The Law of Attraction and third world atrocities

On Rape as a Weapon of War, my Messy Divorce, and How Choosing to Take Responsibility for your Thoughts Makes Both of These Things Better.

I’m one of those “Twitter” people. I can’t seem to stop tweeting my every move – From coffee with a colleague to my opinions on Prop 8 – it’s all out there and I love it. So when I have a particularly clear or delicious though, you know I’m going to condense it into 140 characters and tweet it out.

Recently, I tweeted this thought:

“Believe it or not, neither the number on the scale nor your bank balance are inherently good or bad. You impose meaning w/ your thoughts.”


I wrote this just after I looked at my bank balance and thought: “Perfect!” as I wrote a check for $6,542, virtually emptying my savings account. And then I hopped on the scale and thought “253 pounds, Perfect!” exactly where I want to be today.

And then, I couldn’t stop laughing. I mean it was like I was sucking down helium balloons. Ask 10 strangers on the street and I’m pretty sure they would say 253 pounds is not a good amount to weight and $0 is not a good balance for a savings account. But for me, I loved it and I was empowered and invigorated by both numbers.

I love my weight right now because it provides the cleanest, clearest way I can communicate with myself at a time it’s extremely important I listen to myself. I am taking lots of risks and part of how I know if I am heading in the right direction is by the direction of my weight. As I move closer to my most authentic self, my body seems to be miraculously gravitating to a lower natural weight. I’m not stressed, not dieting, and I have never felt better or more beautiful.

When I wrote the check I was smiling. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend sixty-five hundred plus dollars and I LOVED that I could write that check and pay that bill. I felt lucky to be able to solve a problem by writing a check and I felt confident that money will continue to come to me and my savings account will be plenty full when I next need it. Money has always been easy for me.

Of course I didn’t say all of this on Twitter. I just quietly made the observation and moved on with my day. But that simple post got 36 comments. It was like a Washington Post article about Michelle Rhee

Here was one comment:

“So if you're penniless and massively underweight due to malnutrition, you can just think your way out of it?”

I thought about it and said: “In a way… you can: if you think "I'm penniless," for instance, you'll continue to be. If you can find ways you aren't penniless... Ways you are rich... And focus on them, it's CRAZY but you actually create more richness. Now granted... if your situation is so dire - you are in Sudan in a refugee camp - it's going to be REALLY hard to believe there's a way out. But it happens. Look at Super Model and former Sudanese refugee Alek Wek for instance. Point is whether you think you’re penniless or you don't, you’re right. What you dwell on, you create more of.”

And that opened up Pandora’s Box on “The Law of Attraction” and third world atrocities. I did this too when I first started with coaching with Brooke Castillo. She’s say some version of – whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right. And I’d come up with 625 extreme examples to hold up as exceptions to the rule.

Now if you know Ms. Castillo you know that wouldn’t cause her to back down for a second, so she hung with me – through each raped, pregnant 12 year old; genitally mutilated 9 year old; and fire-wood-gathering Sudanese refugee. It’s not the easiest way to learn the law of attraction. So much better to manifest a cup of coffee and take it from there. But I didn’t want to learn the law of attraction, I wanted to analytically prove it wrong. And what I attracted were more analytical arguments about other things being wrong. But hey, if you are like me, and you like to take the long way home and understand how the law of attraction works in the most dire circumstances before you go applying it to your own life, you might be interested in my answer to this question I got in response to my tweet:

“Could you really tell someone who, for example, has had their limbs chopped off with a machete and been raped by Charles Taylor's crew that all they need to succeed is a positive outlook? Surely that's just an excuse not to help other people? (They don't have a positive outlook, they don't deserve aid.)”

Actually what I would say everyone in that position 100% deserves aid. But sadly there usually isn't enough to go around. I would say the more positive you are that you are your family will get the help you need the more likely it will happen? Why? If you think - this is horrible no one will ever help me you are likely to curl up in a dark corner and die. But if you can get your head to the place where you say 'F them! I am going to survive... You, scream, crawl, beg, or otherwise position yourself somewhere you'll get help. Same circumstance. Different thoughts. Different results.

For decades I have been trying to strategically and tactically with great strength, force, and will trying to rearrange circumstances... I mean, I've gone to Herculean lengths. And I'm really good at it.... AND ... mercifully... I am not even at the will of Charles Taylor and his men. But it still was not getting me the results I wanted. When I was able to change what I made the circumstances themselves mean to me, for me, and by me - with no change at all to the circumstances... I got what I wanted.

I have been through a multi-year divorce which has cost me about tens of thousands of dollars and has been going on for years. The divorce has been high in angst and drama. For a long time I made this circumstance mean something horrible - like wrong was done to me and I needed to tell everyone the details - I needed to make it right... I needed to get justice... whatever - I made it mean a lot of things... but when I changed the meaning, the entire circumstance seemed to change... Still in the divorce so no change in circumstance there... but once I turned the thought from

"This isn't fair and is driving me to the poor house." to "I already have what I want and it's just a matter of time until the lose ends are tied up." (but equally true by the way) the fact I have to go to court every once in a while became more of a hobby than a chip on my shoulder.

And now here's the funny thing... once I stopped being obsessed by how this experience was ruining my life (dramatic tone intentional) I stopped calling up my lawyer with new strategies and tactics... SO MATERIALLY something DID change... my monthly bills are going down because I changed my thought. Oh and another thing changed.... my ex and I have spent more time together and while I am not signing up to get remarried it was nice to take our kid to school together on the first day without any drama.

I want to be clear, this isn't about blaming the victim - a circumstance is just that - a circumstance. Certainly I have a lot of empathy for someone raped under the Charles Taylor regime but I can't change that someone was raped. I do know what can change by changing your thoughts is that tomorrow can be a better day.

I'm not trying to convince at all... but if you are up for it - try this wacky experience the next time you have a negative feeling about something. Let's say you have to go to a meeting you don't want to go to. The circumstance is ... 'there is a meeting'. Now you add on this thought: "I have to go and I don't want to". Ultimately that's not true, even if there was a gun to your head you could choose to go rather than risk having your head blown off or you could choose not to go and see if you get shot. If you can find an equally true thought that is an upgrade - not necessarily positive... but just change "I have to go to this meeting and I don't want to" to "I'm choosing to go to this meeting so I guess I do want to be there." and if you can really OWN and BELIEVE the upgraded though... See how it changes the circumstance for you. It's nutty, but I guarantee the results will blow you away. It works every time.

I hit my goal weight!!!

I woke up Sunday morning happier than I have ever been in my entire life. I feel like I am deeply in love with the PERFECT person for me and today I realized why. I HIT MY GOAL WEIGHT!! I have struggled so hard and so long with my weight and the battle is over! Seriously I never thought I'd reach this point but I know now that every diet, every bad day, every pair of pants that made me want to crawl into bed, and every scale or mirror that I accused of being "mean" have all lead me to this perfect point.

I have been made whole. I have MADE MYSELF whole. There is nothing left to fix. It's like when you start dating someone and the person you are dating seems perfect. You can't find a flaw - can't imagine a reason you'll ever break up. And you love every second you spend together, treasuring it like a gift from the Gods. That's how I feel about me.

I don't need to read another book. I don't need to start another diet. I don't need to cry another tear. I have received the gift of myself and I am not going to waste another second. I want to stay up all night on the phone with me. I want to stare lovingly at pictures of myself. I am squeezing every last drop of love into my own arms and now I can only see the perfection.

Every check I write is payable to me (no matter what it says on the "To" line)! Every bit of beauty I notice in others - my stunning mom, gorgeous sisters, friends, roommates, etc - I notice it's all my own beauty. When I meet someone who is smart - I am noticing I am smart. When I see someone (Sally, Heidi!) who is fit and strong and who loves there body - I realize I am fit and strong and I love my body.

And this week - I just can't stop seeing perfection everywhere. Nothing needs to be fixed. I can relax in gratitude and joy. The struggle was worth it. It brought me here. There is no where I'd rather be.

But you are wondering about my goal weight? Well it's the weight I am right now of course, how could it ever be anything else?

100 pounds and a stammer

I don’t remember a day in my life when I wasn’t fat. At 2, I remember hearing adults making wagers on how old I’d be when I'd lose my baby fat. At 9, I remember my grandfather being extremely upset that his calling me “Solid” didn’t offend me. I like the idea of being Solid. What was the alternative? Liquid? He kept explaining it was an insult and jiggled my thighs to make sure I got it. I did.

At 11, I remember being weighed in front of my gym class and feeling like I would die on the spot. I bought my first pair of jeans in an adult size that year – it was a size 9. That was the smallest size I ever was. I didn’t stay in it long and I have never revisited it even at my lowest post-diet weights. In high school, I was a size 12 or 14 and on my 16th birthday I weighed 180 pounds. At 19, I went on my first diet and I lost 100 pounds. In the 18 years since my first diet, I have lost 70-100 pounds 4 times.

My extra weight has been my constant companion, my nemesis, my evil twin, my nightmare. I had good grades, good friends, great jobs, a fun life, AND an extra 100 plus pounds dragging me down. I’ve theorized this extra weight was an attempt at self-sabotage (I’ve got it too good?); of survivor guilt (past life on the Titanic?); to keep people at a distance (why didn’t it work with my ex-husband?) I’ve used logic, extreme exercise, dieting, lifestyle changes, vegetarianism, raw foods, fasting, and a million other things to attack this monster, but each time I lose the weight but not the monster. And I gain the weight back – and then some!

I thought I read everything there was to read on diets, weight loss, and obesity – from medical and policy documents – self help to psychology reviews; but tonight I read a story about a guy with a speech impediment that really hit home.

“I wish I could phone up my thirteen year-old self and tell him that there is no magic wand solution,” wrote 2010 Man Booker Prize finalist David Mitchell (The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (Hodder & Stoughton - Sceptre)). “Here is my big idea,” he continues “stop trying to kill your stammer…Stop seeing it as an enemy to be vanquished: it is an integral part of the process of how you think, perceive other, and process language, and no good ever came of hating an integral part of yourself.”

I’ve heard this general message before… “Love yourself. Love your body.” But never in this way.

“Quite probably,” explains Mitchell “if I could have produced unbroken, effortless sentences like my secretly-envied class-mates, I would never have felt the need to write them down, nor become a writer.”

Did his Booker Prize recognition come, in some way, because he is a stammerer? If so, how could he possibly not feel some gratitude towards the stammer?

Now if I had a choice between being fat or having a stammer, I’d take the speech impediment any day of the week because I don’t feel like society makes big judgments about people with stammers and stutters like they do when you are fat…but OH the evidence Mr. Mitchell produces to dismiss this argument.

Like me, Mitchell was also constantly dismayed at the depth of his efforts and the lack of results. No amount of hard work or will power was able to permanently dislodge the demon. Part of the reason for people being dismissive is what Mitchell calls “The Will-Power Myth.”

“This myth cost me angry years of believing that I stammered because I wasn’t trying hard enough not to stammer…Like a force field, the more will-power you throw at it, the stronger it gets.”

So how could I make my monster into a friend? How could I see the goodness of my dragon and not feel the fire on my neck? Well, to start I guess can admit having extra weight is integral to who I am. Since I have always been overweight – even at my thinnest – there is no way I could be me without having had it as my constant companion. The way I think, perceive others, and interpret the body has all been influenced by my weight.

When you are a stammerer – apparently – you can foresee seconds before you say a word, that it’s coming up… “Oh no!" you might think. "The next sentence is going to have a word that starts with the letter S and I always stutter on that letter!”

When you are fat you learn how to foresee not just seconds, but weeks! How you ask? Well there are embarrassing moments when your body is oversized that you might never guess as a thin or otherwise normally weighted person. I can smell, for instance, a friendship that is likely to include frequent shopping or being in situations where strip poker or skinny dipping is going to be suggested. Now that sense has helped me avoid being uncomfortable; but it has also helped me succeed in marketing because I can play situations out much further than most people – I think they lose interest because they haven’t been motivated to keep playing it out like I have.

When I set up my life to avoid embarrassing moments caused by my weight – it turns out I had a lot of free time to spend in libraries and coffee shops. I find writing fairly effortless and academic research 100 times more enjoyable than a game of touch football. Give me a choice between writing a 20 page paper and going to a rave – I’ll take the paper… ANY day of the week. In part due to my obesity, I have become a voracious reader, a pretty good writer, and an amazing conversationalist. Believe me when I say -- You want me in your book group!

Tonight there is a stunningly gorgeous, interesting, and intelligent professional dancer in my house. I host dancers from a local studio that need a place to stay while they create transcendent art. And do you know why I host? Well, I think a big part of it is generosity. I am a ridiculously open and generous person and that comes from my learned ability to create social situations where I can’t be rejected because of my weight. Friends were never a big part of my parents or sister’s lives – but to me they are central. I have so many rich, deep, and breathtaking friendships and I am so grateful for them. I have close friends in San Francisco, Kazakhstan, England, Spain, Argentina, Australia and beyond. My life is a thick, international tapestry that literally can’t be duplicated.

I have lived most of my life in fear I would be exposed for being fat – which is so ironic of course because it’s pretty hard to cover up when you are over 100 pounds overweight; and yet living in that fear while being unwilling to turn my back on life has turned me into an incredibly resilient person. I am not afraid to speak in public because I walk in public every day – which to me is much scarier.

People are afraid to speak in public because they think they might say something stupid? God! That’s the least of my worries… I face the “death” of public speaking every day by exposing my fat body when I leave my house. And on most days – I face death and survive. On the few occasions I have metaphorically died, I am quickly resurrected. I have learned to pick myself up even when I am rejected or scorned.

I have spent more time in my 20s and 30s working on my spirituality, my body and my soul then most people my age have to. Many people start learning this stuff when they are much older and may feel they have lost time. This huge thing (pun intended) I’ve had to deal with has taught me about living in the moment, creating my reality with my thoughts, goal setting, and many other tools of self-care – some as basic as diet and nutrition – I’m an expert on both. This work has turned me into one of my favorite people. I love time alone with myself. I love learning about myself and I have made serious emotional and time investments into my own growth. I am hopeful the work I have done will be able to help others.

Being fat has given me the need to prove myself and my worth as it has so often made me feel worthless. In my attempts to prove myself I have built a great career, bought 3 wonderful homes, and earned 3 lofty degrees. I’ve read, I’ve written, I’ve achieved. I’ve had my own company since 1994. My own house since 2000 and my own doctorate since 2006. I’ve also earned a share of medals and certificates from triathlons and other athletic competitions.

My ability to plan, my generosity, my resilience, my tool chest of tools for connecting to myself and my motivation for success are all integral parts of myself that I love. I can strive to be a non-fat obese person but I can never not be fat. My fatness isn’t actually good or bad, it’s just me.

As Mitchell says: “Just as you live somewhere, you have to be someone, and as long as your defects, limitations, and handicaps aren’t alienating friends, why shouldn’t they be as valid a set of determinants for who you are and what your vocation is as your gifts?”

Tahoe 2.0: Off the Grid

There is nothing easy about being a blogger with no Internet access. I'm sitting on the steps of the Sunnyside Restaurant and Lodge, getting eaten alive by mosquitos as I steal Public wifi. The house we are staying at has no phone or Internet access what-so-ever. I know, I know, I am supposed to be focusing on myself and my own personal growth opportunity; but it turns out I have come to see access to the Information Superhighway as a right not a privilege.

Other than the lack of connectivity, the house is gorgeous (see pics above) and the women participating are an interesting mix. A few folks are here from last year - I guess 5 of the 12 women in the room (including Brooke) were here last year. Of the new folks, 2 are coaches though Brooke has asked both of them to participate fully and is including them in all our activities as equals which makes for an interesting dynamic as neither appears to have weight issues. For me, the "skinny bitch" phenomenon is no more - all that work paid off. It's nice to see so clearly that we've all got issues and weight is not as special as I once thought. The other 5 women are fairly new to the work, but on this first day have clearly started this deep dives.

We had 2 coaching sessions today and one creative activity. The major thing that came up for me was about career. Basically I'm saying I'll be happy when I reach the next level of my career, but of course, the opposite is true - I'll reach the next level of my career when I'm happy. So I'm going to do some homework on that tonight and I'll post it to the blog tomorrow morning when I leave the house to catch some exercise and check in with the outside world.

The activity we did was basically to pick our "word" a word that represents us where we are right now and to paint it along with a picture of our "inner body" (ala Eckhart Tolle). I painted an electrified "OPENING" because that really is my word. Opening to the possibilities of everything - my life, my body, my family, my career, my relationships - I am an early spring blossom stretching its petals in the early morning sunlight, and I do find it a most delightful place to be. I remember when I was in Labor with Jesse wanting to scream "OOOOOH FUCK!!!" but instead I kept forcing myself to change the thought - and the scream to OOOOOOOOOOOOOpening. It was a much better thought than this kid is splitting my person in half.


The big breakthrough today though was not mine. It was Miami J's (MJ). MJ has been providing room and board for her adult daughter for roughly a decade too long. Today - in front of our very eyes - we watched her realize that no, this was not providing her daughter help. It was not a gift or an act of love and benefiting her or her daughter in any long term way. MJ's thought was: IF I DON'T HELP MY DAUGHTER FINANCIALLY, SHE COULD DIE. We worked this turn around with her for an hour, but at the end of it, it was pretty clear the opposite was true, and MJ took a sharpie out of her heart and crossed out the word DON'T. I gotta say there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

More updates from "Brooke House: Off the Grid" tomorrow morning.

Heading Back to Tahoe

This blog was started 9 months ago when I was headed to my first retreat in Lake Tahoe with my Life coach Brooke Castillo.

Just 9 months later I have lost a total of 60 lbs. and gained more physical and emotional strength than I could quantify. I head back to Lake Tahoe in a few days and I'm looking forward to the emotional deluge of spending time with Brooke and the other women to peel back the layers of my onion.

I'll be blogging my experiences all back here so stay tuned for some intense "Retreat" posts. I'm really looking forward to this year's adventure and I'm glad to have you along for the ride!

My Virtual Vision Board

Have you read The Secret? Shortly after I read it in March I made a Vision Board. It turns out Vision Boards are old school. Here's the new version. I got to make myself a Virtual Vision Board AND learn iMovie at the same time so forgive the rookie editing. Man, this was FUN!

A Little Girl with a Little Curl

This morning we did something a bit different. Brooke asked us all some questions and gave us no time to think of the answers... you just had to write what popped into your head. Try it yourself! It's interesting.... Here are the questions:

• What Fairy Tale do you most identify with?
• What cartoon character is most like you?
• What movie best represents your life?
• If you were writing an autobiography, what would you call it?
• Whom -from history or currently alive - would be most like to be like if you could be like anyone?
• In your life story are you: a rescuer, a persecutor, or a victim?
• Finish this sentence with a max of 2 words: I am a _________________.

Now, don't cheat. Answer for yourself before you move on. To make it easier, I'm saving my answers for the end of this post. But after we answered those questions Brooke asked us to write a bedtime story that starts... There once was a little girl.

Here's mine:


There once was a little girl who had a little girl right in the middle of her forehead, and when she was good she was very, very good, and when she was bad, she was horrid.

When she was bad she said mean things to people she loved in order to make them feel as yucky as she did inside. She had a sharp tongue and would use it to cut people down in their tracks.

But when she was good - which was most of the time - she would bring baskets of sunshine and daisies to everyone in the village and sing them songs that made the people so happy they would smile all day.

One day, the little girl decided to bring a basket to her "bad girl self" and the sunshine and daisies and the song made the bad little girl so happy she smiled and smiled until all the bad feeling melted away.

Then the good little girl and the bad little girl hugged and walked off into the sunset together when they lived happily ever after.

The End.


Upon hearing my story, Brooke asked about the bad little girl and why she wanted to be bad. I told her how the bad little girl was easily frustrated by annoying, moronic, and stupid people. Always unsympathetic, Brooke wanted to know how I was annoying, moronic and stupid. What was troublesome to the bad little girl must - by definition - be something in me. So she asked me to write a story about a moronic and retarded little girl. Here's what I came up with:



There once was a little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead. And when she was dumb, she was very, very dumb, and when she was a moron, she was horrid!


When she was dumb she would make inexplicable mistakes and blunders around adults and children alike. She'd give away secrets and make people who trusted her very disappointed.


When she was a moron, things got even worse! She would insult the very people in control of her success in life. She wouldn't listen to people who wanted what's best for her because she didn't trust them to know.


One day the dumb little girl called a meeting with the moronic little girl:


"We both act like retards because we don't value the opinions of just about anyone else," said the dumb little girl.


"But come on," said the moron, "their opinions aren't valuable."


Then the dumb girl and the moron pulled out their Blackberries and scheduled a meeting with some of their other friends. Smart, Joy, Connection, Shame, Persistence, Harmony, and the twice, Ice cream and Sunshine to discuss the situation further. And with that, Dumb and Moron kicked a can down the street on their way to the horizon line.


The End.


******************

Those were my stories. And here are the answers to the questions above... Don't read them if you haven't answered yourself!!!

1. Jack & Jill
2. Nemo's Dad Meets Pochohantas
3. The Dead Poet's Society
4. Live Deep: The True Store of a Woman who Sucked the Marrow Out of Life
5. George Washington
6. Rescuer
7. Powerful Woman.

Meeting Brooke in 20 minutes for a personal training session in the gym and then for some laps in the pool. After that we've got a dinner break, another coaching session, and a party in my big room!