Welcome back!

Snow-filled wonderland

When you’re faced with a challenge, can you see the solution clearly instantaneously?  Not me.  For example, where I live in the mountains of Southern California, we are expecting six to ten feet of snow this week.  Now normally, I’m okay with that.  I keep my home well stocked, so even if I can’t drive out of my driveway, I can just be a hermit.  But this week, I am scheduled to attend a pre-grant conference for a Grant I’m writing for a client in the VA side of my business, and attendance is mandatory.  So in the midst of that six to ten feet of snow, I have to drive off the mountain.  Oh baby oh baby.

My first solution was to get someone else to go in my place who lived down the hill.  Too many details to have to handle for me to go.  So she and I chatted and I left that kettle on to brew overnight.  When I woke up this morning, I could plainly see what I had to do and I’m in the midst of taking the appropriate steps to make that happen so I can attend.

My norm is to be as active as I can see to be, so not being able to see what steps were required of me was a bit of a conundrum.  It made me think of some of  you ladies who might not be able to see into this realm of being plus sized: can YOU see clearly what you are supposed to be getting out of being a big woman?  Maybe not.  But it is my area of expertise, so let me share a few ideas with you.

This wonderful world of ours has chosen to pick on fatties as the last bastion of lack-of-acceptance. The medical community announced years ago that being large was a threat to health.  Thousands of people believed them, and because those thousands of people don’t understand that their thinking is what is causing the health problems because of their beliefs, they don’t realize that being large has nothing, nada, zip, and zero to do with health problem.  Only thinking can cause anything, so it’s thinking that is causing the health problems….and probably the overweight as well.

That is one hell of a meaty paragraph and I’ll just bet you’d  benefit by reading it again…slowly.

Being large is not a threat to health.  Thinking that being large is a threat to health is a threat to health.  Girlfriend, it’s your thinking that is causing any medical problems you might be experiencing.

What’s the solution?  Think something better.  Think, for example, “Well shucks then, I’m going to think “I’m getting better.  I don’t need to do this diabetes any more. I’m not going to retain extra fluids.” Just reverse whatever it is you’ve been thinking, and you can get out from under what you truly did not understand.

And if you need more explanation, email me at pat@theworldofwithin.com and we can chat.

Love,

Pat

Afraid to Be Willing?

I read this  week a  comment on another website that procrastination was one of the key detriments to accomplishment in any arena.  Mostly, the author’s arena is “business.” My arena, as  you well know, is helping the world’s women to come to comfortable terms with their bodies.

It was dramatically brought to my attention today the degree that willingness plays in accomplishment as well as the idea of procrastination.  They seem like kissing cousins to me.

I work with another support person for one of my virtual assistant clients who had asked that an entire project be sent “all together” before he began his work.  I did that after having to change my normal procedure to accommodate his request.  He then kvetched because the format wasn’t to his liking and he’d have to spend hours to re-convert it to another format.  I told him to get permission from the client and I (can see see the willingness?) would do the conversion.  His “hours” took me 18 minutes. And before I could get back to posting this blog, he was still complaining about the NEW formatting.  Geesh!

Now, as I write this, the adrenaline from my anger over his lack of willingness permitted me to see this pattern in myself: procrastination (a bit of it) and willingness (a lot of it) and I got the job done.  I am now in the process of stopping the nasty thoughts about this support person’s lack of willingness and the abundance of my own. I’m sharing it with you as part of the emotional drain inside me.

With a high degree of willingness, you can accomplish a lot in a little bit of time.  And sometimes, it makes big jobs small. So, when it comes to your project of changing your sense about your body from unacceptable and disappointing to acceptable and satisfying, how willing are you to do this work? Does it appear like a huge project to you?  I suspect that, like me in my example above, the hours and hours will whittle down to scant minutes because of the willingness.  Here’s what I’d recommend:

• Make a list of what good benefits your body accrues for you today, right now. You ARE getting from place to place, right?  You CAN extend your hand for a paycheck regularly, right?  You DO feed your family and maintain your household, right? Well those are just the basics.  You can create a much longer list, I know for certain and for sure.
• Every day, thank your Self for providing those benefits for yourself.  Tell yourself that those benefits would have occurred whether you had a large or a small body.  Let yourself know that, as in this one example, the size of your body is irrelevant and arbitrary.  If somebody has a negative opinion about the size of your body, and you have adopted it as God’s honest truth, step back and let only them own their misbegotten opinion.  Let it bite them in the ass, not you. Has it ever occurred to you that their opinion is sick, small, uninformed, and neurotic?  You don’t need that opinion as part of you.

When I say “Ever day…” I mean every day.  Sit down in the quiet you have created and think about the benefits your body brings to you three times a day for fifteen minutes.  Think back about the thoughts that go on inside your mind that eventually created that body for you.  If you want to change your body, you’ve got to get to those thoughts so you can change them.  Then, because your body is the automatic report card for your Mind’s thinking, the   will reflect a new grade.

Want a head start on doing this work?  Read my book “My Cats Have Seen Me Naked.” Get the Workbooks that accompany it.  The questions inside those workbooks represent over 60years of experience and will help you get inside and learn to love and accept yourself more fully. I think it’s mandatory to share with others what you’ve learned on this earth experience and I wrote what I’ve learned down for you. Hope you enjoy it.

Love,

Pat

Arrowbear Lake

Each year, by the end of September, Arrowbear Lake - just down the road from my house - only has a wet spot left in the middle of it.  That’s due to evaporation. As you must know by know, evaporation is an invisible activity, although relentless.  Eventually, it accomplishes it’s might task and there’s no lake left.

Making changes in your life can be like that if you take the example from Mother Nature.  MN is relentless, invisible much of the time, and a persevering sort.  I think those are great qualities to emulate in our lives.

When you create a Mind Model of how you’d like your body to look, and you invisibly (to your friends) persevere in thinking it, and you are relentless about quitting your task, you’ll become a persevering sort as well and obtain the results you want.

Every spring, the snowmelt fills the lake up again and the process starts all over.  We don’t have to wait for the calendar spring.  When we become aware that our mental processes have slipped away, we can renew our desires, and as the old song said “pick yourself up; dust yourself off and start all over again.”

Small changes persisted in will give you the desire you want.  In our world today, there is so much of instantaneous gratification marketed that we think all of life should be instantaneous.  I’m not going to knock instantaneous.  It is just that “things persevered in” has been more of my experience and I wonder if you have recognized how this instantaneous idea has gotten in there?  If you haven’t consciously recognized it, you might think you’re failing in your efforts.  You’re not if you’re persevering because at some point, you’ve crested the hill, you begin to see changes and discover that your silly millimeter steps have gotten you what you desire and you’re on the downhill slops.

Changing your mind - your sense of self - takes persistent work.  If you are arriving at this blog for the first time, I invite you to go back and read some of the older posts, fill out  your sense of what this work is all about, and begin. And if you’d like the whole tamale in one package, there’s always my book - My Cats Have Seen Me Naked: How I Achieved Self-Love and Self-Acceptance While Obese. It’s quite the inspiration too.

I wish you steady, tiny steps.

Love,

Pat