Thanks for Nothing (that turned out to be something)

You've seen those beautiful framed pictures with meaningful affirmations, meant to inspire?  We hang them on office walls, we put them in employee break rooms; some are of rowers with a "teamwork" caption, or "perseverance" with a lone runner on a hill. I was reminded of those posters when I saw an e-card circulating currently that reads, Thank you, Universe, for not giving me everything I thought I wanted.  How true is that!?  I know that I am very often so grateful for what were previously perceived as disappointments.

One of the most significant lessons etched on my soul is the growth, awareness, and appreciation I experience when things don't turn out as I'd hoped or planned.  It is almost always a time of significant learning, even if I don't know it at the time.  A few years ago, I began to put those moments in my gratitude jar, and I often do so before I know the outcome. It reinforces the idea that what may seem negative in my current view of it probably has something meaningful to offer. Of course, I put the things that already feel like gratitude-inducing events in there, too. I open my gratitude jar every New Year's Eve, and read the past year's moments, when I took a pause and jotted down an event, a feeling, a fleeting thought that surfaced as something I might want to reflect on again. I don't write lengthy notes - they're more like brief memory-joggers.  

John and I broke up. Mother's Day Angel's game.  My company was acquired.  Prototype 3-D printed, patent pending! Started Dorothy's life story project. Trip to Prescott with Patricia. My biopsy was basal cell skin cancer. Awesome Buck Gully run, feeling healthy. 


I am usually able to see the gift in the circumstance that showed up, versus the circumstance that I wished for: the unanticipated outcome that was better than what I'd had my heart set on in the first place. Occasionally I am aware of this in the present moment, though sometimes it takes stillness to notice.   

As life moves on, what I see is a shift from my outward search for happiness (money, men, stuff) to my awareness that I am already surrounded by a familiar essence that is enough: it's more than enough.  It feels like joy.  I never knew that I knew joy.  In my younger years, I was often seeking, yet I am aware that what I sought was already accessible to me.  (Feels like Dorothy just clicked her ruby slippers, doesn't it?)  It's like coming home.  Being known.  Being understood. Being loved.  That's my mantra:  I say it to myself (I am home, I am known, I am understood, I am loved).  And I hear it said to me from the Source of all life: You are home.  You are known. You are understood.  You are loved.  And the rest of what I was worried about, anxious for, regretful over...falls away from significance. This leaves room for: meaningful interactions, relationships of value, activities with purpose, blatant fun, passionate discourse, meaningful exploration of myself and my world, healthy habit-building, attempts at unwavering kindness, and openness to the unanticipated.

This acceptance and letting go is not giving up.  To paraphrase Ekhart Tolle, it merely makes me aware of using my mind when I need it, and not letting my mind use me to preoccupy my life with things I cannot control: the past and the future.  

The last nugget that sustains me in times of disappointment is the awareness that "it" is temporary.  While the circumstance may be unchangeable, my response to it does not have to remain my initial reaction to it:  and the goal is to shorten the gap from reaction to response. I'm told that the gap is called "the pause."  

I'll close with a loving kindness meditation that I say often for you and for me:  May you be safe.  May you be happy. May you be healthy.  May you live with ease.

What a Girl Wants

I mentioned the Barbie-body pressure in my prior blog.  In the interest of full disclosure, I've helped mother nature make a change I consider to have been an improvement. I suppose what I consider key in the process of deciding was being able to live with or without the change, and being happy either way. The rest of my physique has been earned the hard way, through fitness and nutrition. I started my workouts with simple curiosity - could I change things I'd accepted as just my physical fate? Each month that I saw positive results made me realize that I had placed limitations on myself that I could actually move past.  

So where is all this taking our conversation?  It has to do with the current public dialogue about body shaming, and outcries for being happy with our body. I’m all for acceptance.  We come in all shapes and sizes, and media and advertising would do well to stop pushing one type to us as the ideal: and they (media) are changing. Did you ever think you’d see the day you would find unpadded bras in Victoria Secret?! Yep, now they not only have several styles, they’re embracing the concept of multiple body-types in their advertising.

I understand the recent point being made about not calling models plus-sized if they are not skinny – they are models: drop the “plus-sized”.  It’s not much different than calling a guy who is a nurse a male nurse.  Isn’t he simply a nurse? 

When it comes to accepting our bodies, or dedication to improving them: where does self-improvement end, and where does obsession begin?  Think of the spectrum of all things this could pertain to: make-up, exercise, nutrition, supplements, dying our hair… 

At the other end of the spectrum, where does healthy acceptance end, and neglect begin?  This spectrum that at one end says watching calories is okay, but beware of its obsessive extreme, eating disorders, is murky.  We can consider that being of a medium weight is merely not subscribing to the Barbie-body pressure. We can also talk about overweight and obesity as problems of health, and not of appearance. On face value, that isn’t being critical or body-shaming, but it does depend on the context of the discussion.

For many in southern California, especially, it’s hard to settle for an aspiration of good health and graceful aging when it has become so acceptable to get injectables and BOGO plastic surgery.  I’ve known a few people who, once they start, can’t stop.  “Natural” becomes very unacceptable.  I’ve heard this story more than once:  “I went into the plastic surgeon to get a consult for a [insert any procedure here] and he asked “But what about [insert additional procedure here]?”  In other words – it didn’t matter that she wanted to take care of something that probably bugged her for a while, he pointed out where she wasn’t physically perfect (whose standard?!) and it became her new must-have.

So be careful.  The best advice I can give is don’t expect whatever you do to make your life better.  You might feel in better proportion – but if you had pre-surgery anxiety about the future or regret from the past, they will be waiting for you when you come out of surgery.

#body-shaming #implants #plastic surgery #acceptance