Fruit of My Labor

"It's good to do uncomfortable things. It's weight training for life."
— Anne Lamott (Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith)

I can't describe this last month in simple terms. I resumed going to Overeaters Anonymous meetings after an 18 year absence. In 12-step terms, that's some relapse. "Why'd I leave?" I've been asking myself. That alternates with the more timely, "Why am I back?" Incidentally, when I was overwhelmed by the emotions associated with how tethered a nursing mom feels toward her new infant, I'd often wonder why women had second babies. Who could know how life would change with one, but to go back for more?

 

I left OA because I wanted to try a more moderate way of eating, sometimes referred to as 'demand feeding'. Back in the early 90's there weren't the wide range of food plans in writing available that there are now so that had something to do with feeling I needed to go elsewhere. Honestly, though, I think I was just tired of dragging myself to 2 or 3 meetings a week on top of 4 days of psychotherapy, work, and all else that was going on at the time. I was in the process of buying my first home and, unbeknownst to me, about to get pregnant.

 

I had been thinking this over a while because my weight has ballooned and binging in the form of all night grazing is a big part of my life. I happened upon an excerpt from a book called Mommy Doesn't Drink Here Anymore by Rachael Brownell about her own path to AA and couldn't put it down. I know that feeling of being insatiable for something I deep down realize can't be quelled by excess versus the reality of feeling like stopping isn't an option.

I put a little post-it note in the back of her book when it arrived into the library that read "OA 24" indicating a challenge to myself to attend an OA meeting within 24 hours of finishing up the book. The weeks leading up to the end of the book (as if I couldn't go anytime I wanted!) had me obsessively reading and re-reading the online schedule of meetings in case today or tomorrow 'happenned to be the day'.

The night I selected to attend, 24 hours upon finishing Rachael Brownell's book, as promised (to whom? to what?) brought with it a driving rain. The rigid rulemaker in me didn't care and off 'we' (rigid rulemaker and me) the 25 miles to the meeting, driving in circles as raindrops pelted the car, trying to make out the street number in the church driveway where the meeting was held.

It was a 'Big Book Study,' referring to the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous used in most 12-step programs. I nervously took my seat along side one of 2 8-foot 'craft' tables pushed together, and was amazed at how little and how much had changed all at once. Cross talk is discouraged but members had big smiles for me, and it was amazing how welcoming people could be just hearing that I was a newcomer, returning to meetings.

Everyone at the table takes turns reading from one to three paragraphs in the big, blue book, that is the cornerstone of AA, and is now in its 4th edition. People can then share for up to 3 minutes, moderated by a timer, on anything they have read or anything at all. No one cuts them off when the timer beeps. The meeting secretary just resets the timer for 3-minute increments until the speaker winds down.

I don't remember what I said exactly, but I did share that I was returning after a 20 year absence. I remember being amazed that the meeting secretary had lost somewhere around 100 pounds, and was in another 12-step program, in addition to OA. I also remember coming home and immediately heading to the pantry to eat-- as much to calm the rush of adrenaline that accompanied my excitement in feeling so welcomed, as out of the well worn habit of night eating to which I was quite wedded.

So I've been going to a month of meetings and somehow find myself with a sponsor, a food plan, and a 7 pound weight loss. I didn't try for any of those things, they just seemed to evolve from the decision to incorporate meetings regularly and sanely into my schedule. The most helpful part of it all, is the sense of feeling completely in sync with everyone I encounter, regardless of their size or current ability to suspend their compulsive habits. And what's making this all hang together is the 'promise' that this can and should be faced *at most* one day at a time.

"E.L. Doctorow said once said that 'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.'" Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

Zen Train

"We say, "Love your brother." We don't say it really, but... " Davd St. Hubbins in 'This is Spinal Tap'

Cheri is fond of commitments- making them actually. You'd think that might not be the case, because so much of what everyone thinks of as Zen involves living in the 'now'. But in the now, when we commit to something 'then,' we get to observe the changes we experience if any between this 'now' and that 'now'. Was that as confusing to read as it was to think up? 

For example, I made a commitment to lighter eating every day, several days ago. Today, I hardly remember the commitment at all, let alone why it seemed so important. Consequently, I ate a lot starting last night when John and I decided to do fondue for dinner, a favorite indulgence of ours, and the only time John *ever* eats the least bit unhealthily.

All I know is, this was the longest weekend ever and at the same time it flew by. There was so much to do, yet it involved suprisingly few 'action items,' as I used to love to say in the corporate world. In the service of getting things done, in addition to my sanity, I made a decision to forgo a workshop centered around annual goal setting, and I think therein lies the answer to why all this overeating, in part.

I've never been fantastic at knowing or setting (these are different) healthy limits-- I guess that's obvious in a blog devoted to overeating. Well, add two ex-spouses and children from those unions to your current marriage, and all bets are off as to what constitutes appropriate rules of engagement. In short, John requested I participate in something that would benefit one of his children, and the only day to get it done in a sane manner was the day devoted to the workshop. Giving up the workshop wasn't so bad in and of itself but the project I agreed to undertake was excruciating-- not so much physically although it was no fun to look up volumes of personal data for financial aid forms, but because it was like a trip through the memory lane of hell that was often our early family life.

But the heartburn here is that I saw this freight train coming a mile away. We call that the good news in Zen because here to fore the freight train of wanting something other than 'what is' would come, take us aboard, spit us out somewhere along the track and be bounding on to the next station before we knew what was happening leaving a wake of destruction in its path.

Other than being able to 'see' opinions and emotions bubble up to the surface, sometimes before, sometimes after I spouted them out to my husband of endless patience, otherwise known in these stepchild situations as Mr. Rock and a Hard Place, I see no value at the moment in my new found powers of observation at this moment.

 "Whatever you are, be a good one," Abraham Lincoln

See More Food

“It was a very stupid thing to do, I'll admit, but I hardly didn't even know I was doing it.” J. D. Salinger

I flushed my last sweet roll down the toilet. Not just any sweet roll. Not just my last sweet roll. My last, one of my last, my fourth from last roll sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. And OK it wasn’t the toilet. (No need to ring the spousal alarm bell) It was the garbage disposal. I know it doesn’t sound final and of course with 3 left, it certainly isn’t. But it sure felt final. Actually it felt like the most I could manage after finally having it sink in that maybe some of my cravings are physical with my conditioned self gone riot in tow.

That was almost a week ago now. Since then, I dumped one other and ate the remaining 2. I’ve eaten a lot of things since last week, but I’ve also *not* eaten a lot of things. That’s true of most weeks, except here lately I find myself pacing around an idea the way a detective walks around a taped off crime scene, studying the area carefully, long after the body has been removed, and fingerprints dusted, pondering things only she or he can visualize.

My idea, new, if not original, is that I begin attending Overeaters Anonymous meetings as I used to more than 20 years ago, when I was in my 20’s. I’m not sure what makes this idea revolutionary, except that when I stopped attending, I never once looked back and regretted it. I belonged there, and still do because I am a compulsive overeater, even if I bristle against the word compulsive. I don’t mind being called an overeater. I figure this is
pretty obvious at a size 18 or even 20 depending on the clothing manufacturer. Moreso if you consider I’m just barely 5 feet 1 inch tall. But being compulsive makes me feel like a person who can’t stop washing their hands, or must reenter the house through the exact same door from which they exited. Since my youngest days, I can remember feeling very pulled to eat and overeat, LOTS, and often unable to limit or stop even when I wanted to and I think that’s where the word compulsive and I shake hands.

So now we are 17 hours into this experience, and I just ate lunch, but now I want a Snickers bar. I don't just want it, I *am* it- in that I have no life outside my connection to the Snickers bar. I'm not hungry any more. I certainly don't want the apple I packed in my lunch. I WANT THE SNICKERS BAR. Rachael Brownell in Mommy Doesn't Drink Here Anymore written about her first year of sobriety from alcoholism talks of the way in which she began to see 'crisp white wine' everywhere once she gave it up. She saw it in the clouds, her kids' faces, everywhere-- and so it is for me with the Snickers bar.

I want it because there is a physical craving for sugar that follows lunch and can be confused for the need for a nap (a thought to which I am unopposed even though I'm at work). I mostly want it because it feels like a cuddle with a special someone. In my Zen practice, we'd probably define it as the experience of being identified with a small, part of me, a subpersonality looking for a special connection with the larger being that goes around as 'Celia'. Somewhere along the line, probably in childhood, this little self split off from the mothership of other Celia's linked together and came to believe that food, especially 'certain' types of food, was her answer to the lonely, confused, and sometimes bitterly angry feelings harbored by other 'selves' within and outside herself.

So I've spent a lot of time studying this problem-- decades in fact but none of that changes the fact that in this moment it's me and my craving. I'm choosing something different, because I don't want this for myself anymore at this age. I choose something different because although the experience isn't the one I'm having at the moment, I do know what that little self doesn't and didn't know years ago-- there is so such thing as being apart from ultimate comfort and caretaking. There are just very convincing illusions that we are. Nice place to be. Lucky her. Lucky me.

""My faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe place to another. Like lily pads, round and green, these places summoned and then held me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which I would land and in this way I moved across the swamp of doubt and fear," Anne Lamott

Peace by Piece is coming back!

"Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well." Mark Twain

This blog is undergoing exciting changes, and so am I. Come back April 25 for a whole new chapter in this writer's life.

Life is just a bowl of business cards

"Before you try to keep up with the Joneses, be sure they're not trying to keep up with you." Erma Bombeck


My career fair checklist goes like this: Stapled copies of resume with business cards in upper left, also stapled (to the stapled resumes or stapled with a third staple on top of the stapled resume for easy removal should the recipient be annoyed by the presence of the business card whose only business is to mention that you know enough to have a business card made up to advertise you are available for hire). Check (I guess.) Business cards (already covered in item one). Check. Writing samples. (oy vey-even the intended audience doesn't enjoy reading those, heh heh I'll attach my blog, what the hey). Double check. Outfit? Oh please.


Cheri (esteemed Zen teacher spoken about vociferously in prior posts on the offchance anyone reading this has never heard of me)-- speaks about the idea that suffering can be ended the moment one decides to do so. Say what? Say I agree with that or at least am intrigued by the idea-- HOW?

The 'how' is both the easiest and hardest process I've ever engaged in. In simple terms, how is often just opening my mind to the idea that something else exists. In the contradictory way that Zen appears-- we start with the sense that we have the control to divert our attention to a more harmonious inner experience, and then proceed to work with the notion that harmony involves staying put here until we experience what appears to be out there, perhaps in someone else's purview.

A lot of my early practice experiences with this idea have centered around being able to recognize thought patterns that I thought really represented who I really am gloves off, and coming to believe they not only weren't me, but items in some regard 'just there,' generated from who knows where (or cares) inside my head. 


Sure I'm the one wracked with worry about approaching strangers at the job fair knowing the balance of their interest will be in the subject matter experts for whom I have written all these years. Yet those fears are comprised largely of thoughts, if I can pause even for a moment to let one or two of them into my consciousness. That realization alone is the point at which another hateful voice comes along and starts filling me with the idea that I'm having the 'wrong' experience, and hardly one of nonsuffering. Again, with pause, or even the ability to breathe and physically look away, the notion comes along that that two is a thought, randomly generated, yet appearing to intimately connected with the reality that is my current experience.

So how does that make my job today one of nonsuffering? I'll be sure and let you know when it's all over. I arrived early and had enough clarity and love for the human that holds these thoughts and this consciousness to decide to put 'her' in the company of others going through the same experience. So I'm actually typing in the career center and about to head over to 'the fair' center shortly.


A lovely side effect of the willingness to pay close attention (notice everything and *try* not to take things in your head personally- don't believe everything you think! as a bumper sticker beckons)- is that the minute you are in it just for the view, you not only start seeing a kind of space around content that you might otherwise run toward and cling to, if only because that seemed inevitable- but other ideas make themselves known as well-- such as be kind-- really be kind-- to you as the container and watcher of these hateful/hurtful thoughts. 


Just as a thought to the effect of, 'you are totally unprepared and going to come off sounding like you don't know anything about any company you approach,' so can a less intrusive thought of, 'hey, it's ok-- you won't be alone,' or even 'gosh I'm proud of you for doing this.' It's all there, in your own head, I promise-- all for the noticing.


Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities crept in. Forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you should begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

My ears and whiskers*

"The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at a time."
Richard Cech


So, I have to assume that if the above is true, I am doing many MANY things all at once because I am doing many things but few to completion, or few that don't need to be re-completed (isn't that the same thing?) like, my resume. Any idea how many versions are required to get one person one job? or even one half or one-quarter a job? (That is, if you cast a net to include part-time work.)


Thankfully (and I thank all of you reading) very few, like only one, or one-half or one-quarter person has asked me what I'm doing with my free time. We out of work persons, and I'll speak for all of us, even though I'm so new at it, *really* appreciate it when that (the free time question) is *not* asked, however logical it is.


Before I was out of a job I remember telling John that I would 'quilt every day' should I have the misfortune to get laid off. And of course with the extra work everyone I know is either taking on, or feeling like they have to take on to invest in whatever security, real or perceived is available, getting laid off can have a lottery ticket feeling to it.


Somehow, I have spent less time quilting since I got the news, a bit more time with childcare (and they are hardly children might I add) oriented tasks if you consider flex accounts drying up by the end of last month and the need to get everyone their checkups, glasses, and oral surgeries-- yet, much more time cleaning up old email, learning my new computer, stopping the presses of making a master plan for income generation in several different arenas for the sake of following up on one small, big, or medium lead as the case may be. That generates a flurry of activity, often requiring asking favors from others (thank you Facebook friends!) only to get no response at all from the lead, or a thanks but no thanks note because the market is simply flooded. So that feels like a back to square one situation even if in fact the lead follow up involved more work on a resume or a furthering of a course charted out earlier. What remains after one of these goose chases is massive disorientation as to what path I was headed down 'before' the lead was forwarded, and a stack of people who I doubt will continue to think of me as their friends if I don't make time for them in some form.


So, what am I going to do about it? My question to myself, if not anyone else's. I'm going to face down this conundrum the way I face down just about everything else-- why I'm going to write about it. Not here (just in case you are not interested in how much time I spend down to the minute going to yoga and the grocery store on the way back)-- but I will see what I can unearth as to the time suck culprit. Work has deadlines, meetings involving reports and all manner of things to either sum up what we've done, or notice what we haven't done. Some of that exists now in the form of my job search work team and certain productivity tools we are asked to generate.


More soon.


"What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know." St. Augustin

*Title is by Lewis Carroll from Alice in Wonderland, "Oh my ears and whiskers how late it's getting."

Bonus round: guest bloggers wanted-- I will be away the week of October 18 and would love to feature a guest or 2 for the October 18 and 21 blog entries. Yyou can write about any subject you choose!

Fall Fever

"If there is no wind, row." Latin proverb

Isn't that quote cool? That was on my monthly drycleaning newsletter-- so if you think your drycleaner's newsletter cannot make your day (or at least cause you to pause), consider yourself disabused of that notion.

I notice at the career center where we 'restructured' employees get to go as much as we like these 2 months post handing over out laptops and badges, that though levels of energy and enthusiasm vary widely as you might expect among us, to a person, everyone given the slightest opening will say something tantamount to, "I'm so HAPPY I don't have the headaches of my old job."

I had a few unwelcome sea changes these last months especially but didn't think I'd feel much beyond terror being jobless with a spouse also jobless. I find myself dejected at times, and sometimes even sleepless the way I was when I felt like a given project or team assignment was untenable-- but there's no denying it's so very nice not to have those particular day to day worries.

In trying to partake of everything available while it lasts, namely the job placement services, I've scattered myself widely across workshops, free coaching and job fair preparation such that I'm not feeling very effective. I don't feel too put off (although I'm not jazzed by any means) that I don't have a great many interviews (ok, none yet) lined up.

I am revising my resume targeting it toward writing jobs and clinical jobs should an opportunity come along. I'm loving have the days to chart various courses for myself and when I keep my eye on just what's in front of me, I don't ever entertain worry or fear.

Fall is my favorite season. I won't lie- it's because it acts as harbinger to 'the holidays' beginning in the US with Halloween and ending with New Year's. I caught myself thinking I wouldn't have the right to enjoy them 'with no job' but have managed to get Fall and Halloween decorations out and about our house even a little early this year.

I say early because in a fit of holiday decorating superiority, I declared a few years ago that Halloween decorations should not be donned (can a nonperson don something? I don't know) prior to 3 weeks before Halloween and certainly not before the month of October. Well, it's September 30 and ceramic jack o' lanterns abound. Aren't we rebels?

“Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.” (Chinese Proverb)