Control is what you pay for when you sign up for a diet or fitness program. You feel insecure about your body in some shape or form. You pay someone who says they have the secret recipe through either food intake or exercise, or both, that will change your body-- thus fixing your insecurity.
They give you a list of rules: don't eat this, eat that, burn calories this way, eat at this time, only eat this much, exercise this way, for that long, etc. You succumb to whatever rules they give-- in desperate hope you're body can be transformed into what you think will make you a happier person. Or at least to what will make you feel better about that certain body part you don't like.
If the diet plan works, you're left to believe you can't stop, because now you're dependent on it to keep your body secure from regressing back to the way it was. For example, you've lost all of your excess fat with the hCG protocol, yet you still think you need to follow some sort of diet plan to keep you from gaining it all back. You're still dieting and have a diet control mentality, even though your body doesn't need to be under a contstant fueling restriction.
You're now controlling even more out of fear you're body is on the verge of regaining. You think you still have leptin resistance, you still believe your body is all messed up, and you still believe you have to diet to keep your fat off, even though you may have less than 30 pounds of fat on your body (which is very lean for a female). The choice to control your body not only perpetuates your feelings of insecurity, but it makes your need for more control even worse. This is like losing weight running half-marathons and such. Then you feel compelled to continue to enlist in races out of fear you'll gain fat back without that type of training. You are now dependent, or at least think you are.
Have you ever considered your body's innate subconscious intelligence? That every cell in your body has the capacity to control (of which your conscious mind can't even begin to conceptualize) and maintain homeostasis without your help? Think of it this way, you have a body that your mother's body created perfectly. Did your mother have to meddle in the business of your body to make sure you were created in a way that would survive the climate of our ever changing environment? I have three children and my intelligence can't even start to comprehend how I am (and they are) still alive under the circumstance of labor and delivery!!! What would make us believe that we have even the slightest idea about the capacity of the human body to control itself? How does it maintain life under polar opposite stress, which is under polar opposite stress, in a 4-dimentionsal plane, infinity, and so forth?
The idea that we can control the human body stems from insecurity. It is an idea that there is something wrong based on our idea of what is right. But if what is right is based on our limited level of understanding, and our intellectual understanding isn't even a sliver of the body's capacity, aren't we dumbing down the human body to our limited view? The more we know of the human body, the more we recognize our understanding is far less then what we thought. But even with that awareness, food is one thing we do control. We control what it is, when we eat it, how much, and we justify eating for whatever bias we have. But what is the controls by which the body dictates it's need for food? Hunger.
If you're not hungry your body isn't communicating the need for food. This concept is similar to urination. If you don't have the sensations to urinate, then you don't have an emmint reason to go to the bathroom. Would you sit on the pot if you didn't have the sense to urinate? Would you go to the bathroom and sit on the toilette for fun? To distract from sad? To celebrate? NO! Then why would you eat without hunger too?
Hunger is the foudational signal that it is time for you to prioritize eating. It is the body's own way of controlling your behavior and it is highly reliable as a means to eat less without the need to control your food intake from a diet. Why? Because your body knows more than any business person who created a diet in order increase their profit margins. The human body knows when and how much food you need. Once you've masted listening to hunger and doing as it says, it is then your job to make wise choices with what you eat.
Without this trust and teamwork with the body, you'll always seek control, you'll always have to count calories, you'll always need to measure whats coming in and whats going out, and you'll always feel as if your body is messed up. Until you are willing to trust that your body knows much more about what it needs and when, you're at the mercy of someone else'se intellingence. Is their motive to control your food intake for the health of your body or the health of their wallet? Before you enlist in a diet of any type, start by learning your hunger and using it as a guide. Then make the intelligent choice of what to eat.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Friday, February 10, 2012
CONTROL: WHAT YOU DO TO FEEL BETTER ABOUT YOURSELF.
One of the funniest things we do as humans is try to control things, especially controlling how we are perceived by others. We follow an idea of how something should be and we try to force the idea within ourselves and others. A perfect example of this is clothing.
Observe how jeans have changed in the last thirty years. It starts with an artist who designs a shape, a color, or a logo. Then there is judgment of anything other than that. The people who want to control others to feel better about themselves are the most critical and in order to perceive themselves as higher in a pecking order of value, they judge others who don't wear the trend. Then followers who are defined by how their clothes are judged, follow the opinion of the most critical, again, to avoid judgment and to feel more valuable. As the fear of judgment and fear of being less valuable in the eyes of others continues as a ripple affect, the overall dress code changes. From bell bottoms to straight leg, to skinny jeans, back to bell bottoms, and again skinny jeans, and etc.
Recognize this cycle with music, make-up, careers, cars, religious rules, the house you live in and where it's located, the wrist-watch you wear, the purse you carry, how you do your hair, etc. Notice how you control your children, so that they are also perceived as more valuable to others, so that you are perceived more valuable to others. Do you force your daughter to wear her hair in a way she doesn't like, just so that you don't feel like a "bad" mother? Do you make your children wear certain clothes so that they are perceived as better? Have you changed their personality to match what you think makes a better person, in your opinion?
The most critical controls of values are religion, politics, money, and looks. We perceive our value by the what the most addicted, judgmental, and opinionated people vocalize. It's the extremists that teach fear, who judge, who reject and abandon, who hate, and who have the smallest sense of worth that is defined by hierarchy, control, and the manipulation of others.
If that critical person was your parents, your spouse, and is now you, you probably have an addiction and you're probably miserable with life. You constantly judge others, fear others, hate others, and can't figure out why life is so awful. Do you really believe that by following rules that you are a better person and that people will like you better? If someone likes you better because you follow their rules, judgment, and change yourself to avoid their criticism, aren't you now a slave to their opinion? Does that opinion define you as a person?
Are you dictating someone to change who they are to make you feel better about yourself, to meet your insecure demands? Did your parents do this to you and are you continuing to do this to your children and other people? Is your addiction what you control because you don't want to hurt another person like other people hurt you? Did they abuse you because they made it your job to make them feel better about themselves, similar to how you use your addition of choice to make you feel better?
The problem is the false definitions of value that others enforce with their piercing judgment and criticism. Their criticism comes from their own insecurity, and the more insecure someone is the more judgmental they get. By judging you and trying to change your rules of value to theirs, you're less likely to judge in return and much easier to control. Eventually, we are all the same (like robots) and we're all safe from judgment! But if we are all the same, how would we know who is more valuable or higher in the pecking order of value?
Judgment requires there be a reference point of value so we'd have to continually change what defines a person better than another. That's why people who need to be highest on the pecking order change what is acceptable, or make the rules more strict. This is how we get extremests, fundamentalists, and people who are dangerous to others and justify abuse-- even to children.
So people get meaner, things get more expensive, rules get stricter, people get more critical, and you never feel at peace with what exists because someone out there is always looking down at you like a puny little spec of nothing. But that large need to look down on others is only a reflection of how small they feel inside. And in reality, you needing them to tell you what to do, and their need to control who and what you are is all in the same: fear of no value and resulting rejection.
But without fear of outside opinion of value, we are still the same. Without judgment one persons value isn't more or less than another persons. And the truth is, we all have undescribable and unique value, and not one person has more value than another. But when we seek our value from the opinion of others, we are trying to define that uniqueness and attempting to create a control of it, and that is where everything gets out of balance. As soon as you give someone the power to define your value, you are now a slave to their opinion and if they use that power to feel better about themselves, the pendulum swing begins. This is an "every action has an equal or opposite reaction" situation.
If your self-worth is developed from what is real and without outward definition, then no-one has the control or power to take away or give to your value with their opinion. With that you can love others unconditionally, the same as you love yourself unconditionally. The pendulum balances in the middle and what exists just exists and you accept what is and nothing becomes nothing and you become something. That something exists without control.
Observe how jeans have changed in the last thirty years. It starts with an artist who designs a shape, a color, or a logo. Then there is judgment of anything other than that. The people who want to control others to feel better about themselves are the most critical and in order to perceive themselves as higher in a pecking order of value, they judge others who don't wear the trend. Then followers who are defined by how their clothes are judged, follow the opinion of the most critical, again, to avoid judgment and to feel more valuable. As the fear of judgment and fear of being less valuable in the eyes of others continues as a ripple affect, the overall dress code changes. From bell bottoms to straight leg, to skinny jeans, back to bell bottoms, and again skinny jeans, and etc.
Recognize this cycle with music, make-up, careers, cars, religious rules, the house you live in and where it's located, the wrist-watch you wear, the purse you carry, how you do your hair, etc. Notice how you control your children, so that they are also perceived as more valuable to others, so that you are perceived more valuable to others. Do you force your daughter to wear her hair in a way she doesn't like, just so that you don't feel like a "bad" mother? Do you make your children wear certain clothes so that they are perceived as better? Have you changed their personality to match what you think makes a better person, in your opinion?
The most critical controls of values are religion, politics, money, and looks. We perceive our value by the what the most addicted, judgmental, and opinionated people vocalize. It's the extremists that teach fear, who judge, who reject and abandon, who hate, and who have the smallest sense of worth that is defined by hierarchy, control, and the manipulation of others.
If that critical person was your parents, your spouse, and is now you, you probably have an addiction and you're probably miserable with life. You constantly judge others, fear others, hate others, and can't figure out why life is so awful. Do you really believe that by following rules that you are a better person and that people will like you better? If someone likes you better because you follow their rules, judgment, and change yourself to avoid their criticism, aren't you now a slave to their opinion? Does that opinion define you as a person?
Are you dictating someone to change who they are to make you feel better about yourself, to meet your insecure demands? Did your parents do this to you and are you continuing to do this to your children and other people? Is your addiction what you control because you don't want to hurt another person like other people hurt you? Did they abuse you because they made it your job to make them feel better about themselves, similar to how you use your addition of choice to make you feel better?
The problem is the false definitions of value that others enforce with their piercing judgment and criticism. Their criticism comes from their own insecurity, and the more insecure someone is the more judgmental they get. By judging you and trying to change your rules of value to theirs, you're less likely to judge in return and much easier to control. Eventually, we are all the same (like robots) and we're all safe from judgment! But if we are all the same, how would we know who is more valuable or higher in the pecking order of value?
Judgment requires there be a reference point of value so we'd have to continually change what defines a person better than another. That's why people who need to be highest on the pecking order change what is acceptable, or make the rules more strict. This is how we get extremests, fundamentalists, and people who are dangerous to others and justify abuse-- even to children.
So people get meaner, things get more expensive, rules get stricter, people get more critical, and you never feel at peace with what exists because someone out there is always looking down at you like a puny little spec of nothing. But that large need to look down on others is only a reflection of how small they feel inside. And in reality, you needing them to tell you what to do, and their need to control who and what you are is all in the same: fear of no value and resulting rejection.
But without fear of outside opinion of value, we are still the same. Without judgment one persons value isn't more or less than another persons. And the truth is, we all have undescribable and unique value, and not one person has more value than another. But when we seek our value from the opinion of others, we are trying to define that uniqueness and attempting to create a control of it, and that is where everything gets out of balance. As soon as you give someone the power to define your value, you are now a slave to their opinion and if they use that power to feel better about themselves, the pendulum swing begins. This is an "every action has an equal or opposite reaction" situation.
If your self-worth is developed from what is real and without outward definition, then no-one has the control or power to take away or give to your value with their opinion. With that you can love others unconditionally, the same as you love yourself unconditionally. The pendulum balances in the middle and what exists just exists and you accept what is and nothing becomes nothing and you become something. That something exists without control.
Monday, February 6, 2012
ADDICTION: FORCING LOVE AND HIDING FROM THREAT
Do you have any memories as a child where you actually felt loved? A moment when you received a positive feeling that your mom or dad thought you were special? If it wasn't from your parents was it from someone else? A teacher, a friend's mom, the toys you played with, the new clothes you wore, the friends you had in junior high, a boyfriend/girlfriend, a piece of cake, music, a drink of alcohol, your religious measure, watching your first porn, gambling, sex, or something else that made you feel good about yourself?
Usually that feeling of love gives you butterflies, a feeling of importance, a sense of pride, a moment of acceptance and security, and that feeling is what we continue to seek for the rest of our lives. But for many, that love was only received under a condition (let's say sex) and you're forced to submit or to accept that condition (even though it feels like fear and trauma), just for a moment of feeling loved or valuable. If it wasn't molestation, it may have been getting good grades (which took you away from playing as a child). It could be the way you looked and being the prettiest girl in school. For me it was religion, and following what ever rule that was defined for me.
What you thought gave you that feeling of love, can become your sense of definition, or becomes what you think you are. But as soon as the source of love and acceptance is threatened you'll immediately defend it. Even if that includes abusing someone else (even your own children) to protect it. You feel angry, justified, entitled, euphoric, a fleeting sense of power and control, even unstoppable. But if what you do that gives you love isn't judged as appropriate, then you hide.
There's confusion for why you feel so out of control, have no willpower, and you feel shame, guilt, fear, and intense vulnerability to the ultimate threat: rejection or abandonment if you're caught. We eventually stop seeking the creation of love, but instead run away from losing what makes us feel that fleeting love. This is the life of addiction. This is how someone justifies molesting someone else. This is why you continue to molest your own body with food or addictive dieting and extreme exercise.
It all started when you realized someone else had the power to make you feel good about yourself, but also when they also had the power to take that good feeling away and replace it with a bad feeling about yourself. Usually, it starts with your own parents. Take a moment to write down the first time you felt loved. It could be as simple as tying your shoe and getting a hug for the accomplishment. For me, it was my mom buying me a pack of Rolo's at the store, and I didn't have to share with my siblings. Still to this day, every time I go to the market and see Rolo's I feel that love from my mother. I'm smiling even as a write this now.
My other first memory of getting love taken away was when I was about 24ish months. I remember one of my brothers and one of my sisters arguing over who was going to change my diaper. My brother ended up having to change my diaper and he was pissed. From that time forward, I felt like a burden to my siblings. I remember feeling really bad and I continually felt as if I needed to do what they said to avoid that feeling of "burden".
The moments we remember that gave or took away our value, changed our sense of value. But these are false definitions or lies. They aren't real and aren't true. Those moments are reflections of what defines value and love to others, and you were taught that it was your responsibility to give it to them. That is where things went wrong. As you become aware of how simple this is, and how understandable behavior is under this type of dependency for love (and fear of losing it) you can empathize. You can see why people take advantage of others, why we cheat, steal, hate, and abuse. Why we are entitled to what we think makes us happy, and punished or angry when someone threatens our security.
What is your security? What do you need and have to get to feel love? What threatens that love, and does your behavior and choices reflect an offensively taking, or a defensive avoidance of losing it? Are you the abuser or the enabler? Are you vindictive or are you a martyr? Is that the truth or are you just continuing the trauma, passing down the conditional love, and giving your children the idea that others have that much power to give or take from their life?
It's time to start over. Start by loving yourself the way you wish you could have from the start: unconditionally. That way it isn't anybody else's job to take care of you and nobody can take that away.
Usually that feeling of love gives you butterflies, a feeling of importance, a sense of pride, a moment of acceptance and security, and that feeling is what we continue to seek for the rest of our lives. But for many, that love was only received under a condition (let's say sex) and you're forced to submit or to accept that condition (even though it feels like fear and trauma), just for a moment of feeling loved or valuable. If it wasn't molestation, it may have been getting good grades (which took you away from playing as a child). It could be the way you looked and being the prettiest girl in school. For me it was religion, and following what ever rule that was defined for me.
What you thought gave you that feeling of love, can become your sense of definition, or becomes what you think you are. But as soon as the source of love and acceptance is threatened you'll immediately defend it. Even if that includes abusing someone else (even your own children) to protect it. You feel angry, justified, entitled, euphoric, a fleeting sense of power and control, even unstoppable. But if what you do that gives you love isn't judged as appropriate, then you hide.
There's confusion for why you feel so out of control, have no willpower, and you feel shame, guilt, fear, and intense vulnerability to the ultimate threat: rejection or abandonment if you're caught. We eventually stop seeking the creation of love, but instead run away from losing what makes us feel that fleeting love. This is the life of addiction. This is how someone justifies molesting someone else. This is why you continue to molest your own body with food or addictive dieting and extreme exercise.
It all started when you realized someone else had the power to make you feel good about yourself, but also when they also had the power to take that good feeling away and replace it with a bad feeling about yourself. Usually, it starts with your own parents. Take a moment to write down the first time you felt loved. It could be as simple as tying your shoe and getting a hug for the accomplishment. For me, it was my mom buying me a pack of Rolo's at the store, and I didn't have to share with my siblings. Still to this day, every time I go to the market and see Rolo's I feel that love from my mother. I'm smiling even as a write this now.
My other first memory of getting love taken away was when I was about 24ish months. I remember one of my brothers and one of my sisters arguing over who was going to change my diaper. My brother ended up having to change my diaper and he was pissed. From that time forward, I felt like a burden to my siblings. I remember feeling really bad and I continually felt as if I needed to do what they said to avoid that feeling of "burden".
The moments we remember that gave or took away our value, changed our sense of value. But these are false definitions or lies. They aren't real and aren't true. Those moments are reflections of what defines value and love to others, and you were taught that it was your responsibility to give it to them. That is where things went wrong. As you become aware of how simple this is, and how understandable behavior is under this type of dependency for love (and fear of losing it) you can empathize. You can see why people take advantage of others, why we cheat, steal, hate, and abuse. Why we are entitled to what we think makes us happy, and punished or angry when someone threatens our security.
What is your security? What do you need and have to get to feel love? What threatens that love, and does your behavior and choices reflect an offensively taking, or a defensive avoidance of losing it? Are you the abuser or the enabler? Are you vindictive or are you a martyr? Is that the truth or are you just continuing the trauma, passing down the conditional love, and giving your children the idea that others have that much power to give or take from their life?
It's time to start over. Start by loving yourself the way you wish you could have from the start: unconditionally. That way it isn't anybody else's job to take care of you and nobody can take that away.
Friday, February 3, 2012
NOT CARING: FINDING EXISTENCE WITH NOTHING
Caring was my addiction. I cared so much that I psychotically controlled everything to avoid fat gain. Because I cared about being thin, fat gain was what I thought was hell, and what I thought would be the death of my value. CRAZY. When I made the choice to not commit suicide, I knew I would have to submit to the fact that when I let go of control, my worst nightmare would happen and I had to just assume I was going to end up weighing 600 pounds.
I decided not to care, and to accept obesity if that was indeed the result. I chose to put my ego aside, and to instead trust that if I were to listen to my body, and give it a chance to lead the way, that I was willing to find out what the outcome would be. I would not eat without hunger, I would not control what and how much I ate, I wouldn't judge the food (which always ended in shame, fear and guilt), and I would never again exercise to compensate or to relieve the anxiety. I would surrender my control, feel the physical anguish that was inevitable, and let that feeling of death win. The fight wasn't worth it and the only way out of the battle was to surrender my control.
I had nothing to lose because the only other way out was physical death. So I wept on the floor, sobbed as the anguish manifested, and I watched it from afar. I lifted my arms, closed my eyes, and fell backwards over the cliff. It was the cold, damp, dark and cavernous cliff I was running away from. I knew it would cause my emotional death and my loss of existence. The loss of what I thought defined who I was.
Who would I be if I didn't judge my body? If I didn't judge, that meant I couldn't have a definition of value, and there wouldn't be rules that I had to follow to feel better about myself. That meant I would have to create my value from within, because if there was a formulated rule or definition to follow, I would still be a slave to the vulnerability of judgment. If I were to live I would have to let go of judgment, and find peace with something inside my soul that existed without judgement, without someone else to tell me what it requires, without needing to do anything to achieve it. Falling from the cliff required I let go of all outward definition of value, and despite what rejection and judgment others way entitle upon my value, I would have to not care.
Not caring saved my life. It forced me to seek an existence that didn't require validation from any person, action, or object. My soul exists beyond what my body physically can define. No other person, religion, culture, nor energy of this world could create a fake version of what I am, can duplicate what is me, nor is it possible for me to give you a definition it. I exist. I am undefinable. I am beyond what anything that exists can explain.
In that awareness, I cannot define you. I don't judge your soul because you are unique to me, and your existence would diminish if I even attempted to define or control you. I unconditionally love myself, therefore I don't need you to feel better about me. I have no void for you to fill, and I accept all that you are and all that you're not. Because I don't care, I am innately happy. I can live in life without being define by my clothes, make-up, job, and what I do or don't attain. I am creating my own happiness so I can share. I can give and I don't have any expectation or need reward in return. That existence doesn't change. It just exists and there is no need to improve it.
I decided not to care, and to accept obesity if that was indeed the result. I chose to put my ego aside, and to instead trust that if I were to listen to my body, and give it a chance to lead the way, that I was willing to find out what the outcome would be. I would not eat without hunger, I would not control what and how much I ate, I wouldn't judge the food (which always ended in shame, fear and guilt), and I would never again exercise to compensate or to relieve the anxiety. I would surrender my control, feel the physical anguish that was inevitable, and let that feeling of death win. The fight wasn't worth it and the only way out of the battle was to surrender my control.
I had nothing to lose because the only other way out was physical death. So I wept on the floor, sobbed as the anguish manifested, and I watched it from afar. I lifted my arms, closed my eyes, and fell backwards over the cliff. It was the cold, damp, dark and cavernous cliff I was running away from. I knew it would cause my emotional death and my loss of existence. The loss of what I thought defined who I was.
Who would I be if I didn't judge my body? If I didn't judge, that meant I couldn't have a definition of value, and there wouldn't be rules that I had to follow to feel better about myself. That meant I would have to create my value from within, because if there was a formulated rule or definition to follow, I would still be a slave to the vulnerability of judgment. If I were to live I would have to let go of judgment, and find peace with something inside my soul that existed without judgement, without someone else to tell me what it requires, without needing to do anything to achieve it. Falling from the cliff required I let go of all outward definition of value, and despite what rejection and judgment others way entitle upon my value, I would have to not care.
Not caring saved my life. It forced me to seek an existence that didn't require validation from any person, action, or object. My soul exists beyond what my body physically can define. No other person, religion, culture, nor energy of this world could create a fake version of what I am, can duplicate what is me, nor is it possible for me to give you a definition it. I exist. I am undefinable. I am beyond what anything that exists can explain.
In that awareness, I cannot define you. I don't judge your soul because you are unique to me, and your existence would diminish if I even attempted to define or control you. I unconditionally love myself, therefore I don't need you to feel better about me. I have no void for you to fill, and I accept all that you are and all that you're not. Because I don't care, I am innately happy. I can live in life without being define by my clothes, make-up, job, and what I do or don't attain. I am creating my own happiness so I can share. I can give and I don't have any expectation or need reward in return. That existence doesn't change. It just exists and there is no need to improve it.
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