I’ve always loved jigsaw puzzles. It was a way Mom and I could sit around a table and spend time together just the two of us. And when I have broken out the puzzles in my own home, it has served to draw my own children to me in a fun way. It’s so exciting to see the colors emerge as parts of a meadow, a billowing sky or the side of a thoughtful face. Sometimes, though, you get a piece that doesn’t seem to look like anything at all, a rather ugly color that unless you had the top of the box with the picture on it, you might not ever figure out where it might fit.
In working on the puzzle that is my life, I don’t have the luxury of a picture. And making up a picture in my head as to what it is supposed to look like tends to throw me in the wrong direction. Yet when I do spend time focusing on one area, noticing which pieces work best together and which don’t fit, amazing things start to reveal themselves.
So many different aspects of my life have been processed in this manner and yet one has constantly eluded me. This is the aspect of my weight, which is more than I want it to be and more than is healthy for me. In this one corner of my life, none of the pieces fit right. As hard as I work on it, the frustration builds and I just can’t seem to figure out what goes there. The edges seem to be of a color that is rather disgusting and so I almost don’t want to know what this color will turn into. Yet I want my puzzle to be completed. I want to see the big picture.
One of the things Mom and I would do when we would work on puzzles for hours is to switch places. Move one chair over. It always amazed me how that one change in my perspective could open up a scene in a way I would never have otherwise seen. So perhaps a new vantage point would help me see more clearly this maverick corner of mine.
It was recommended to me to go back to when I first started to gain the weight. Yes, I can see it. And examining that time period, I see that perhaps I just totally gave up on myself. What’s the point? I don’t matter. So my body doesn’t matter. That only makes me feel more ashamed. How could I give up on myself? How could I be so weak? Hmmm, this piece doesn’t seem to be helping me see what’s going on. I add it anyway.
All of the weight loss books and programs say that we must love ourselves first at the weight we are now in order to really have movement forward. That has been my block. How could you love this? It’s gross to me! Again, it represents failure, weakness and shame. I don’t know how this piece can fit and make me see it all better. I add it anyway.
Yet, wait just a minute here! What if….. what if I DIDN’T give up on myself all those years… If emotional eating is a response or reaction to fear, and fear is affirmation of growth because fear ONLY shows up when we are taking risks in our lives…. Hmmm, let me see, were there risks I was taking during that time period of my life? Well, yeah! Lots of them!
So, let me see if I have got this straight… My fat is evidence of my growth? How hysterically ironic is that!!!! So I stand in front of the mirror and look at my body, grab the left side of the spare tire and say “This was making peace with my parents” , and the right side “This was standing up for my kids”, the belly “This was the drive to Seattle by myself in a Volkswagen Bug when I turned 40”, and I start naming off more and more and more risks I have taken and the beauty of this corner, my rascally, elusive corner begins to manifest itself.
What a gift this piece of the puzzle is! I no longer need to be disgusted by this body. I am wearing my victories!. I can and do make better choices now to take care of this body and all of that is made easier because I am letting go of loathing it. You don’t take care of something you loathe or find disgusting. You don’t even want to look at it. Now I look at it and smile. Yes, it is evidence of all of the risks… I did NOT give up on myself. No, but rather I dove headlong into my life like there was no tomorrow. Yes, I did that with one hand in a bag of chips, yet that was all I knew at the time to comfort me. And I have other choices now.
What have I learned? That that ugly color around the edges of my stubborn corner was merely a shadow. A shadow cast by some magnificent wings. I am beginning to see some of the colors forming on those wings… And I can’t wait to see what it turns out to be.
Maybe I will switch chairs again.
