The next meal is around the corner

Someone suggested I write about what fears are holding me back from embracing the idea that the next meal is around the corner?  This is what I came up with.  What fears are holding you back?

This idea of “What if I get hungry?” or “What if there isn’t enough?” stems from early in my childhood when my dad decided to become a raw food vegetarian.  I don’t remember a lot about the kinds of food that we ate before the change, but I do know this – as a kid the ONLY vegetable I liked was broccoli, and let me make it very clear that it had to be COOKED broccoli. I do also remember that we at a lot of sugar cereals for breakfast such as Cap’n Crunch, Apple Jacks, Frosted Flakes, etc. 

So, for a young girl who loved her sugar, the whole raw food vegetarian lifestyle was very traumatic for me.  For breakfast we used to eat this stuff called puffed millet, which tasted kind of like tiny Styrofoam balls.  I’m sure I thought I was starving most of the time, because I was a picky eater before the change.  My mom would still take us out to eat for lunch quite often, and I remember always wanting her “last bite” which she would usually give away.  I think I developed a fear of never knowing when my next meal would be or where it would come from, because I probably only ate at school or when mom took us out to eat.

Fast forward 3 or 4 years to when my parents got divorced when I was 11.  My mom did not continue my dad’s new found passion for raw vegetables, so we started eating “regular” food again.  By that time, though, the damage had been done.  We had a house full of children who were afraid of not getting enough to eat, so my mom would cook huge meals, and we’d all fight over how much everyone took.  There was one person in the family, who if they got hold of the serving spoon first, would take half of whatever there was, leaving the other half for the remaining 4 people in the family.  The rest of the kids would erupt into opposition, and we soon learned not to put the food near that person when we brought it to the table.

To this day, especially when I’m eating out, and I know more food won’t be easily accessible, I still have a fear of not having enough and usually order much more than I actually need to satisfy my hunger.  So the fear holding me back from embracing the idea that the next meal is just around the corner is a deep seeded fear planted early in my life.

That fear is still active in my life today, even though I do have enough food, I can go get more, and it is unlikely that I will ever have to depend on someone else for my food again.  Right now, my refrigerator and freezer are packed with food, and I’m not even in town to eat it… but I still have enough food somewhere! 

I think it’s time to accept the possibility of being hungry.  Being hungry now means something VERY different than being hungry did when I was a kid.  Being hungry then meant insecurity, fear, uncertainty, and certain (at least in my mind) death.  Today being hungry means that I’m hungry.  There IS a next meal around the corner, and one after that, and one after that.  I don’t ever have to be afraid of not having enough again.

Who I am

I’ve started taking up meditation.  In addition I have continued to seek out and listen to videos and talks that have to do with connecting to myself.  Yesterday after meditating, I came away with the feeling that I don’t have to worry what people think of me at work.  I just accepted that I don’t have to be perfect to impress anyone.  It changed my whole day.  I felt like I got much more done and wasn’t as stressed about it.  In the past I have generally put so much pressure on myself to succeed that it actually cripples my performance. 

From as far back as I can remember I have had this unrelenting need to be perfect.   I remember one of the phrases that I hated most of all when I was growing up was “Just do your best.”   People would say that to me as a teenager, and it would make me angry.  “What a cop out!” I would think.  “’DO YOUR BEST’ is for people who can’t do any better.”  I would think.  “’DO YOUR BEST’ is just an excuse to not do something well.”  I would think.  (I know.  I see the irony.  One cannot do better than one’s best.)   There is technically nothing better than your best at any given moment, yet even to this day, I hold myself to this insane standard.  Even my favorite movie “The Sound of Music” has a song in which one of the lines says “Let them bring on all their problems I'll do better than my best.” Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks that’s a possibility.

Of course that type of thinking is “BLACK AND WHITE THINKING,” and no one can sustain that type of lifestyle, so the alternative is to give up or not try in the first place.  My life is full of examples and evidence of the many times I have given up because the alternative was unreachable.   This reminds me of a dream I had in college that I have never forgotten.  In the dream I was in the field house running around the track with some friends.  The staff came along and put a tarp over the top of the track and required all those running to run UNDERNEATH the tarp, thus having to lift the tarp up and over our heads as we ran.  My friends were there cheering me on, telling me that I could do it, but this was far too difficult for me in my dream, so I gave up and left my friends trailing behind me. 

I had always considered this to be a depiction of my need to be perfect or not to do it at all.  My earliest recollection of needing to be perfect was when I was in second grade.  Up until that point, my name was spelled “DeeDee” with two capital Ds.  Once I started learning cursive, try as I might, I could not make both of my Ds look alike, and that was not acceptable to me, so I started spelling my name with a lowercase “d” in the middle.  That way, they didn't HAVE to look alike.  My name changed from DeeDee to Deedee simply to curb that need to be perfect,  and that is how I write my name to this day.  At 7 years old, I was already putting that kind of pressure on myself.   A much more acceptable phrase for me has always been “Do it right, or don’t do it at all.”  Somehow that statement felt much more true and attainable to me than “Just do your best.” 

But what happens when I change the phrase again to “Just do?” or better yet "Just BE."  What if I take out all of the judgment, all of the expectations, and all of the emotions?   What if I just accept that what I do, how hard I work, how many deadlines I meet doesn’t change my value?  What If I accept that my intrinsic value remains the same regardless of my performance at work, regardless of the number of friends I have, regardless of the number of pounds I weigh?  Even writing this is giving me anxiety.  Am I still a valuable employee if I don’t stress about timelines and productivity?  The truth is, YES!  I’m actually a better employee because that part of my attention that usually worries about my productivity-based-value is now free to focus on the job at hand.

Does my value remain the same if I don’t worry about how many people love me and accept me for who I am?  Of course it does.   If I could stop worrying about what other people think of me, then I could allow myself to love myself for who I am.  I have lived my life believing that “WHO I AM IS WHAT YOU THINK OF ME,” but that is simply not true.  Who I am is who I am.  Who I am has nothing to do with who or what you think I am.

And now the question that we have all been waiting for: does my value remain the same no matter how much I weigh, no matter what my body looks like?  If I woke up tomorrow and weighed 140 pounds instead of 380 pounds, would I have more value?  Would I really be worth more as a human being if I weighed a different amount, if my body was smaller?  Sadly, I know people, even in my own family, who would say YES.  I would be able to do more with my body, so it could ADD value to my life, but would it really add value to my soul? If who I am is NOT what you think of me, then WHO I AM is not HOW MUCH I WEIGH!   WHO I AM is not WHAT YOU SEE ON THE OUTSIDE!  WHO I AM IS STILL WHO I AM.  No amount of productivity, pretending or hiding will change that.  I am who I am, and accepting that makes the whole world a different place for me.