What's this all about? Part I: CRAVE

When I first started this blog, I had coined a phrase for myself.  It helped me reframe situations, and I named my blog for it.  I meant to build up some sense of my journey and connection, and then tell you about how I came up with the phrase.  My epiphany.  Give what you crave.  My twist on the Golden Rule.

It was a nice idea... but it was nearly two years ago.  I'm not sure I remember the story.  Either it wasn't such a stroke of genius that it left me with a lightning-bolt scar on my memory, or I have SO MANY fantastic ideas that it is a mere flicker in a city of lights.  Maybe we'll find out someday, but for now, I am taking my phrase apart to reveal what it's about (and maybe what I'm about, and maybe even what you're about).

Craving comes from a scarcity mentality.  I have been craving (food, attention, touch, intimacy, security) for most of my life.  I do have a modicum of self-control, but I didn't trust (a) myself with my desires, or (b) the universe to provide for me.  One way that I played that out was by developing a binge-eating disorder.  Associating cravings with bingeing is not a big leap, but I used food for so many years to keep my real feelings (and non-food cravings) in check, it took a long time to be able to recognize the subtleties of cravings.  I'm still in treatment, and it's still a process.

When I was craving food, or escape, or desperately trying to understand what was wrong with someone else that they weren't giving me what I craved emotionally, I started to ask myself what I was really craving.  There are all sorts of ways to get at true emotions, and for me, equating them with cravings made them something I could relate to.  Craving?  I know all about craving.

In middle school, I would crave a particular food-- a chocolate malt, or a banana split-- and the feeling of needing to have it would overwhelm me.  I would whine and carry on.  Sometimes I got what I wanted, sometimes I didn't.  Not only that, the Perfectionist was at work.  She knew exactly what constituted the perfect banana split, and if a sauce ended up on the wrong scoop of ice cream or there was only half a cherry instead of three whole cherries, with stems, one on each scoop, the Perfectionist was disappointed.  It's easy to see, now, that I was setting myself up for failure, but I didn't know.  I didn't even know the word "perfectionist" until my eighth grade English teacher took me out in the hall to let me cry away from my peers.  I had gotten a zero on my poem about cucumbers.  I was overwhelmed, and when he used the word "perfectionist," I knew it was right on-- and it also felt like the right thing to be.  What else could I be?

These are episodes in my life story where my cravings culminate in binges.

BINGE

Because I'm Not Good Enough

Finding out what I really crave, and reminding myself that I am good enough to get it, or that I deserve it even if I don't get it, has been the crux of, well, years of therapy.  Every craving came from a sense of lack.  The switch flipped for me when I found that if I could identify what I was craving, even if I felt that I had nothing to give, I could give the littlest bit of it.  If I could give it, that meant it existed, and it (I) was enough.  Cue the music ("Constant Craving," of course).

Come back for Part II, the "give" part of Give What You Crave.

Why I'm going from 0 to 60 as a blogger

Perhaps my "why" is that I'm an April fool.   I am joining the Ultimate Blog Challenge and plan to post EVERY DAY this month.  My last post was last August and my blog seems never to have gotten off the ground. Of course, then I went and started another one.  So the idea of adding a daily blog post to my already busy life when I've never had any consistency with it would appear to be setting myself up for failure.  This after my last post was my definition of SUCCESS.



I have a lot of whys between August and April.  Some answer the question, why commit to this? others answer why now? and still others answer why blog in the first place?  I'm going to let them all live together in this post.

• I appreciate the value of making commitments
• One commitment I made was to "dialectical abstinence" as part of a DBT therapy group
• I used my unique love of acronyms to reduce my anxiety around planning (this allowed my to make better commitments to myself)
• I developed habits of prioritizing 3 actions a day and letting the rest go
• I value community and actively seek it
• DBT therapy group
• Real Love in Marriage self-help/support group
• Make Today Matter lifetime member
• Wendy Joy Hart's Procrastination Cure Club
• Intentional interactions with friends and family
• I am really appreciating the idea of practicing habits
• Training myself to move forward even if I don't have it all figured out yet
• Since January first, I've added habits & sharpened skills
• Decision-making
• Prioritizing
• Setting an intention, following through
• Positive self-talk
• I have brought some other long-standing habits out of hibernation
• Practicing TM
• Writing in a gratitude journal
• Sometimes I need a gimmick to get something done
• I took an online course about writing a home-based business plan
• I severed some attachment to needing approval
• I got some approval and support when I made it clear I needed it
• I reduced hours at my job, not to blog instead of work, but to focus on eating disorder recovery and get systems in place for my family to better navigate our busy lives
• A side effect of the reduction and refocus is that I can choose more things that are for ME, such as telling my tale bloggily
• I get to have a hobby that is not just escape, but true renewal (yeah, I still escape... Scramble With Friends, anyone?)
• It says "Give your blog a boost!" and Hello! My blog needs a boost!
• I liked Michelle Schaeffer's emphasis on results being motivating.  I bought into the idea that maybe if I blog every day for a month I will see results instead of dawdling forever.
• I wanted an excuse to be on my computer
• I love a challenge
• I am impulsive 

There you go!  From zero to sixty on April first.  Let's see what speed I can maintain and what that means for speeds in other areas of my life.

Emily's definition of SUCCESS

SUCCESS

Sing Unabashedly, Creating a Conscious, Effective Story of Self

Sing 

Unabashedly, 

Creating a 

Conscious, 

Effective 

Story of 

Self

This "backronym" illustrates my idea of what fully inhabiting my Self would look like.  "Sing" does not have to be literal; I do like to sing, but "singing my song" is expressing my authentic self.  Success could have many definitions, but all of them amount to telling one's own story.  "Creating" indicates my active involvement in that story (not a victim of what happens to me).  The story needs to be conscious (aware, intentional, appreciative) and effective (if I don't like what my story is doing for me, I need to tell myself a different story).  S.U.C.C.E.S.S.

I originally submitted this definition to Abundance Tapestry.  She had asked for a definition of success, and my favorite game to play these days is to make up affirmations from names and words.  I've decided I love this one so much, I will repeat it to myself for the rest of the week.  I am telling myself what I need to hear.  You might notice how well this definition goes with my vision.  I have a theme song, too, but you'll have to hang tight until I'm ready to sing it for you.

Molting

When a spider molts its exoskeleton, it is vulnerable.  It has to pull its fresh legs very slowly out of its old, hard shells of legs.  If it pulls a leg up too fast, it could tear the leg, leaving it behind in the old exoskeleton.

I know this cool stuff from reading with a six-year-old when I was babysitting earlier this summer.

I started this blog over a year ago when I my spidey senses told me I had outgrown my old exoskeleton.  I had a new, soft one underneath, but I had to ever-so-slowly extract myself from it.  I have had to slowly pull my big ol' sausage thighs out of those painted-on jeans.  So slowly.  Sometime I needed to stop and rest and just hope no predator came by to find me.

So I haven't written since February, because my exoskeleton needed to harden first.  I sure have been working and growing in all that time, though.  It took starting a new blog to come back and post in this one.

I crack me up.  I never guessed that my journey through authentic life life would make me into an arachnid.

Oh what a tangled web we weave,

When first we practise to deceive!

Sir Walter Scott, Marmion, Canto vi. Stanza 17.

Scottish author & novelist (1771 - 1832)

Oh what a tangled web I weave,

When I must of my skeleton take leave!

Me, Em

One Day My Trout Bum Soul Just Opened Up

Bathroom Reading

My son (age 12) commented that a person could learn a lot about my husband and me by looking at the two books we left perched on the edge of the bathtub this past week.  The young man is ever-so-perceptive.  Even if you couldn't read English, you could judge us by our book covers: mine brightly colored, patterned, effusive, full of symbols, and drawing your eyes toward movement, and his muted but intense, earthy, quietly beautiful and amusing, slower.  When I found my husband, one family member comments that he was good to keep me "grounded," because I had my head in the clouds.  On good days, he is my anchor and keeps me safe; on bad days, I feel weighed down by him.

I said to our son, "You know, Papa's book is about his soul, too."  He thought I was taking issue with the point he had made and quickly lost interest in the subject.  I will explain to you instead, using words from each book.  I alternated and in each case opened randomly and counted down to the tenth sentence on the page.

When you give of yourself for the sake of love, the impersonal, immutable, perfect laws of the universe demand that you must be rewarded tenfold.  On the other hand, it would be a tool that was lovingly and carefully crafted by an artisan of legendary skill for the sole purpose of catching trout.  All that I do, I do for myself.  I consider this one to be a local artifact of considerable significance, and I show it off every chance I get.  You must be strong in order to be compassionate.  The band notched comfortably against the worn spot on the foot of the reel-- so it was the one.

Well, now, if you know what that meant, you know he and I belong together.  If you don't know what that meant, but you like it anyway, then you're like me, at least a little bit.    If you don't know, and don't care, you might be my husband reading my blog for the first time, and you might give me a confused hug anyway.

        

Vision

I fully and enthusiastically inhabit Life through willing expression of my authentic self. 

I fill the world with joy through creative dynamism, sharing, love, brainstorming, imagination, and artistic presence. 

I sing my song, dance my dance, tell my tale, and celebrate.

There will be more, but I just need to break my silence and put my intention out there.  You are welcome to  tag along and see where I go with this, and it is not my intention to make you wait another 4 months for that.

Happy birthday to me!

"This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it."  Psalm 118:24

Some days are easier to rejoice in than others; today is an easy one for me.  I have always enjoyed my birthday.  I love having a day that's about celebrating my very existence.  I don't think it's selfish.  In order to celebrate myself, I have to appreciate life.  To feel truly celebratory for my incarnation, I need a keen awareness of all of reality, and to choose the good despite the bad.  I am overflowing with gratitude, and it is spilling out as joy.

Today I am in a fabulous mood.   I feel loved.  I am enjoying Facebook and email greetings.  My spouse and kids have the day off, and I woke earlier and got out of the house without having to shoo anyone else along.  I am giving myself a mini-retreat at Starbucks before breakfast.  I am cozy in a purple cable-knit sweater for GLAAD spirit day.  I am thinking about but not worrying about 99% and 53% and all that jazz.  I am loving my friends and counting my blessings.  

I haven't been writing in this blog, and I think I know why.  I blog when I feel secure-- and when I have time.  If I am too busy to blog, I might be cramming too much in.  If all of my writing is happening in my journals or emails, then I must not be ready to share it with the world.  When I am feeling good enough to be authentic AND public, I can blog.  Of course, that means only certain things are shared.  I will experiment for the next month by checking in with myself about Giving what I Crave.  If I am up to posting, I will.  If not, I will consider that a gauge of my self-care and see what I can do differently.

Here's another thing: I keep wanting to control the direction of my blog when it's not meant to be a polished product.  I imagine each post as a collage element about myself and my journey, building up slowly, positioning, rearranging, gluing, and then at some point you will start to see the picture and I will be ready to disclose what Give What You Crave is all about.  The deal is, it's the other way around.  There is already a picture, I am just focusing on different bits at a time, and adding to it.  I don't need to structure it because it will structure itself.  Trying to order things has prevented me from showing you the artwork of my life.  Today I am committing to trusting in the infinite organizing power of the universe, and I am sharing today's corner of the collage with you.

A dear person in my life who is also a reader of my blog, told me my blog is different from most kinds she reads.  I like that.  I have seen all kinds of blogs so I feel like there is nothing new.  But I am increasingly aware that everyone has stories and everyone needs to tell their story.  It pleases me to tell my stories, to my family, friends, and anonymous others.  I don't need to do it in order to fabricate a sense of identity or importance, just as I don't need birthday greetings to celebrate life.  But it helps.