Posted by Michelle Butler Mar 6 2011, 8:28 pm in Emotional Eating, Expectations, Michelle Butler, Michelle Mondays, non-scale victories
I have been fortunate to meet a lot of great people in my life. One of the neatest people I’ve met through work is a woman I’m going to call Kathy in this blog piece even though that is not her real name. Several years ago, I was chatting with Kathy at the conclusion of a big event, and she seemed down. Her husband had just lost a lot of weight at a fat farm and was reevaluating every aspect of his life including their marriage.
Now, I’m not exaggerating when I say Kathy is an absolutely amazing person, so I was surprised to hear this. I could understand; however, how a person would want to reevaluate many aspects of his life after losing a lot of weight. It really can be that transforming.
About a year later I saw Kathy at another work event. Another woman there was asking Kathy for advice. The husband of woman #2 had just asked for a divorce after 20 years of marriage, and she wanted to know how Kathy had dealt with her emotions during her divorce. Kathy said her friend had given her a thousand or so old phonebooks. Whenever the pain got too strong, she would go tear up phonebooks. It’s harder to do than you might think, and it helped her release her negative emotions.
I found that image to be heartbreaking, yet I know relationships are complicated things. I have no idea what Kathy’s marriage was like, but I do know the urge to look back over your life and reevaluate aspects of it during a healthy lifestyle change.
I pretty much know why I am the way I am. I’ve had to figure out a lot of tough stuff in order to make the kind of forward progress I want to make on this journey to become and stay a healthy writer. It’s all been very healing, but there are times when the emotion from an old pain can tick you off. In the getting over slash and burn piece, I talked about alternative ways to dealing with negative emotions than self-destruction or random lashing out at other people.
I need to take it one step further and talk about ways to not blame your pain on other people. This goes beyond random lashing out and delves into the area reevaluating relationships and questions like why didn’t so-and-so do this when I was struggling so much or why did so-and-so do stuff to hurt me. If she had or hadn’t, my life might have been so much better.
The Washington Post carries a regular advice column written by Carolyn Hax that I find very helpful. One piece of wisdom she’ll mention every so often is to try to see the situation from another person’s perspective and really understand where she is coming from and what made her. You may be asking for something from her that she doesn’t know how to give or can’t give. If she has no idea how to handle her emotions in a healthy manner, how can she help you learn to do so?
I find this a helpful exercise to do. This may not be the best example, but it might help a bit. I was not the most popular person in my little school from 4-6 grade. I also was one of the first girls to develop a chest. In 5th and 6th grade, this was a point of particular interest to some boys, and their nicknames and teasing made me even more self-conscious about it. There have been times when I’ve looked back and really been pissed off at them. The two worst boys have since come out. That puts a different spin on the whole thing and trying to understand what they may have been feeling when they teased me has given me an entirely different perspective on those years and helped me move forward.
Now, I’m not trying to say that other people did not cause you pain and you shouldn’t be mad about that. There are some relationships that are just toxic and should be ended. Some relationships go beyond toxic and become abusive. This may be a good point to say that conventional wisdom is that when a person has been physically or sexually abused they probably will need counseling to work that out.
I am trying to say that there comes a time when the pain and anger needs to be felt, worked out and let go. There may be a temptation during this process to blame others for this pain and anger. Again, the one thing you can control is your reaction to the situation. Blaming others for my pain and anger ultimately reaches the point where it keeps me from moving forward. Following Carolyn Hax’s advice is one of the ways I try to move forward. Another trick of mine is to imagine that person tearing up phonebooks because I’ve lashed our or ended a relationship that might have been strengthened and improved if I had worked things out and reacted better. Successfully doing this can help me move forward and improve my life.
Do you ever read Carolyn Hax? Has anything ever made you reevaluate your life and did you find ways to help you move forward? Do you have any advice on how to work out these kinds of questions?
Posted by Michelle Butler Feb 27 2011, 8:11 pm in Emotional Eating, Expectations, fear, Michelle Butler, Michelle Mondays, non-scale victories, support
One of my goals for 2010 was to leave behind my impatience and jealousy when it came to my weight loss journey. At the beginning of that year, I could have stood up in front of my Weight Watchers group and pointed out every single woman who had lost more weight than me and perhaps [...]
Posted by Michelle Butler Nov 15 2010, 1:29 am in Michelle Butler, Michelle Mondays, motivation, non-scale victories, progress, Writing
I’ve been chugging away on my journey to become and stay a healthy writer for nearly two years now. There have actually been stretches of time when it’s felt easy and joyous and full of rewards. It’s not hard to keep going then. In fact, just try to stop me. The easy times have been [...]
Posted by Michelle Butler Oct 25 2010, 1:25 am in Michelle Butler, Michelle Mondays, non-scale victories, weight loss
At my last Weight Watchers meeting, one of my buds reached his goal weight and has now lost 94 pounds. Many of the newer folks there wanted to know how he had done it. He started out his story of success with something along the lines of naturally inside I still see myself as a [...]
Posted by Michelle Butler Oct 4 2010, 1:12 am in 10 Healthy Guidelines, Emotional Eating, Michelle Butler, Michelle Mondays, non-scale victories
One of the unexpected side effects of learning how to stop my emotional eating and losing 30-40 pounds is that I feel so much more. This is great for when I’m feeling positive emotions. There have been many times this year when I’ve walked around thinking life is grand. This can even morph into thinking [...]
Posted by Rachel Graves Aug 27 2010, 5:17 am in eating healthy, non-scale victories, positive thinking, Rachel Graves
I’m in an odd mood for purging lately. I’m not sure what brought it on, probably getting rid of a desk in the office. Suddenly 8sq.ft. of paper piles needed somewhere to go. Surprisingly, that somewhere has been the recycle bin. A list of things I’ve ditched: my cell phone bills from 2000-2003, an autographed [...]
Posted by Michelle Butler Aug 16 2010, 1:21 am in clothing, exercise, goals, Michelle Butler, Michelle Mondays, non-scale victories, running, weight loss
Last Tuesday, I chatted with a woman in my Weight Watchers group as we were in the elevator going up to the 11th floor where our meetings are held. I told her that the weigh ins were my least favorite part of the whole process. She was shocked by that and asked, “Why?” I was [...]
Posted by Michelle Butler Jul 26 2010, 1:41 am in clothing, Emotional Eating, exercise, Expectations, fear, Michelle Butler, Michelle Mondays, non-scale victories
So, this was supposed to be a very positive post. I just completed my back to basics month that started with me coming up with a new plan. I lost 3 pounds the first week, 0.6 the second, stayed the same the third, and was expecting a big loss the 4th week. I had already [...]
Posted by Rachel Graves Apr 23 2010, 12:25 pm in confidence, Expectations, goals, maintenance, non-scale victories, positive thinking, process, progress, Rachel Graves
Last year at DragonCon I stepped onto the crowded elevator to a scent worth drooling for: bar-be-queue sauce sweet and tangy followed by a hint of fresh French Fries. My mind filled in the rest of the meal hiding in the Styrofoam container: crumbly, buttery cornbread and cool, creamy coleslaw. Having just come from a [...]
Posted by Michelle Butler Mar 22 2010, 5:01 am in clothing, confidence, Michelle Butler, Michelle Mondays, motivation, non-scale victories
About a year ago, I finally passed the ten-pound loss mark. It was an exciting milestone. Yes, it took me nearly 3 months to lose those 10 pounds, but it was the fastest 10 pounds I’d ever lost, and I know I can be a slow loser. I’ve even accepted that I can’t or won’t [...]
