And the picture above is not about how we do it in YLD. This is an article for all of you who have come here to lose weight. This might mean losing pounds, we're losing fear or anxiety or conflict about who you are. Mostly, though not always, it is about weighing "too much". Sometimes it is about the fear of weighing too much.
Our culture says if we are heavy, we are diseased we are less than, not lovable, not valued. And I know that any one of you who has experienced this knows exactly what I mean. This cellular angst from being judged as flawed because of our size is profound.
It is
something which certainly burdened me for many years. I thought I understood it, I wrote a book about it. Then I went through menopause, I went through some pretty major grief stuff and I gained weight. The people who were deeply connected to me overlooked this because the connection was so deep and so healing that they saw "me" and not an image of what society determined I should look like.
These people, the connected ones, knew that in fact we were sharing the same journey on some very deep level. And for me, I had to wade through the levels of our collective story. That process was sometimes delightful and sometimes profoundly lonely. Sometimes the burden of the weight I carried almost crushed my spirit because I didn't understand why. On another I level the not understanding why meant I
kept asking questions and looking for answers. Why did we not lose weight effortlessly?
One evening when I was meditating, I had this thought, "Kathleen just stop fretting. You are a living into a process. It will make sense later."
My scale broke, I threw it away. I bought a pair of $90 jeans for fat people. They were amazing but they didn't fit right. I called the company because they had a guarantee which said no matter what call us. She said send them back. She sent a pair two sizes smaller. They fit. Then I started to look at what might need to be refined in our protocol.
During the summer the mentors and I were talking about
how to resolve the dilemma of carbs in losing weight. We had some people who felt that a no carb, high fat plan is the way to go. They lost weight. They felt euphoric. I was not happy. Every cell in my body resisted this idea as being nuts. My experience of their energy was they got brittle and weird. They thought I was being dogmatic. And, though we never talked about this part they were losing weight and I was not. Talk about a spiritual dilemma.
Remember now, these were people I love, trust and care for. I decided I would listen, learn more. I decided to be open and see if I could discern a way through our differences. I did what I do best. I went back to the science. I reread it with a new eye. I listened to people. I listened to them on a deeper level. I found out the story is much
more nuanced than any of us thought. Those who were working from a place of addiction being healed, who are not in fear, had the ability to discern what was right for them. They could dialogue, engage and explore. They could find "best browns" and discern the "sweet spot" for carb levels.Those who had not healed their addiction got mad, isolated, blamed me, blamed the program for failing them.
I worked on deepening my own healing and let their knowing seep in. Here is what I have come to: Our bodies have a profound ability to guide us. We as a group have an astounding set of lived experience to guide us in the refinement of the original version outlined in YLD. As a leader, I have the ability to translate this into a simple set of directions. PNP is about healing the
addiction. YLD was incomplete. I didn't know about menopause,emotional nuance, and how to look at carbs differently. Now I do. And if I do, you will as well.
Here is the thing. If you think the weight issue is about how much you weigh you're missing the chance to step into a level of healing beyond anything you could
ever have imagined. The weight struggle is really about the burden of being dismissed, not seen, not valued, judged or made invisible. The weight is about the sorrow we have carried because of it.
You can cast off the sorrow part more quickly than the pounds. Emotional baggage is more fluid than physical baggage.
You don't need therapy to do it. You don't need to keep questioning either. We have answers if you are open to them. Remarkably, YLD, the haven for the fat or fat fearful, has become the place of Joy. When joy dots guide your life, you discover radiance. When we do that together, we live in Radiant Recovery.
Stay tuned. I will be writing more about this as we continue the journey.
