How to Think About Death Without Crying Your Face Off

My jeans were starting to feel a little tight in the waist, not in the butt or thighs, or places where they usually get snug after coming out of the dryer, just the waist. Logical mind thought, maybe I'll shop for some new jeans and size up. Lunatic mind thought, "This is it! The menopausal potbelly has arrived." Followed seconds later by, "No, wait! I'm pregnant?!?!?" Followed quickly by, "...with a food baby! Maybe you ought to lay off the nachos and ice cream..." blah, blah, blah, restrictive nonsense. The interesting part is that I didn't DO anything. I watched the mental train wreck unfold with genuine curiosity. I didn't try to reason, dismiss, or distract myself from these thoughts. It was more like, "Hmmm, look at brain go. It's really on a roll here. Isn't it interesting how it still does that?" And then I kept doing exactly what I'd been doing all along - eating what I want until I'm satisfied, eating to feel good, moving to feel good, and generally taking great care of myself. What else is there to do? Being a fearful, reactive jerk to myself isn't solution to anything. It's the problem. My brain is just offering up all the old responses I taught it when I didn't know any better. (Insert Oprah and Maya Angelou talking about, " When you know better, you do better.") Anyway, no action was taken, days went by, and whatever water, sodium, hormonal thing that was going on there resolved itself. It makes me wonder how many times in the past I noticed a "problem" with my body or my eating, told myself a terrible story, and flew down that rabbit hole of restriction without a second thought. Dozens? Thousands? Then, not only did I have the original issue, I had bonus extreme hunger, volatile moods, binge urges, and bone-weary fatigue to go with it, which would create many new problems requiring many new freakouts and restrictions. The beauty of doing nothing, eh?

Knowing something in theory and actually practicing it are very different. Diet brain wants to work it all out logically beforehand. You can read and think about change all you want, but it's the messy daily practice that actually creates change. Actions, not thought. The way to stay stuck is to believe you have to change your mind first - stop obsessing, become weight neutral, lose the fear, whatever, and then you'll be able to change your actions. It's the other way around. Change your actions and your brain changes.

This will probably sound like crazy talk, but there is something insanely liberating about "the worst thing that could happen." We spend years, sometimes our whole lives, fretting about an imaginary future. We agonize, telling ourselves that if this worst case scenario happens we won't be able to handle it. Everything will be terrible and unbearable. Then, in spite of all our preliminary agonizing (or maybe because of it), it happens, the very bad thing. Some of mine were death of loved ones, cancer, disability, and financial ruin. And yes, my eating disorder threw weight gain right into the Very Bad Things playlist. It's been my experience that when the terrible worst thing actually unfolds - a parent dies, we're going to lose the house, I have cancer, I can't walk, I can't work. Yes, it's horrible. The terror is legitimate, but it's amazing what doesn't change. The sun still comes up. The dog still loves you. Friends still make you laugh. Even in the midst of what we thought would be ruinous calamity, we get the mail, and buy groceries, and brush our teeth, and it's all so...ok. That's where it gets interesting. If the worst has happened and we're still watching TV and doing the dishes like any other day, what is there left to fear really? It's a perspective we wouldn't have had otherwise. My years-long mental buildup of cancer, death, loss, and crisis had been soooo much worse than when it really happened and was kind of boring. Unpleasant, sure. Difficult, painful, but bizarrely manageable. There was a sense that, if I can handle this, I can handle anything. It's like we've leveled up or gained a super power. What is there left to worry about? Now, sure, at 2:00am my brain can still come up with some really creative fears to toss and turn over, but there's also a sense that whatever happens, I'll deal with it and be ok. That's new. It wasn't there when my fears were all in my head. I had to experience a few.