Gentle reader,
After more than 50 years of trying everyone else's weight loss plan, (including writing a book about size and self acceptance in 1993, which you can now get for 99 cents on Amazon!)) I still spent the past six years losing and regaining close to 20 pounds three times! When I first saw Oprah's January 2009 magazine, with the headline, "How did I let this happen again?" and the subtitle, "For anyone who's ever fallen off the wagon."I suspected this was not going to be an article about building self-esteem.
I looked inside, and to my dismay, I found a quote, pulled out for all to see, "Standing between Tina Turner and Cher, I felt like a fat cow." At first I was very angry. Oprah has put so much energy into helping women and girls develop self-esteem, and I'm somewhat larger than Oprah right now - how does she think I should feel about myself? And whatever happened to all the wisdom we got from her series with Eckert Tolle, who taught us about the pain body, and made it so clear that if we try to change it from the outside, it will rebel? That series started me on a path to self-acceptance as a foundation for change that has transformed my life, and I was mad that Oprah had seemed to abandon his teachings.
Then I realized that she is just giving voice to what many women actually do feel about themselves, no matter what their actual size. (By the way, did she ever ask Cher about her cosmetic surgeries as part of her size maintenance efforts!) That took me back to "anyone who's ever fallen off the wagon." So, there's some wagon that if we all stayed on it, we'd all be thin! And if we can't, or won't, it's our fault. So we should "try again," welcoming the latest "expert's" program.
Well, I'm 63 and I'm tired of shame, blame, and self-hatred. And I'm really tired of fighting with myself. So I'm sticking with Eckert and all the other wise teachers I've found who are saying that any real, lasting change has to start with acceptance of things exactly as they are. This is not resignation. It's about how energy works. "That which we resist persists."
So I'm on a new path to health, fitness, flexibility, and beauty, from the inside out. I've decided to "go public" with this journey, not because I've got the right plan for everyone else, but because I want to encourage others to take a fresh look at all our "failures." Maybe our bodies are trying to tell us something! So I'm going to talk about what I'm discovering, with the hopes that it will inspire others to take a similar journey, and create a place where we can share our own "expertise" about what's working.
If you haven't already done so, check out My Belly- A Love Song" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc15QnjNyLA&feature=channel_page) on YouTube. Writing it was the best way I knew to let you know that we can have fun on our journey. Welcome and Blessings, Terry
