When you are Born Broken: My Eight Stage Yogic Journey from Eating Disorder to Self-Love

When you are Born Broken:

My Eight Stage Yogic Journey from Eating Disorder to Self-Love

 By Catherine Cook-Cottone

This is the story of my Eight Stage Yogic Journey. It was a complicated, non-linear passage that started with being born broken. It is the story of a journey through eating disorder, discontentment, hatred, and yoga, eventually landing in what I can only describe as self-love.

You see I was born broken. At least that is the way I saw things when I was little. There was no other way to explain it. I think it was midway through first grade when I realized I did not look like I was supposed to— like a prima ballerina. This was unfortunate because all I wanted, with my whole heart, was to be a prima ballerina. Yet, the sad truth is that I was pigeon toed, apple-shaped (according to my mom’s Family Circle magazine), and had extremely tight hamstrings. I was also granted thin, straggly hair, sensitive skin, and apart from a short stint on swim team, average (or worse) athletic ability.

What do you do when you are born broken like this? This is what I did.

Stage One: The Abandoned Body

In first grade, Mrs. Story our teacher let us write our own play. I, of course, wrote myself in as a ballerina. Me and another aspiring dancer choreographed our own 90-second sequence that Mrs. Story artfully wove into our classroom presentation. My mom sewed the two of us the most beautiful tutus with big satin sashes that tied in the back. I put mine on and looked in the mirror. I sucked my round belly in as tight as I could. I squeezed my legs in. I tried to stand taller. There was no fixing it.

I got through the play. I decided that even though I was not as beautiful as a ballerina, I could be an actress and I would act so much like a prima ballerina that the crowd, the 17 other first graders, would buy it. It was all good until I saw the photos of me and my skinny, perfect, ballerina friend standing right next to each other. Yeah, I was broken and she wasn’t. I hated that photo.

My age 6 decision was that if I could not have the body that I should have, I must abandon it. From that point on, I did not like my body for a long, long, long time. I didn’t want to look at it, think about it, or spend any time with it.

Like anyone who has abandoned their body, my sense of self was my thoughts. My thinking-self reined supreme. I thought therefore I was. Sadly, there was a flaw in my plan. It turns out you can’t simply abandon your body. We are stuck with these bodies, the very ones we were given at birth, even the broken ones. No trade ins, no givebacks, and no upgrades. This is it. You, me, we are stuck with it.

Stage Two: Monitor, Judge, and Control

Realizing this, my body became something to be regulated and controlled. I would think things like, “God, I could have fun if it wasn’t for this stupid body.” I shifted from ignoring my body to a constant state of judgment. Day after day, year after year, I monitored my body. I told it what to do, how to behave, and demanded that it be quiet. I asked my body to please not embarrass me in front of my friends. Monitoring and controlling a broken body took a lot of energy.

Stage Three: Conflict

My parents were supportive of a healthy and active lifestyle. Just like parents who try to get their kids to play nice with each other, my parents seemed convinced that I could have a healthy relationship with my body. I played soccer, swam, took dance lessons- even Hawaiian dance. Unfortunately, my body and mind could not work together to make these things happen in any sort of a healthy way. The activities were experienced as a constant irritation and nearly always resulted in disappointment. In this way, me and my body were like siblings unable to get it together to make our parents an anniversary card. You know, all fighting and no card. In my mind's eye, this was always my broken body’s fault.

Stage Four: Taking Inventory and Settling in to Self-hate

The years of ignoring, judging, and fighting with my body were adding up. At this point, the disappointment in my body was not only constant it was deep and multifaceted. In fact, I was now older and cognitively developed enough to keep an inventory of all the ways in which my body was broken.

I was a flincher. I theorized that were essentially two types of people in the world: (a) those who flinched during dodge ball and (b) those who did not. Intellectually, I wanted to be brave and stand tall, but physiologically, I flinched. True for soccer too. Check. Yes, I was a flincher.

I was not flexible. I recall the swim coach guiding our stretch sequence on the pool deck. His calm voice floated over the swimmers with legs stretched in front of them, chins to their knees and fingers to their toes. They were at home in their bodies. For me it was different. His voice taunted me. I was hunched over my thighs, hands extending to just below my knees, breath short and thoughts intolerant, wanting to beat my hamstrings into submission or escape from this ridiculous activity. There was no peace or release to be found there, just more proof of my brokenness. Check. I was inflexible.

I was apple-shaped. My body never looked right. That is what the diagram in my mom’s Family Circle magazine told me in 1972. If you are apple-shaped you should select waist minimizing clothes, vertical lines, and A-lines.  I thought all of this through carefully and often. My mother gently guided me away from bikinis and tube tops and toward more coverage. It was best that way. It was hard on me. It was the 1970s and bikinis and tube tops were the rage. I was broken, so they were not for me. Check. I was apple-shaped.

I wanted too much. My body was always wanting. My appetite was another part of my body that was wrong. I remember eating ice cream with my brothers and sisters, they seemed to be done when they were done and I was still craving more. I was full, sure. But I still wanted more ice cream. The other stuff about how broken I was sucked. But this, this I hated. I whole-heartedly hated the wanting-more-than-everyone-else part of me. It was like my gas gage was broken. And when I had a bad day or things were hard at school, that broken part of me gained strength, an undeniable strength. I would sneak food, eat bowls of cereal and bags of carrots, trying to quiet the cravings. I remember being in elementary school waking up with mini food hangovers. I would be swollen and nauseous. My shorts would be hard to snap. I hated my craving, hung-over, broken self. Check. I wanted too much.

Teen years were no kinder. I not only gained the extra female puberty pounds but my face broke out too. From the front of the room, my biology teacher told me I had a spot of pizza sauce on my face that I should wipe off. “No,” I explained, “It is not pizza. I have a skin condition. Thanks though.” Luckily only half the class was paying attention. Check. My skin was broken too.

Inventory complete. I now officially hated my broken self.

Stage Five: Eating Disorder

I recall the day I had enough. I was done.  I was done with my body, the emotions, and the inventory of problems. It was the summer before my freshman year of high school. We were at our house on the lake. We were swimming. My sister, being a kid, told me that the inner tube kept flipping because I was too fat. “Hold on tighter Cathy! It wouldn’t flip if you weren’t so fat.”

“You know,” I said, “you are right.” At that moment, something in my brain clicked.

Svenaeus (2013) Stated, "Most narratives of anorexia seem to start with a scenario in which a young girl suddenly understands by way of comments or behaviors of others that she is too fat" (p. 85). 

Now, I had been on diets before. My mom and I went on one together when I was in eighth grade. It did not work. I had outsmarted that one by drinking whole milk as my beverage for every meal and snack. “This time,” I told my broken self “things are going to be different!”

My broken body was in for some trouble. My mind is sharp and focused, always has been. I had always done well in school. My mother would tell people, “When she puts her mind to something, she can do anything.” She was right. I made a firm commitment to 1,200 calories a day and stuck with it. Summer passed and school started. I had lost 20 or more pounds. I kept on track. If 1,200 calories worked, I bet I would make even better gains with 1,000 calories. Wait. If 1,000 calories worked, I could make even better gains with 900 calories, and so on and so on.

By the time winter rolled around, I was dangerously thin. I would not be flipping any inner tubes now (yay!). I was ecstatic. I had, day after day, beaten my body and my appetites into submission using sheer will and strength of mind. Maybe I wasn’t broken. Maybe I was fine all along. I just needed this military level control. I thought that I was winning.

Except, like any relationship, when one side wins-- the relationship loses. Years later, I ran across some of the notes I kept at that time. One day I had eaten a peach and a half-cup of cheerios and was upset about my indulgences. Several horrible and painful years followed. Individual therapy, family therapy, doctors' appointments, and a lot of fighting with myself and my parents. Psychologists call this being in conflict. I was still broken and now I had a name for it: Anorexia Nervosa. My new conceptualization of broken was sick. I was sick.

Stage Six: Fake Recovery or Co-existence

Throughout my college years, I made it to some sort of purgatory of partial recovery. My coping involved a steady cycle with periods obsessive studying and stints of excessive partying with my friends. I didn’t think much about being broken or sick. During this period, I thought about the parties. I worked in restaurants and bars. This became my identity. I was fun now. I was quirky, smart, and fun.

There was no true connection with my body. The mind and body parts of me had made some sort of peace agreement- an unhealthy, unfair sort of treaty. We made an agreement to co-exist so long as we didn’t bother each other. My eating disorder symptoms would wane in and out and I relied on an intense pendulum swinging of studying and partying to help me cope. When I think back to this period of my life, I feel mostly anxiety and a bit sad.

Throughout all of this time, I had a deep longing to be what I conceptualized as “better.” My path would, not surprisingly, be intellectual. I got my bachelors degree, then my masters and eventually my Ph.D. I got my license as a psychologist. I became a professor and researcher in the area of eating disorders. Sadly, no matter how much I researched, no matter how much I achieved, I felt stuck. I still felt sick. I still felt broken.

You see recovery is not just about stopping behavior. It was like when I was six years old and acted like a prima ballerina but didn’t embody the dance. I was acting recovered. Yet, my recovery was not embodied.  My mind and body were not integrated. I had no sense of my physical self. I was not, what I now consider, fully recovered.

It was like this. My mind and body co-existed like those couples who stay together, maybe for the kids, but not because they love each other. They live in the same house and sleep in separate rooms. That was me. My mind was the self-righteous one and my broken, sick body would sneak off, get home late, and eat the rest of the ice cream. My body would be sorry and then train for a marathon as penance. Underneath the apparent recovery, there was a slow aching resentment. My broken and sick body was forced into compliance and my mind was exhausted.

Stage Seven: Discontent, Wanting Something Better

During this time I married a loving and supportive man, Jerry, and I got pregnant. I wanted more than anything to show my developing daughter that a woman could be okay with her body, maybe even love her body. Being pregnant was hard. It intensified the battle for me. I could not ignore my body. In fact, I had to take good care of it. This was bigger than me. I was taking care of someone else in my belly. I craved foods like I did when I was a little girl and my body felt out of control. Once again, my body was a sign of my weaknesses, my needy, wanting and broken self. And I was not going near an inner tube. No, I was not.

There was no way to co-exist. I had to work this out. I wanted to be better. I wanted something better.

Stage Eight: Yoga as a Pathway to Self-Love

Hope came from an unlikely place. When I was pregnant with my second daughter, I was early in my career as a professor. One of my students was a yoga teacher in training. She invited me to take one of her yoga classes. She said that my ideas, theories, and approaches were very aligned with yoga. I explained to her about my broken body, thinking maybe she had not noticed what I was dealing with. I demonstrated my forward fold (as seen at swim team practice). I explained that yoga was not for me. She disagreed. She said anyone could do yoga. I said that “Maybe. Maybe, I will come to your class.”

A year later, my husband and I registered for her Yoga I class at the Himalayan Institute in Buffalo, New York. We started out in Corpse Pose. “Morbid,” I thought. I now see this as perfect. Death and rebirth- start in corpse- perfect. We placed one hand on our navels and one hand on our hearts. She showed us how to breathe. For those of you who were born yogis this might sound ridiculous, but these breaths were miraculous to me. I wanted to cry, but my mind judged myself about that and stopped it immediately. After class, I was, well, a few things.

I declared to all who would listen, “This is the best I have felt without a few glasses of red wine in years, perhaps ever.” And I felt successful, “I can do yoga!”  

For the last decade and a half, my body and my mind have gotten to know each other. It was in that first yoga class my mind took a good look at my body in a new way and said, “Maybe you are not broken or sick,” and my body was relieved. At this point, I have researched eating disorders and yoga for many years. More importantly, I do yoga. I practice nearly every day. I also teach yoga. I want as many people as possible to feel like I feel when I do yoga. I can only imagine that these transformations will make the world a much happier place.

So, here I am in the self-love. When I do yoga, I put one hand on my heart and one on my belly and I say to my body, “I love you.” The best part is that I mean it. My body has stuck with me through all of the stuff I did to it. It stayed with me through self-hate, the ignoring, and self-destruction. My body rallied during my pregnancies.

My body was never broken.

I think now how strong it is. I am so lucky to have a body that could take all that I did to it and not break. I thank God for this body. Not too many bodies could have made it through the beating I put mine through. My body is gifted, strong, resilient, and so very beautiful. Like a beautiful old maple with its scars, wrinkles, and wounds, it has endured strong and firm through all of the weathers of my life.

I look back now on the photo my mom took of me in my satin sashed tutu. I love that little girl and that beautiful body. I now see a little yogi in the very beginnings of her journey. I don’t see the broken anymore. I see what was possible.

If you look, you can see it too. 

Namaste, 

Catherine

The Yoga Bag

References

Svenaeus, F. (2013). Anorexia Nervosa and the Body Uncanny: A Phenomenological Approach. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 20, 81-91. 

The Truth, Feelings, and Disordered Eating: Inspirations from Seane Corn, Daniel Siegel, Anita Johnston, and Carol Dweck

The Truth, Feelings, and Disordered Eating:

Inspirations from Seane Corn, Daniel Siegel, Anita Johnston, and Carol Dweck

Do you see the subtle? Feel what others are feeling? Have a sense when others are not being truthful?

Daniel Siegel talks about truth in his book,  “The Mindful Therapist.”* Truth is an energy that resonates across what we see, think, feel, and know. When truth is present we feel it across our whole selves and within our relationships. When truth is present it is integrating and feels good. It feels safe.

Conversely, when truth is missing or there are multiple “realities.” It can be very confusing. You can begin to doubt yourself. For example, it can be very perplexing when your partner has a drinking problem and tells you they are fine even though they forgot what happened the night before (including how hurtful they were to you). It can be “crazy-making” when your mom has a shopping addiction and rationalizes that shopping and the stress the family is under is just “retail therapy.”

Seane Corn tells a story below about questioning her own sense of truth, her intuition, when she was betrayed in a relationship: 

“… I was in a relationship when I was young, and there was betrayal in the relationship and I knew. I knew that this person that I was seeing was cheating on me. I didn’t have any evidence, but everything in my soul was telling me it was true. And I remember confronting him, and him looking me right in the eyes and saying, ‘Seane, you’re crazy,’ and I thought, really? Because everything in my body just knows that this is the absolute fact and that word kept coming up, he kept saying, ‘Seane, you’re crazy, you’re nuts.’ Well, it turned out he was cheating on me and I remember saying to him, that it was ultimately… the cheating was forgivable, but the part to me that was the biggest insult is that he knew that the thing I relied on more than anything else in my entire life was my intuition, and to look me in the eye and to ask me to second guess my intuition, that to me was the bigger betrayal. And that to me, that hurt more than anything else that you would make me second-guess what I know in my heart is true. This is my art, this is my soul. I really trust my intuition. My intuition is everything to me. It motivates me. It’s gotten me in trouble, because it’s often asked me to make choices that my fear necessarily didn’t want to make but my gut was like ‘this is what has to happen.’ It’s never misled me though, and the only time I’m misled is when I second-guess that knowing. And to me, that’s crazy…..”

How does this show up for Zuri…..

Zuri’s Story 

Zuri’s mom finally came home. Her mom is really pretty. Did I ever tell you that? Well, she is. Zuri has always thought of her mom as a beautiful  princess. She has always wanted the best for her mom. No matter how much she has been hurt by her mom, abandoned by her mom, lied to by her mom, she still wishes the very best for her.

And here she is, Sherece, Zuri’s mom, home.

Things are magical when Sherece is home. When she is here, she is really here. When she is sober and paying attention to you, you can feel like you are the most special person in the whole world. Zuri loves this. She gets carried away in the magic of her mother. With all her heart she wants to believe in what her mother says and promises.

Sadly, it is all so precarious.

Zuri watches ever so carefully as Sherece goes to the cupboard and pulls out her special wine glass and then the bottle from the fridge. Then, she watches the first sip. It is like her mother's soul leaves right at the first sip. Her voice changes and her eyes go empty.

“Zuri, baby, you are such a special girl. I love you so much.” Sherece says as she ever so lightly touches Zuri's face. Her fingers pull back Zuri's hair and she looks right into Zuri's eyes.

Zuri wishes that she didn’t smell the wine on her mom’s breath.

“Zuri, Zuri what do you wish for?” her mother asks tilting her own head to look at Zuri in a new way.

Zuri knew. Right up front, her mind screamed- for you to stop drinking mom!

Zuri quietly and very cautiously said, “I wish for you to stop drinking.” Her eyes cast down.

Sherece recoiled and in a split second shifted from love to rage. She drew her hand back.

“You little b#%$#. You think you know better? You know how I should deal with my life? You think you are so smart that you can tell me how to run my life? You know how hard my life has been?” Sherece screamed.

Sherece was standing now, her hand still drawn back. She was poised to slap Zuri across the face.

Zuri’s eyes were filled with tears. In her mind, she heard her school counselor tell Zuri and her friends to be assertive. She heard her Aunt telling her to be honest. They all taught Zuri that “honesty is the best policy” and to “stand up for yourself.”

Zuri thought. “They don’t know my life.”

This all happened in seconds. Somehow, Sherece drew her hand down. Her attention had shifted from Zuri to her addiction. She grabbed her car keys and left. It was dinnertime.

Zuri sat, strangely vacant. She stopped crying and felt nothing. Not sad, not scared, not mad. She felt nothing. This was not a good feeling of nothing. It was like she had left her body and was somewhere else. She started feeling the too-big, too-fat, too-much feeling she felt. It was dinnertime, but maybe she wouldn’t eat. Maybe she needed to be a bit more in control. Maybe that is what she needed.

She went up to do her homework. She sat on her bed and sat on something. Tangled in her sheets, she found my notebook. She picked it up and went to throw it. Just as her mom’s hand had not struck her, Zuri’s hand tightened its grip on my notebook and she drew it toward her heart. She squeezed it and cried. Ah, there were her feelings. Her mom was sick and Zuri said out loud-- that truth. The truth. What followed was hurt.

She opened the book to where she was reading about Seane Corn. She read about truth tellers and about how children are natural truth tellers. She read about how it is hard to be a truth teller sometimes and that the world didn’t always appreciate truth tellers.

She finds my notes on the edge of the page. I hade made a connection with Anita Johnston’s (1996) work in “Eating by the light of the moon:  How women can transform their relationship with food through myths, metaphors, and story telling.”

She reads my notes…

“I learned that as very young girls, these women were bright and gifted and had an exceptional ability to perceive subtle realities. More often than not, a woman who struggled with disordered eating was once a girl who saw the invisible, who read between the lines, who sensed when things were not right. She noticed when people said one thing but did another. She would discern certain patterns of behavior and anticipate what was to come next. She knew when someone as being insincere and dishonest.” (Anita Johnson, 1996, page xiv).

Zuri loved when she read notes like this-- the ones that described her life. She reads the next line.

“Her family, for one reason or another, did not appreciate her gift. They did not want to be confronted with discrepancies in their behavior or address what seemed to be odd concerns or avant-garde ideas. They did not want to deal with her ultra-sensitivity to emotional undercurrents, and at times they were threatened by her precociousness. Whenever she spoke the truth or questioned what was going on, she received a very clear message (often nonverbal) that this outspoken and questioning behavior was not okay and even dangerous to the stability of the family.” (Anita Johnson, 1996, page xiv).

I see Zuri rest her head right onto the notebook. She turns her head to the side resting her cheek on the words. It was like the truth was a pillow. It was comforting, validating. It felt so good to read it. It felt so good that she wanted to feel it on her skin.

She noticed she was hungry. An hour had passed. It was 6:30 PM. She went to get Rashan and Eric (he was home too). She can make a mean macaroni and cheese and thought she might make 3 boxes, extra cheesy.

The Process

Some of us may be born more sensitive than others. For a lot of us who are born that way, we are told from an early age that we are in fact, “too sensitive.” It feels like maybe there is something wrong. You are, like Seane Corn says, “T-O-O” much.

In Carol S. Dweck’s (2000) book, “Self-theories: Their role in motivation, personality, and development,” she describes a landmark study done with monkeys (see Suaomi, 1977 in Dweck’s book). The research team bred monkeys to be extremely shy and inhibited in temperament, sensitive. These monkeys were easily frightened and bullied by others, and they tended to end up low on the dominance hierarchy. However, when these monkeys were raised by super-competent mothers, they became super-competent themselves and tended to end up at the TOP of the dominance hierarchy. In fact, says Dweck, they looked even better than “normal” monkeys who were reared by super-competent mothers.

Dweck says, in other words, when these sensitive monkeys have the right environment, their heightened social sensitivity became an asset, not a liability (see page 135 in Dweck, 2000).

Is it possible for those of us who are born sensitive, to learn tools from our mothers, our mentors, our teachers, or maybe even yoga that could take the exact same sensitivity (the sensitivity that the world sees as a weakness) and turn it into an asset? I think so.

Siegel, Corn, Johnston, and Dweck all provide different perspectives on truth, knowing, sensitivities. For me, these ideas converge toward two truths:

Truth #1: there are those who can feel subtle realities, are sensitive, and are compelled to be truth tellers.

Truth #2: the world will not always be ready for what we (yes we- me, you and Zuri) have to say. That is the art of it. It is a process of learning to use your gifts in the most effective way.

It is about the tools. Yes, be a truth teller. Use your voice in a way that you will be heard and honored.

For Zuri, this will be complicated with her mom. She will need to learn that when people are in their reaction or drinking, this often, is not the best time to confront them with their vulnerabilities and their struggles. She will learn that it is always best to have hard conversations when all those involved are sober. She will learn that we must build someone up, as we share what we see. Zuri will learn these things.

She is learning now that she is quite special.

She is learning that all she feels is a gift.

She is learning that she is not broken, bad, or too full of all she feels.

Zuri is learning… and so are we.

Namaste,

Catherine

*References:

Read Seane Corns whole interview here:

Seane corn (http://www.originmagazine.com/2012/05/12/a-conversation-with-seane-corn-part-i-by-maranda-pleasant/)

Find The Mindful Therapist by Dan Siegel here:

 http://drdansiegel.com and http://drdansiegel.com/books/the_mindful_therapist/

Find Anita Johnston’s book here

http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Light-Moon-Anita-Johnston/dp/1559723327

Find Carol Dweck’s Book here:

http://books.google.com/books/about/Self_theories.html?id=P0Mccblm6eUC

Feeling Fat, Huge, and Gross

Feeling Fat, Huge, and Gross

This blog entry is about feeling fat. Carefully dissect the two words.

(1) Feeling— an emotional state or reaction; it is a feeling, not a fact….yeah, it is a feeling- you are feeling, not taking up literal space, but feeling.

(2) Fat—big, the best or richest part; abounding in desirable elements; rich; having an abundance or amplitude; well-stocked.

Together that can be a great thing- emotion- and the best and richest part, abundance.

Thing is, sometimes we are feeling a lot. And it FEELS like it is us. It FEELS like we are big. Likely what we are feeling is big, overwhelming, too much, too rich, over the top, and/or something we are not used to and do not like.

To be clear, feeling fat and being clinically overweight are not the same thing and should be treated differently.

If your doctor has told you you are clinically overweight, I am sure your doctor has counseled you to eat healthy and exercise once a day (or something like that). This is good advice. I am also sure you doctor did NOT tell you to hate and judge yourself.

This blog entry is about feeling fat. You will hear from Zuri (i.e., Zuri’s Story) how this happens in Zuri’s life and then The Process in which I will link to you resources and explain things a bit.

Zuri’s Story

Zuri feels fat, huge, and gross.

Things are overwhelming. It is October and lots of things are due at school. The pressure is on. Eric (her older brother) seems to be going to school. Still, he is a constant worry. Rashan (her little brother) was sick. Zuri missed 4 days of school staying home with him. It wasn’t really her choice to stay home. Her mom said she had no more sick days left at work. So, Zuri needed to take care of Rashan.

And another thing happened earlier today. The whole day was hard. Her friends seemed to be excluding her-- or were too busy for her --or forgot about her. And she was waiting in line, for lunch on her own. Zuri was sort of sad and a little lonely. Then she felt it.

You know when you feel like someone is looking at you? She had that feeling. She looked back and there were the 8^th graders. The 8^th graders that everyone was nervous about. The 8^th graders who were acting out and had no sense of their own feelings let alone anyone else’s. Those kids. Those exact kids were right behind her and looking at her.

“Ugh,” she started breathing. She said to herself, “Breathe, Zuri, breathe. Ignore them. Pretend they are not there.”

“Hey Zuri. Hey Zuuuurrrrrriiiii!” one boy said.

“Hey fat girl. What you got on your plate? Those potatoes Zuri?” a girl said.

“Why your pants so tight girl?” the other boy said.

Zuri started blinking her eyes. When she was little, she learned that if you blink your eyes you can keep tears from falling down your face. She didn’t turn around either. She didn’t answer.

“Why you so hungry girl? You mama don’t feed you?” the first boy said.

“I saw your mom at the club last night. Was she so drunk, she forgot to make your lunch?” the girl said.

That was it. She dropped her tray and ran to the bathroom. None of her friends were around, not now, not all day. She felt so huge and her heart ached. It physically hurt.

Flash forward—Zuri’s home. She’s looking in the mirror. She feels fat, huge, horrible, and gross.

I see her. She is not huge or fat. She is a healthy girl. I am sure that the last time she was at the doctor’s office her BMI was right within the normal weight range. What she is feeling is not about extra weight. It’s not about pounds anyway.

The truth is, those 8^th graders weren’t teasing her about her weight. They were teasing her because she is BIG. She is going to be something in this world. She already is. She already affects people deeply. Other kids know when they are around her that they around someone special, someone BIG. She does not get this. I wish I could tell her.

She digs into her big box and finds her yoga bag. She finds my notes and looks for something to distract her. I am praying she finds the right page, the page that will explain it all to her. She keeps flipping through my yoga notes. Page after page flips by, nothing catching her yes.

Then, she stops. She stops because I wrote in all caps, “BE HUGE. BE AS BIG AS YOU CAN BE.” She stops right there and she reads.

It is a class that I taught on January 1^st. It was about goals. I, on purpose, challenged the students to re-evaluate their new year’s resolutions. I knew that there were students in the room who had resolved to lose weight in the new year, to essentially be smaller. I challenged them to abandon those misguided goals. I challenged them to consider trying to be BIGGER. To try to take up more space in their worlds, to have an impact. We should not spend our time being smaller.

We should spend our time finding our life purpose, our soul’s intended journey.

You see, when our life purpose has voice and expression, we become less compulsive in our unhealthy habits. Getting smaller, food restriction, eating, shopping, drinking, all that--  are no longer drives. They are not necessary.

Zuri read all of this. She set down the journal and walked to the mirror. She walked until she was really close to the mirror. Her breath was fogging the mirror. She looked into her own eyes. She saw her beautiful brown irises. She saw light brown, dark brown, and deep brown lines radiating from her pupils. She thought, “My eyes are sort of beautiful.”

Zuri stepped back and looked at her whole face. She saw the gentle roundness of her forehead, cheeks, and chin. She saw her cheekbones rise and the hope, yeah, she saw the hope in her eyes. She saw something  else there too. It was big. She looked deeply and saw her eyes and in her eyes, her dreams and everything she is up to. Zuri was starting to get it.

She stepped back, yet another step, and saw her shoulders, her feminine shape, her hips, her legs, and she had to admit, her cute outfit that her Aunt Jasmine bought her at the mall.

She was just right.

She was not fat—whatever that is supposed to mean in the pejorative (the negative sense of the word). She was not anything but right where she needed to be. She lifted her chin, set her eyes, and looked in the mirror. Then, as if she was her own best coach, she said, “You’ve got this Zuri. You are beautiful in your dreams and your big love. You’ve got this!”

The Process

We spend so much time on the physical. We break others and our own selves down as we compare ourselves to external ideals or unrealistic, airbrushed expectations. It’s an easy target, much easier than looking into our own souls and asking if we are following our life path, our Dharma

Dharma is defined as http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dharma:

a. The principle or law that orders the universe.

b. Individual conduct in conformity with this principle.

c. The essential function or nature of a thing.

I believe that we fall out of alignment with the universe and our dharma when we focus on judging our bodies, food restriction, and size reduction.

It is an empty journey.

Yes, it is an empty journey. One that Zuri has avoided. So many kids face weight-related teasing and bullying. They deal with it by going on a diet. Some of those move to eating disorder risk and of those, some go on to develop eating disordered behaviors (see Diane Neumark-Sztainer’s work below). *

In my research and private practice, I have worked for nearly 2 decades to prevent and treat eating disorders. I have watched young men and women, boys and girls respond to the stress of school, work, teasing or comments, and the pressures of our media-oriented culture by trying to change their body shape or weight. This is because it is hard address our stress, question the motives of those who are teasing and bullying, and to challenge our media ideals. It is hard, but it is what must be done.

Educate yourself on the issue. Be on your path and in your purpose. And do not, DO NOT EVER work to be smaller. BE YOUR BIGGEST! BE HUGE!

Take a few minutes. Look into the mirror and see deeply into your own eyes. In your eyes, see your dreams (look deeply). Then, step back and see the beauty in your own face. Step back once more and see how gorgeous you really are in your whole body, in the wholeness of your dharma, and in the full expression of your soul.

To learn more bout media check out these links:

http://www.about-face.org

http://www.nedic.ca/knowthefacts/documents/FromAwarenesstoPrevention.pdf

http://www.cmch.tv/mentors_teachers/lp_body_image.asp

Also, I have addressed these issues in my books-

http://theyogabag.blogspot.com/p/catherines-books.html

Girls Growing in Wellness and Balance: Yoga and Life Skills to Empower

Cook-Cottone, Kane, Keddie, & Haugli

http://www.amazon.com/Girls-Growing-Wellness-Balance-Empower/dp/0615737609

Healthy Eating in Schools: Evidence-based Interventions to Help Kids Thrive

Cook-Cottone, Tribole, & Tylka 

http://www.apa.org/pubs/books/4317303.aspx

* http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2002-01808-003

Weight-teasing among adolescents: Correlations with weight status and disordered eating behaviors.

Neumark-Sztainer, D.; Falkner, N.; Story, M.; Perry, C.; Hannan, P. J.; Mulert, S.

International Journal of Obesity, Vol 26(1), Jan 2002, 123-131.

This study assessed the prevalence of perceived weight-teasing and associations with unhealthy weight-control behaviors and binge eating in 4,746 middle school adolescents. The Ss completed surveys and anthropometric measurements. There were statistically significant associations between perceived weight-teasing and weight status; both overweight and underweight youth reported higher levels of teasing than average weight Ss. Very overweight youth (body mass index > 95th percentile) were most likely to be teased about their weight; 63% of very overweight girls, and 58% of very overweight boys reported being teased by their peers, while weight-teasing by family members was reported by 47% of these girls and 34% of these boys. Youth who were teased about their weight, particularly overweight girls, reported that it bothered them. Perceived weight-teasing was significantly associated with disordered eating behaviors among overweight and nonoverweight girls and boys. For example, among overweight youth, 29% of girls and 18% of boys who experienced frequent weight-teasing reported binge-eating as compared to 16% of girls and 7% of boys who were not teased. It is concluded that educational interventions and policies are needed to curtail weight-related mistreatment among youth. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)