Too School for Cool

Two weeks ago was 'Back to School' for my children and most of the other kids in the state of Minnesota.  While it wasn't punctuated with the normal crisp Fall back to school weather there was still the smell of new folders and the sharp pencil leads and composition notebooks.  I love notebooks.  All kinds.  And if there is one thing people can count on to make it feel like back to school again it's my Facebook statuses and countdowns.  This year I had people filling in the meme blanks for me, tagging me in photos or posting on my timeline.  I didn't even have to Google for anything.

This year I got the impression from many people that they truly believe I don't want my children around.  It started to have a real negative connotation and frankly put a major buzzkill on my Back to School festivities.

And festivities there have been.  In the past we've celebrated with high fives at the bus stop.  I've had standing first day of school coffee dates with a friend every year.  I've had back to school cocktails and first week of school sushi lunch dates.  I've even threatened to make a man out of that bus driver a time or two. This year I had a long coffee date with an old coworker from the gym. There's always some way to celebrate.

The truth is, aside from my time as an employee at the gym, I have been self-employed for seventeen years.  I've run my own business at home since around my one year wedding anniversary, partly due to some changes that were taking place at the company that I worked at but mostly because I knew we would someday have children. I thought it was a good time to try for a career that I could have at home while caring for babies.

I did very well the first few years.  Work was abundant.  Setting my own hours was perfect and I had plenty of time to spend with my husband.  About three years later we decided to move to another home so that we'd have room for a family.  The work load was still great but I struggled with staying focused during this time.  I like to call these The eBay Years.  How else was a girl supposed to find everything she didn't know she needed for her new home?  It's not like Amazon was invented yet.

Not long after this I did manage to get pregnant with our first child.  Enter the Pregnancy Website Months, Motherhood Books Weeks and Babies'R'Us, the mecca of all things baby and time wasting.  My expanding uterus had no interest in getting any work done and I struggled with taking advantage of the busy season.  Dumb move since it was the last season I'd ever have with uninterrupted work.

My oldest son was born at the end of December in the year 2000.  My line of work is usually fairly slow from Thanksgiving till New Years as people are focusing on the holidays rather than new construction.  But come January, the impending Spring building season has everyone clamoring to get their blueprints ready.  I remember working two weeks after he was born, via c-section I might add, sneaking drafting time during naps when I should have been sleeping myself.  Rigging a musical toy over a Pack N Play next to my desk so I could get more work in.  Nights.  Weekends. Any possible moment I could steal away because we couldn't afford for me not to work and at that point daycare made no financial sense.

I got pregnant again when my son was 8 months old.  If I thought working at home was tough before it was nothing compared to having two babies.  The days that I got them both to nap at the same time I thought I was Anne Sullivan, the damn Miracle Worker.  When my toddler dropped a nap I was reduced to the ultimate shameful mom practice of letting him watch tv while I worked.  Still I wasn't making enough money.  I wasn't keeping the house clean.  I had my husband pick up take-out a little too often.  Mom of the Year I wasn't.

When you are going to have kids you are faced with a big decision as a mother.  Do I keep going to work or do I stay at home?  It's a tough one and there are pros and cons to both.  But there is a third species and it's called a WAHM.  Work at home mom - it seems like the answer.  What could be better than staying at home with your little bundle and still bringing in money?  Everything.  All the other options are better than working from home when you have young ones.  I would encourage you to please, please choose one of the other two options.  Trust.

There is never enough work done.  The house is never clean enough.  You never spend enough "quality time" with the kids.  Dinners are half-hazard things you can throw together, assuming you have groceries because no one wants to go to the store with two babies.  (Seriously, my first outing by myself with a 17 month old and a newborn resulted in the toddler puking all over himself and the baby shitting all the way up his back to his hair.  Both requiring car seats to be hosed down.  I went home, cleaned everyone up, wept and vowed never to leave my house again.  Ever.)  Showering was completely optional and being romantic with my husband?  Pffffffttt Whatever.  Pretty standard SAHM troubles but throw work deadlines in and it's a hot mess.

I was pretty much failing at ever aspect of every one of my jobs.  WAHM's are spread so thin all the time (not to say that SAHM mom's aren't.  It's tough all around.) that they pretty much suck at everything.  Or maybe it was just me.  Maybe I couldn't hack it.  This may come to a surprise to you and you may want to sit down but...  I'm not really the Earth mother type.

I did have a nanny two days a week for a year or so in the form of my niece and she helped immensely.  But I'll be honest and tell you that it's still tough to run a business from home with the sounds of tag and Play-doh in the house.  Not to mention the kids still knew I was there, hiding away in my office, and I would easily fall pray to my control issues and step in whenever I heard my niece struggling.

And then... School (cue angels singing)

School is the WAHM's wet dream.  School is the answer to all her prayers.  School means she can get work done during the day and still be a mom at night.  School means not having to choose who gets more of her attention during those work hours and not feeling the guilt that is bound to go with either decision.  School is my air.  By the time I had both kids in school I really thought I'd made it.  But I forgot about one thing.

Summer.

This Summer was particularly tough.  I had an enormous work load.  And with both boys and my husband (yeah, he works at home, too - how's that for fucking togetherness) with me 24/7 it was constant chaos.  I would like very much to plan all kinds of activities for my boys. I would love to take them on fantastical fieldtrips to museums and parks and playdates and waterparks and the zoo.  I would love to even send them to some camps so they could have fun with friends but they won't go anymore.  Unfortunately I can't do all these things.  I have a business and when you are self-employed and there's actually work to be had you just don't say no.  You never know when the next dry spell will be.

Working from home in the Summer makes me feel more inept as a mother than anything I do.  The mom guilt is overwhelming and the resulting shame of not being good enough tears me down daily.  I know I'm not the first mother to have mom guilt but we, and by we I mean all of mom-hood, don't really talk about it.  I promise you this, though.  Any mom who says she doesn't have mom guilt is lying through her box of wine.

With all the guilt of being a shitty mom, a shitty money earner and a shitty wife it's really hard to spread myself any thinner.  So instead I got fatter.  I know I when I wrote in June I said I hadn't gained any weight over the last year since leaving my job at the gym.  Yeah, that's no longer true.  I've gained weight like it's my job the last couple of months and apparently that's the one job I can do even with all the distractions.  I haven't had a gym membership and I've literally had no time to take care of myself fitness-wise.

But you know what?  I did my best.  Could I get up and go for a run at 5am to make sure I got my workout in before I started my day as super mom / wife / drafter?  Bwahahahahhahaa  No.  I can't.  And I know that about myself.  What I couldn't do after feeling like I already was the worst mom ever for an entire Summer was go and leave them in the evening to get my workout in.  I did the best I possibly could to take care of my work obligations and my family and it came at a little expense to myself but that's the way it is.  And I'm at peace with that.   It's a small sacrifice to make to be able to work at home with no pants on.

I have a new gym membership that I started attending during the first week of school.  I had my shiny new padlock and my shiny new gym shoes.  It was my own "first day of school" where I knew no one and couldn't figure out where to go.  But I've got 9 months of homework to do as I take advantage of having the time and freedom to take care of myself and relieve a little stress before it starts all over again.  It's a fair trade.

So I survived.  And I celebrated.  And it doesn't mean that I don't love my kids or that I don't want them around, regardless of what my Facebook friends may think. I've more than paid my mom dues over the years.  I just can't be everything to everyone at the same time without the guilt.   And if that means I have to let taking care of myself fall to the wayside a little during the Summer then so be it.   Back to School is, I think, the Universe saying "You did well.  You survived, you are a great mom and you shall be rewarded greatly for your efforts."

Of course then I got knocked-on-my-ass sick for more than week immediately after school started.  I'm still sick. Well played, Karma.  Well played.  I see what you did there.

The More You Know...

I haven't blogged in awhile and it's been intentional.  Aside from the last couple of posts I wasn't happy with the direction it was going and I was at a loss on how to get it back on track.  It was whiny and pissy and not at all helpful to anyone and that's not what I want it to be about. In many ways my surgery set me back for a bit but I'm feeling pretty good now and ready to move on and get back to the work at hand.  What were we talking about again?

Oh, yeah.  Retired personal trainer.  Body image.  Vulnerability.  Shame.  Spanx.  Blah. Blah. Blah.

It just so happens that tomorrow is the one year anniversary of me leaving my job as a personal trainer, group fitness instructor and manager at the gym I worked at.  I was a hot mess a year ago - anyone close to me (and some not even so close) can attest to that.  Even four months later when I wrote my first blog I was still in rough shape.

So where am I at one year later?  What have I learned? I've come up with a list, in no particular order.

1. How I speak about myself, especially when I'm alone, is the key to just about everything when it comes to body confidence and recovering from shame.  Actively trying to find things about myself to be grateful for is absolutely necessary.  And I know I am not alone based on the feedback I got from people during my Body Gratitude project.
2. I do not miss working nearly every night outside the home.  But at the same time I can hear a song while driving and miss teaching so much it makes me cry.  I don't know when/if that will go away.  But I'm 99.9% sure I am not going to teach or train again.
3. I think that people that have battled weight issues and body image problems are so very necessary in the fitness world.  They have a perspective when teaching and training that people that have never battled these things do not have and the connection they can make with people because of this is amazing.
4. That being said, based on my own experience if you have a serious issue with weight and food and body image I would think long and hard before I recommended getting into the business.  It's a slippery slope and a difficult image to uphold even if you never have these issues.  If you struggle it can backfire on you.  If anyone is seriously considering a job in fitness and wants me to explain further, feel free to contact me.  Bottom line - if you can't balance taking care of yourself while you bust your ass to care for others - it's not the place for you.
5. Jeans.  They still suck.  Surgery or no, I still can't find a pair of jeans to save my life.  I think my issues are worse than they were before.  Not a damn designer assumes that if you have ass and thighs like mine you will have a flat stomach.  So as far as I can tell this is the truth: Jeans shopping sucks no matter what your size.
6. So have I lost weight in the last year?  I did for a little and now I haven't.  I'm about the same as where I started, aside from what was removed during the surgery.  Some may view this as a failure but I don't. I had a helluva year that seriously broke me emotionally.  Any time this has happened in the past I have gained a considerable amount of weight. To maintain for a year while struggling so much is a big deal for me.  I'm going to chalk that one up as a win.
7. When I left the gym I thought to myself, "I'll show them.  When they see me next I'm gonna be thinner and stronger and ripped and hot...", etc.  Yeah, that didn't happen.  Do you want to know why?  Other than the fact that none of the people that hurt me would have even given a shit nor have they stayed in touch anyway, my desire for "revenge skinny" was impossible.  It can't happen.  Approaching health and weight loss out of anger and frustration and retaliation will never, ever work.  Your body knows better than you when it comes to knowing what motivates you.  I had healing to do before I could even think about changing my body.
8. Can you still change your body while loving it?  I think you can though if I'm being honest I still struggle with it.  I try to focus on stopping the negative thoughts when I think about how I would like to change and focus more on the health aspects.  And I really do miss feeling and looking strong.  The recovery from surgery (and the lack of a routine since then) has really taken it's toll.  I'm ready to get back to it and lift some heavy shit.
9. This:
   
   
10.  I'm not meant to completely avoid any particular food group.  I've tried and I've played with it all year.  It's just not for me.  Whatever you do to lose weight you have to be willing to do forever.  Am I going to have some bread?  Yeah, I am.  *shrugs*  What else will I put my favorite cheese on?  Moral of the story - balance, moderation, focusing on whole foods.  This is what works for me. It worked before and it's what I can maintain. I will no longer vilify any particular food group.  Except cucumbers.  I hate those things.
11. Moisturizer.  Get some.  I've been horrible at skin care for 38 years and I finally got on board.  What a dumbass I've been.  Get thee to the mall.
12. Weight loss or surgery - neither of these will fix you on the inside.  Whatever problems you had before you will have them after.  You'll just look different on the outside.  God, I wish I had a dollar for every time I've had to relearn this.
13. I seriously hate Fitspiration pics.  You know - the Nike-esque pictures with motivational sayings that also happen to include a picture of a woman so graciously sprayed down with fake sweat so as to enhance her nearly perfect, body fat free physique?  Google Fitspo and you'll see what I mean. 
    
    I like most of the messages and I give the people credit for their hard work but I'd venture to guess that 95% of these people are fitness models who have never really battled weight and have a natural ability to build muscle (not everyone can look like that no matter how hard they work and that's the damn truth - a lot of it's genetic).  I am not motivated by pictures of women that I will never in my life look like, no matter how much lifting I do.  And don't get me started on the air brushing.  It's worse than the fashion industry.  Show me real pictures of real people busting their ass and getting REAL sweaty and I'll be inspired.  And who the fuck works out in those outfits? 
14. I'm not always a nice person.  There.  I said it. Recently I found out that my former boss was fired from his current job and for a brief moment I was ecstatic.  I was triumphant.  It was one giant "I told you so"/middle finger and I had won.  But deep down I know this does not really make me feel better.  And I do worry about the financial situation that his family must face.  I need to be better than this because his pain will never truly make me feel better.  My problems are my problems.
15. Sometimes it takes a real asshole to push you to make the decisions you need to make. (see above) (Yes, I know it's not nice to call names.) (I already told you I wasn't a nice person.) (see above) Fact: It was time for me to leave my job.  I wasn't taking care of myself.  I was burned out.  My family was suffering.  I was miserable.  But my sense of obligation to that place, my manager and my friends/clients/class regulars kept me from making the decision I had to make.  I owe the owner a debt of gratitude for pushing me that last little bit that made me gather up the pride and strength I had left and say "peace out".  Thank you.
16. Obagi Pore Therapy Toner.  Get some.
17. Sexy panties really do work wonders.  Even if no one else can see them you know they are there.  Again, get thee to the mall.
18. This one is a doozy and just came to me in the last couple of weeks.  It will take some explaining.  You know how some people can pinpoint what started their weight gain?  Abuse, rape, broken hearts - no wonder people are self-medicating.  I actually think food is the safest way to ease that pain.  It could be so much worse.  I could never figure out what my "thing" was.  I've had some inklings.  I know of some pivotal moments for me but there is no concrete reason.
    
    Then the tornadoes hit Oklahoma, my birth state.  My grandfather still lives there and no one could reach him to find out if he was ok.  In the end I decided to email one of my aunts that hasn't spoken to me in years.  To describe everything that happened between me, her and her younger sister that ended our relationship would take way too long.  Just know that it changed me forever.  I grieved no differently than if they had died.  Maybe worse because I knew they completely rejected me.  Two people that I felt as close to as if they were my sisters.  I promptly slipped into a major depression back then and gained a shit ton of weight.  My highest weight even.
    
    I prepared an email for her to find out what she knew.  They often know more about family goings-on than the rest of us "black sheep" and neglect to tell us anything.  I didn't even know if her email was the same.  It took all I had to hit the send button.  My heart was racing, my stomach sick, tears running down my face.  What if she got my email and didn't respond?  What if she didn't get it and I just assumed she was ignoring me?  What if she actually responded and I had to take down the wall I had so meticulously built up around that part of my heart so I couldn't be hurt again by her?  This was a no win situation and it scared the shit out of me.  But I hit send anyway.  Seconds later I got a text saying Granddad was ok.  Mother fucker!!!  (Not Granddad.  Just the fact that I opened that can of worms when I didn't have to.)
    
    This is my "thing".  And I would venture to guess it's a lot of people's "things".  Rejection. Abandonment. Being ignored. Loss of love and affection.  And it all leads to one place - "I'm not good enough."
    
    A lot of people have wondered why I was still hung up on this gym or the people there.  Why did it still affect me so much?  Why I was still hurt by the loss of a friendship that I thought would last a very long while but virtually disappeared the second I was no longer there to bust my ass?  Why can't I just get over it?
    
    I can tell you it goes back farther than that.  It involves rejection from my father by absence. It includes my grandmother moving away and taking some of the people I cared most about with her. Attending seven different schools between kindergarten and senior year and having to lose friends and make new ones all over again each time. It includes being abandoned by every single one of my friends when I chose to marry the person I'm still with today.  It involves a group of online friends that I love dearly and were pivotal in my weight loss that I lost for reasons I can't exactly explain but I'm sure I'm responsible for at least half of, if not more, for I have developed a nasty habit of pushing people away before they hurt me.  And it includes losing two aunts who were there for me at some of my darkest moments when I lost a pregnancy and battled post-partum depression so severe it almost ended my life.  They just left me.
    
    Leaving the gym scared the shit out of me because I knew it would mean I would lose people again and I didn't know if I was strong enough for it.  And the one person I thought I wouldn't lose I did lose.  And in the defense of everyone from the gym that I felt had hurt me, they didn't know they would have the burden of fending off all my baggage on this issue.  This is my load to carry.  Not theirs.  I have to forgive them for they didn't have the whole picture or know what their actions would do to me.
    
    In the end this is still a success for me on this one year anniversary mark.  It hurt me and it was so hard to lose people again, but I made it through.  Just like I did before.  I'm still here.  Annoying the hell out of you people now.  Maybe I'm starting to get stronger than my "thing".
19. Love first.  Change second. (I ought to trademark the hell out of that)
20. And last but hopefully not least - this:

I'm ready to let it go.  Trainer and instructor - that's all in the past.  I'm just me now.  No one to answer to but myself when it comes to my own body.  It will continue to be a life long battle I'm sure and I'll do my best to write more often and share my experiences for as long as anyone finds it useful or relevant.  And maybe for a while past that as long as it's useful to me.

Oh!  I just thought of one more!

21. I'm kind of a big fucking deal.  And so are you.

Help Wanted

I got dressed all by myself today.  Even my underpants.  In my head I was totally hearing the jingle from the Pull-Ups commercial: "I'm a big kid now!"

For the past two and a half weeks since my surgery I have dealing with various degrees of helplessness.  Those first few days the only thing I could do by myself was go to the bathroom and trust me when I tell you I would have gladly paid someone to do it for me.  I couldn't get in and out of bed without help.  I couldn't get dressed.  I couldn't even make myself food.

I could also talk about how much I've battled with my mind over feelings of being unattractive, being useless, being replaceable and unnecessary but I probably won't much. Not today. There's still a part of me that worries what others will think about my decision to have this surgery and since it was elective it's hard to rationalize the feelings I've had.  I can't really feel sorry for myself if I asked for this, right?  If you've ever recovered from major surgery you know there is a pretty standard post-op depression that hits you regardless of whether the surgery was medically necessary or elective.  So in that regard I would say I'm nothing if not text book.

Today I have been thinking about the art of asking for help.  I'm horrible at it.  Down right awful.  It doesn't matter if it's emotional, physical or financial help that I need - the chances of me asking for it are slim to absolutely none.  I'd like to think that's the case because I'm severely independent.  And maybe because I'm amazingly tough and resilient.  A badass even.  Help schmelp.  I got this.

I don't like to ask for help because I don't want to owe anybody anything.  And because if I ask for help it means I wasn't good enough or perfect enough to take care of it myself.  And frankly, doing it all myself ensures that it will get done the way I'm used to and I don't have to step out of my little perfectionist comfort zone (read: defense mechanism) and be open to anyone else's ideas.  Here's is where being an over-achiever really shows it's down side.  Because you just simply can't always do it all.

Asking for help, needing someone, unable to do it all on my own - this is my vulnerability nightmare.

Enter me, buck ass naked, dripping wet from my first post-op shower, sliced open from hip to hip and three drainage tubes ends hanging from a makeshift necklace so they don't rip from my body and still bleeding and oozing from places.  I can't dry myself.  I can't dress myself.  And God forbid I drop those clean underpants on the floor before I manage to get them on.  Three feet never seemed so grand a distance until you can't bend over to pick something up. Trust me. I spent a couple of minutes staring at them once, calculating the acrobatics it would take to get them off the floor, before I called for help.  I was beaten by the underpants.  The big, giant, granny panty, cheap Wal-Marty underpants I bought just for this recovery.  You win high waisted briefs.  You win.

You really can't feel more vulnerable than that.  Even so, when you've been married as long as I have you learn to accept help from your spouse a little more easily than from others.  He's been a trooper these past couple of weeks and I'm eternally grateful.  This has been a messy, difficult and altogether unsexy recovery and he's put up with all of it without complaint.

The bigger problem lies with letting others help.  I have had numerous texts and calls and messages asking, "Do you need anything? Can I bring you anything? Can I make a meal?".

Funny enough, I know there's no better feeling than to know you have helped someone. "What can I do to help?" is always the first thing out of my mouth when something happens to someone I care about.  More often then not I frantically race to organize a meal train for the family of a friend who just had emergency surgery or raise some money or supplies for an employee who's home burned down or flowers for a friend who just lost her baby.  But this isn't for selfless reasons.  It's totally selfish in that it calms that "Oh my God, I have to do something to help" feeling that makes me feel so useless.  Nothing cures a feeling of uselessness than organizing a meal train.  I promise.

Which reminds me that a friend offered to organize a meal train for my family after learning of my upcoming surgery.  I declined.  How could I accept a meal train for an elective cosmetic surgery?  I mean, the nerve of people wanting to help and wanting to feel better for having done so?  Guess who spent 9 hours in the kitchen making 18 freezer meals for her family rather than asking for help?

What does it say about me that I don't want others to also be comforted by being helpful just as I have been comforted?  I can say it's a pride issue but I'd be lying.  It's actually more about fear.  I'm afraid to let others in and to need them because in the needing I'm vulnerable to being hurt again by those that I need most.  Simple as that.  And if I refuse to ask for help when I need it most does it change the meaning behind the help that I give to others?  I'm starting to think maybe it does.

This morning I listened to a TED talk from this years conference by musician Amanda Palmer on the subject of The Art of Asking.  She spoke of her experience turning her music over to the public for free and asking for help in the way of crowd funding instead of relying on her unsupportive record label. She ended up succeeding with the biggest music crowd funding project to date.  When asked how she was able to make people pay for her music she said, "The real answer is I didn't make them. I asked them. And through the very act of asking people I connected with them. And when you connect with people, people want to help you."

If you have read my past blogs you know that I am working very hard to deal with feelings of shame and unworthiness.  And you also know I've learned that connection with others and garnering empathy is the first way to defeating shame.  The only way to do those things is to be vulnerable.  For me, today, that means asking for help. (See - I'm still on topic - just had to go round the outside for a bit to find my way back to it.)

It doesn't matter if you are battling depression, illness or financial troubles.  You could be feeling overwhelmed with your work and not sure how to delegate.  You may be feeling like a failure as a parent because you just can't do it all.  Or you may be struggling to do something as simple as dry yourself off after a shower.  It doesn't matter how easy or difficult the task if it feels like you can't do it alone. Relying solely on yourself and never asking for help is most certainly the quickest path to feeling like a failure when you don't succeed. Lena Horne once said, "It's not the load that breaks you down; it's the way you carry it". Maybe that load won't feel so difficult if you let someone else carry the heavy end for a bit.

The point is - ask for help.  Let those that love you in so that they can feel useful.  It's a form of generosity to allow them to do so and feel good knowing they made a difference.  You'll be happy to know I've accepted several meals for my family.  And the help I've cherished the most is that of my friends and family who have just offered to visit and spend some time with me during my recovery.  What a boon to my spirit. Thank you so much.

Some may say that asking for help is a blow to their pride. I would argue that asking for help actually builds your pride rather than detracts from it.  It makes you stronger. You may feel weak at first but, with the help of someone that loves you, in no time you will be strong enough to put your underwear on all by yourself like a big kid.  And that's something to be proud of.

"Leaning into the discomfort..."

"Your blog screams 'Shame' to me."  That's what I friend told me when we were out for a girl's night.  She'd been trying for quite some time to get me to watch an online video that I'd been putting off.  Why?  Because I knew it would get hard and ugly and messy and I have to be in the right frame of mind to cannonball into that emotional pool.

I thought a lot about what she said.  Shame?  Sure.  What person who has struggled with obesity doesn't feel shame at times?  And openly gaining weight while working in the fitness profession?  You guessed it - shame.  I thought about the other times in my life that I felt shame.  I know that struggling with shame during horrible post-partum depression was debilitating - very close to life-ending if you want to know the real truth of it all. (Fortunately I was so busy with a 17 month old and a newborn that I never had a real moment to myself to do any real physical damage.)  Religious shame?  Been there, done that, wish I had the t-shirt.

But does it go farther back than that?  You want to place some bets?

I was scheduled to do an ultra-boring Zone 2 workout on a Spin bike that would most likely involve me sitting in the saddle the whole time and I thought I'd skip the tunes and finally watch that video I was avoiding.  The video is a talk by Brené Brown, Ph.D. given at the TED conference in Houston, a non-profit devoted to "Ideas Worth Spreading".  This particular talk was on "The Power of Vulnerability".  I strapped on my heart rate monitor, gave my ass a quick pep talk so it wouldn't be angry with me later, and popped my headphones in.

I expected to cry.  To get all serious and introspective and all that other bullshit that I seem to be wallowing in lately. (I blame Oscar season and the Academy for the fact that no decent comedies have been out in awhile.  Who doesn't need one around the holidays?)  What I didn't expect from Ms. Brown was to laugh.  A lot.  Finding humor and making jokes in the middle of all that emotional work - you had me at hello, Brené.

So in between laughing, blowing my nose, wiping my sweat and repeatedly telling a guy named Bill that, no, I was indeed not talking to him and he could put his headphones back in I managed to watch the 20 minute video.  I was hooked.  I immediately started googling for more videos (while maintaining a steady Zone 2 heart rate between 150 and 155, thank you very much) and found "Listening to Shame".  Perfection.  I spent the remaining portion of my workout trying to fully understand the connection between vulnerability and shame in my head.  Later that night I watched the videos again and took notes.  Yes, I am that girl.  I also downloaded her latest book to my Kindle.  And maybe found her on Facebook.  And perhaps subscribed to her blog.  One person's "stalker" is the next person's "biggest fan".  It's all about perspective.

According to Dr. Brown what we all fundamentally crave is connection.  She goes so far as to say that "the ability to feel connected is why we're here - what gives us purpose and meaning to our lives."  Given all the avenues of social media that we have at our fingers at any given moment of the day, I would have to agree.  I miss that connection that I had with people at the gym.  I used to always think I was better at working alone, which suited my self-employment just fine.  Turns out I'm a fucking people person.  Who knew?  "Connection" is one of the reasons I started this blog, in addition to working on my own crap, I mean, issues.  I still feel like I have something to say about these topics even though I don't have that fitness center venue anymore.

She says that "shame is the fear of disconnection".  If everyone knew about all our junk would they somehow deem us no longer worthy of connection?  There's that word again that keeps coming up for me.  Worthy.  Worthiness.  Self-worth.  It's like I'm in a real life "Where's Waldo" book and I can't find the sonofabitch anywhere. (No, I won't start a "30 Days of Worthiness" project on Facebook.  You're welcome in advance.)  And the real emotion that underpinned shame was "excruciating vulnerability". In her words, vulnerability is the "core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness" but it is also the "birthplace of joy, creativity, belonging and love."

In her six year of studying shame, Brené Brown found that people who were sure of their worthiness, those that she called "Wholehearted", the ones that truly believed they were worthy of love and belonging where those that also believed that "what made them vulnerable made them beautiful".  They fully embraced vulnerability instead of trying to numb it.  They took chances.

I thought I was being vulnerable.  I really did.  I'm sharing a lot and I have a mini-panic attack each time right before I hit "Publish" on a new blog post.  What if no one reads it?  What if no one comments?  What if, God help me, no one "likes" it on Facebook?  But being scared that people won't like it is not the only litmus test of vulnerability.  It's risk and exposure and honesty and authenticity and uncertainty.  And I haven't done that as much as I could.  I haven't "kept it real" like I should.

Case in point: The post about my first contact with my half-sister.  Let me preface this by saying that I am so thankful that she contacted me and I hope that someday we may have some semblance of a relationship, albeit international.  People who read that blog post thought it was uber-cool that I had a sister and how exciting, yada-yada.  What I didn't share that day was how torn apart I was, how fundamentally raw and unworthy I felt.  I wanted to spare her feelings, spare her father's feelings and my mother's feelings.  I didn't want to expose too much.  I couldn't possibly tell everyone that I spent the entire day crying and feeling destroyed and broken and then decided that I couldn't possibly be expected to fix a normal dinner for my family after that so I had to order take-out from a local Italian joint and eat penne instead of vegetables, now could I?  (This is how the fat brain works, people.) A few people knew.  My husband knew.  My mother sent me a message after reading it and asked if I was ok.  She knew I wouldn't be ok. But I didn't tell the truth that day.

Here's the truth: I was worried, being the grown-up in the relationship, about it being ok for my under-age sister to contact me.  I wanted to make sure her parents were ok with it. That led to a discussion about when she first learned about me.  She said her mother had mentioned a half-sister a couple of years ago but it wasn't until that past week that her father (yes, I know her father and my father are the same person - you can analyze me another day) sat her down, now that she was a teenager, to tell her about all the "stupid mistakes" he made when he was 15.  The conversation went on for awhile after that but I couldn't focus on anything but "stupid mistake".  It's all I heard.  She didn't know that she should edit that part for me - she's 13.  She has lived her entire life with two loving parents and the knowledge that she was intentional and worthy of being here.  She also has no clue, until now, what a basket case of a sister she has.  Hearing the words "stupid mistake" takes me right back to being a kid who never really belonged in the family. I wasn't supposed to even BE.

My mother had me when she was 16 1/2.  She got pregnant at 15.  She hid her pregnancy until the day she went into labor and had to tell her mother, also 9 months pregnant, that she was about to have a baby.  I can't imagine how hard it was for her to be pregnant and not tell anyone but I get why she did it.  There had already been a baby born to another sister and he had a tremendous amount of medical issues to be dealt with.  My grandmother was pregnant with her NINTH child.  And I'm pretty sure my grandparent's marriage was already falling apart.  How could she tell anyone?  I'm sure she was scared shitless.  I would have been. (These are just my thoughts and conclusions - it's not something we really ever talk about).

After I was born my grandfather told the other kids they were absolutely NOT to go to school and tell anyone and they would be punished if they did.  This was supposed to be a secret.  What in the hell would people think if they knew?

That's how I entered the world.  I wasn't planned.  I wasn't intentional.  I wasn't welcomed or celebrated. I was hidden. I was a "stupid mistake".  That's what my sister's comment brought me right back to.  And the logical part of my brain says, "Yes, it's terribly stupid to get pregnant at 15".  And I know my mother would agree.  But my mother would also have said, "But I don't regret it."  And I can't get that from my father and wouldn't believe it if he said it because he doesn't know me nor has he been a part of my life.

Brené Brown says that if you were to put shame in a petri dish it would require three things to grow: 1) Secrecy 2) Silence 3) Judgment.  Sound familiar?  That was the holy trinity of what I was born under and apparently my cross to bear.  I know shame deep into my core and I truly believe that conquering it is the key to finally believing my worthiness.

Are there worse things to happen to people?  Of course.  I had a good life.  I grew up to be a pretty good person. I was loved and I still am. And my heart goes out to the people that I love that have been hurt by far worse things in their lives - rape, abuse, poverty, illness.  My shame is not the worst out there but it's also why I don't have a drug addiction or an alcohol addition or some other vice.  I just eat a little too much and say bad things to myself from time to time.  So how come, until now, I have only talked about the shame of being overweight? Silly rabbit, it's the only shame I can't hide.  I wear it, literally, on my sleeve.  And my ass.  And my thighs.  And my stomach.  The rest I have neatly tucked away.

So now what?  How do you fix shame?  Ms. Brown says that there is one sure way to douse shame because with it shame can't exist and that is empathy.  "The two most powerful words when we are in struggle: 'Me, too."  How do we get it?  By being vulnerable.  Shame + Vulnerability = Empathy.  Welcome to the new math.

I promise to be open and truthful and authentic from now on.  I haven't got a shot in hell in beating this if I'm not.  I have to be "excruciatingly vulnerable" in order to get empathy from you.  And I hope that when you read my struggles you will also hear what I am trying to say about your own journeys, which is the number one thing I wanted to share with you when I first started this blog.

"Me, too."