Loving the Me I Used to Hate

This is a link to a very powerful video about body image and self acceptance

For those (probably very very few of you) who have never struggled with body image, please watch this video and learn what it is like to feel fearful, shameful, and even unlovable in your own skin.

And for those of you who DO struggle with body image; especially those who may read my (seemingly constant) posts about running and fitness and perhaps get discouraged -- please watch this video and if you shed some tears know I shed some too when I watched it. And know you are not alone.
I have struggled with self-acceptance and body image for most of my life. It is only in the past 7 years that I have learned to be OK in my own body...and it is NOT because I am thin and run a lot. I don't love my body because I am a runner. I am a runner because I love my body. And it has taken me a lifetime to appreciate the important difference between those two perspectives.
When I was in grade school, I was called 'skinny' and it was a negative term. People (family and friends and classmates alike) laughed because my belts were always so long the end of them wrapped around to my back belt loops. They laughed in the locker room and swim class because you could see my ribs and my knees were bony.
The summer between 6th and 7th grade I went to a football camp and learned how to workout and eat. But I really wasn't very good at it, so I only played (read: sat on the bench a lot and watched the acceptable people play) my 7th grade season. In 8th grade I ran cross country and at every. single. race. I was either last place or 2nd to last. Running was not fun, but I was trying to be acceptable; trying to make my body do what others' bodies could do. But I couldn't. So that was my last active sports season. I stopped working out. But I still remembered how to eat.
By late 8th grade I was no longer the skinny kid. I was the chubby kid; the fat kid that the Jocks and the Socs and the Hoods laughed at (and bullied) in the locker room and at school assemblies, etc. And I stayed that way all through high school. Aged 17, at 5'9" I graduated high school at just under 200#. By that time I had learned deeply the lesson that I was fat, and laughable, and my body was not OK.
In the Navy, in my 8 weeks of basic training, I lost 35# and at 165# I had learned my body could do things I never thought it could. That skinny was OK, and certainly better than fat. Or so I thought. Family and friends I hugged said I was too skinny, that I was bony and it was not OK. I should gain some weight.
I learned there is a narrow window between "too fat" and "too skinny" and the size of that margin is arbitrary, in constant flux, and the bottom line is my body is never "OK" the way it is.
My weight went up again as I went to various naval schools. Then down again just before I got married. Then up again after I got married. Then down again when I went to Jenny Craig. Then up again when I stopped following someone else's predetermined meal plans. Then down a little, and up a little more, yo-yo-ing over the years. By 2002 after my mom died I was 230# and a few months later tipped the scales at 250#. I hated my body and hated that I couldn't change. And I hated that others seemed to be able to control what they ate, and have svelt bodies that were acceptable and sexy and lovable.
In the fall of 2004 I went through something of a crisis of faith and came out the other side with a perspective I had not had since I was a little kid: I realized that I not only loved myself, I actually LIKED myself. Just. The way. I was.
Over the next 2 years I grew to understand that my body was not as physically healthy as it could be, and that is when learning to love it enough to make changes to protect and heal it became a priority. I tried a few things but nothing 'stuck'.
But then in the spring of 2008 at age 42, weighing around 220#, something just clicked inside me and I decided to start taking care of myself. I looked into eating for hunger (instead of all the other emotional reasons there are to eat). And as I lost a little weight I started walking. And as I started walking I added a little running. And as I lost more weight I added more running and learned that if I run slow enough to stay within my breath, I may not win any races but hey -- I can actually *enjoy* running!
So fast forward to today. I am 49, and am still 5' 9". I weigh around 165# and while many people see me as 'skinny' or 'thin' or 'in good shape' etc, what they don't know is I have man boobs, and loose skin folds. These are leftovers from when my body was 85# heavier. And since these are not medically concerning, I have decided there is no need for me to seek surgery just to make my body look different.
My man boobs and loose skin in my abdomen will never really go away. And I see those in the mirror every. single. day.
Some of the time I am able to look past them and look myself in the eye and love myself for who I am today, loose skin and all, with faults on the inside as well as the outside.

And sometimes when I look in the mirror I still see 'the fat kid'. And sometimes I look beyond that and see 'the skinny kid'. Either way I see a kid who is not happy with himself and wishes he could be something else so people would like him; so he could like himself.
I wish I could say that when I see 'the fat kid' or 'the skinny kid' I choose to feel love for that kid; that I choose to embrace him wholeheartedly and in that place of love and acceptance allow him the space to be who he is and feel love right there. And sometimes I do feel those things, and it is healing and wonderful.
But sometimes I just see a fat kid who feels unlovable, and I feel like an unlovable fat man.
And sometimes I see a skinny kid who feels unlovable and I feel like an unlovable skinny man.
And sometimes it still really hurts to not be svelt and muscular and toned. And in those painful moments, the fact that I can run marathons and ultramarathons and am 49 but have the metabolic fitness of a 34 yr old doesn't mean a thing because all I see is that I am not (and will never be) that unreachable ideal that I think I need to be to become acceptable; to be lovable.
So if you struggle with those same things, please know you are not alone.
I may not have the courage or the creativity to stand half-naked in a public place and allow people to mark my body -- but I can write from the heart and tell my own story here on my own blog.
I can tell you that it IS possible to come to the place were you love yourself and even like yourself. And sometimes when that happens, your body does begin to change, but not all at once. And even if and when the number on the scale or the body you see in the mirror becomes a more physically fit and healthful body, you know what? The ideal body you were chasing stays fleeting. So please, please, please: just learn to love yourself right here and right now. And let the rest come (whatever it looks like), if and when it ever does.
And like the video linked above, and like this blog post, please spread the word in your own way to let the world know that when courageous vulnerability is met with compassion and acceptance, something amazing can happen. It is called love.
Love yourself people. And love others. It really is that simple.
~ Keith

Strike, Shadow, Strike!

Because of my work as a Hospice Nurse I no longer recoil from death and dying as I once did. But so many people still do. A chief desire of mine is to help people overcome this fear and loathing. I want people to see past it; to look beneath it to see the humanity; the person. At that level, we can all relate and share a common understanding of just how precious life really is. This allows us to stop running away from ourselves and each other, and instead turn toward one another and really live; really love.

Recently I was struck by a quote from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, which really captures how I look at death these days.

Dickens sets the stage: Ebenezer Scrooge is with the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. He has been taken to a room which was very dark

"...too dark to be observed with any accuracy, though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience to a secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room it was. A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon the bed; and on it, plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept, uncared for, was the body of this man.

Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand was pointed to the head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted that the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger upon Scrooge's part, would have disclosed the face. He thought of it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to do it; but had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss the spectre at his side."

Here is Scrooge, unable to face death although he knew he wanted and needed to. And in that place of fear and hesitancy, he hears a voice. Dickens tells us "No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge's ears, and yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed."

"Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command: for this is thy dominion!

But of the loved, revered, and honoured head, thou canst not turn one hair to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released; it is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the hand was open, generous, and true; the heart brave, warm, and tender; and the pulse a man's.

Strike, Shadow, strike! And see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow the world with life immortal!"

Dickens wisely reminds us that if we love one another, revere & honor one another, then even in death the faces of our loved ones will not be dreadful or horrible. I've seen people gaze in wonder and awe at the face of a family member who has just died. The true worth and value of that person somehow becomes more understandably real than it ever was when they were alive. Part of missing someone is the realization that they meant far more to you than you ever knew...until they were gone. And this is good for us, because (if we let it) this experience opens a new space inside us to love more fully than we had before.

When someone dies and all we have left is their memory, this becomes a story we tell to ourselves and to others, and the next generation then remembers as well. It is like a seed falling to the earth and being buried: only in this way can that seed bring forth new life. And we, in the very act of dying, become the story that is told and changes the world around us.

The holidays are a very difficult time for many who have lost loved ones. We feel their loss more keenly when we see and experience the warmth of family and friends. This year may we all remember fondly our loved ones who are gone from our sight. Tell lots of stories and share memories of the bad and the good times of life lived together. And, in so doing, like Dickens we can taunt death; revile its seeming theft by acknowledging the way new life always has a way of springing up to the eternal.

Life and Love do win, my friends.

In the end Life and Love will always win.

~ Keith

Death's Sting is Fleeting and Weak

I find it hard to put into words the depths of feeling I'm experiencing right now. My long time-friend, mentor & spiritual example Mark Macallister took his own life earlier this month after a long battle with depression and chronic pain. He leaves behind his amazing wife Jody and two beautiful and wonderful kids, Levi & Bree. This picture shows their family together and at peace.

My heart hurts quite a bit right now due to the tragic, senseless and sudden loss of so bright a light as Mark shone to the world around. He was gregarious and compassionate and had friends in such a wide range of places I was almost always surprised when someone I knew said "Oh, Mark? Yeah, I've known Mark for years". He would never be the one to shine a light on himself, always demuring and deferring to others in a humility that was so natural and secure.

Mark exemplified to me the heart of love and care for others that is the best description of the word "Pastor" I know. It was primarily his influence in my life that opened to me the possibility of giving my life away to others in this pastoral way as well.

Living as followers of Jesus, Mark and I shared a hope that there is something beyond this life -- something which defies description although better men than me have certainly tried. I do take comfort in knowing Mark is "in a better place" although that rings so hollow in my ears because his current experience is so much richer than that little phrase could possibly convey, but also beacuse that little phrase sounds so trite and weak when placed against the pain of his loss to my heart.

I do also take comfort in knowing that death itslef was never supposed to be part of our story -- and so it will be done away with in the final analysis. And so I have a deep appreciation for John Donne's classic poem as well. I'd heard the opening line many times of course, but seeing "Wit" with Emma Thompson really galvanized within me an appreciation for the epochs-long wrestling match with death we humans have undergone.

Death be not Proud
By John Donne
1572-1631

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

Requiesact in pace Mark, until we meet again when death itself has been put away.

~ Keith