“Bridal Boot Camp”

Over the last several years, many of my friends have gotten married. Some have even started families. This may be why I have slowly begun to feel like Katherine Heigl in the movie “27 Dresses.” I can relate so well to that movie! I, too, now possess a closet full of gowns I can safely say I will never wear again (even if the bride swore it was a color that would look good on everybody, and was alteration-friendly). Six (or is it seven) times now, I have been the bridesmaid, but not once yet have I gotten my chance to shine as the bride.

 

The other day I read something that made me feel both better, and worse, about playing second-fiddle yet again during a friend’s special day. It seems that, even in the wake of sweeping reforms to mental health care policy (for more on this exciting news click HERE), we have still managed to spawn yet another new and unwelcome pre-wedding-day tradition, the “Bridal Boot Camp”.

 

During their Boot Camp curriculum, brides are instructed in basic training “musts” for wedding day bliss – losing weight through fasts, skipping meals, diet pills, drinking water and rigorous exercise. Now, upon first hearing this news, you might be tempted to ask why any bride – swimming in the bliss of finding her true love, and more than a little over-scheduled as it is with pre-wedding planning – would seek out such an experience?

 

The mystery becomes clearer once we realize that she is probably one of the 70 percent of brides who have already purchased a wedding dress that is one to two sizes smaller than their current size. Wedding dresses aren’t cheap. Desperation can be a powerful motivator.

 

All of which simply leads us to the obvious question – why on earth would any bride put herself in this position by buying a wedding dress that she knows she cannot fit into?

 

I invite you to come up with your own answer to that question.

 

But I will admit, no matter which way I turn it, my mind always returns with the same response: INSECURITY.

 

Now, I ask you, what exactly is there to be insecure about here? You already love yourself at least enough to allow yourself to love someone and be loved in return. Your soon-to-be husband loves you enough to want to spend the rest of his life with you – with your body, mind, heart and spirit – and he has already let you know that by proposing to you. You have friends and family surrounding you who are planning to help with, and join you for, your special day.

 

And while I will concede that there is nothing wrong with wanting to be in your best physical shape and health for both you and your partner, I will also challenge each of us (myself included) that this should be an ongoing process – and a realistic one – with our ultimate goal being to maintain the energy, strength and wellness to truly enjoy our wedding day – and every day – of our lives.

 

In fact, scarcely a day goes by when I don’t think of the story of St. Francis of Assisi. One day a man asked him, “If today was your last day on earth, how would you spend it?” St. Francis answered, “Well, I would probably weed the garden, because that is what needs doing.”

 

With careful attention to our body’s daily needs, “Boot Camp” emergency dashes become irrelevant. I invite you, now, to imagine with me that your relationship with your body, and with the food you consume, is so mindful, healthful, respectful and nourishing that, when your wedding day arises, you simply slip into the gown that fit you the day you bought it, and still fits you perfectly today!

 

Today, you ate responsibly and healthfully to meet your body’s needs, because that was what needed doing.

 

Today, you got married, because that was what needed doing.

 

And today, you can use the money and time you might otherwise have spent on “Bridal Boot Camp” to enjoy your fantastic honeymoon!

 

 

p.s. I just received word of a rare and exciting footnote to last month’s column – I just heard that MTV has PULLED the show “Model Makers” from its pending lineup. Yay, America – way to speak your mind and let MTV know what we think of their programming, and programming of this type in general! For more on this click HERE.

Model Makers and Mad Men

I live in Houston, Texas, which for the balance of this year at least will most likely be known as the “Ike City”. Our tree population will never be the same. Similarly, our complacency when it comes to simple comforts like clean water, power and perishable food items has been unutterably shaken. I was joking with a friend of mine the other day that I’m afraid I will end up being one of those little old ladies who can’t break herself of the habit of carrying her cell phone charger, a pack of power bars and a few extra bottles of water around everywhere with her….just in case. Just in case the power goes out again. Just in case the water supply is once again contaminated. Just in case all perishable food once more becomes unsafe to eat.

 

In the midst of it all, MTV released an announcement about their new reality TV series – “Model Makers”. It reads like “America’s Next Top Model” meets “Biggest Loser”, with show producers claiming that, in screening applicants, they are “looking for ‘real’ women of all shapes and sizes, not just stick-thin towering women with no body fat.” However, if the women don’t start out stick-thin, it is clear that they had better finish that way…at least if they want to win. The casting call explains that, once chosen, the fifteen contestants will be “trained” in “modeling skills”, with the winner being the model who can most consistently “put their best foot forward at all times while staying focused on losing weight.” [emphasis added]

The show claims to “go where no other modeling show has gone before”, as “Model Makers transform(s) you by giving you the skills and techniques required to be a high fashion model.” Yet the sole curriculum of the show is an intensive twelve-week weight loss challenge, interspersed with photo shoots! Last time I checked, other modeling shows were still training wannabe models in actual modeling….Tyra Banks and her crew have even been known to admonish modeling contestants not to lose too much weight and thus deal themselves out of the game.

But this show…well, in the interests of cutting right to the chase, why train a model when you can simply starve and exercise her to death and call it “entertainment”?

Confusing, isn’t it. The reality is, our media and fashion industry is suddenly finding itself in the uncomfortable position of not knowing which way the popular consumer-driven wind is blowing when it comes to women and weight loss. On the one hand, we have the recent vicious backlash against overly thin celebrities on the red carpet, with media using the example of voluptuous ‘Mad Men’ star Christina Hendricks as the “hope for the future of female casting”. On the other hand, we have the media coverage of “Model Makers”, manned by a production staff that is desperately attempting to cash in on the still-lucrative but fading craze for bones.

But make no mistake about it. The media and fashion industry have not had a sudden awakening. They are not experiencing an attack of conscience in their sudden praise of curvier stars like Hendricks. They do not care what size the models or celebrities walking down the red carpet are. They only care how we react to what their photographs and bylines evoke in us. If they print something and we react – usually in the form of spending money – then they have hit the jackpot, and we can rest assured we are in for more of the same until we stop buying in, and our interests and wallets turn elsewhere.

So in this sudden sharp contrast between “Model Makers” and “Mad Men”, the truth is finally revealed. We, the fish long accustomed, Pavlovian-style, to hanging out helplessly on the end of a media-bated hook, finally wake up to realize that we have a SAY in all this! YES. We are not controlled by the media, or by the fashion industry – not unless we allow it.

We have busy lives. We get weary, and then we get lazy. We fail to notice what we are watching, consuming, when we turn on the television at night, slip into a movie theater or open a magazine. We passively watch as stars are humiliated for being too fat, then too thin – the same stars. We even begin to aimlessly weigh in on the debates, with no thought to our individual assessment of how this does or does not relate to anything that actually matters.

What is worse, we call it “entertainment”, even when it doesn’t entertain us, even when it leaves us feeling hollow, lost, ashamed, afraid, alone.

But now this game, this “contest”, has gone too far. We have some standards – and it is only entertainment until it kills. People are dying and other people are making money off of it. Media coverage of the fashion industry kills. We have noticed. Suddenly, this “game” of “Model Makers” just got serious. And we don’t want to play anymore. More than skin and bones, more than so-called glamour, more than a $100,000 prize and the “career of our dreams”, we want to live.

This is Beauty Undressed. This is where it all comes down. This is where we turn, stand, stare….see ourselves in the mirror, and for the first time become willing to dive down far beneath the surface of our skins and our lives to find out what really counts, what we are really doing with our days and why we are really here. This is the only place where we will encounter true BEAUTY right where it has always been – in our priorities, in our integrity, in our sense of human worth, in our insistence on a basic human dignity that allows us to be able to eat when we are hungry, stop when we are full and spend the rest of our precious energy and limited years engaged in LIVING OUR LIVES.

I just lived through a 600 mile-wide category 3 hurricane. We have the largest power grid in the nation and at the time of this writing there are still several hundred thousand Houston residents who do not have power and clean water. I was without power and drinkable water for a week and a half, and not once during that time did I consider skipping a meal or taking a weight loss challenge in order to make myself more beautiful or acceptable to someone else, or to myself. Rather, I discovered all the beauty and acceptance I will ever crave in banding together with others during the storm itself to cook potluck meals and reassure each other that we would get through this together. I enjoyed so much beauty and community in lending a hand to friends and neighbors to clean up in the aftermath of the storm. And I reveled in the tremendous beauty and awesome humility of allowing friends and family to help me when I too had nowhere safe and comfortable to stay.

In short, I encountered beauty where beauty is, always has been and always will be – on the INSIDE, in my relationships with myself and others, and right within my very own heart.

So, at least as far as I am concerned, “Model Makers” and all the others like it can go back to where they came from – to the land of the empty. Because, when we really stop to think about it, we are already dwelling in the fullness of our here-and-now real dreams – of life, of love, and the sheer wonder of being healthy, safe and alive.

 

Warmly and with HOPE,

Shannon

We Are What We Read

We are susceptible creatures. Doctors tell us that we are what we eat. Now, psychologists are telling us that we have the propensity to become what we read as well. Recently, the local paper in my town ran an article reporting that people who read diet articles when they are young have a higher incidence of adopting dieting behaviors later on in life.

 

I was tempted to write back to the author of that fine cutting-edge journalistic masterpiece with one word…. “Duh.” 

 

We know these things. That is not what makes us susceptible. What makes us susceptible is when we IGNORE what we know.

 

Last month I led a seminar for a multi-generational gathering of women on the subject of what I like to call ‘whole-woman beauty’. I love this concept…so much that I thought other women might like it too, and that is how I began leading these workshops. Post-recovery, my mind has become intrigued by evidence of the very real existence of a source of beauty that does not rely on an inaccurately crafted aluminum-coated pane of glass. My body has begun to thrill to the idea that beauty can be experienced – felt – and not merely seen. And my heart has steadily warmed to the knowledge that the rest of me is not just extraneous window-dressing, forever trapped and unappreciated beneath the all-enveloping surface of my skin.

 

Furthermore, my spirit has for some time now perceived that human beings – myself included – are multi-dimensional beings. Whether we realize it or not, whether we choose to accept it or not, we do in fact exist on the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual planes simultaneously. What happens in our mind does not necessarily have to affect us on physical, emotional and spiritual levels too. It can if we let it, but we can also learn to constrain our experience of ourselves on one level and keep it from affecting our experience of ourselves on other levels as well.

 

For instance, even while we are engaged in practicing eating disordered behaviors, a separate, highly intuitive part of us remains alert and aware of the damage we are doing, and cries out for change. I remember the very first time I attempted to purge. Right after I finished, I called my then-mentor, sobbing. I knew what I had done cut deeply across the vein of everything my body, heart and spirit knew to be right. Only my mind was confused enough to try something deadly and different.

 

Conversely, I still remember the first time I told someone I had a “problem with food”. My body, heart and spirit were just SO relieved, as if the weight of a thousand lifetimes had just been lifted off my shoulders. Again, only my mind was confused and worried that something I had said or done might be “wrong”.

 

What I have learned since then is that, if we want to achieve sustained recovery, we need to remember where the confusion first began, and where it must end….in the mind. The resulting carnage from an active or lingering eating disorder is displayed in the physical realm, yes. But the place where the eating disorder truly dwells – and the battlefield upon which the fight for our lives takes place – is in the mind.

 

It really all boils down to this: 1) Our minds are not nearly as smart as we give them credit for, and 2) WE are NOT our minds.

 

So, to recover, we must first learn to train what takes place in the mind to stay in the mind. Next, we must convince the mind to look elsewhere for what it seeks….and lead it towards what is worth seeking and recovering for.

 

We must begin to slowly, steadily, introduce our minds not to ever more tips and tricks and hints for better dieting procedures, but to a concept of beauty that far surpasses the whims and whiles of our eating disorder, or the limitations of a body that is dependent on what we give it, and will inevitably age, as all bodies do. We must thrill our minds, instead, with the thoughts of an experience of beauty that will never age, never fade, but instead grow more brilliant and expansive over the years….a “whole-woman beauty” that is my birthright, and yours too.

 

And THAT achievement, my friends, would be worth writing and reading about in our local papers.

 

Shannon

Embarrassment

This summer, I have been taking a course at a local community center. I remember the first evening I showed up. I was feeling a bit shy, wondering if I had found the right room and the right set of people….and no sooner had I settled, relieved, into my seat than the course leader asked for all the new people to stand up! Everyone else applauded enthusiastically. My face got red. “I feel like a rockstar just for showing up” I whispered, embarrassed, to the newbie next to me.

 

The leader’s next words put a whole new spin on my interpretation. “How many of you newcomers felt embarrassed just now when we were clapping for you?” he asked. “How many of you felt like you didn’t deserve applause – when all you had done is show up.” I looked around the room and saw a surreptitious nodding of new heads, including my own. He continued by saying, “Embarrassment is when others are loving us more than we are loving ourselves!”

 

I was even more embarrassed to realize that this had never occurred to me. I had always thought that a sensation of embarrassment meant that I had done something wrong, said something wrong, worn the wrong outfit to the wrong place, chosen the wrong friends or the wrong menu item or the wrong body or the wrong life. Somehow, love had never factored in to my prior experiences of embarrassment. Nor had it ever occurred to me to take time to love myself through embarrassing moments.

 

I’m not sure I heard another word the leader said after those words, but I did leave that first session of our course with a lot to think about!

 

A few weeks later, I was attending a conference in California. One morning I found myself sitting beside a gentleman whom, upon hearing about my work with eating disorders recovery, just insisted on telling me all about his supermodel girlfriend with zero percent body fat. Then he turned and looked me up and down, and stated with mind-boggling insensitivity (or so I thought), “It is hard for me to imagine that you ever had an eating disorder.”

 

I can safely say I felt zero love for either of us in that particular moment. Instead, I felt a deep, hot wave of embarrassment course through me. All the old fears arose – if I don’t look sick, and I need help again some day, will anyone believe me? If I don’t look sick now, will people think I was never sick at all? The ED voice chimed in with a (not) helpful and (not) accurate assertion that the opposite of looking sick is looking “fat”. In spite of my inner distress, I managed to respond quietly, “Well, I can understand that, but just imagine me X pounds thinner.” His eyes got round. He uttered a single word, “WOW.”

 

In that one word, I found my salvation. Because in that moment, I saw awe in his eyes – respect – along with a newfound understanding of what life with an eating disorder must have been like for me, and for others like me. I realized that my embarrassment wasn’t really embarrassment at all – rather, it was simply a way for me to point out to myself that my level of respect for my achievement did not presently match his level of respect for what I had accomplished! I perceived how my embarrassment had nothing to do with his assessment of me. But it had everything to do with my assessment of me.

 

Interestingly, as soon as I adjusted my interpretation of our exchange, the embarrassment quickly faded…to be replaced with a strong and abiding inner sensation of self-love.

 

Today I realize that embarrassment may simply be the way we get our own attention – it is our own gentle reminder to ourselves in moments of stress that we love ourselves more than we think we do, more often than we think we do, and even when we think we do not. Embarrassment is our eternal, faithful, well-intentioned servant, as it arises just when we need it most and neatly circumvents the usually complex communications that are constantly shooting back and forth between ourselves and our environment, our body and our mind, our mind and and our heart/spirit, our old beliefs and new understandings…and sends us straight to our HEART.

 

So the next time you feel a wave of embarrassment, ride it all the way back to where it arose from – your own heart. Harness its raw power to rekindle your awareness of your powerful love for yourself. In this way, you can instantly reconnect with the very same self-love that is fueling your battle against your eating disorder – the very same love that believes you have what it takes to survive, and CAN. And WILL. And ARE.

 

Recovery is worth any amount of embarrassment it takes to get there. And so are YOU.

 

Warmly and with HOPE,

 

Shannon

The Color of Your Eyes

A few weeks ago I was at a party talking with some new friends. I proudly raved about my young nephew’s beautiful eyes…a lovely hazel. One of the group looked into my eyes and commented, “You have some green in with the brown – are your eyes hazel too?”

 

I assured him that they were not.  They have always been, and always will be, a plain brown. Curiosity nabbed me, however, and the next time I passed by a mirror I paused for a moment to study my reflection. And then I saw them…..tiny flecks of GREEN. Unmistakably.

 

That is when it occurred to me. A casual stranger at a dimly-lit party noticed that I have green in my eyes. Why haven’t I ever noticed that for myself?!?

 

On a recent episode of The View, Whoopi Goldberg stunned audiences with the revelation that 58% of women polled preferred to be diagnosed with cancer than get fat. I instantly wondered, “Are those their only two options?”

 

Frankly, even if those were their only two options, I wouldn’t have believed Whoopi’s report myself, save for one still-vivid memory.

 

My mother’s best friend died of recurring breast cancer a few years ago. A slight woman to begin with, the chemotherapy slimmed her down even further. Several months before she passed, we encountered each other at a party Mom threw in her honor. She took one look at me and let out a deep sigh. “You are so THIN!” she said…clearly envious.

 

I looked at her and said not one word. She was twice as small as I had remembered her to be. But she couldn’t see it. Furthermore, she had distilled the essence of battling her soon-to-be fatal disease down to one pivotal point….how thin she could get as a result of it. Here was a woman with a loving husband and daughters, many great friends, and a rich and fulfilling life. Yet it seemed all she could move herself to care about, even at such a critical juncture, was getting thinner.

 

Furthermore, when she spoke those words to me, she already knew that I had recovered from an excruciating fifteen-year battle with anorexia and bulimia. Maybe it was the insensitivity that rankled most.

 

So now, in her honor, I would like to propose an Option C to add to Whoopi’s embarrassingly slim list. Option C is this – we, the body-liberated recover-ees, choose neither Option A or Option B – because we know we have other, better choices!

 

We choose Option C because we know we have so much more in our lives worth living for than a number on the scale. We choose Option C because, if we were dying of cancer, losing weight wouldn’t be the thing we would miss when we were gone. We choose Option C because, in our recovery, we acknowledge that the mental illness we suffer with thinks any weight above zero pounds qualifies as ‘fat’…and we also know that is not true! Finally, we choose Option C because we know that, when in the grips of our disease, we wouldn’t know ‘fat’ if it tripped us on the street!

 

I have green in my brown eyes. What else about me have I never noticed – never marveled at – never enjoyed – due to my preoccupation with food, eating and weight? What else have I missed out on in my own life because I refused to come out of the bedroom until I found something to wear that didn’t make me look ‘fat’? Who could I have met, what could I have enjoyed, if I had not been sick or faint or weary from battling hunger, or loneliness, or low self-esteem?

 

How many years could I have spent in joy, laughter, hope and love if I had not been wasting away my own days for lack of a certain number on a scale?

 

What about you?

 

What color are your eyes?

 

Isn’t it about time you found out?

 

 

Warmly and with HOPE,

Shannon

‘No Weight?’ No way.

I was a marketing major in college. Maybe this is why I have never been able to break my habit of analyzing advertisements that cross my path. Last week I was driving down the interstate and a new billboard caught my eye. ‘Half the weight, twice the person!’ it announced.

 

The billboard did its job well. I forgot all about my car, the cars around me, the road….emerging from my reverie mere moments before the three collided. Impressive.

 

The billboard’s sponsor was a company called ‘No Weight.’ ‘None?’ I thought. ‘No weight at all?’ Now, don’t get me wrong – after a decade working in the sales and marketing industry, I admire all the human creativity infused into the advertising campaigns we are bombarded with on a daily basis. But I have to draw the line at suggesting that the less we weigh, the more we are worth.

 

Is that true? Right now, think of the people you love the most. Think of the people who make your face light up just to see them. Do you value them according to how much they weigh?

 

Think of the people who love you. Think of the people who get so excited to see you….do they want to be with you more when you weigh less?

 

If the answer is ‘yes’, they probably work for a company called ‘No Weight.’ The rest of us want to be with people who are loving, and lovable. Period, The End.

 

My close friend and business associate David passed away last month – on April 18, 2008, to be exact. I had never actually met David because he lived in a different state, and although we have worked together and talked on a weekly and sometimes even daily basis for four years, the opportunity to meet in person just never arose. But his talents and heart were integral in the formation and expansion of my outreach work, and I miss him terribly. He is irreplaceable.

 

I never knew how much David weighed. I didn’t care. I did notice that my heart weighed heavier and heavier as I grieved his death, showing me how much I cared for him. David’s ex-girlfriend suffered from an eating disorder. He cared about helping victims recover. He was a heavyweight in compassion, and that was just one of the many reasons why I loved him.

 

I miss David. I miss me, when I am wasting my time worrying about how much I weigh. I missed five minutes of my own life unraveling the complex tangle of emotions one simple billboard evoked in me. I won’t make that mistake again.

 

David, I dedicate this column to you. You are deeply loved, and sorely missed.

 

‘No Weight?’ NO WAY.

 

Warmly and with HOPE,

 

Shannon

MissBimbo.com

Maybe you have heard of the newest web sensation? Sweeping through France and Britain, the ‘fashion game’ MissBimbo.com offers girls as young as seven years old the opportunity to create an online profile and build their own Bimbo. Members are then responsible for feeding, clothing, enhancing and caring for their Bimbo. Options include diet pills (recently removed as a result of negative publicity), sexy lingerie, meal logs (with helpful instructions for calorie reduction) and cosmetic surgery.

 

The young, French, male creator of MissBimbo.com has a little sister in the fourth grade. When asked by a reporter how he would feel if someone called his sister a ‘bimbo’, he replied, ‘I wouldn’t like it.’ But he appeared to have no comprehension of the term’s potential impact on other young members of his site. In the USA alone, 80% of fourth graders fear ‘getting fat’ more than their own death or that of their parents. 40% of fourth graders have already begun a diet as a means of coping with this fear. Statistics in Canada are almost identical.

 

I have to confess that it always makes me a bit nervous to use this column as a forum to discuss trends such as MissBimbo.com – I do not want to give even more publicity to these types of for-profit, esteem-damaging enterprises. Rather, it is my hope that readers take the information in the spirit in which it is given – as a call to action, a plea for proactive protest leading to positive change. Clearly, our fourth graders deserve a better legacy than planning the rest of their lives around a number on the scale. But then again, so do the rest of us!

 

Stop and consider for a moment what, if any, impact joining or even stopping by to visit MissBimbo.com could have on you or your loved ones – male or female. What message are we sending to our own generation, and the ones to come, by continuing to endorse or participate in negative gender stereotyping for a profit? How will even the most casual encounter with a site such as this color our sense of ourselves in days to come? Is it really worth it to take that risk?

 

Joining MissBimbo.com is no different than grabbing a copy of the latest so-called ‘fun and fluffy’ magazine to kick back and relax with. 70% of female readership for magazines like Cosmopolitan and Shape report a reduction in self-esteem within 30 seconds. 50% of female readers report wanting to lose weight as a result of viewing such magazines, although only 29% are actually overweight. ‘How low can we go’ might work as a childhood party game. But it is not a worthwhile use of a life…especially when we know and can do much better.

 

Or do we? We will only know for sure when knowing translates into doing. Twenty five times more people suffer from eating disorders than are HIV positive. More women die each year from eating disorders than from breast cancer. Sites like MissBimbo.com are not just a vague threat to our collective self-esteem. They are known killers.

 

It is time to fight for our lives. It is time to take our self-esteem, and our power to choose, and use them as a powerful weapon against the war-for-profit raging against our bodies, minds and lives. It is our life. How are we going to use it? What legacy will we live by, and leave behind?

 

Warmly and with HOPE,

 

 Shannon

Success = Getting Back Up Again

I am privileged to travel quite a bit during this season of each year to share my story of recovery with college students. I never leave an event without fielding at least one question on the topic of ‘what does recovery really mean?’
 
My definition of humanity – of being a human being – of the human condition – is that we all have something. Behind our masks, underneath our strategically chosen clothing and in the shadows of our carefully selected words, we all struggle. We all have something that, without which, we imagine we could be bigger, better, brighter. I used to walk around secretly convinced that there was a much more wonderful me struggling to get out, and that I was blocking her way!
 
I didn’t know then what I know now, which is that recovery means nothing more nor less than getting back up again each time we suffer a setback. This is how it is done. This is how everybody does it. There is no one person who gets a secret ‘how to’ manual for living a successful life that the rest of us are denied. We are all in the same boat – all learning and growing by trial and error together.
 
True recovery looks like this – we get knocked down, like a fighter in the ring, and refuse to accept temporary defeat as life’s final answer. We retreat to a safe corner to strategize, acknowledge our learning curve, discover from our weaknesses how to get stronger, and then return to the ring to do battle again. With true recovery, not only do we refuse to accept the agony of a temporary so-called ‘defeat’, but we also train ourselves to perpetually look forward to the exultation of eventual true victory, IF WE DO NOT GIVE UP.
 
Success = GETTING BACK UP AGAIN. Period, the End.
 
Yes, I still struggle. Like my hero John Nash (for more on Nash check out the movie ‘A Beautiful Mind’), I too still see visions – of a smaller me, in a more allegedly ‘perfect’ form – and voices – of a past thinner me, chastising the fully-real me for making healthy, life-affirming nutritional choices. I still have to choose EVERY DAY, just like Nash, to ‘refuse to indulge my mind’s love for patterns’ in order to retain access to the REAL life I lost once and never want to lose again.
 
Every day, I make a new choice to continue to commit to and maintain my own recovery. I accept that I, too, have something – my something is not worse nor better than the something of the person standing next to me. It is just my own. It is the personal tempering fire that gives me the opportunity to refine my preferences and evolve into the human being that I have the potential to be in this lifetime. It is my experience that our struggles not only make us strong, but they illumine us from the inside out with the reflected glow of that inner struggle and make us luminously BEAUTIFUL.
 
So the next time you are tempted to let life get you down, or to get down on yourself for having challenges in life that take you more than one hour, one day or one year of life to overcome, remember that this is what being a human being is all about. This is the human condition. You, too, are a human being, having a human experience, confronting the unique challenge and choice to discover for yourself what TRUE beauty looks, feels, acts and lives like.
 
Recovery is worth it. YOU are worth it. Whatever happens, remember – JUST GET BACK UP AGAIN. This is your ‘key to life’ for recovery success. Remember, we all have something. You are NOT alone – in fact, you are in very good, and BEAUTIFUL company!

Warmly and with HOPE,

Shannon

Learn more about Key to Life & Beauty Undressed

P.S. Be sure to SIGN the ‘I Have A Dream of a World FREE from Eating Disorders’ petition to DEMAND mental health parity for eating disorders treatment!

A Very Good Year

Winter has always been a rough season for me. I am not a ‘cold’ person. I get colds like clockwork throughout the winter months of each year, but I certainly do not enjoy them. Nor do I enjoy the icy winds, the overcast skies, the threat of rain (or worse!)….or the traditional hanging of holiday decorations. Quite the contrary – if I miss the family Christmas festivities again this year due to illness, it will be for the third year in a row. Bingo!

Luckily, I live in Houston, a city of extremes. It is either summer or winter here…very rarely do we find ourselves on the receiving end of anything in between. Lately, given as how it is almost February, summer is approaching once more. I have been taking daily walks with a friend, and I can almost feel the Vitamin D soaking through my pores, straight into my veins and down to my core. With every sunbeam life seems brighter.

Thank god. Because I was the cocky one who was jumping about on December 31, 2007, proclaiming that I was just sure that 2008 was ‘my year’. 2008 was going to be a good year, I told anyone who would listen. 2008 was the charm. Not three, not ten, not thirty, but thirty-seven years old was the lucky number for me.

So far, I have to say that my projections might have been just a shade optimistic.

Not to say that 2008 has been a bad year so far – I actually think that we outgrow the usefulness of words like ‘bad’ and ‘good’ right around the second grade. Rather, let’s just say that I was expecting 2008 to be a, well, less challenging year than it is showing itself to be. Even good challenges are still challenges. Even good stress is still stress. And I have had stress of every shape and size and color - in spades – since January 1, 2008.

Which is why I was so surprised today to find myself gazing at my own reflection in the mirror, noticing the delicate tiny furrows around my eyes, the pursed lips, the glow of exhaustion, and thinking, ‘For the first time in my life, I think I might actually look beautiful.’ I caught myself admiring my high cheekbones, strong brown eyes, flecks of grey in and amongst the many-hued strands of gold and red and brown around my temples….and I said to myself, ‘I have never seen you look more beautiful than you do right now.’

For those who know me well, they know that this kind of self-dialogue is not an everyday occurrence. Over the years, as I have recovered from my eating disorder, I have allowed myself to become as conditioned as the next woman to believe that I am not beautiful until somebody else says I am. I have trained myself to wait hopefully, longingly, obediently, for those words, like a dog at dinnertime hungering for that day’s portioned treat.

Until now. Maybe 2008 is my year after all. What is it about watching myself hold my head high in uncertain times, march forward through murky fear, persevere when the big questions hang like storm clouds above my head, that opens my eyes to a me – a beautiful me – I have never seen before? Where have I been all my life? Why now, why after all this time….

Why ask why. I am learning to say ‘thank you’ instead. ‘Thank you’ to all those who have carried the torch for me until this day, who bore the burden and joy of reminding me of my beauty when I needed to know and couldn’t see it for myself. ‘Thank you’ to those who have endured the pain of feeling so un-beautiful right before my eyes, until I could own my own pain as well and begin to heal. ‘Thank you’ to myself, for having the courage to believe that I could one day feel differently about myself – to see a different girl in the mirror, a beautiful girl.

Today, take a new look in an old mirror. Challenge yourself to really SEE yourself with your own eyes. Undress your beauty down to its elements – your strength, your courage, your perseverance, your intelligence, your power, your compassion, your hope. Peer up and out from deep within, starting with your spirit up into your heart, through your mind and out of your body. Gaze with genuine amazement and admiration upon your own reflection, keeping before you the awareness of all that you have come through, endured, and overcome, and all that you still long for, dream of and believe in.

What 2008 has taught me so far is that we are never more beautiful than when we are under the gun, stepping up to the plate, performing minor (and major) miracles on our own behalf, working patiently, tirelessly and faithfully to save, replenish and restore our own life.

You are beautiful. I am beautiful. We are beautiful. And on that note, I have to say – it is looking good that 2008 is going to be our year after all – a very good year!

Warmly and with HOPE,

 Shannon

Learn more about Key to Life & Beauty Undressed

P.S. Be sure to SIGN the ‘I Have A Dream of a World FREE from Eating Disorders’ petition to DEMAND mental health parity for eating disorders treatment!

Beauty Undressed

 

This season, clothing designers are giving a respectful nod to the maternity set. I have heard interesting commentary from my women friends on this trend. Those who are pregnant have expressed gratitude – they say they have not had to buy maternity wear yet this year! Those who are single have expressed relief. One friend in particular commented, ‘when I wear these styles, I can breathe a sigh of relief and just let it all hang out’ – all said as she was pointing to her toned and tanned midsection.

This year, the fashion pendulum has swung back around toward the opposite extreme from where it fell last season. Jeans have gone ‘hi-rise’. Shirt lengths have dropped to mid-waist, and sometimes mid-thigh. In place of the skinny mini and skinny jeans, we have boot-cut and flare. Midriff-baring tops have at last fallen out of favor in deference to the ‘tunic’. And suddenly, on the literal heels of last year’s platform stilettos, ballet flats are back in fashion.

Now, I will admit that I have little real interest in fashion, or in its trends (anyone who has had even a cursory look at my wardrobe can attest to that). But I have plenty of emotional baggage left over from my years of exposure to the fashion industry’s chaotic whims, and that at least entitles me to vent!

Since this is the first Beauty Undressed column, allow me to introduce myself. I am a recovered anorexic and bulimic. By ‘recovered’, I mean that I have ceased to use my disordered eating behaviors to cope with life’s challenges and choices. I consider this to be my life’s work – the ongoing achievement of a lifetime that I will always be proudest of. However, it is a daily discipline to maintain my recovery, one that requires continual vigilance on my part. I have only to walk out my door, turn on the television, go to the movies, talk to a friend or even drive down the street in order to encounter all sorts of images and ideas that encourage me to give the eating disorder another chance.

It is for this very reason that I am up in arms about the latest fashion trend. As consumers, we are being pulled about relentlessly like salt-water taffy, snapped mercilessly in two like a rubber band that has been stretched beyond bearing. One season we are asked to squeeze all parts of ourselves into short and shorter, tight and tighter. The very next season we are encouraged to let it all go with the flow – the flowing fabric, that is. Meanwhile, the diet and weight management industry has ballooned in kind into a sixty-billion-dollar-a-year enterprise…all of which just confirms that we are in store for even more of the same in years to come.

Last month in Cosmopolitan magazine, I encountered the ultimate indignity. Dubbed ‘DoctorsSayYes.net’ (please do not go there and make me regret advertising it!), this Cosmo-endorsed partnership of plastic surgeons claims to offer free consultations and guaranteed financing to all first time customers for any cosmetic procedure. If you read the fine print on the site, you will notice that the consultation is only free if you give the green light to the procedure. If you decline to go under the knife, you will be assessed a $49.99 office visit fee (which also begs the question of why the Cosmo ad states that the consultation itself is a ‘$250.00 value’?)

Beyond that, I personally must question the medical integrity of any consortium of practicing physicians, board-certified though they may be, who claim that ‘absolutely no one will be turned down’ for any type of procedure that is requested. But even beyond that, I simply cannot stomach the idea that beauty is only an incision, or a loan, away.

We are not fixer-uppers. Far from it. We are JUST FINE just as we are. We are beautiful JUST AS WE ARE. It took me twenty long years of my life to begin to believe this. And get this – I found the proof I was looking for deep INSIDE of me, and not on the surface where I had been encouraged for so many years to look for it.

Let me ask you a question. Have you ever spied someone from across the room and thought to yourself, ‘that is the most attractive person I have ever seen. I MUST meet this person!’ only to realize after conversing for a few moments that they were not as attractive as you had at first perceived? Conversely, have you ever met someone whose physical appeal was subtle initially, but in conversation, their attractiveness suddenly became as vibrant as the fire of a hundred rising suns? 

This is because the bulk of what makes us beautiful or attractive to someone else arises from within. Others respond first to our energy and spirit, then to the power of our mental thoughts and ideas, and finally, to our physical expression in face and form. We respond to ourselves in exactly the same way in our natural state. We are TAUGHT to experience ourselves from the outside in – it does not come naturally.

You will find your unique beauty only when you undress your concepts of what beauty is and where it resides. When you realize that the fashion industry has no more substance than the emperor walking down the street in his new clothes, you will cease to lend your support and endorsement to a way of life that kills twelve times more young women each year from self-induced starvation than any other single cause of death.

In that moment, you will wake up, RISE up, OPEN your mouth and USE your powerful voice to DEMAND your right to experience beauty wherever, however and in whomever you choose to perceive it. We live in a beautiful world, full of unrepeatable, irreplaceably beautiful people, places and things. What a waste of a life to miss out on our opportunity to experience this for ourselves!

Learn more about Key to Life & Beauty Undressed

P.S. Be sure to SIGN the ‘I Have A Dream of a World FREE from Eating Disorders’ petition to DEMAND mental health parity for eating disorders treatment!