Spending Days

Within my mind, I have something.  I’m fairly certain its origin is in genetics, seeing as my mother possesses it in greater portion than me.  That said, I’m also certain that despite it being passed down, my own version has morphed and grafted itself to my identity so that even the parts of me that differ from my mother are engulfed in it as if I birthed it myself.

Today I finally gave it a name.  It is (dun, dun, dun!)… The Task-o-Meter.

The Task-o-Meter’s (pronounced tæsk-ah-mɪtər…like thermometer) sole purpose is to vigilantly scan every waking moment (and occasionally, the sleeping ones because heaven forbid any moment be left out) for all potential tasks lurking in my “task-space”.  ”Task-space,” of course, being the air-space equivalent of responsibility boundaries.

The Task-o-meter finds all the things I need to do.  Or any sort of task I possibly could do.  Or any task that ever once crossed my mind as a possibility of something I might one day want to do.  All blips on the Task-o-meter’s radar, friendly or otherwise are brought to my immediate attention.

Because my Task-o-Meter is masterfully proficient in its work, a vast portion of my days are spent on high alert knowing that tasks are near.  Or if they’re not yet near, my hyper-vigilance assures me that they will be shortly.  I have a constant, low-lying dread as I wait for the Task-o-Meter’s alarm to sound.

This is where emotional eating comes in: I feel dread and try to avoid it by dreadfully eating.  (As in, eating while filled with dread not eating in a dreadful or disturbing way.   At least not most of the time.)

After reading Women, Food and God where Geneen points out that how we spend our days is how we spend our lives, I became acutely aware of the Task-o-Meter’s attention demands.  More than that, I’ve become increasingly more aware of the fact that I don’t want my life to be defined by taskiness.  I don’t want to fretfully pace back and forth along the edges of my life, not daring to engage in the activities that sustain me because there’s a chance, or more accurately, a probability that the Task-o-Meter will go off.

I want to dig in to life.  I want to dig in to my life and actually live it.

Over the past few days, I’ve begun avoiding the things that I actually do want to spend my days doing, like reading and writing because my stupid Task-o-Meter won’t shut up.

I’m on vacation so I legitimately have all day to do whatever I want, but you know what I’m finding?  My Task-o-Meter has started operating on Bush Doctrine gear.  It’s pre-emptively sounding the alarm by reminding me that the countdown back to work is on, which basically means that feelings of dread are near to suffocating levels.

And you know what else?  I dread binged tonight (yuck).

And you know what else?!  I’ve freaking had enough of the alarm!

I like my job and by now I know what to expect there, which means I know that nothing about it warrants the Task-o-Meter induced dread.  On top of that, there are no vacation police who are going to arrest me if I don’t make the most of every single moment of free time that I have.  If I miss a task I could have done while on vacation, I can rest in the confidence that the Task-o-Meter will alert me to it again later.  Should I choose to spend my time doing a little less and simply being a little more, I’m ultimately the one who has to deal with the consequences.

So you know what I’m going to do?  I’m going to finish my books.  I’m going to write in my journal.  Maybe even blog more (if you be real nice).  I’m going to spend my days doing the tasks I see fit at the times I choose and my Task-o-Meter can deal.

Because I once again remembered that I’m an adult, which once again means that I can choose how I want to live and organize my time so that I’m doing the things that make me feel alive.  And you know what?  I’m going to make it happen.  Now.

The Introverted Embrace

I have a vision for my ideal life that looks something like this: wake up early each morning (and I really do mean early, like, 5:30 or 6:00), drink a pot of coffee with breakfast, get organized – plan, clean, sort, etc., go for a run then come home to cook and eat and write and read.  Probably toss some yoga and a little quality time with friends and/or family in there for good measure.  And that’s about it.  If I could have thing my way, this is how I’d like to spend my days.  Quiet and simple.  Somewhat solitary and seemingly boring.

I don’t have grand visions of being famous or great or role-modelesque.  On most days, I’d prefer a cloak of invisibility to dutifully upholding expected roles within social exchanges. Don’t get me wrong.  It’s not that I’m lazy or socially awkward or have low standards.  It’s because most of the time, I’m an introvert.  An introvert in a world that values extraversion.

Everyday, I feel the tugging conflict between my ideal life and the one the extroverted world beckons me to live.  The world begs me to value activity over intimacy.  It implores me to suit up and rally with the masses.  It disapprovingly frowns when I decline its social invitations.  And it implies I’ve short circuited in a group when I’m content to watch instead of engage.

I read a study recently that said that extroverts are happier than introverts.  The article made it seem as if introversion were a condition from which one must recover.  It even had tips on how to be more extroverted, and thus, according to the article, more happy.  As I read, a wave of doom washed over me; I’m on the wrong end of the spectrum.  I’ll never be as happy as all the extroverts.  Damn it.

But as I got to thinking about the article (the subjective nature of happiness aside) it dawned on me that extroverts should feel happier than introverts simply because their social preferences are constantly reinforced by nearly every culture on Earth.  I imagined turning the tables and envisioned how happy extroverts would feel if the world valued quiet contemplation and stillness over mixing and mingling.  My mind’s eye pictured a room full of extroverts writhing around like 4 year-olds forced to stay on their mats during rest time at preschool.  Much like wiggly kids, I imagine that extroverts would feel a lot less happy if their natural energy was stifled instead of embraced.

Now, I can’t speak for all introverts, but I do want to come to our social defense simply to say, there’s nothing wrong with us.  Just because we prefer solitude over gratuitous socializing or are private and energized by time alone, it doesn’t mean that we are unhappy.  It simply means we are different.  We don’t always need to be drawn into a conversation when we’re sitting alone.  Nor do we need a full social calendar to feel significant and we certainly don’t need extensive social connections to feel sufficiently connected.

I’ve decided it’s time to eliminate the doom and gloom of being on the “lesser” end of the scale and embrace the way that I am.  I’m no longer going to force myself to be out and about because it makes other people feel more comfortable around me.  I’m not going to feel guilty for staying home instead of amassing experiences just for the sake of experiencing something.  I’m going to stop believing that I’m a jerk for saying no.

There are all kinds of people in this world of ours and it’s a shame for any of us to feel lesser because we’re not the norm.  I’d like to encourage those of you extroverts to also embrace the introverts in your life.  Do what you can to make an introvert happy (dare I say, happier?) by allowing him or her the freedom to introvert with no shame and no blame.  I’m confident that the result will be nothing short of more happiness for all involved.

*Are you an introvert or extrovert?  Take a quiz:  Myers-Briggs

A New Deal

Ok, here’s the thing.  I’m avoiding writing.  Hardcore.

It’s not that I don’t want to write or don’t have things to say (absence of words/thoughts/musings/beliefs/perceptions/mental chatter, etc. is never the problem).  I just don’t want to write about my emotional eating problems right now.  Especially because presently, the problems just aren’t as glaring.

But then, I think, “Hey.  You said this was going to be about your journey to freedom from emotional eating, which means you must only write about said process.  Do.  Not.  Deviate.”

But then, I remember the post where I said that I’m an adult and I have permission to eat (which I now choose to interpret as “do”) whatever I want so I think I should just write about whatever. 

So there’s the rub:  Stay on point – or -  allow an occasional detour?  Because the sub-theme of this blog is “Searching for Freedom,” I’m going to go with option 2 and allow for detours. 

Now, I realize that as a reader, it’s nice to have consistency and coherency in a blog, especially if it’s a themed blog.  So here is my pledge to you.  Or the “New Deal,” if you will.

I promise I will only write about things people are interested in reading. 

This includes: socially relevant anecdotes, out of the ordinary amusements, the occasional bitter diatribe (because who doesn’t like a good blog rant now and then?) and of course, insights/revelations around emotional eating. 

This does not include: what I ate today, “This one time, at band camp…” or any such impertinent stories, or the state of my cat’s health.

There you have it.  You are forewarned and prepared. 

God help us.

Treats, Rewards and Indulgence.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how people use treats and rewards in their lives and obviously, this includes myself.  Ah, who am I kidding?  It totally focuses on myself.  What I’ve slowly realized is that I, along with the majority of people who live in countries of abundance, live with a mindset with which we fabricate situations that warrant indulgence for “good” behavior.

For example: I ate a healthy meal with bunch of vegetables = good.  Good = now I deserve a reward so please pass the ice cream.  -Or- I made it through a rough day at work and I’m tired so I deserve to skip my workout today…or tomorrow…or all weekend.  -Or- I finished a blog entry so now I can check out and mindlessly surf the internet for the next 4 hours.  (Guess if these are my top 3 favorites…)  And so on and so forth.

While I don’t necessarily think treats don’t have their place in motivating us to keep moving forward, the mistake I’m often caught hamster wheeling and the cycle I think most of us get caught repeating is replacing the ultimate goal with an extrinsic, short-term indulgence or treat.

As I started thinking about what I really wanted my life to look like and making some of the adjustments necessary to get there, I found that the new patterns already contained built-in treats and rewards so that glitter surrounding the indulgences I’d been living for started losing their sheen.  I realized that the indulgences were external distractions to soothe myself because I was at a rewardless standstill.  I needed indulgence to create a false sense of deservedness, when in all reality, I neither deserved nor earned the indulgence whatsoever.

Here’s what I mean:

About a month ago, decided that I wanted to really get back into running, so I changed my sleep schedule so that I’d (try to) go to bed around 9:30 pm in order to start getting up at 5:15 am to run before work.  Though somewhat brutal for the first few days, I found the transition to morning running to be much less painful than I imagined it would be (reward #1).  So now, instead of having exercise looming over me all day, knowing that I’ll be completely unmotivated and exhausted after a day at school, I go through my days knowing that after work, I’m free to do whatever I want (reward #2).  Prior to this last month, I used my exhaustion as an excuse to treat myself to indulgence with excessive couch sitting and/or snacking.

Also, I’ve found that because Korea is the land of morning calm (i.e. people sleep in), I basically have the streets and rice paddy trails to myself in peace and quiet.  Before, I was using the curious, prying eyes of the Koreans watching my ample-bottomed, blonde self as an excuse not to exercise outside (or inside for that matter).  By getting up early, I’ve essentially taken that issue off the table (reward #3).

On top of that, running was part of my plan to lose the 8 lbs I’ve found (by found I mean, gained) while in Korea and already 4 of them are gone.  Instead of shrugging my shoulders and giving in to the Voice telling me it’s not worth it, I now have concrete and solid evidence that the changes I’m making are taking me where I want to go (reward #4).  Talk about positive reinforcement!

I could continue on with more rewards, but I think you get the point.  Essentially, the desire to get a handle on myself and to start running again and then acting in order to make it happen has brought about greater, yet simpler rewards than indulgence ever did.  I feel strong and empowered and in charge of myself rather than helpless and diminished and defeated.

So what if just like consequences, rewards are simply the natural results of the actions that we make that bring us closer to our goals without the fanfare of indulgence?  What if they come from within instead of without?  How would things in our lives be different if this were true?

Gratitude

Aside from a couple of runs, I spent last weekend almost entirely holed up in my apartment playing one of my favorite games.  It’s called Hermit.  I’m not one to brag, but I ruled the hermit school and after playing it all weekend I realized that I need to play it more often.   Much more often.

Ok, so Hermit isn’t actually a game and nothing that I did over the weekend can really be considered game-like (unless you consider scooping kitty litter and apartment cleaning games), but I would say that for me, for last weekend, being a hermit was quite a lot of fun.

What made it fun?  Saturday.   Besides a lovely, albeit, humidity-induced sweat-fest of a run, kitty (who’s semi-officially been named Melvin) and I spent the entire day in bed.  Melvin slept while I was nourished by proxy through the wonder that I’m just beginning to explore: the blogosphere.  Because I’m new to the blogging world and only lingering at the fringes of its sphere, I had no idea all of what is out there.  I found all sorts of blogs on healthy living with topics ranging from food/nutrition (many of which seemed to actually be covert yet public outlets for eating disorders) and fitness (running in particular) to mental/emotional wellness.

After 8+ hours of lounging, occasionally padding out to the kitchen/bathroom and the whole point of this blog entry; blog reading, I realized a few things.

#1:  I am not a Simon and Garfunkel song.  What I mean by that is that I am not a rock.  (Confused?  Check out the song here).  I am not an island and no matter how hard I try to, I cannot live a life where I touch no one and no one touches me, physically or otherwise.  It all boils down to  re-realizing that I need people.  I need to see people and watch people and relate to them.  I need to hear their stories and for them to let me be inspired by them (i.e. the blog-a-thon).  And I need people to notice me and listen to me, which brings me to #2.

#2: I greatly appreciate those of you who have not only allowed, but have been supportive and encouraging of my blog, despite the self-indulgent, self-focusedness of it.  Whether you put much energy into reading it or not, I soak up (probably more than I should) knowing that someone, especially the someones I love and cherish care enough to take time to check in.  That said…

#3: I want to create more room within this blog for less of the “Emily Show” and more of an interactive exchange.  To make it possible for me to check in with you.  Especially because, it can’t be right or healthy for me to be so focused on myself and my process when we’re all interconnected and going through our own processes.

After reading a plethora of different blogs, I felt so uplifted and so grateful for the things in my life (including emotional eating…never thought I’d live to see the day), simply because strangers opened up a space to share their stories and invited others to join in.  Because of that, I want to invite you to join in here as you can/will.

I think I’ll end now with a few items I felt/still feel grateful for post-Saturday.

#1: I’m pretty sure I was on a gratitude high because I got to thinking about being in Korea and working at my school in particular and it made me all heart swollen and my all eyes teary to realize that I am incredibly loved and supported by co-workers from the top down.  My principal and vice-principal have both made a concentrated effort to reach out to me and make sure that I am comfortable and taken care of, both in my job and in my personal life.  They always make an attempt to talk to me in English, which neither of them really do, and they graciously tolerated my mood-swings and fickleness (please recall last winter’s quit/unquit).

Beyond that, the teachers, and not just my English co-teachers, have shown me thoughtfulness and kindness above and beyond the call of co-worker duty.  I can’t tell you how many times another teacher has checked up on me if I haven’t been feeling well (or told me that I look like I don’t feel well) or made sure I got in on a snack before everyone else descended on it.  They’re sweet and affectionate and despite the fact that I’ll never be Korean, they’ve made me feel accepted as one of their own.

#2: I’m grateful for running.  For the desire and the ability to run.  For the life that it brings to my life (if that even makes sense).  To be running again and to feel each step, each hill and each push make me stronger and help me remember that I’m alive.  Despite the fact that it’s sometimes painful, I’m exceedingly happy to once again be connected to my breath and my body and my pumping heart.

So now I’m finished, which means it’s your turn.  What about your life fills you with gratitude?  What makes you glad to be alive and keeps you willing to stay that way?  I’m curious to know and can’t wait to hear!

The “Voice”

I’m not entirely sure how two weeks have passed since I last wrote, but, alas, they have and here we are.  And since we’re here, I may as well just jump into it (it being the latest revelation).

In the last post, I mentioned that I’m reading the book, Women, Food and God, by Geneen Roth but I didn’t mention that my mom and I are also listening to her online retreat.  (I swear Geneen isn’t paying me to plug her work, it’s just given me a lot to think about, which means it’s also given me a lot to say).  Through the book and the retreat, Geneen introduces what she labels “the Voice” or what is more commonly known in psychological circles as Freud’s superego or the internalized parent or the inner critic.  The Voice is essentially the part of us that is constantly measuring and judging and watching our every action.  The Voice is employed when we evaluate our self-worth by comparing how our actions stack up against others or tell ourselves not to change the behaviors that cause us pain because we’re too comfortable in the discomfort.

I’m not sure whether it’s on account of nature or nurture (likely a combo of both) but my Voice usually resembles a drill sergeant using a bullhorn, ordering me to march down the path of neurosis, a command to which I have complied more often than not.  Now, I’ve had an awareness of the drill sergeant Voice for a while (afterall, who could ignore her threats and intimidation?) but over the last few weeks, I’ve become aware of a different facet of her commanding presence. 

My Voice’s other side is sneaky.  She’s quiet and conniving and slick.  She clouds my mind and numbs my heart and is skilled in coaxing me to pull the plug on the connection to my life.   She convinces me to heed all voices that are not my own as the beacon of light guiding me toward some sort of enlightenment.  And she’s the epitome of passive-aggression.

This “new” Voice has been working overtime in my life over the last year and a half and from what I can see, she rode in on the coattails of the helplessness I experienced at times while traveling around Guatemala and has ridden it out unchallenged since.  In Guatemala, the sneaky Voice found an open, comfy place inside me and set up camp.  And the thing is, she was so stealthy and I was so unaware of her sneaky form that I all but cleared the space and held the stakes as she pounded her tent into the ground of my being.

But in the last few weeks, I’ve wizened to her strategy and I’ve officially declared war on her.  I’m fed up with comparing myself to others and letting myself off the hook of pursuing goals when what I want for myself is different from what others seem to want.  I’m shutting my ears when she tells me to do that which is not in line with how I know I want to live.

The main way this war has played out over the last two weeks is through running.  I was a runner for years before I went to Guatemala but found it impossible to run there due to an infuriating amount of cat-calls and ass-grabs from the local men.  Instead of accepting those 4 months as a temporary hiatus from my running career, I let the Voice convince me that non-running had to become my new way of life. 

She reminded me of how much work running was and told me it was overrated and that no one really cared if I gain weight so why should I keep it up?  She reminded me of all my inconsistencies and assured me that I wasn’t a committed enough person to keep up the habit.  She shifted the focus of running from feeling good in my body through moving it and testing its limits to a fixation on running as punishment for whatever flaw she found at the moment.  I let her win and running became a chore rather than a joy.

But in the last two weeks, I’ve repeatedly told the Voice to shove it and started running again just to spite her.  And you know what?  The more I tell her to shove it and the more I get out and run, the happier I am and the better I feel.  

In all fairness, it’s not like I always feel like running or that I’d rather run than sit on the couch with a snack, but I’m determined to do the things that make me want to live and by doing so, to diminish the influence of the Voice in my life.  I don’t like her and I don’t need her.  Therefore, I am committed to battling her each time she attacks, in whatever form she takes so that I ultimately come out victoriously and freely alive.

It’s That Time of Year

Tomorrow is my 29th birthday and every year around this time, I find myself contemplative and sentimental.  I’m happy to know myself well enough to anticipate it coming, and this year, I feel it all the more deeply because I’m away.  Just because I want to and because this is my only large-scale outlet for sharing, I’m dedicating this post to the contemplations and sentiments and (gulp!) goals I’ve been swimming in for the past few days.

Amidst contemplating life, I stumbled upon a great poem called, When Death Comes by Mary Oliver and in it she writes,

“When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real.  I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument.  I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.” 

The last line strikes me most because I have to admit that I’ve spent a lot of time on Earth, upwards of several years, flitting about my life as if I’m a tourist on permanent holiday instead of inhabiting the space I have (i.e. my body and experience in it) as a resident.  

And while reading her book, Women, Food and God, I found another amazing quote by Geneen Roth, which reads, 

“Your body is the piece of the universe you’ve been given.” 

This is one of the most profound yet simple truths I’ve understood in a long time.  My body, the source and the bearer of so much (often self-inflicted) pain, is my piece, it’s my space in this universe.  I so easily allow the vastness of the universe, the endlessness of possibility, the far-off distance of dreams overwhelm the smallness and fragility of my human body.  I shrink down in the insignificance of my existence when it’s compared to the immensity of eternity; the ultimate unknown. 

But, and it’s a big BUT, it’s in the right here, the right now, that not just I, but we have our flawed, temporal bodies to experience and discover the only life we have as a part of this world.

So many times, I strive to transcend this life (mind you, this isn’t a defined concept, it’s just whatever I happen to imagine it to be in the moment) or escape reality or long for what I don’t yet have and in the process I miss the abundance and richness in the moments I do.  And it’s in the missing that life becomes drudgery.  Unbearable, torturous, semi-suicidal drudgery.

While trying to decide if I’d stay in Korea for another year, I asked myself what else I should be doing (again, undefined, just like transcendence) and where else I should be going.  The answer?  Two words. 

Nothing.  Nowhere. 

Nothing.  There is nothing else on Earth that I need to do.  Nowhere.  There is nowhere else on Earth that I need to be.  And it’s true.  While there are plenty of other things I could be doing and millions of other places I could go, there is absolutely no real, or true, or legitimate need to be anywhere other than here, doing anything other than this.

This life on this piece of Earth is what I need to do right now and my responsibility is to be here.  To actually show up.  Now.

Awesome.

So you may be asking where in all this are the gulp-worthy goals I mentioned earlier?  Well, obviously, the over-arching goal is to live in such a way that I am as present as possible in more moments than not.  But this goal is too broad and too ambiguous to really quantify, so I’ve broken a few things down in hopes of creating a more concrete and workable present.

#1: Add 1 mile a week to my weekly running mileage for as many weeks as possible so I’m averaging 23-25 miles per week by the end of the year.  The ultimate goal here is to celebrate my 30th birthday by running 30 miles (double gulp!).  For the record, this is a goal I reserve the right to negotiate and/or rework as it gets closer to the moment of truth…it’s my goal, afterall! 

#2: Cook a real meal (one that creates leftovers) and/or bake something one day each week.  I’ve found that spending time in the kitchen, making food that I like and have invested time in makes me feel good.  Not just good, it makes me feel alive and connected to that which nourishes me, and I like it.

#3: Start a Women, Food and God study group in Gangneung.  Maybe it’s just me (though I doubt it) but I think Geneen Roth’s work is incredible and I have a feeling other girls in my town could benefit from the same things that I am.

#4: Create and/or sustain life other than my own.  This means growing plants and composting with worms (doing and doing) and get a pet (which will happen tomorrow…he’s a cat named Zorro and he’s ridiculously adorable).  I’m finding that all this self inquiry can make a girl crazy self-centered and this girl needs something to draw her back to the world of other living things.

So here there is.  And here I am on the eve of my 29th birthday, yearning to live this next year more fully inhabiting this body, this heart, this mind and this experience.  The best of what is is here and the best of what will be will come and I’m giddily excited for both!