Tag: fat

From the time I was 8 years old, I had the notion…and then the more strongly formed idea…and then the certainty that Being Fat was HORRIBLE.

People who were fat were criticized, berated and loathed by other members of society. Kids and adults.

Including my grandparents AND my mother and father.

Those powerful and important people in my life all said really negative, disparaging things about fat people….or about themselves and their own weight.  

You may have heard talk about greedy people, mean people who curse, alcoholic people, people who steal.

But for some reason, my mind locked in on how terrible it was to be fat.

At first it was not noticeable, I didn’t hear it because I had no reference for it. It was like a group of professors (my dad’s colleagues) in my parents’ living room talking about historical documents, student essays and various leaders in 17th century France.

I might have heard sounds coming from out of their mouths, and it was sort of fascinating, but not alarming.

I noticed OTHER things like the shape of one of the men’s glasses, the color of all their shirts, Mozart coming out of the huge black speakers, one of my sisters hands beckoning me outside.

But when it came to food, eating, bodies….at that young age of 8 I was alarmed. All the food in our house changed because my mom went to something called Weight Watchers.

Watching her weight.

You mean…this is an uncertain, dangerous sort of situation that one needs to guard against?

My influential and powerful mom needed to DO something about weight?

I realize…she thought of herself as weighing too much.

The dreaded fat person.

As I return to that image, that memory of that time….thinking about the horrors of being fat and taking that so seriously…

…my mind enters The Work now, as if my 8 year old self can inquire and see what’s really true.

Being fat is horrible.

Is that true?

My mother’s weight matters, she is unhappy, she is suffering, there’s a major problem here….People can be too fat. 

…is that really true?

How do I react when I believe that thought?

Scared. Anxious. Terrified of fat, fattening, fatter, fatness. Hyper critical of fat, fat people, fat conditions, the appearance of fat.

I make effort, I focus on, I strive to prevent fat from happening!

I react towards food like it’s frightening. It causes fatness. It can trick you. It can make you wrong.

But, who would I be without the thought that being fat was horrible?

It’s one of those vivid, mind-boggling moments…hard at first to imagine. Like the mind is shorting-out. Hear the electric tweaks and jerks like a bug is hitting an electric fence?

Zap Zap.

Even for people who have never, ever been worried about gaining weight, personally being fat, or spent much time judging fatness….

….who would any of us be without the belief that the appearance of the body is horrible, and it MATTERS what you look like?

Dang. That’s so spacious. And strange.

And marvelous.

Suddenly, without the thought, there is no concern for fat, thin, age, youth, categorizing, assessing, or putting meaning on anything “seen” in the body….

….there is awareness of so much more that is present, so much more than this body or that body, what is going in or out of the mouth and the stomach.

Without the thought that appearance matters, I clap my hands with joy.

Freedom! So much more here! All temporary and pulsing with life and movement!

“There are two ways to weigh what you do. One is happy and healthy, the other is miserable and depressed…..The cause of suffering is not the body, it is your thinking.” ~ Byron Katie

Look at this body you apparently inhabit in the mirror and see who you’d be without the thought that it should be different.

You may not have to DO anything. That includes reaming yourself for being too “x” (fat, lazy, thin, tired, etc).

How exciting….how restful….what a relief.

“Reality is life without your distorting stories, ideas, and beliefs. It is perfect unity free of all reference points, with nowhere to stand and nothing to grab hold of. It has never been spoken, never been written, never been imagined. It is not hidden, but in plain view. Cease to cherish opinions and it stands before your very eyes.” ~ Adyashanti 

With much love, Grace