Sarah Ferguson, Body-Image Warrior

Sarah Ferguson (Princess of York) on her struggle with self-worth and weight, referring to herself: "She's been told all her life the other Sarah is worthless, a nothing, so of course she has had to make this protection, i.e. food, which has caused her body image to be a certain way, and put on a blanket of body armor, hmm, as a survivor. Of course if you're a warrior, you put on armor, don't you? Therefore, that's what I've done."

I've just watched this hour-long program where this woman was interviewed for the camera by a psychologist. I found her to be a woman of depth, and wisdom but it was this passage that really caught my attention, particularly that loaded word "Warrior" (capital letter implied, yes?). My entire life is a path of consistent struggle to grow and outgrow the limitations and boxes I've found myself in. I have always felt this innate and irresistable urge towards greater and greater freedom in my life and have been the Hero-Child and the Soul Warrior in seeking out this path. Sarah's (ahem, HRH's) vision of excess weight as not just body armor, which is a metaphor I've heard a million times, but body armor put on by a Warrior rings true for me.

I've not just been shielding myself from the world, implying an act of cowardice, but rather I've been girding my strong body to give myself the protection needed to make my next strategic move in my battle toward personal freedom from whatever demons and bad conditions I was either born into, had foisted upon me or self-created.

So if I've been wearing this body, this weight, as armor to strengthen my life as a Soul Warrior, what metaphor do I use once the armor begins to come off?

Many years ago, I was at a Faerie Gathering in which the late-night revelry took a rather ugly turn because of over-consumption of alcohol. Suddenly this group of fae spirits I knew for their commitment to a spiritual brotherhood started to look like a bunch of ugly drunks, with a lot of cruel sniping and heckling. The next morning, during heart circle, someone had made a point and had covered up the central altar in the middle of circle with all of the many different alcohol boxes and containers, empty now, detritus from an ugly night, a huge pile. The Sacred Altar was covered in alcoholic GARBAGE! A few people then quickly got rid of the garbage, uncovering the altar, but the emotions of the circle ran high as people talked about how the previous night had brought out various painful parts of their past, feelings of betrayal, anger...

When I got up to speak I took the talking stick and gently, ritually, laid it on the altar and then, again ritually, took off the few clothes I was wearing. I wanted to share in Heart Circle completely openly, naked in body and in heart and in soul. I wanted the working magic of being human stripped of any of the masks and affectations we all wear, all the time, on one level or another. Even the talking stick, sometimes, is a mask...

I was still wearing my armor, though. By being large, I knew that sexually I was safe from attracting too much interest, and therefore didn't have to worry about how "marketable" I was on the Sexual Auction Block. I had moved past other's disapproval of my body, largely (so to speak), because I had had to do this just to survive. The level of disapproval of large men in the Gay community had given me permission, in the end, to find my own way, out of sheer necessity. Yes, I did do this as an act of courage, in retrospect, the level of courage which was available to me at the time. My life is filled - with a sense of Grace - with other small and large acts of courage I've taken on in my Soul Warrior struggle. But courage doesn't seem like the right word, exactly - it's seemed more necessity. I think I can only survive, ultimately, when I'm growing - it feels like my nature.

I've been wondering though, lately, about the next step, the step where the armor comes off. I don't just mean the armor of the weight, either, but of my entire relationship with food, with pot. As I wrote about last time, what does it feel like to live en plain aire, out in the open without shame, secrecy, or guile, living life as it comes to you?

The last two days have been the first time I've felt that nagging need to eat something, eat something, eat something, in almost three weeks. I sat down to write this tonight as an attempt to find some way to exorcise that feeling, particularly as inspired by the interview with Sarah Ferguson I quoted here at the beginning. Right now, at this moment, I can say that it feels like it has worked - somehow I feel more grounded, calmer, prepared for the world. Maybe it was the getting naked with this, with you all. I plan to continue this blog experiment...

and may all our masks continue to crumble, revealing our strong and fragile beauty...

Foolishness and Sophistication..

The title of this post is a line from a poem I wrote a couple years ago. This is my first attempt at writing a blog posting - I have some idea of seeing if the writing beast within can be reawakened again with any consistency. Mostly I think the job is to write enough that you forget yourself and get out of the way. Getting out of the way is the hardest part - oops, and there I go, just about to pontificate, anything but getting out of the way.

I was recently inspired by a series of e-mail exchanges with my friend Gian. I was writing to him about my new commitment to my body and living en plein aire, as the Impressionists painted, with openness and a passion for the sheer beauty of being alive. I've been pushed in my thinking by the vision that I am going to be pursuing a life as a counselor; as such, I feel that I need to deepen the level of commitment I have to honesty in my life, starting with my elemental relationship with my body.

I weigh over 400 lbs. I've wrestled with my own body for my entire life, with foolishness and with sophistication, with gut-level honesty and with regular lies of omission. I may use food to numb, to hide, to escape, to excite, to celebrate. I have no blame or shame about all this, having given that up years ago. From the darkest places that I came from as a young being on the earth to now, I feel I've walked a good road, and the weight has not resulted from any lack of trying to address the issue. There's nothing in my life that comes close to the level of energy I've expended addressing this, except the drive I've always had to seek a passionate and honest path, whatever form that took.

Often I use food appropriately, even exquisitely. I'm proud of how I've nurtured people with my cooking, from just a lovely meal for husband to amazing dinners for 60. For example, recently when I went to Portland for Thanksgiving I took 6 decorated gift bags filled with different jars of delicious and healthy home-canned goods to people who are important in my life as my little statement of gratitude for them. With canning I feel I channel and honor my grandmother. I think it also reminds many people of the gift of their own mother's or grandmother's, and there IS something so elemental and lovely about nourishing people both in soul and in bodywith pretty little colored jars of foodstuffs. It's a gift but it's also such a small and humble little gift, lovely.

I'm great at taking care of others with food - but for myself, as is so often my challenge, I do not apply that same level of care and tenderness, or I should say I haven't in the past. I've gotten better and better over the years at taking care of various aspects of Self, particularly in the last five years, but the one great barrier, my Great Wall of China, has been loving self-care as expressed in how I fuel my body. If I focus I may have a beautiful multi-colored meal full of vegetables, but then I've been just as likely the next time I've been out and about and stressed out, to mindlessly pull into a 7-11 and have a (large) bag of chips and a candy bar.

It hasn't helped me change when I cope so well with my weight - I'm a very active individual. I've worked hard all my life, and been fairly active outside work as well. I've been a dancer, even at one point having my own dance class (ultimately unsuccessful though it was). I rode bike for transit for years (years ago), and I've spent countless hours hiking in the woods. My weight often fluctuated, more than a hundred pounds, even, often in response to these, but the default weight always ended back up way over 300 and frustrated.

Family and genetics also haven't helped; more than 50% of the family I knew growing up were obese. One doctor pointed this out and said that I should learn to be happy and healthy as a larger man, and I have become happy (through a long, long journey), but the weight I am now places healthy out of the question. I'm healthy now, I mean, but the potential for serious and devastating results from the extra weight is looming larger and larger as I age. Continuing on this path, with all of the gifts of my life, seems increasingly dishonest, and at some level, dishonorable.

One of my experiences of life is that you go along, putting one foot in front of another, making the best choices day-to-day that you can sometimes for the longest time, years even, and then suddenly one day you turn around and find your world filled with GRACE. I've had this experience again in the last several months, from 3 months ago until now. I have this new career in the planning which I'm very excited about, husband and I finally seem to be making our way through some juggernaut in our relationship that we've been working at for years, and my life is filled with incredibly rich and beautiful people who I love dearly, and who love me in return. The sheer level of love in my life, of healthy, vibrant love, is high.

The corollary to my experience of the free gift of GRACE in my life is that now I have to earn it. My belief is that the Universe presents us with these amazing gifts of Life from time to time, freely; however, after recognizing and receiving the gifts, then you have to earn them. If you don't, your disrespecting the process, and this causes it all to disappear like vapors. Gratitude goes away, and then the gifts follow...

I hope I've not gone too far away from my opening topic, which is my relationship with food, and my elemental honesty with my body. I'm experiencing what feels like a real change with all this. I'm really starting to think about how my actions reflect on my level of honesty, lately. So many times I've addressed the weight issue through a sense of discipline; I am not by nature a very disciplined person, and have fought my nature every time I've crafted a new weight-loss plan.

I do think of myself as an honest person, though, and I've felt a paradigm shift lately in finally getting the connection between the times I abuse my body with food, however I do that, and the level of honesty. If it's a secret it's dishonest, usually. By changing my concept of my actions - every food misstep is at least in part a small dishonesty, whether with myself or others, perhaps I can change my actions. Again, I will never be a disciplined person, it's not my nature. I do think, though, it is my nature to be an honest person, which my friend Luke says is a form of discipline (is it a discipline if it comes naturally?).

Since conceiving of this new way of looking at this issue, I've been absolutely in the open with my eating. I've gone to 7-11 for coffee on my way to work in the mornings - while there all the other garbage the store is filled with doesn't exist, for me. It's not even an option, therefore not even a struggle. This does feel like a paradigm shift. Not to say I haven't heard, maybe even spoken similar words about honesty before, but that this time the connection seems to really have affected my operating paradigm.

Putting this out here, in blog form, is my attempt at continuing the art of living en plein aire, out in the open, a life without secrets. This is also my tiny act of gratitude. I know this has been a long post; if you're still with me I thank you. I will try to post again in the future, and hope to perhaps use this post to mark my honest experience of a life, out of any sort of hiding, at last...