{"id":67497,"date":"2013-06-01T14:00:21","date_gmt":"2013-06-01T18:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=67497"},"modified":"2013-06-01T13:05:57","modified_gmt":"2013-06-01T17:05:57","slug":"loss-and-gain-against-the-grain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/polyamory\/loss-and-gain-against-the-grain\/","title":{"rendered":"Loss and Gain, Against the Grain"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Maria Padhila<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I have issues with cereal. It\u2019s expensive, processed, not so good for you (even the hippie kinds), and usually involves milk of some kind, which is another problem. I mean, cereal was invented to keep people from masturbating<\/a>! That\u2019s at worst evil and at best misguided. And we eat this stuff — voluntarily consume it? What is wrong here?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Poly Paradise at Burning Man. Photo by Eric.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As Ceres has passed through my 12th and 1st house, I\u2019ve had to once again dance through my relationship with food and nourishment. The grain goddess\u2019s asteroid of course had much to do with the recent issues with genetically modified wheat, which will probably have an effect on world trade and might be another one of the ‘uncoverings’ that are drastically transforming our lives globally. <\/p>\n

And I\u2019m just trying to get myself and my family off the cereal addiction. Got nothing against whole grains, steel-cut oats, that kind of thing. I know a raw diet would be preferable, but I\u2019m dealing with a mix of tastes and digestive issues, and I\u2019m too old to take it myself. Cooked whole grains work fine. And Kellogg was actually onto something with theories of intestinal bacteria affecting health. He just had some other not-so-great ideas.<\/p>\n

But I am not happy about my body just now, and cereal is part of what\u2019s bothering me. That and fear.<\/p>\n

Warning: This post is going to be a little more straight-woman-directed, because we\u2019re the ones who are constantly getting the barrage of messages about body image. But men and queers of all kinds are catching up, you bet! Soon we\u2019ll all be equal in self-critical not-good-enoughness!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t read a single woman blogging or heard one talking about her poly or open relationship experience — not a word on a forum or in a discussion group — where she doesn\u2019t at least glance on the body image topic. It usually comes up as follows:<\/p>\n

\u2022\tI was worried my boyfriend\/husband\/sweetie would like women who are skinnier \/ bigger busted \/ in better shape than I am…
\n\u2022\tI\u2019m not comfortable taking my clothes off in front of people until I know them well…
\n\u2022\tI thought my husband would break off with me to be with someone in better shape…
\n\u2022\tI was worried he just wanted someone with a better body…
\n\u2022\tI don\u2019t have some kind of great body, I\u2019m not that hot, so I didn\u2019t know if I\u2019d meet anyone to have a relationship with…<\/p>\n

Most of them have managed to get over this (except no one should have to take their clothes off anytime they\u2019re not in the mood to, of course). I think people in poly come to a sort of “yep, it\u2019s weird, this body thing, but I\u2019m not going to let it stop me. I\u2019m not going to sit around and worry about whether my body is acceptable to others. I\u2019m going to keep exploring.”<\/p>\n

Excuse the hetero-normativity, but the majority of straight men are going to get at least mild enjoyment out of the sight of pretty much any naked woman who isn\u2019t mad at them. Sometimes I think all the women\u2019s magazine advice on \u201chow to please a man\u201d could be reduced to just a few simple ideas: don\u2019t be mad, don\u2019t accidentally stab him with a spear, that sort of thing. <\/p>\n

(And if you\u2019ve got good reason to be mad, what are you doing trying to have sex with him anyway? Get your clothes back on and leave, girl!)<\/p>\n

I discovered \u201cFat Is a Feminist Issue\u201d and other feminist ways of looking at weight and size way back in the 1980s. Over the years, I gradually realized the ways I had to take care of my body (and how they deviated from conventional medicine). Now I look around at a world full of surgeries and designer vaginas (the \u201cBarbie!\u201d I\u2019m not making this up<\/a>!) and want to cry. <\/p>\n

(To stop crying, check out \u201cThe Great Wall of Vaginas.\u201d<\/a> Is yours normal? Hell, yeah!)<\/p>\n

In some ways today, women and men are feeling more free and comfortable and accepting of their bodies; witness the fit-and-fat and fat acceptance movements. But I worry that we\u2019re also accepting a level of disease and bad health that doesn\u2019t have to come along with loving your body however it looks. <\/p>\n

On the same day in my Facebook feed, I\u2019ll see one meme that I love that says: \u201cHow to get a bikini body: Put a bikini on your body. Get your body ready for the beach: Put your body on a beach.\u201d And I\u2019ll see a comment from someone else telling a friend who is working a serious and difficult body transformation to \u201ckeep the thought of that swimsuit as inspiration!\u201d Gaaahh. <\/p>\n

Gastric bypass surgery is a case in point. It\u2019s the only technique proven to help obesity, which I believe is an environmental illness (and a lot of the evidence coming in is backing that). Yet it\u2019s dangerous, painful, too expensive even with \u201cgood insurance,\u201d and the \u201cside effects\u201d go on for years and seriously compromise quality of life. This would be absolutely unacceptable for a treatment for a heart condition, for instance, yet it\u2019s seen as perfectly OK when it comes to \u201cfat,\u201d because, you know, that\u2019s a character flaw, not an illness. People deserve better.<\/p>\n

The problem I\u2019m encountering during my recent bout with body transformation is that it was part of a larger issue of holding myself back. I was blasting myself with messages like: You\u2019re not hot enough to go out and see people. You\u2019re not a good enough writer to write. You\u2019re not a good enough mother, so stay home until you get it right. You\u2019re just a big mess. You need to prove that you\u2019re good enough to be alive, through trying to meet everyone\u2019s expectations. Then, maybe, you\u2019ll be allowed to set your own course.<\/p>\n

In essence, I was telling myself that I wasn\u2019t allowed on the beach until my body was \u201cready\u201d for it. Like the women who told themselves they weren\u2019t allowed to experiment with relationships or ask for what they really desire because they weren\u2019t hot enough… yet. Someday, I\u2019ll be hot enough to ask for what I want from life! And the \u201cready\u201d and \u201cenough\u201d are, of course, according to someone else\u2019s standards. (And we never get to see the Great Wizard setting these standards. That\u2019s what keeps the game alive! Rest assured, he\u2019s a chubby, balding, insecure guy behind that curtain — but he could be loveable if he\u2019d find a new way to spend his time.).<\/p>\n

After more than six months during which I rarely got up from the computer, I\u2019m looking forward to getting myself very fit again. I like it now when I bend over in yoga class and feel real muscles in my legs again. Changing one\u2019s body is interesting, sometimes exhilarating and encouraging, but like all change, scary at the same time. <\/p>\n

I have a personal conviction that the body holds on to a lot of emotion and memory, so when you change and rearrange your body, you tap into and release a lot of that. I\u2019ve never been able to change my life without changing my body in some way, and vice versa. I think that desire leads to people getting new hairstyles and colors, too. <\/p>\n

The change in the hair or another aspect of body appearance — breast augmentation, for instance — I think doesn\u2019t change one\u2019s life in the same way as changing the body composition through the steady medicine — or the yoga, if you will — of what you ingest and how you move. (People — athletes, for instance — often use synthetic medicines as part of this process. I can just say you get what you put into it there, too. Shortcuts shock the system, for better or worse.)<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re looking for that sort of transition, I can tell you a few things I\u2019ve learned:<\/p>\n

\u2022\tExpect stuff to come out. No one tells you this about weight or fat transformation. You\u2019re using stored energy, and just as with burning fossil fuels, you can end up with a lot of waste product that can be toxic. You need to be aware of this and keep up with ways to contain it, to recycle it safely, to transform it into yet another kind of energy. I\u2019m not talking about pooping, though that\u2019s part of it. It\u2019s about emotional energy, and mental and spiritual energies. <\/p>\n

\u2022\tYou may lose good stuff as well. Be aware so you can mourn it, recapture it, keep it from leaking away. This is another reason why self-hate is a bad place to start from when you want to make a body transformation. I really dislike having places on myself look not firm or not strong. If you dislike parts of your physical self, all I can say is: learn to love them before you let them go, or they\u2019ll be back in some other way. You\u2019ll get shrill about diet, you\u2019ll get mushy about boundaries, you\u2019ll get hyper-protective about your emotions — all the things those shadow fat cells were doing for you will get done one way or another, unless you make your peace with these functions you were letting them carry. It is a struggle for me to honor my fat for what it does and has done for me.<\/p>\n

\u2022\tIt\u2019s everywhere. The changes will cascade. Change what you take in and give out, and you\u2019ll become aware of everything from the constant food advertisements to the way others around you are medicating with substances like modified wheat and sugars. You\u2019ll start to hear or smell the hormonal distress signals beings (animal, vegetable and even mineral) are sending out all around you. I know how woowoo that sounds, but if you aren\u2019t aware that hormones are messengers and that we\u2019re communicating through their use all the time, you might think this is some kind of personal emotional crisis. It\u2019s not. It\u2019s everybody\u2019s crisis. This also applies to the way you\u2019ll get pushback from all around you as you want to change. \u201cYou\u2019re going to eat that?\u201d \u201cBut what\u2019s wrong with wheat\/meat\/milk?\u201d \u201cI\u2019m worried because you seem obsessed \/ are losing weight too quickly \/ too slowly \/ you\u2019re not yourself.\u201d You know the drill. Be aware, be compassionate, and keep making the change you have determined you want to be.<\/p>\n

\u2022\tIngestion means ingestion. There\u2019s an old joke about the sex worker who couldn\u2019t lose weight until the doctor instructed him\/her to \u201ccount the calories in every swallow.\u201d While counting calories can be educational, it\u2019s mostly a fool\u2019s game, but the point is that even the air you breathe, even drinking water, counts. It all matters. It\u2019s all medicine, and it helps or hurts you as you choose to work with it. Program in an awareness of your energy exchange with the universe through whatever awareness techniques are best for you, and you\u2019ll be able to make the transformation.<\/p>\n

The reason my body transformed in the past half-year is that I let go of this awareness. I fell into someone else\u2019s life and requirements, and left myself behind. My days turned into chasing what others wanted, my nights into sitting in front of the computer working and doing unconscious eating to stay awake. I have a cupboard full of quinoa, there\u2019s goat yogurt and lentils in the fridge, and the freezer is full of wild salmon and frozen self-picked and foraged berries. Yet I am proof that you can gain 12 pounds — 12 draining, dull and toxin-filled pounds, not 12 happy, nurturing pounds — even with nothing but \u201chealthy\u201d food in the house. <\/p>\n

In the end, it wasn\u2019t even the eating that was the problem — it was lack of sleep, too much sitting, too much coffee, and lots and lots of resentment and fear. Lose the fear, and you lose the weight — that there is that \u201cweird old tip\u201d the Internet keeps trying to sell you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Maria Padhila I have issues with cereal. It\u2019s expensive, processed, not so good for you (even the hippie kinds), and usually involves milk of some kind, which is another problem. I mean, cereal was invented to keep people from masturbating! That\u2019s at worst evil and at best misguided. And we eat this stuff — … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[207],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67497"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67497\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}