March 2011

Last weekend I attended the third of four Total Unfinished Woman retreats.  Based on the work of Joan Anderson, these events were created by my friend Ann Irr Dagle as a way for women to come together to Retreat, Retrieve, Repair, Regroup, Regenerate, and Return.

At one point, Ann read us “the butterfly story.” I am not sure where it came from originally, and I found several versions online. I will recount it here in my own words:

One day, a man discovered a butterfly chrysalis with a small opening in it. He sat and watched for several hours as the butterfly struggled to force its body through that tiny opening.

And then the butterfly was still. It did not appear to be making any progress. The man thought that it had gotten as far as it could, and it would not be able to go any further.

So the man decided to help the butterfly. With a pair of scissors, he cut open the chrysalis and the butterfly emerged.

Its body was swollen and its wings were tiny and shriveled.

The man continued to watch, expecting that at any moment, the butterfly’s wings would open, enlarge and expand, and its body would shrink.

It never happened! The butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.

Although his intentions were good, what the man did not understand is that the small opening in chrysalis, along with the butterfly’s struggle to get through it, were designed to force fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings, so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the chrysalis.

So yeah, I get it. I’ve changed my mind. Struggle is good*. Vitally good! I value struggle. I welcome it. On some level, I think I have always felt this way, but three things stopped me from understanding it:

I was struggling for something I didn’t want, but thought I should.

OR

I didn’t know what I was struggling for.

OR

I didn’t know what my struggle style was (more to come on this in a later post).

But here’s the thing: my gut knew. And so every time I set a goal or strived for something that wasn’t inline with my instinct (I’ve done that way too much my life), my body went into resistance mode. And being resistant was not good for my body/mind/spirit. Resistance made me fat and unhappy and unfulfilled.

*I maintain my assertion that if you tend to be someone who views everything as a struggle – with a “life is hard” attitude – that’s exactly what you’ll get.

Have you ever changed your mind about something you thought you’d never budge on? Are you willing to struggle for something if you know it’s what will allow you to fly? What are you not willing to struggle for? Do you ignore your body/mind/spirit when it goes into resistance mode?

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Semantics is the study of meaning. As it concerns words (linguistic semantics), it is the study of meaning that is used by humans to express themselves through language.

Semantics have played a huge role in my journey so far (and just so you know, I am not overly fond of the word journey in this context, but sometimes it’s appropriate). Those who know me know that I have a visceral reaction to certain words. I cringe, rebel, resist, constrict when I hear them:

Goal

Struggle

Discipline

Structure

Diet

Deadline

Plan

Force

Do it anyway

And so it became important for me to choose words that help me be who I want to be, and to avoid words that work against me.  It may sound silly to some, but this is my truth.

Take, for example, this quote by Luciano Pavarotti:

“People think I’m disciplined. It is not discipline. It is devotion. There is a great difference.”

In thinking about difference between discipline and devotion, being devoted sounds so much more appealing (to me) than being disciplined. I am devoted to my health and to my body.

Taking it a step farther, finding something to which I wanted to be devoted, something that lights me up (and fills me up), was a key component in weight loss. And here’s the funny part: that to which I am devoted to has nothing to do with losing weight (at least not directly). Being devoted to writing and speaking fills me up in a way that food never could.

I also want to share something that Michele, who writes at Healthy Cultivations, wrote about the difference between struggle and suffer because it illustrates how words and their meanings work for her.

I’ve written A LOT about not wanting to struggle. Years ago I realized that if I view anything as a struggle, then that’s what I’ll get. More struggle. I didn’t want weight loss to be a struggle.

Over time I have come to realize that some things are worth struggling for (understanding is a big one)…not to mention how good it feels to be on the other side of it. When I read Michele’s post, it helped me clarify that I’d rather avoid suffering.

That said, I’m still not a fan of the word struggle because nearly all of its definitions and synonyms relate to war. I have a big problem with using war analogies in relation to my body.

Are there certain words or phrases that don’t work for you? Have you come up with others that do?

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Photograph by Tereza Vlckova, a young artist from Czechoslovakia who's exhibition, “A Perfect Day, Elise…” takes its inspiration from the Lewis Carroll classic Alice in Wonderland.

I have always had vivid dreams. There are dreams I still remember from my childhood, like the one where I was at the grocery store with my mother and there was a witch waiting just outside the “magic” door (remember those doors that automatically opened when you stood on the black door mat?). Or the one where a station wagon full of “hippies” came roaring up my street, opened up the back of the car and there were trays full of “pills and needles and drugs.” Yes, it was the late 60s and my mother had given me the “don’t talk to strangers, don’t take candy from strangers, don’t get in a stranger’s car” talk.

I’ve also had several recurring dreams throughout my life. There are the airport dreams, where I’m trying to get to my flight, and it’s at gate 2,357,891, and I have to climb spiral staircases and walk down dark hallways, and I catch glimpses of the gate but can’t get to it.

Then there are the dreams where I’m actually flying, not in an airplane, but gliding just above the earth… like I am running so effortlessly but my feet aren’t touching the ground. I LOVE those dreams.

I still have dreams that I am back in school, trying to graduate, but for some reason I haven’t done ANY of the work. It appears I am still going to graduate but it all feels like such a sham, and that at any minute, “they” are going to find out.

After I married my husband, I had horrible dreams that he was cheating on me with women I know in real life. And the worst part wasn’t so much the cheating, it was the attitude he had. In the dream, he’d be so dismissive and disdainful of me, saying things like, “of course I am cheating on you…you’re pathetic.” In the dreams I never caught him “in the act” so to speak, it was always afterwards.

And then one night I had a very different dream. In it, I was in a room that could only be gotten to by going through another room. In that other room was a gorgeous woman, lying naked on a bed in a provocative pose. I remember feeling jealous and scared because I knew he was going to walk into that room! And he did…and he looked briefly at the woman on the bed but continued past her and walked into my room. He chose me.

You have to understand that my husband has never given me a reason to think he’d cheat on me. He has always loved me no matter what. I am in incredibly lucky woman. So what were these dreams about?

They did not represent about how my husband felt about me, they were about how I felt about me. And yes, I was having those dreams at my heaviest, when I was in the throes of self-loathing.

And that last dream? It wasn’t about him choosing me, it was about me choosing me.

Do you have recurring dreams? Have you ever analyzed them? What did you learn? Imagine that any significant element (people or objects) in your dreams actually represents you. How does that change the meaning of your dreams?

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