Secular Spirituality, Atheism, and Recovery

If you’ve been through recovery, I’m wondering – how has your recovery been impacted (positively, negatively?) when the recovery culture dialogue turns to the almighty? It seems to happen a lot, and there’s a lot of faith-based stuff out there. And if that helps you recover, then I’m all for it! Everyone’s recovery will look a little different and be unique to them, and hope can be found in many different forms.

But for nonbelievers, the prevalence of religious language in recovery can present an additional hurdle – I know it did for me. Early in my recovery, before I got into more structured group therapy with a counselor, I was attending Twelve-Step groups that focused on eating disorders/disordered eating. I couldn’t recommend them for everyone, but it was what I needed at the time. I had hit an all-time low, and a friend told me about a group that met less than two miles away from where I lived downtown. I went the very next day, desperate for anything that might assuage the constant misery and physical discomfort I was in.

I honestly thought that I was going to go there, they would tell me what to do, I would do it and I would get better – just like going to the doctor and getting a prescription. I quickly found out that that wasn’t the case. But what I did find was a new perspective and a sense of hope – the people there spoke about their struggles with honesty and clarity, as well as an unexpected humility. One of the things emphasized in all Twelve-Step fellowships is admitting you don’t have control over everything, and as you work through that it can really give you some room to breathe. However, part of that admitting you don’t have control everything (a notion that often clashes with our Western sense of independence and individuality – but I challenge you to sneeze with your eyes open or to prevent the sun from setting) is turning that control over to a “Higher Power.”

Ugh.

Fit, or Fitting In?

Well, this is an interesting follow-up to the ‘fitspo’ discussion last week. Sarah Robles, the top weight-lifter in America, is bound for the Olympics and can barely pay rent.

…And even though she’s the U.S.’s best chance at an Olympic medal, she’ll never get the fame or fortune that come so easily to her fellow athletes — in part because, at 5 feet, 10.5 inches and 275 pounds, she doesn’t fit the ideal of thin, toned athletic beauty.

“You can get that sponsorship if you’re a super-built guy or a girl who looks good in a bikini. But not if you’re a girl who’s built like a guy,” she says. The 23-year-old from California became the highest ranked weightlifter in the country last year after placing 11th at the world championships, beating out every male and female American on the roster. On her best day, she can lift more than 568 pounds — that’s roughly five IKEA couches, 65 gallons of milk, or one large adult male lion.
(full article)

The thing is, if you passed Sarah on the street, a lot of people might make assumptions about her health based on her height and weight, and I doubt anyone would assume she was an Olympic athlete. She’s a prime example as to why I can’t stand that ‘fitspo’ crap – it promotes very narrow ideas of health, fitness, and attractiveness. If ‘fitspo’ is about motivation to work out, why isn’t there any with Sarah Robles? After all, she’s pretty damn fit!

Eat healthy and work hard, and you might be on your way to the Olympics, just like Sarah Robles!

Uninspired

Hi, internet. Sorry I’ve been absent lately. I’m taking a summer class (for the first time in four years!) and, in addition to my regular job, it’s a lot of work. I’ll try to get posting again on a somewhat regular basis!

Currently listening: Have Heart - Songs to Scream at the Sun
Currently reading: Women and Politics

There’s something that has been bothering me lately. Around the time that Tumblr announced they would be actively screening and banning accounts & posts which promoted self-harm and eating disorders, I noticed a new trend.

Fitness Inspiration. Or, ‘fitspo’ for short. A little background: the type of stuff Tumblr was taking aim at (although how effectively they’ve implemented this policy is arguable) was content that actively promotes or encourages eating disordered behavior. Images of emaciated people, usually women, emphasizing characteristics of being extremely underweight that are circulated by “support” communities for eating disorders, but all they support is the continuation and reinforcement of life-threatening disorders.

The average person sees this crap and they are appropriately upset by it. However, it was quickly replaced by ‘fitspo’. This, it seems, is perfectly okay with the average person. Images of female athletes doing physically demanding activities, extreme yoga poses, or close-ups of some stomach muscles accompanied by some “motivational” captions.

On the surface, it may seem harmless enough, encouraging people to exercise and to eat well. Exercise is good, right? Food is good, right? As a runner, I can’t disagree with either of those sentiments. I enjoy exercising, I sleep better when I’m active, and I make sure to eat in a way that supports all the activity I do because I want to make sure I’m giving my body what it needs.

There are two things I don’t really ever look at, though: the mirror and the scale. Here’s why.

The Sun’s Always Rising in the Sky Somewhere

Currently Listening: Against Me!: The Disco Before the Breakdown

I recently talked about how punk rock and sobriety had a big effect on my life, and the appeal that punk had because of its foundational ideals of acceptance of all people. Black, white, gay, straight, fat, skinny – there wasn’t any room for to judge people over such superficial things.

That doesn’t mean people didn’t bring their own prejudices and insecurities into radical or punk communities. It’s easy to say, “We stand for this,” but being ‘not prejudiced’ against a given group or type of person isn’t as simple as saying you aren’t racist/homophobic/transphobic/sexist and then denying all responsibility when you end up doing or saying something which actually happens to be prejudiced.

That’s because not acting or thinking in prejudicial ways is a process that evolves as we erode our own ignorance. You can be well-intentioned in your ideas and words, but that doesn’t always mean you don’t do or say anything that isn’t offensive to someone – particularly something you have zero exposure to or experience with.

This week sees one well-known punk musician coming out in a very public way over a matter which will put a lot of these issues to the test. Tom Gabel of the band Against Me! (yeah, they spell it with an exclamation mark) has a six page interview in this week’s Rolling Stone coming out as transgendered. She (Tom) will be changing her name to Laura Jane Grace and doing hormone therapy. She and her wife will remain together. It’s all over the internet already, so I won’t bother repeating all the same details that are available everywhere else.

The Unlikely Connection Between Punk Rock, Sobriety, and Eating Disorders

Currently Reading: Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Suzuki Roshi
Currently Listening: Minor Threat’s Complete Discography

Along with people being surprised that I used to have an eating disorder (“Really? You?”), I also get surprised reactions when I tell people I don’t drink.

“Really? Never?”

Nope. When I was 15, some of my friends started experimenting with drugs and sneaking downtown to parties to drink with older friends. I didn’t share their intrinsic interest in trying these things, but eventually went along and participated a few times because I was starting to feel left out. My lack of interest in substance use often translated into not being invited to hang out, because people knew I didn’t want to be around it.

After a few times giving it a shot, I decided I really had no desire to ever partake in any of it. I didn’t like not feeling like myself, and I didn’t like the way people acted when they were intoxicated. For a little while, this made me feel like an outcast. I think some of my friends felt judged by my decision, which wasn’t intentional but was sort of unavoidable.

Success & Failure

Currently Reading: The Body Project by Joan Jacobs Brumberg
Currently Listening: On The Impossible Past by The Menzingers

We don’t always reach our goals. Sometimes that’s because they weren’t realistic to begin with (I swear some day I’m going to keep my eyes open while sneezing) and sometimes it’s because things just didn’t work out.

Following my successful half marathon last November, I planned on running the spectacle that is Richmond’s Monument 10k. If you’re from RVA, you know the race well whether you run it or not, because if you aren’t participating in it, the 10k probably ruins any and every attempt to navigate the city until well into the afternoon.

Striking a Nerve

I ran across something really amazing on Tumblr last night that was originally posted by Andrew Sullivan and I really wanted to do a post about it. Rather than summarize it, I’ll just quote the whole thing:

You struck a nerve with this one, as I was just discussing this very thing a few weeks ago with a group of high-school freshmen in my English class. We were discussing homosexuality because of an allusion to it in the book we were reading, and several boys made comments such as, “That’s disgusting.” We got into the debate and eventually a boy admitted that he was terrified/disgusted when he was once sharing a taxi and the other male passenger made a pass at him.

The lightbulb went off. “Oh,” I said. “I get it. See, you are afraid, because for the first time in your life you have found yourself a victim of unwanted sexual advances by someone who has the physical ability to use force against you.” The boy nodded and shuddered visibly.

“But,” I continued. “As a woman, you learn to live with that from the time you are fourteen, and it never stops. We live with that fear every day of our lives. Every man walking through the parking garage the same time you are is either just a harmless stranger or a potential rapist. Every time.”

The girls in the room nodded, agreeing. The boys seemed genuinely shocked.

“So think about that the next time you hit on a girl. Maybe, like you in the taxi, she doesn’t actually want you to.”

It makes so much sense that I’m surprised it’s never been spoken with such clarity before now. Most of the men I’ve known who were homophobic were also more likely to engage in womanizing, catcalling, or other macho type stuff (although I realize that kind of behavior isn’t limited to the stereotypical frat boy). Turning the tables on that isn’t just about “eww that’s gross”, it runs way deeper than that.

The Great Somewhere Else

So, it’s been awhile since I posted. After the non-stop posts of February, I took a hiatus which ended up being a little longer than I planned. Thanks for your patience!

the past week I was riding along on tour with my friend’s band. I got the whole week off work and we had dates in DC, Philadelphia, and New York City. A number of unexpected problems the day before we left almost prevented us from even leaving town, but we were finally on the road Sunday afternoon and made it in time for the first show. Everything was going fine until the van broke down about 20 miles into Maryland. After a couple hours standing in the heat on an exit ramp and a couple more at a mechanic, there wasn’t any other choice but to try to get back to Richmond. They ended up renting a van to make it to the rest of their tour dates, but with all of the instruments there wasn’t room for non-essential people like myself.

Talk about a buzz kill. I had the whole week off work and didn’t really feel like going in, but I didn’t want to waste vacation time either. I ended up taking a day road tripping to visit a friend, and spent a lot of time with another friend who’s moving cross-country really soon, so it wasn’t a total waste.

Smash Your Scale (And Anything Else Holding You Back)!

Note: this post keeps things vague, but still references eating and weighing a lot. If that kind of thing is triggering, please take care of you and use your own discretion. Also, I’m on Tumblr now, so there are even more ways to stay up to date on posts!

Most people probably don’t realize this, but the avatar on my blog of the smashed scale isn’t some stock photo I found on the internet. It’s a picture of the actual scale I actually smashed seven years ago in the alley behind my first apartment while I was still in college – February 2005, to be exact.

Choice in the Present Moment

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I’ve been laying low and taking it easy.

There are a lot of things in our lives we don’t have control over. I’ve never really understood questions like, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” When it rains, it does so without regard to where it falls. Good and bad things happen to everyone, and I would debate whether or not we can rightly classify people as inherently ‘good’ or ‘bad’. We’re all just people, suffering and struggling in our own ways.

One of the biggest sources of suffering I’ve observed is the way we fight change. No, I’m not referring to my dislike of coins (Japanese currency is the worst, everything below a $5 bill is a coin!). I’m of course talking about changes in our lives that surprise, upset, or create difficulty. With the end of the year approaching, it seems an appropriate topic.

The passing of time and the transition from one moment to the next is perhaps the easiest change we can observe and is rather indisputable. You can sit in the same spot at the same time every day, doing the same thing, but no two moments are the same and you can’t revisit the past. The things that happen (or don’t happen) in given moment are subject to countless causes and effects of tons of things that we normally probably think have nothing to do with us.

That means there’s a whole lot going on that we don’t have any control over but could still have a profound effect on our lives (I recently watched Chaos Theory, a movie which illustrates this point rather well). The one thing we truly have control over is our choice in the present moment of how we respond to whatever comes our way. This includes our very own thoughts and feelings. We may not have control over what we think or feel, but we have a choice as to how we respond to those things.

For example, I seem plagued with technological difficulties. I know how to build computers and usually end up providing tech support to my friends and family, but sometimes no amount of care or knowledge can prevent them from crashing. Friendships and relationships can become damaged by gossip or misinformation that you didn’t even participate in. Sometimes we get our hearts broken.

These are all examples of change that we protest and resist. We suffer when we want our lives to be different than they are, or how we think they “should” be. We get attached to the idea of what we think we should be doing, who we think we should be. When reality doesn’t fall into line with our ideals, it’s a hard thing to accept. Maybe we beat ourselves up over it or take it out on other people. That doesn’t really get us any closer to making things into what we want them to be, though.

There’s nothing wrong with a period of mourning for the plans we had or the relationship we valued. The road trips we wanted to go on or the holidays we wanted to spend are now just ideas, memories of future events that won’t come to pass. Carrying these things around can make life seem difficult. But dwelling on them does nothing for our situation in the here-and-now present moment, and still we have a choice in how we respond and act.

All of this comes down to taking care of ourselves and making healthy choices, no matter the cards we’re dealt. 2011 is coming to an end, and it’ll never be here again. What will you do for yourself in the coming year, tomorrow, and in this very moment to take care of yourself?

I didn’t write this last part, but it fits well, so I’m borrowing it (thanks Kathleen!)

If you are someone struggling to eat consistently well, to nourish your body truly well, to stop exercising to work off food, to stop purging, to love your body, etc., PLEASE do every single thing you need to do to make that happen starting TODAY. It’s never too early to recover, but it can be too late –before you know it, it can be too late. …And I know no one ever thinks that they will be the next person to succumb to under-nutrition…but that thinking is often the reason people die. Realize that every day needs to be a healthy day. And if you need help, then reach out for it today. If you need to take yourself by the hand and lead yourself into healthy, then do it. Don’t wait.

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