Whatever it takes

Surrendering can hurt

"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself."
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Surrending to HP means accepting remodeling I don't think is affordable or sensible sometimes. I'd like to issue building permits to HP for each little change. So not really surrender at all. I may never get the hang of surrendering.

I like C.S. Lewis's writings about Christianity and God. So much I can learn about spirituality, even if intent is religion. I also like Madeline L'Engle's Christian writings. Both these authors makes me wish I could still believe the teachings of my youth.

Is surrendering the same as giving up?

Surrendering to HP feels like giving up. Could I be on the right track with that? If I surrender everything that I don't have power over that doesn't leave very much left for me to deal with. It could get awful quiet in my head. I could get uncomfortable might fast in the vacuum.

It feels like the line between total surrender to HP and surrender to a short miserable life in Muumuus and slip-on shoes is too thin for me to navigate. It is too precarious on my own. Do'h! Of course, that is where my sponsor and other members come in. How long will I batter my head against the same concepts before I can grasp this concept for longer than a meeting, conversation or writing session?

My I see you god list

I'm on step two. I'm continuing to practice powerlessness from step one by calling my sponsor daily. Now I'm reading a bit in the AA 12 & 12 on most days and writing an "I see you God" list most nights. I was trying to do it mentally, but it doesn't work the same. I need to put pen to paper and write it out.

What's an I see you god list? It's a gratitude list. Gratitude lists always seemed so corny to me. But when my sponsor called it an I see you list it resonated with me. At night I think about my day and look for my HP in it. Things I could not do by myself, so it must be god. So for today it looks like this:

I see you god:

• in sticking to my food plan
• in paging Dr. L again even though he didn't return page Friday or Saturday (and not being angry about that)
• in calling my sponsor with no expectations
• in calling someone else in OA when my sponsor was unavailable
• in going to my meeting today and not even thinking that I might not want to go

There isn't anything huge and dramatic there, but any one of those things is impossible for me to manage on my own. Making the list makes me look at my life differently.

Mostly though, every time I make the list instead of blowing it off, I am following suggestions from my sponsor and practicing my program to the best of my ability. That's it. When I do what I'm told I should do everything is better. It's that simple.

Precarious balance

Fear of changing how I handle everything. I'm either doing it or not. I'm either living a god-conscience life or I'm not. If I'm not actively seeking HP in every aspect of my life I'm sliding toward my disease and all of its many traps.

I'm afraid of doing my job well and getting more responsibility (and more chances to fail.)
I'm afraid of committing to a food plan.
I'm afraid of who I am without the habits of a lifetime.

Change is hard. Eating the way I should takes effort, planning and discipline. Going to work on time every day and working with best effort and integrity is exhausting. Exercising is time consuming and painful and I never get to a point where it is energizing and feels good. Reaching out to people decreases my Me Time. Connecting with people takes time and effort; it is emotionally risky.

Recently I heard someone say that motivation comes from taking action, not from thinking. This goes with what my first sponsor says, "Take an action, any action. Even if it is the wrong action, do something." The Big Book is loaded with action. My shrink talks to me about going above knowledge. Knowledge is a trap that is hard to get out of. Just as food can easily displace my HP, so can knowledge.

I know a lot about OA and about the 12 steps. When I started OA I bought all the literature and studied hard. I researched, I spent hours every day reading and looking for program blogs to read. I wanted to become an expert so I would know what to do. Knowledge often takes the place of my HP. I want to think about things, talk about what I should do, mull it over. I'm afraid to take action though. What if I do it wrong? What if it doesn't work? What if it does work? All the while I'm still living in my own head.

Right now, writing this post I'm in my own head. I started writing this morning just to exercise my demons. Maybe I'd send it to my sponsor or maybe I'd just delete it like I do most of the time. But writing is a tool, so I'm not going to get too hung up on it right now. Since I'm already typing it out, maybe someone will identify with it to. So I'll post it.

I'm afraid of failing and afraid of succeeding. I know what happens when I don't take action. That is where I am now. I've been here many times. It isn't great, but it is familiar. If only surrendering to HP was a one-time action, like jumping out of an airplane. It takes a lot of guts and faith, but once out the door the decision is made. Instead it is like a little switch that I have to keep resetting and watch for changes. If I don't pay attention it will switch off. Maybe instead of a switch it is a lever I have to keep pressure on. Like the short end of a see-saw. All my experience in this disease and habits of a lifetime are on the long end. In order to have balance I need to put more pressure on the short side. Spiritually I'm a light-weight. I have to use the tools, connect with OAs and work my steps to keep the pressure steady. If I stop paying attention the balance disappears and the long end hits the dirt.

I want to believe that with practice and time the apex of my teeter-totter will move closer to the middle as I experience more life in recovery. It is daunting to think it will always be this hard to stay god-conscience. Which is probably why we must focus only on today. All I can do is work OA to the best of my ability today. Right now that requires constant attention. Exhausting.

Connecting to my group

I'm still floundering, but I've started reaching out to meeting members. I feel a strong connection to the people coming regularly to my Wednesday night meeting. I want to practice a strong program and I know that to do that I have to call people. A lot of people. This will help me and help them and I'd hate to lose any of them. 

I'm excited to do this. If it occurs to me to call someone I want to do it right away before I give myself a reason to delay. I left a message for my sponsor (day 2 in a row) and called one person from Wednesday night. I thought of another person to call and didn't. I plan to call her tomorrow. 

I can do this and I want to. I need to call people and not talk about myself. This will grow my spiritual fitness. I'm excited about it and don't want to analyze it too much. I'm tired of hanging out in my own head. I want to surrender and just do the next loving thing.

On that note, it is past my bedtime so I have to go, but I thought of posting and didn't want to put this off either. This post isn't as thoughtful as usual. Maybe that is a good thing. I need to get back to using writing as a tool as well as the telephone.

Thanks to everyone's continued support. 

Integrity and Grace

I've been thinking a lot about integrity lately. I was thinking about it before this post at Angry Fat Girlz, but that helped refine it, focus it in my head. I'm seeing clear consequences of not acting with integrity lately. I only seem to struggle with food choices when I've not done what I ought in other areas.

Since taking step seven I've thought about living with grace a lot. The removal of each one of my character defects results in grace. Take away procrastination, grace. Relieve me of perfectionism, grace. Accepting I cannot control most everything in my life, grace. So if grace is what is left in the absence of my shortcomings, I don't want to fuck it up, but I do need to take actions.I want to act with intentional integrity.

I have trouble getting out of bed most days. I binge on the snooze alarm. Last night I recorded a message to myself on my cell phone alarm. I reminded myself that getting out of bed at 8am is acting with integrity and that I didn't act with integrity on Friday and it made me feel like shit. The solution to that isn't to stay in bed again today and wallow in it. It is to get up and do what I need to today so that I don't feel shitty and maybe it will be just a little bit easier tomorrow. I did get out of bed at 8. It felt good, even though I didn't want to do it.

There are so many opportunities throughout the day to live in grace and integrity. I've got a lot more in my head about it, but it isn't translating into words this morning. For today it is enough.

Me Jane

I weighed myself last week. I've lost another pound. I've now lost 89 pounds since becoming abstinent. I was expecting a bigger loss. I felt like I'd lost more than 16 ounces. Maybe that was the four pounds from last month catching up. I'm twenty-one days from turning 38. This spring I was doing DietMath to figure out how much I would have to lose to hit 100 pounds lost by my birthday. I won't be weighing myself again before September 3rd, so I know my number. It's 89 and I'm satisfied with that. What does my birthday have to do with my weight anyway?

Last week at a meeting someone shared a metaphor that I've been thinking about a lot. Program is like swinging on a vine Tarzan-style. When you hit the highest point on your swing you better grab on to the next vine or you'll be going backward. I've got to keep moving on my steps or my program will fall back. I know this. I've experienced it, yet I keep doing just enough work on my eighth step to keep from falling back, yet I'm not ready to finish it and grab the next step. Oh crap, now I've got that yodeling Tarzan-boy song in my head. (Oh-oh-oh---oh-oh---oh-oh--oh-oh-oh---oh-oh--oh...)

I think I'm a new grand sponsor. That's so cool! It makes me feel really connected to the program. Someone I've shared my experience, strength and hope with is now passing her ESH to someone new. I still feel like very much a newcomer, there is so much I don't know. But this makes me think of all the people in program, past, present and future. I'm a part of it. I love OA.

Surrender of bread as side or meal

I'm doing much much better this week. I surrendered bread as a side or main course of meals after my Tuesday night meeting. My sponsor was there. She has only attended that meeting twice in the two years I've been going.  (Is it odd? Or is it god?)  I shared first and I think it went something like this, "So bread, step one is good. Bread. Bread Bread. Bread fucking bread with butter. Help!" Then I shut up and listened to what some saner people had to say. By the end of the meeting I was ready to do whatever it takes for recovery again.

I was still afraid my sponsor would suggest cutting all refined flour, but I was willing to do it if she said I should. She didn't. She asked what I was struggling with. I am not eating sides of bread (rolls, bread, crackers) or as a meal. I've avoided a few places where it might be too tempting, but it's been pretty easy since I made the decision to surrender it.

Surrender has been popping up all over the place for me. My morning prayers have been truncated too. Pretty much boiling down to, "I surrender. All of me. Whatever it takes." Too much structure equals too much thought right now.

Funnily, within a day of giving up bread I felt thinner and healthier.

I have been indulging in fantasy as escape lately. Haven't been this obsessed since my Vin Diesel kick a few years back. I've talked about it a bit with OA people and so it's fading faster than usual. It can't be coincidence that I get obsessively compulsive about Chris Eccleston the day after I surrender bread. (Chris is the 9th Doctor Who and lovely in a  lanky, intense British way.) I've added most everything available on Netflix and bought the 2005 series of Doctor Who. I'm grateful for Netflix. In the Vin Diesel days I bought everything, including a collection of short films that features a self-made story that brought him to the attention of Spielberg.

So a minor indulgence in fantasy (should it be a destination wedding do you think?) to get through the uncomfortable changes in my food plan seems okay. I haven't mentioned it to my sponsor. I probably should.

My excellent mood may also be related to my decision to take next week off work. A nine day vacation sounds lovely.

Maintaining

I stayed the same in weight this month. I was kind of expecting that. I knew I wasn't being "bad," but I also knew I wasn't being "good." After gaining two pounds last month I had a sort of attitude of why be good now, I'm already fucking up, why not wallow for a bit. I didn't get back to eating a salad for a meal once a day. Not that I didn't eat salads, I did. Just not everyday. Then of course there was the slip. It feels wierd to call it a slip. It was a deliberate break in abstinence. But I got right back on. I guess this is what people mean when the say they don't have perfect abstinence. Not that I would have called my abstinence perfect before the big slip, but I'm still uncomfortable about it.

*****Warning! Specific food talk. Potential trigger subject matter. *********

It is hard for me to say, "I've lost 84 pounds."  I was able to say 86 pounds, I didn't want to go back. But I've made myself say the smaller number when it comes up. It hurts, but it's honest. It is the true number. The fact that I want to lie about it, tells me it is important to be truthful.

I think I may have to give up bread.

Just writing that was painful so I left it all alone on its own line. Bread has started to creep into my day in a big way. I've been justifying eating an extra roll at my favorite cafe. It always makes sense at the time, but it never feels good. I've been afraid it might come to this and I've hoped it wouldn't come to this, but I think I'm powerless over bread. Bread and butter to be precise. I think about it between meals. How can I get more bread. Crap. Crap. Crap. I do not want to give it up! I just don't. I want to be willing to do whatever it takes, but I do not want to do this.

I'm not quite as dramatic about white (or french or italian or pretzel or sourdough) as I was about sugar. Before I gave up sugar I didn't think life would be worth living with out it. How sick is that. Seriously fucked up thinking. Life has been better without sugar. But bread will not only cause me lack of enjoyment, but convience as well. In a hurry? Buy a sandwich. What about pizza? I've already limited my consumption of this food of the gods because I would eat it everyday if it was healthy. Obviously I need to do some more writing and talking about this. I have to talk with my sponsor.

A sponsee called this morning while I was driving to work. She is changing her abstinence to cut out all her binge foods; refined flour breads are part of this. It was what I needed to hear, but I was pissed off too. Because I do not want to go there.

I''m sitting here writing this and also figuring out where to eat before my meeting tonight to get maximum bread intake before I become willing to do this. I want to go to a bakery and buy a big loaf of french bread to eat with some quality unsalted butter. I did have a salad for lunch so technically wouldn't be breaking my abstinence, but it sounds like a bad idea.

Compulsive overeating is a bitch.

Humble pie

Crap. I broke my abstinence on Friday night. I was at an OA Big Book Study retreat. After a really powerful part one from the speaker I went to my room, got ready for bed and got into bed. I then got out of bed and got most of what I had brought for breakfast. I had realized when I read the menu that I would not be needing it for breakfast. I ate 8 triscuits, 1/2 cup sunflower seeds and a large granny smith apple. I left one serving of triscuits and an apple uneaten.

The foods and even the amounts are not the problem here. The problem is that I do not eat between meals. I purposefully choose to act in a harmful way.

The good news is that I was able to get back on track the next day. I didn't tell anyone about it until lunch time. I called my sponsor and an OA friend that afternoon. My sponsor had me write down all the things which led to my binge. (For make no mistake, this was a binge of compulsive eating.) Here are some of the things that led me to break my abstinence:

• I'd been keeping secrets. Little things I ought to have talked with my sponsor about right away I kept to myself. Sometimes I shared in meetings, but this is not the same.
• I stopped reading from the Big Book in the morning and before bed.
• I stopped writing here at WIT.
• I hardly made any OA calls.
• I ignored a new sponsee when she emailed and left messages.
• I delayed calling my sponsees back.
• I did not work on my steps for several months.
• I wallowed in fear (new job, refused favors, fear of rejection)
• I started feeling like I wanted to get away with stuff in my food plan. My portions got really big and my choices became more starchy.
• My morning prayers became more difficult to focus on and say completely.

I didn't stop going to any of my meetings, which before has been an obvious warning sign. But each of these things about were moving me toward the food and away from my higher power.

The speaker pounded it into my head that every action is either moving you toward God or moving you toward the food. There is no middle ground. Every thought and action moves you one way or the other. Knowing that the food is fatal puts the spotlight on how crazy I am to take a single step toward the food.

I ate because I am a compulsive overeater. I am abstinent today because I am working my program.