural. It feels like an offering.

And *I* feel fantastic.

Evicting the Squatter

So, I had a bad pain episode.

In fact, I had the worst pain episode that I've had since I regained my health in early 2011.  We were traveling on Saturday, which entailed a lot of walking.  Then on Sunday, I took a four-hour yoga workshop with Andrei Ram where I sat on my foot for about an hour, listening. (The workshop was so transformative that I'm still processing it. More on that soon.) By Monday, I could barely place any weight on my foot.

Which, you know, is really, really bad news. I guess I thought I was done with that.  I mean, I've had other one-day pain episodes, but nothing like this.  I went to yoga, I went to acupuncture, I went back to yoga --and finally, I felt something shift (just as I went into the plow pose) and the pain began to ease.

But wow.

Just...

Just like that, the clear-coated sealant on my nerve endings wore clean off.  I felt like I was a giant exposed nerve walking around. Tiny unkindnesses undid me. I was exhausted with trying to hold it together. I could hear the pain in my voice.  I could see it in my face.

Pain is such a tricky animal, though. While I think my tolerance for pain --especially that kind of grinding, soul-sucking, relentless pain--has diminished, my coping skills have increased.  For one thing, I was able to separate out the hatred I have for that PAIN from hatred for, you know, MYSELF.  It's really easy, and I've fallen into this trap before, to hate my body for betraying me in this manner.  This time, I managed to stay kind to myself.  To visualize healing flowing to my poor, damaged foot. To have some compassion for how hard my body has been working to hang on to the joy and gratitude of my regained health.

What worked for me this time was to picture the pain like a squatter in my house that I couldn't seem to evict, and I was just watching him trash the place. (My pain is a male.  I have no idea why. I'm calling him Newt. I'm sure it's a pure coincidence. I'm sure of it.) He kept setting fires, trying to burn down all I'd built so carefully and I was trying not to panic.  I kept taking steps that I knew to be successful in evicting him the last time--yoga and acupuncture, and I even took the girls to the garden store to buy plants for this year's garden.

Finally, he left, but not without some last minute nastiness.

I went to bed at about 9:00, exhausted.  And at about midnight, I was struck by a really wretched stomach virus.  (I'm calling it Santorum...)

It's been quite a week.

Prom Queen

Spring has sprung here in Northport. It's our first spring in this house and, whoa, it's just been breathtaking.

I didn't get a picture of the front walkway when it was covered in purple hyacinths, but here it is covered in tulips.  It's like the owners of our house had a sort of fireworks ethic with regard to the bulbs --one beautiful image is replaced by another more beautiful.  It's really stunning.

And then there was this beauty.  Doesn't she look like she is waiting to go to the ball?  I think she's beautiful.  In fact, I wrote a haiku about her --not a very GOOD haiku, but I wrote one nevertheless.

My friend Liz is writing a haiku every day as part of National Poetry month.  Go check out her blog for really GOOD haikus.  Also, Tanita is rocking the haikus, too.  Meanwhile, here's my paltry contribution:

Blushing, expectant
Splendid in her finery
Dances in the breeze

It doesn't exactly say what I want, but I'm done with it because I have other, more pressing tasks at hand.

Ahem:

This is the future site of the Cooper Organic Vegetable Garden, Northport Edition. It's just sitting there, like a blank canvas waiting for paint. I could not BE more excited.  I can almost taste the tomatoes!

Unsticking Myself

I haven't written in more than a month, other than the post about my daughter Ana winning a writing contest.  I don't consider a post writing about someone else's writing really substantive enough to call writing. (If you follow that.) (And if you DO follow that, could you explain it to ME?)

Anyway, for me, going that long without writing is unheard of --certainly on this blog, but I don't just mean that I haven't written on this blog in a month. I mean I haven't written ANYTHING in over a month.

Normally, I would be panicking. I'd assume depression and call my doctor to talk about medical intervention. But I'm not depressed.

And I'm not panicking. I'm actually in a very calm, centered (well, for me) place right now.

I'm just...listening.

The thing is, though, that I have things I want to do and I can't seem to...I can't seem to MOVE, dang it.  Things are percolating, but nothing seems to be HAPPENING. And listening will only take you so far toward reaching for your dreams.

Luckily, I'm friends on Facebook with this amazing writer named Christy Farr, who is a life coach and a generally very cool, positive person.  And she's offering an on-line/over-the-phone class called "Sick of Being Stuck," which is ostensibly for people with clutter issues, although those clutter issues don't necessarily have to be physical clutter issues. I don't have much physical clutter (some, but not a lot,) but I recognize that what's keeping me from going straight after my dreams is a certain amount of EMOTIONAL clutter.  I'm hoping to unstick myself through her class.

The reason I'm mentioning it is that she's offering it for only $50 if you sign up by tomorrow morning.  So, if you were thinking you needed some help getting going on decluttering or just in general, I invite you to join me!  I think it's going to be amazing and life changing. (If you don't have physical clutter issues and you sign up for the class, put "uncluttered" in the special instructions box.)

Here's to change!

My Daughter Who is NOT a Writer

(I know I haven't written in forever.  I've got a case of writer's block or Too Much News or something. I know people are worried because people have started CALLING ME, which only happens when people are REALLY worried, given that I will call them back NEVER. I'm trying to recognize that part of my creative process is the need for a lot of white space so that whatever is percolating in my writer's soul can rise to the surface. The one constant in my life is, and has always been, writing, so I trust that I'll be back. Thanks for thinking of me.)

So, my older daughter, Ana, refuses to let us call her a writer.

Despite the fact that back in August she received this letter:

(Click to embiggen and read)

(May I just say that there is a special place in heaven set aside for teachers who care enough about their individual students to sit down and write this kind of letter?  Every time I read it, I get a little teary at the  goodness of it.)

Still, Ana will tell you, she LOATHES writing. And she will say it just like that, because she is 14 and articulate and she feels strongly about things.

Loathing writing didn't stop her from winning first prize for poetry in the Huntington Youth Writes Contest for grades 6-8, though.

FIRST FREAKING PLACE!!!

There were 1,500 entries.

I'm so proud of that little non-writer, I could burst.

She may loathe writing, but she liked the frozen yogurt with which we celebrated her win.

There's an awards ceremony in May and she'll be awarded a $100 check and her work will be published along with the other winning entries in some sort of publication put out by the town.

Here's her winning entry:

You Remind Me of a Certain Summer Sonnet

  by Ana Cooper

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Like my bare feet on a burning sidewalk,

And staying inside when it’s too hot to play.

You are the dryer that eats only one sock.

You compare nicely to ants at a cookout,

Eating the food before anyone can touch it.

You are the lifeguard that fails to be a lookout.

You are the ice cream I drop before I can clutch it.

You are the pasty legs sticking out of shorts in disgrace,

And sticking to car seats hotter than an oven.

And more maddening than mosquitoes that maul my face,

Or crowds at a concert, cursing and shoving.

Like a rotten actor in a bad summer movie,

You promise kindness, but deliver envy.

(With apologies to William Shakespeare)

Asking for a Present

So, last Sunday was my birthday.  I turned 47 --happily.  I went to power yoga, spent some time with my family, wound some new yarn...it was a great day.

On MONDAY, my family left for five days of skiing/snowboarding, leaving me to my annual "momcation," a time of solitude, reflection, yoga, meditation and catching up on back episodes of Downton Abbey. (Just hush up right now.) (I actually watched the last one TWICE, while turning the heel on my latest Sock-In-Progress (SIP), listening to Edward purring beside me, and weeping, weeping, weeping.)

I have a lot to say about this time--the lessons are coming fast and furious (not from Downton Abbey, per se) and I'll write about it in the future.  (Soon!  I promise!) (No, really!)

But today, I want to ask you all for a present. I know I'm not supposed to ask you to give me anything for my birthday.  It's bad form and who am I, eleven-and-Jane-Cooper? It's important, though, or I wouldn't ask.

See, I have this new friend.

Her name is Jenna.

She's a young friend, in her twenties, whose acquaintance I made through the martial arts/yoga place where I first began my journey back to health. I don't actually remember how we officially met, but we showed up at some of the same parties and then one day back in October, I heard her talking to another mutual friend about her chronic pain journey.

And, well, it made me sit down and put my head between my knees.

It's been seven years since Jenna first began having debilitating back spasms --spasms so bad that they lock up her entire body and leave her in excruciating pain and sometimes hospitalized. She has tried Eastern and Western medicine, massage, Reiki, becoming a Vegan, and a thousand other things in those seven years.

She also managed to go to college and on to get a Master's degree and earn her black belt in Tae Kwon Do. (I know. I KNOW!  But I understand that, too. I understand the need to prove that the pain isn't going to stop you.  Until, you know, it does.) She also survived being hit by a car and the PTSD associated with that, endured a wicked Lyme infection and a volatile thyroid that may or may not be responsible for her current GI issues.  She's been through the wringer, and she's just...kept on going.  She created this wonderful life of service by volunteering at an equestrian therapy program called Horseability and she hopes to start school soon to become a physical therapist.

Most recently, she's broken two ribs and the doctors don't fully understand why. But when that happened, the organization she volunteers with told her that they really needed her to be physically stronger in order to continue working there. Which, you know, is understandable, but absolutely, completely heartbreaking.

Last Friday, a group of friends got together for dinner to celebrate the February birthdays of our group.  (It's a popular month.)  And Jenna came, although she was too ill to eat.

And, I don't know, there was something about the look on her face that has stayed with me all week.

I think it's that I recognize that look, you know? I was so there.  I am a strong and stubborn woman, but there were times in my chronic pain journey when I was just barely hanging on. When I had that same set to my teeth.

When I had that despair in my eyes.

So, anyway, this week, I've been dedicating my yoga practices to Jenna.  Just offering up the wish that my practice might create some positive healing in my friend.  Yesterday, she dropped by for a visit, and said her pain wasn't so bad this week, which NATURALLY, I immediately associated with me, me, me. Well, okay, I didn't.  But I DID get an idea of what I'd like for my birthday from you all.

Over the course of the next few days, whenever you think about it, could you send a prayer, or positive thought, or a deep healing vibe to my friend Jenna?  Just some sort of conscious thought of healing for her. Breathe it in and breathe it out.

I don't know that it will help, but it certainly can't HURT, and what if that's really how we change the world? I know that the power of your collective positive wishes for MY health had a direct impact on MY healing.  My deepest hope is that we can do this for Jenna.

I thank you.  Namaste, y'all.