Losing Weight Journal

My Space. April 2012. California

My body takes up a lot, too much space and me, myself (I) don’t feel having “space” at all.  How strange that is! I often feel as a white crow. Who am I? I want to have my space and to take it proudly.  But it’s not like that in my life yet. Well, for example: among business people and my husband’s friends, I’m considered to be strange because I’m a psychologist and do not go to parties but prefer seminars. Psychologists think I am strange because I don’t lead groups and don’t have patients, but I’m always learning and learning. Among my friends, I’m considered to be strange, for all of them are artistically very talented and young and I am old and can’t do not much artistically (no singing, no dancing, no writing songs, no music). Among my rich friends, I’m almost a hippie, amongst the poor ones, the rich one. Being with my husband, I turn into a very unpractical person, I forget and confuse everything. At work, in my small wellness center, I propagate Swiss accuracy and German order. In America, I’m Russian, and in Russia for some time now I feel like a stranger.… I’m somehow different; I don’t fit into social norms.

I’m thinking of people who I can name as kindred spirits. All my close friends are not the ones with whom I communicate often. All these close people are strange with their own strange and far away lives. I’m thinking about my husband and children. They also seem to me strange and far away, having interests, dreams and lives I don’t understand.

Sometimes, of course, I meet fun and dear people, I get joyful and I think “well, finally, I found my community!” But pretty soon I realize “no, I don’t fit again.”  So it all makes me think that in fact my ‘community’ is made up of people that are all different and do not actually like to gather together or fit together.
It’s strange… while I was typing…. ”I don’t fit in again” one feeling came over me, of some connectedness to the whole world and some lightness came to my awareness. As if something smiled in me. I don’t even realize how it happened and what…

Оk! I see…I am trying to go back to this smile and understand it better. This separation and irregularity with some groups of people, possibly helps me in a paradoxical way to experience connection and feeling something important. Let me try it one more time…I close my eyes…Well, “…not fitting…unpleasant…” I’m trying to come back to this experience and look deeper into it. What can be deeper behind the conventional idea of “not fitting in? Interesting words appeared in my conscience “navigating through certain communities and culture.” I’m not completely at home anywhere but it’s good for me because it gives me knowledge and insight from the outside in. It’s lonely, but it keeps me on my toes. It makes me feel big…and free…!

Yes, this understanding relaxes me and also gives me respect for myself. But what is my “space” ??? Except my autonomy, what do I have, which talents, what I am here for? And who do I ask these questions to? I closed my eyes and opened them again… I’m walking around the room; then I sit in the armchair, asking myself this question over and over again…no answer. I look at the ocean through the window, hoping to connect to something bigger and wiser in me.

— What is my role in this world?

No answer. But I notice how my eyes start to follow big birds flying over the ocean. Well, ok, if I like to study so much, let me look at myself with the eyes of the Bird-the Teacher again. The “perfect” inner teacher. I’ve always liked teachers who support and give interesting problems to solve. I was lucky to have such teachers in my life. I could argue and could contest with them. I felt loved when they were happy with my achievements. Now, I imagine myself being such a teacher-bird. Opening my arms wide, as if I am flying above, feeling large in my body and proud… and again looking at my life events from the outside, from its perspective.

The Bird:  “Hi!”
Xenia: “What is the talent of this girl-young lady -woman?”

The Bird: “She can speak about things that people usually keep silent about, she is not afraid of public “taboos”. She likes to break taboos. She finds a lot of pleasure in that.”

Xenia: “That is so true! To break a taboo for me is a pleasure similar to sexual pleasure.”

I notice the same topic coming up again. Pleasure, intimacy, sexuality again! I keep coming back to this topic. I already wrote that I wanted to lose weight, that I would be sexier. But now I see that what I really want to have in sex is not a physical pleasure. Not only. It’s just this amazing feeling of “going beyond”. This “forbidden” pleasure to express the unexpressed.  Maybe it’s my life style? Maybe there is no goal in life but rather a lifestyle that needs to be expressed.

So…. It’s nice to be more aware of this life style. What is it? I try to feel this “going beyond”, softly stretching. Seduction, subtlety, the expression of something that usually is not spoken about and is not done. This feeling of “going beyond” can probably be my navigator in any project. I need to do what stretches me. I need to know it about myself and use it consciously. My fingers started to type slowly as if in the thick syrup, making everything slow. As if I am looking narrowly at something, warm waves running through my body.

Xenia: “I can speak of the things that people are usually silent about. I can “seduce” people into something they usually do not do…by being vulnerable and open with my feelings.”
The Bird: “Well, for example?”
Xenia: “Well, for example, I unconsciously “seduced” or lovingly invited my readers with the popular topic “losing weight” to a deep intimate talk about life and feelings. And I “seduced” my interviewers, the Big teachers on television to depart from their role and brought them to open a more personal conversation about deep and vulnerable things. Sensuality is my gift. Nothing to do with sex. Rather, sex is just a small application of sensuality. Sensuality, sensitivity brings trust.  I can use soft stretching (like in massages) as a “meta skill” for any project.
Oh! And now I see how this feeling of not having my space and role in a community, my loneliness – is a real present, a gift from my Fate.  That lonely space along with keen insight is a spark creator.”

Bird Teacher:  “Good job, Xenia! And your sense of «self» will grow if you just do what brings You that special pleasure, which dissolves boundaries.”