I've Got Bigger Fish to Fry Here than Fat

I had thought my second post would be all about the changes I need to make in my eating. Turns out there are bigger, more important, more-necessary changes than that staring me in the face during these first dark hours of 2010. The fact of the matter is that I need to change a whole lot more than the way I eat. The way I think, and consequently the way I act, has proven itself woefully inadequate in ways that hurt not only me, but the people I so much want to love.

So, mirror, show me what you see. You see a woman grieving because someone she loves is hurting and she can’t help—in fact she makes the pain worse. You see an angry woman who does not understand her own anger. How can she get mad at people for hurting? Why does their need or weakness or stupidity bring out harshness and hardness and that pound, pound, pounding that she can’t stop even when she knows it’s driving them away? Why does her need to be heard trump their need to be loved? Why can’t she just listen instead of trying so hard to make it all right again? It’s an obsession with correction.

And what is the desire to lose weight or to change my ways if not an obsession with correction? I’m mad at what’s wrong, and I want to force it to be right. But I don’t want to be mad and I definitely don’t want to admit that I’m mad, so I cover it up with wit or sarcasm or intellectualism or superiority or indifference and I walk away. Only problem is that I take myself with me. I can’t walk away from me.

I’m tired of being angry. I’m tired of pretending I’m not angry. I’m tired of hurting people by my anger. I’m tired of not knowing anything but anger. I’m tired of that tightness in my neck and between my eyebrows. When do I not feel something squeezing, clamping down in my head?

What’s the opposite of anger anyhow? Compassion? Empathy? Yes, I think so.

My first change of 2010, then, is this: I choose to put off anger and instead open my heart and mind to a spirit of compassion toward others and toward myself.



“When He saw the crowds, He felt compassion for them, because they were weary and worn out, like sheep without a shepherd.” Matthew 9:36