MEDITATION #25
Bikram Kaimuki - class #62
8:15 pm w/ Michele
Good class again tonight. Very hot and steamy. I felt strong and even got a compliment from Michele on my standing bow. Chatted it up in the lobby after with a couple fellow yogi's - which I don't usually do. Michele asked how much weight I've lost and told me how great I was doing. Which, of course, I already know. But hearing it really made my night.
This is right in line with something that I have already been thinking about for the last couple of days. Sometimes I re-read my blog and feel like I sound terribly vain and ego-centered. I know, in all honesty, that I am certainly neither of those things. But sometimes I almost feel guilty for the glee I feel when I look in the mirror and see the slimmer, fitter body staring back at me.
It's sort of like I'm afraid that I will turn into some kind of brainless Barbie-doll type if I continue to lose weight and shape up. Yes - I do know how completely and utterly ridiculous that is. But somewhere in my childhood or adolescence I got it stuck in my head that it was bad or at least silly to want to look good.
Major news flash - I DO want to look good. We all do. And on the one had I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But on the other hand I feel on some deep level that I shouldn't care so much about my outward appearance. This is something I struggle with. Weird, huh? But also pretty typical of the contradictory messages we are bombarded with from the time we are very young.
That brings me to today's meditation which is about pride. Gates talks about how putting truthfulness into practice during yoga is an exercise in humility. But he also says that humility has two sides. There is the letting go of the good as well as the bad. But the aspect he discusses that really hit me is that humility is also the awareness that we cannot afford to play small.
I feel that this is sort of what I've been doing. For the last several years I've been kind of just hanging out. I've used the extra weight as an excuse not to go out into the world and interact more with people. I've used food to comfort me instead of dealing with my emotions head on. Today's Daily Om deals with this exact issue - using outside influences to numb your feelings. WOW. I am really getting a double or even triple whammy here. I think that I should revist this meditation again tomorrow because there is so much for me to contemplate and sit with.
Today's Food Choices:
cafe mocha w/ soy milk
glazed doughnut w/ chocolate filling
(10:00 am - The Patisserie)
green salad w/ tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, & onions
(2 pm - work)
8 oz Kombucha
(5:30 pm - work)
RFR: Day Nine
14 years ago
I've struggled with this in sort of a different direction. A lot of fat acceptance blogs talk about how you're beautiful just the way you are, trying to contradict societal messages that Fat Is Bad. It bothers me that none of them have taken into account the idea that maybe I didn't like the way I looked 20 pounds ago because I just didn't like it, not because I had internalized the propaganda that I ought to look like Kate Moss.
ReplyDeleteI think as a woman in this culture you have to realize that there are a lot of awful messages out there, Cosmo screaming at you to look exactly like this one ideal body that no one has without major struggle and pain (or an eating disorder). I think we should all realize this, and then decide on our own how we want to look. That's what I hope I did - but it happens that how I wanted to look was somewhat thin, so I worked hard to take the weight off. Would the fat acceptance blogs yell at me for that? It's so confusing!
PS: Your blog may seem self-centered because by its nature it's all about you. I wouldn't worry about that - it's your blog, after all. :) You don't seem that way to me.
OK. I'm going to get very non-PC here. But I think fat acceptance is a crock. Obesity is unhealthy. Period. It is the 2nd largest life-style related and therefore avoidable cause of disease next to smoking cigarettes. And, personally, I think that it's even more insidious than smoking because it's still acceptable. Let me be clear that I do not in any way mean to villify those who are over weight. But IMHO "fat is beautiful" is a cop-out and missing the point. Of course we are all beautiful. And outward appearance does not merit the emphasis it gets in this media driven culture. But we don't condone alcoholism or drug addiction, so why should over-eating be any different. Sorry if I've offended anyone. Just my 2 cents.
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