I DID IT

I like a good challenge. Not one that competes with others- that has never been a driver for me, but one that is self-competitive where I can challenge past behavior and attempt growth and change. Growing up with women who were constantly “dieting” and body shaming, food and body image have certainly been a work in progress for me. I continue to slash through old triggers revisiting buttons and habits that do not serve my health in its entirety. Learning about belief systems in my early twenties from two of my many mentors, Susan Fox and Barbara Ganim, pioneers in the expressive arts movement, challenged a thought process for me I had never considered and surely never learned in traditional school. Belief systems should be called ‘auto thinking.’ I am fascinated about the way I think, the way thinking happens in general. Why do we believe what we do, where do the thoughts come from? How do they land in our brains and believe what they believe? “Don’t stand in front of the refrigerator with the door open.” “Put a coat on, you’ll catch a cold.” “That’s not very lady like.” This is an oversimplified list and a relatively mellow one compared to more dangerous ones, but the list is endless. Sentences we spew without consideration if we really believe them or if we are just mimicking phrases we heard as children without question or consideration.

The way I have approached food, diet, body shape, physical fitness, alcohol consumption, and shopping are hot buttons that come to my literal mind as I have tried to understand what makes me tick. Why do I even have to think about all of this in my daily existence? Why can’t I just be normal and what is normal anyway? I exhaust myself sometimes in my overthinking and trying to understand why some of these things consume me.

It mostly boils down to belief systems. Food, drinking too much wine and shopping are the trifecta hole filling I have struggled with for most of my life and I have written about it endlessly it seems as I reflect back in almost a year of almost daily writing. What hole am I trying to fill anyway? I feel peaceful and calm in my daily existence, actually satisfied with my life in a way I have never felt as much as I feel now. I am my own human science project as I am on a ceaseless quest to understand why I struggle to find a balance with not opening floodgates by allowing myself the one glass of wine or the one piece of chocolate. I have said things in the past like “I have an addictive personality.” This in itself is a belief system as it affirms the actual trait I am trying to change. The irony! The self-talk that shows up unasked seemingly without choice astounds me. Are these thought patterns a physical demand, are they purely emotional, is it cellular? I don’t know the science, but I do know that when I make changes, I am one step closer to the freedoms that come with them.

So giving up sugar and drinking becomes a regular challenge for me as I strive for perpetual mental clarity and I know these two major influencers completely fuck with decision making and the way I think a few days later. I have tested the consumptions and removals of these and the effects of it on myself like a mouse in a science lab and have been astounded by the implications on my thoughts.

What has been most interesting to me is when I make the decision to dive in because “I have been good.” “I have to live.” “It is my birthday.” “No one gets out alive anyway.” Within three days and not the first two days after, but the third day after, this is when the emotional rollercoaster starts its slide downward and not in a fun way. My mind goes into old thinking. I question past decisions; as a matter of fact, I tend to head into the past rather than the forward thinking where I usually reside. I look in the mirror and see width and bloat rather than health and good fortune. I start looking at cars and scrolling amazon prime with a vengeance. It is self sabotage 101 as I stroll down the throw cares to the wind and live with wild abandon because fuck it, I had breast cancer or whatever other tag line I so easily come up with to rationalize a behavior that I know is going to sideline me, but do it anyway.

So when I read the article by Ann Patchett in a December NYT about her giving up shopping for a year, about an actual movement to take a look at our massive consumerism and actually stop the madness, it grabbed my attention. Shopping and spending money have always been huge triggers for me and actually the threesome of sugar, alcohol consumption and shopping are completely connected as I have learned from my own personal experimenting. It is no accident that in my intense desire for “de-nesting,” (my own new word) as I have tried to reduce and remove every single peripheral item that no longer serves my energy, I have had to face head on my shopping. My friend Karen’s husband made a funny comment about me getting rid of all of this stuff and then just going shopping and filling it up again. The daily morning conversation I had with my aunt brought up the topic of the infamous hole we are trying to, needing to, absent mindlessly trying to fill.

Removing the layers of eating, drinking and shopping reveals the hole left. One pushes and nudges the other. Not shopping, not drinking this past month, pushed me into the sugar consumption corner. Ironically, eating too much sugar makes me want to shop, but I didn’t. I allowed the awareness of it all. What I noticed is how much these three hot buttons are directly connected to my mother. And it is no accident that my relationship or lack there of for a good chunk of my life would of course create a maternal hole obviously filling it with the three things that most connect me with the warm and fuzzies of my memories with her. Removing, stripping myself of these comfort zones revealed a wide eyed opportunity to take a good look at why I automatically go to fill them instead of digging deep and seeing what lies at the bottom of the hole. Is it a treasure chest? Is it a never ending blackness that goes beyond whatever is humanly possible to get past? Often it is the pain we most run from, why would we want to jump head first into a dark hole with the unknown staring back? This has all been an exercise for me in raw vulnerability and continuing to work on myself because this is something I really enjoy. Inner growth, maturation, jumping in and out and back in again.

The unveiling of myself with a double mastectomy brought me to a naked truth and I have really enjoyed what I have chosen to learn. Yes it would be a lot easier to give myself a break and eat drink and be merry, but that is only fun when the end result allows a good feeling inside. Unfortunately, this hasn’t been the end result when I have chosen these cover ups in the past.

Spending one month of no shopping unless it was on a predetermined list (and no the predetermined list did not include lululemon, but it did include budgeted groceries, and the movies, beauty services, after all, I am who I am). This month has been an exercise of deep awareness of how much time I have used previously not only just shopping but actually thinking about shopping. What I was also struck by this month was that every day I woke up, I had the same amount in my checking account that I had the day before. This reads funny, but twenty dollars here, ten there, fifty at the impromptu drinks out, and before I knew it, I spent a few hundred dollars in a few days.

Not shopping made me go to the library and check out a book. Actually walking to the library and having a conversation with the librarian so she could remind me how to check out a book online, just like Amazon but without the bill later. It made me call some friends who I may run to Garden City with to browse and ask them to go for a walk instead. Not shopping made me pause and think before I hit the “buy now” button and made me repair clothing items rather than replace them with brand new ones. Midway through the month I decided to return a few things that I had previously purchased and still had the tags on them, it was like bonus money. It made me use up yoga passes and credits that I had when I lacked thought and just bought. This experiment made me revisit my itunes music family plans, my cable bills and memberships that come with those because I signed up for 7 day trials and forgot to unsubscribe. I spent time figuring out ways to recycle my technology that between my two businesses my life had amassed ten ipods, 2 ipads and 4 iphone4’s. I thought when I went to the Apple store, security was going to do a scan on me to be sure I wasn’t trying to rid myself of stolen items. I was almost as embarrassed as if I had pulled out rolled coin to pay for groceries.

I used gift cards up that I forgot I had. I had time on my hands so I actually found myself reading the paper cover to cover and putting music on and listening to its sound. I read more and watched tv less. I actually poured a cup of tea and sat down on my chair and just drank the cup of tea. I didn’t look at my phone or the paper, but just sat and held the tea and sipped it. I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t multitasking. I cooked what I had in my pantry developing recipes from existing ingredients and was elated at what I came up with. Who needs Blue Apron when I have the pantry of alayne white. I used up products before buying more. I didn’t set my sites on a year of no shopping. I decided to try one month and see if I could handle it. Not only did I handle it and survive, I am alive and well and can’t wait to go another round.