YOKE OF LIFE - November 4, 2017

"When I say, "My foot is slipping,"
your mercy, O LORD, sustains me."
Psalm 94:17-18

I find that the yoke of life rests more easily on my shoulders now. I don't fret as much about the things I cannot change, and when I can make a difference, I do, but no longer so often demand perfection from myself and others.

That being said, my physical energy leaks from me like air from a pin-pricked balloon. I begin the day slowly but with purpose, yet by early afternoon I am exhausted and any excessive noise or commotion hastens the process.

Acceptance is much easier spoken than accomplished. I sometimes apply the cane of "lazy" to my psyche hoping to force my body to make more of an effort; the net result being that my health slips a bit further.

I must learn to love myself enough to believe that I am doing my best everyday and that my best is enough.

SUMMER SOLSTICE - June 21, 2017

• \ I rise to a lightening sky, stepping out into the cool morning with a breeze fresh enough to make me hug my sweater round myself. A pale fingernail moon hangs in the eastern sky as if pinned there by Venus. Gulls and geese raise their voices to herald the coming day. Smoke from the ceremonial smudge drifts lazily about water and fruit set out on the picnic table, blessing these things to our bodies' use. The scents of sweetgrass and tobacco waft through those gathered round. The voice of the drum accompanies a solitary singer as we are led by the elders to offer up prayers for the coming day, for this new season of plenty and for all people that we may live and work in peace. "B'zoo," "Good morning," "Bonjour," "Mino kizhep." Soft greetings exchanged as we create an endless circle, handshakes and hugs, laughing as we begin to recognize each other by language, clothing and who has warm hands. The sun, for whom we have gathered to thank for this new day on the cusp of the summer solstice, rises above the abandoned elevator and warms us with an orange-pink glow. Megwich, Gitche Manitou!

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JESUS LOVES ME - June 12, 2018

I gaze out at a perfect summer day; saphire-blue water sparkles under a sky of robin-egg blue while the breeze flutters new-green leaves on the branches of the trees that line the pier.

I, however, sit in the recliner coddled in my warmer blanket wearing my CPAP mask even though I am awake. I woke this morning with a temperature of 93.9, just shy of hypothermia, and oxygen saturation of 88% because my machine stopped in the night.

I try to read the scriptures of the day, but my mind whirls with what if's and self-blame. I wonder what earthly use I am. I think of how might better serve God, discarding one plan after another as being what I can't fulfil. I plan to tithe more money to just causes, be more generous with those I meet.

In the vortex of this maelstrom of self-condemnation intrudes the reasonable voice of my best friend and spiritual partner. "Cathie, you don't have to bribe me to come and visit you by offering me food and drink. I come to see you and you are enough."

One of the stages of grief is bargaining; offering a Higher Power good works in exchange for reversing or ameliorating the event in our life that is causing us such pain. The dark side of this belief is that the Higher Power has visited this affliction on us because we have not been good enough.

But I am good enough. The Bible says in Romans 5:8 " But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

I have been trying to prove myself worthy, but truly, I cannot earn my own salvation. But there is Good News! I am loved and accepted just as I am, where I am and how I am. I have no need to bribe God because Jesus already loves me enough to have died for me.

We are not called to have a tomorrow faith or a yesterday regret, but to live with gratitude and joy in the moments of today, for in these moments God-incidents happen.

 — at Prince Arthur's Landing.

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RIDING BAREBACK - June 11, 2017

When I was fresh out of high school, I traveled to PEI with a professor from Lakehead University who was going to teach summer session at the University of PEI. We were to live on a tourist farm which was also raising beef and harvesting potatoes, and here I would care for the professor's four children during the day. In the evenings and at the weekends, I ran free on the farm helping wherever I could and in return, I was allowed to ride the two horses. Though I preferred to ride bareback, my equestrian skills were sadly lacking especially at speeds faster than a walk, and I had many a tumble. 

I remained friends with the McLeod family, and when sent to army boot camp at Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, I planned to visit on the May long weekend. Shortly before departure, I had a vivid dream in which I was cantering bareback through the fields. Even after waking, I could feel in my hands, knees and back the proper posture required for keeping a good seat on a horse, and I was eager to try my new skills. The first morning home on the island, I swung myself up onto Largos back, gathered the reins in my hand, and unbelievably, I had somehow learned to ride in my sleep.

This memory, still fresh after forty-five years, came to me this morning as I was considering my eating disorder journey. Somehow, by turning and staring it down, naming it for what it is, I have learned to ride the beast. The mastery is not in brute force; restrictive diets, denial and self-shaming, but in rest, acceptance and achieving balance in my life.

WEIGHT OF THE WORLD - April 11, 2018

It is amazing how a complete change in daily routine can bring clarity to every day life. I returned from a week's vacation in St Lucia with a summer tan, voluminous hair and satiny smooth skin. What I hadn't realized was that I was also essentially pain free. Upon waking the second morning home, my hair stood out from my head like straw, my skin was rough as sandpaper and my body felt like the weight of the world was pressing down on it. On the third day home, I woke with pain in every joint; it hurt to walk or sit or stand, to turn over in bed or turn my head, to hold my phone or pick up my coffee cup. Not just passing aches either, but unrelenting, sharp, biting pain.

We often discount the effect of the natural world on our bodies. I, for one, know that fluctuating barometric pressure often provokes symptoms of joint pain, neck stiffness, headache and neuropathy in hands and legs. Immersing myself in warm water counteracts these uncomfortable sensations, especially if it is deep enough for me to move freely through range of motion exercises.

As a chronic sufferer, I am often unsure about whether pain and discomfort leads to depression, or depression is caused by pain and discomfort. However, I have always known that when I am in pain, I am easily frustrated and angry, lashing out verbally at those closest to me.

Arriving home from St Lucia without pain allowed me to see just how unstable air pressure and colder temperatures affect my health, and thus where the line is between mind and matter. So, more attention to rest, relaxation and aquabics, and less attention to worrying about whether I am depressed!

VICTIMIZED - April 11, 2017

I feel victimized by my body. Despite restricting my food intake to near-starvation rations, I now weigh one hundred pounds more than my 'normal' weight. For me, normal is a weight at which my body feels good and functions in a way that I am comfortable with. So my steady increase in weight since July 2015 despite further restriction of food intake leaves me feeling frightened, frustrated and helpless.

However, I have come to realize that my body feels victimized, too. Like an abusive parent, I never speak to my body but to criticize. I refuse it the fuel it needs to function and then drive it on with long days filled with too many tasks. When my body in the throws of neuropathy, twitches, itches and jumps, I slap, kick, pinch, bite, scratch, freeze and burn my body to stop the awful sensations. Unable to sleep at night, I force my body into days filled with activity and refuse it the naps it craves.

Add to all this the constant, relentless grinding stress associated with life, and it is no wonder I feel victimized.

Since I cannot exist without my body, I must learn to extend to it the same kindness and courtesy I show my family and friends. I would not treat my worst enemy the way I have treated my body, and though this abuse is a deeply ingrained habit, I will learn day by day to parent myself back to a healthy place.

WHAT NOT TO SAY TO A STARVING PERSON:

When I began this journey, I made the decision to have a public Facebook page hoping that it might help another sufferer. However, I find that it also keeps me accountable to the goal of Eating Freely.

This is the short list of my original names for the page:
Fat and Starving
Desiring the Small Footprint
Stickperson
Invisible

All very negative and restricting!

Then came the RULES:

Measuring/weighing/counting food
Restricting portion size
Bad food or good food
Weighing or measuring myself
Exercising except for pleasure
Reducing/stopping medications

The Vow:
Just once in my life, I want to be a stick person.

Beware of making a vow even or especially to oneself. My descent into end stage anorexic behavior began with this vow. Already living in a body riddled by auto-immune disease, I became obsessed with the desire to be stick thin. I was willing to trade my health and, as it turned out, almost my life to realize this ambition.

Eating Disorders are spread out over a continuum; from the person who eats nothing in order to exercise control over her body to the person who eats everything in order to feed an unquenchable hunger.

Thoughts and feelings feed the behaviors behind the eating or lack of eating. Fostering love and self-acceptance of ourselves and our bodies as we are in the moment is the only path bath back from the abyss we face when living with disordered eating.

I love myself when I....
Eat a variety of foods often
Choose foods I feel like eating
Replace "I should eat" w "I am hungry"
Accept my body in the moment
Express love and gratitude to my body
Pamper myself w massage, nails, etc.