Losing Weight Journal

Who am I? January 5, 2012. California

“If I am what I have and if what I have is lost, who then am I? Nobody but a defeated, deflated, pathetic testimony to a wrong way of living.”  Erich Fromm

The door I was afraid to open all these years, the door with a disgusting sign “fat cow” has now become intriguing. What if I peep in there and finally go inside?  What if I start travelling there? What if my overweight and oversize — this disgusting part of my soul — are trying to tell me something important, so emphatic for such a long time?

While I was thinking about this fairytale thought, illustrations of ancient heroes were passing in front of my eyes, mixed with pictures from Alice in Wonderland — small ingenuous and curious girl, the very busy white rabbit and the black hole in the middle of a nice green meadow. Wishing to go for it!

But instead of moving ahead and working on my weight issue, I heard someone’s sarcastic, patronizing and even scoffing voice in my head: “Whatever!…In case you’ve got no other important things to do in life, meaning that…this task was so shallow and small. You’re a “Looser”.

But it can be really important. If I finally can get slim, I will write an article about all this and people will read it and it can inspire them to work on themselves — I prattled in response to that voice. Later, in a more confident manner: “Hey! I do not know what else to do. Too bad it seems so small to you”. This inner arguing continued for quite a long time. I felt defenseless and trivial, despicably small, pressed down. I understood that I wouldn’t win the battle. I got stuck in some self-deceit of self-condemnation. So I decided to try, become, and identify with the voice. I was hoping that if I could step into it, I would understand why it was pushing me down like that.

 I gave myself plenty of unstructured time to work on my awareness. That voice inside felt important and worth exploring. There had to be a good reason it appeared then and there, just when I decided to work on my weight issues.

I closed my eyes and tried to become IT. I spontaneously started walking around the room looking for the right place for this inner figure of mine; I noticed a change in my body, it felt very big, my back straightened, I felt power, pride and rightness. My ears caught the sounds of the ocean and I became aware of its power, its eternity — my being resonated with the ocean’s power. Strange words came to me “Your own experiences are the most important, the biggest and the only thing you’ve got. It’s not what you do but what you are that’s important. You need to understand that.” These words were long, weighty and thick. I came back in to my original identity; I consciously stepped out my ‘sub-conscious’.These words sounded strange and not very clear but it felt like the truth. So I decided to open up to their advice and wisdom. I opened my eyes and faced the ocean simply trying to experience MYSELF in that moment.

The day was dawning. I suddenly realized how sick and void my soul felt at that moment. It was almost unbearable just to sit like that and look at the ocean. Sit, just sit, feeling meaninglessness and emptiness. A part of me wanted to start the day, to start doing things, to run away from that state, to eat something, to drink coffee. But another part was curious. It felt unpleasant, like some dragging and stinging inevitability and eternity in the soul…But, at least, I’d faced and recognized these terrible feelings. This experience is unclear, unpleasant but Real.  Shall I try to spend time with it, get to know it? Become the void itself?

Yes! But how? How do I become the Emptiness itself? I do not believe I can at this point.
“Mom! Your sausage is ready. Will you eat it with ketchup?” My son called me
“No Sasha, without, thank you.”
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That morning stayed with me and didn’t leave my mind. It’s so difficult just to be yourself at the present moment — so many unpleasant things come up. It’s so difficult just to feel your ‘Me’. The very first feeling that came was that disgusting void. Not the void which is your potential, described so beautifully by spiritual teachers. But this void that is the absence of something very important, the absence of inspiration, the absence of meaning. Sad…Very sad.

Personal observation:

• My body tries to get bigger, heavier and more substantive and my soul is void.
• I am a successful person from the outside, but “I am nothing and I’m just lucky” from the inside.
• I understand that compulsive thoughts about becoming slim are possibly connected to having nothing essentially important to fill my void, to be the food for my soul.
• I am not identifying with the emptiness yet. I am suffering from it. But I could identify with the critical voice inside of me that appeared to be very strong and wise.

Good job!