Three Stories - the makeover

I am travelling at the moment and it is hard to post, here is something, I prepared earlier. At a writing course a few years ago, I wrote the following piece. The prompt was to weave 3 stories with a common theme. My theme was the makeover..

Gently I lowered the door of the oven. For weeks now we had been propping it closed with a broom. It was impossible to estimate how long it would take to cook a cake or a roast. The seal had gone and the hinges were rickety and now as I gingerly opened the door to check the dinner, it fell to the floor. Now we really had to do something about this kitchen.

 

It was a quiet day in the city. Bruce and I walked arm in arm. I glanced towards the shop window and momentarily confused I wondered who owned that incredibly fat stomach. “Must be Bruce”, I thought. “Oh my God, it’s me!” Now I really had to do something about my weight.

 

His face was contorted with rage and sadness. “You are impossible to live with, he said, I’m drowning in a toxic hell.” The barb sunk in. It wasn’t just about us. It really was me. I feel so hurt and angry and unlovable all the time. Now I had to do something about me.

 

The drawing was on the kitchen table; our friend Jon was sketching his ideas on a piece of paper. “You should block up these windows, take out this wall and reorient the kitchen completely." Yes, it makes so much sense. I could visualise the change. It would be a much more usable space.

 

I bought the book. The one that said you can change your body by eating healthy, vegetarian food, cutting out alcohol, coffee, dairy and wheat. I liked what I read. The book appealed. I had a plan that provided the map. I knew I could do this.

 

The Process promised a huge change. Commit yourself for 8 days and you will deal with years of negative patterns and behaviours. Research showed this program had lasting results. If I was going to do the work, I wanted to know this was the one.

 

The night before they demolished the old kitchen, I lay awake all night. We live in a two storey house. Our bedroom is upstairs. Would they do it properly? What if something collapsed while they were ripping out the downstairs. The makeshift kitchen was in the laundry and every room was full of stuff.

 

Giving up coffee was the hardest. The headache thumped inside my brain for days. I drank copious amounts of water and waited for the poison to leave my system. The five o’clock signal for my daily wine was hard work. An argument raged in my head.. Yes/ No, Don’t be a wimp / You deserve it – its OK / Think of the long term / Come on I need a reward.

 

Walking in the door of the retreat, I was terrified. Turn off your mobile phone and say good bye to the outside world. Eight days without contact. How will they cope without me? What will they do if there’s a crisis? Can I really devote eight days to working on me?

 

After one month, we still have a gaping hole where the new kitchen would be. Boards were nailed in place each night to cover the space. Our barbecue is balanced on two planks and is our new portable kitchen. We wok our vegetables on a little gas ring and barbecue the meat. One month, 30 days; the adventure, the novelty still held promise and hope.

 

One month into the diet and I was noticing the difference. Each morning I stepped on the scales and gram by gram my weight was coming off. Caffeine-free, alcohol-free, dairy-free and wheat-free; I felt virtuous, excited and energised.

 

One day into the Process and I had cried buckets. Volker had asked me so gently, “Tell me about your pain.” Tears welled up. I was so relieved to unburden myself. “I feel so unlovable. I feel as though there is a hole where love should be and I don’t know how to fill it.”

 

Two months on and the kitchen is taking shape. Our little camping adventure is wearing thin. The kitchen / laundry is cramped and hard to keep clean. Dust layers every surface. Every morning work men arrive at 7am and make my house their building space. As I rush out the door, it seems there are another 5 decisions to be made. How long will it take to have my house back?

 

Three months on and people notice my new look. I constantly have to hitch my jeans as they slip over my thinner hips. The endless restrictions are becoming tiring. I enviously eye the frothy cappuccinos at our local café and admire the new wines on show at the cellar. The boys are complaining that the menu is getting boring. I wonder how much longer I’ll stick to this regime?

 

Seven days into the retreat and I have broken through the surface. I am coming up for air. I can feel the tensions and hurts melting away. Love is seeping back into my soul and tenderness is growing in places where pain used to be. I want to luxuriate in this and stay cocooned in this protected world forever. I wonder how I will be in the real world?

 

Three years on and the kitchen is the hub of our house. We welcome guests, share feasts, celebrations and close times. We have opened our house to let the light and garden fill the space and brought people into our lives.

 

Three years on it is time to lose more weight. I dropped 16 kilos the last time and kept it off. I knew I hadn’t lost all I needed to lose. I took a breather and now I see I want to do more. I look out at the possibility of being a lighter and fitter me.

 

Three months on and I am back in my real world. While the pain has been cauterised and seeds of love sown, I see light at the end of this tunnel and the journey to fill my soul with love has begun.

At the heart of the banksia Nov 2011

On being self conscious

A couple of years ago, I had to give a 3 minute speech at a leadership workshop on "something I was passionate about/ had taught me a lesson / gave me insight". Here is what I said..

Imagine this -a nine year old girl in pink flannelette pyjamas. She wraps her bath towel around her head and fashions it into beautiful hair. She sashays down the hallway. "Hey I’m Ginger", she says "from Gilligan’s Island".
 

That was me at the age of nine. We hadn’t had TV very long but I had decided that I wanted to be an actress, a star of TV, stage and screen. 

 

At the end of my schooling, I told my career counsellor, I either wanted to be an actress or a social worker. Well, you can guess where she pointed me. My career highlight of playing Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night somehow hadn’t convinced her of my undeniable acting talent. 

Throughout Uni, I chose all the drama electives and produced and played in the Uni Revues but still those voices in my head kept saying – "it’s not a proper job, you aren’t really good enough, you’ll be waiting tables more than acting so…"
 

I said good bye to my favourite character parts like Petunia Dell Arte in the Uni Revue and my clown persona called Certain. I wrapped my secret ambition in tissue paper and packed it away in my closet of Secret Dreams.
 

I then embarked on my cerebral journey though Social Work, Management and Business.
 

Many years later during the Hoffman Process, when the participants were invited to give me feedback, one man said “You should do acting. You are so interesting to watch. You have to do this now”.
 

My jaw dropped. I hadn’t mentioned acting once. How had he seen into my Closet of Secret Dreams. Buoyed by this information, my heart lifted and a little voice in my head said "It is time to take out my secret ambition and dust it off thirty years after it had been carefully put away".
 

I searched the Internet and found a class – perfect location, perfect time and unbelievably called “The Truth Masterclass” How "Hoffy" I thought. I may have forgotten my acting skills but I had sure been working on my truth.
 

We started working with techniques developed by Sanford Meisner. He says that Acting is behaving truthfully within imagined circumstance”. "This will be a cinch", I thought as I took to the stage for the first time. My Dark Side reared its ugly head and suddenly self consciousness, competitiveness and fear of failure gripped and paralysed me. My heart pounded in my chest, my mouth became dry and sticky. I froze and I failed. I went home and sobbed.
 

Meisner says that self consciousness is the single most destructive force against actors. He says the way to overcome this is to focus on the other actor. When you stop focusing on yourself, you get in touch with your inner truth.
 

The next week I picked myself up and went back again. Realising that this is just another step in my ongoing process of self awareness.- peeling off another layer of patterns to reveal the diamond within….

Now as I take my first tentative steps into the blogging world, I notice I am again self conscious, afraid of failure and letting my fear get in my way. Taking Meisner's view and turning it on its head, maybe in blogging overcoming self consciousness is about tuning into yourself, finding your inner truth and concentrating on that place and forgetting about other bloggers and the audience's reaction, or is it?

Protea petal fuzz September 2012

10 things I have learned

10 things I believed in my twenties

1. I can manage my weight; I may get a little overweight but I'll never get really fat; that is impossible.

2. I doesn't matter if I drink too much, eat what I like and smoke cigarettes;  Alcohol, food and cigarettes calm me down and make me feel better.

3. I am unloveable; I am always attracted to men who don't feel the same way about me.

4. I will never have an "only child"; It is just not right, it isn't normal.

5. I am ambitious; I will have an amazing career and be well known for my professional ability.

6. I am not an exercise fanatic; Sometimes, I throw myself into exercise but I can just as easily choose to be a sloth.

7. I am different; I will never turn out like my mother or father. They are so different to how I imagine myself in the future.

8. I am creative; I am and always will be creative and have this as part of my life. I love performing, I take awesome photographs, I make my own clothes, I will be amazing.

9. I am a city girl; I grew up in a small country town. I never want to live in the country, it is so boring.

10. I will always feel scared and worthless; On the outside, I am confident but underneath this is who I really am.

Twenties and fifties

10 things I know in my fifties

1. I have a healthy attitude to food and exercise and can stay a healthy weight. But it wasn't always so. I was obese when I was at my heaviest. I have lost 36kg since my fattest stage. Now I know I need be mindful and pay attention to the connection between food and exercise and weight.

2. Self soothing with alcohol, food and cigarettes makes me feel worse in the long run. From an emotional over-eater and drinker, I have only recently realised that a walk or meditation is so much more long lasting (and healthier) though I still break out from time to time when I feel overwhelmed.

3. My husband is my best friend; he is generous and loving, (as well as annoying and frustrating) but we share similar interests and care passionately (mostly) about the same things. This is what counts in a relationship.

4. I had one child because I thought a career was more important to me. Many people wished we had more children. I had serious regrets about this in my forties and only recently forgave myself for my choice. I have a wonderful (twenty-two year old) son. I cherish him dearly.

5. My career path took several unexpected turns. I didn't end up heading a government department as I imagined but rather ran a successful business with my husband. We lived together, worked together and often disagreed together and (yes we did) survive together.

6. I love exercise. Now I can't imagine a day without doing some strenuous activity. I love the feeling when I have worked out. About 5 years ago, a walk around the block felt too strenuous.

7. I have my mother's and father's best and worst characteristics and I am working on making the most of the best and the least of the worst..I love them both but still pull myself up hard when I hear myself speak or see myself behave like one of them.

8. I am creative but I have to make time to ensure I don't let it slip into the background. I love making art and photography. It is too easy for me to undervalue my creativity and let it slip.

9. My heart is in the country and this is where I feel most alive. I love country music. I am at peace when surrounded by nature. I yearn for a life where I can have the best of the country and the city where I live.

10. I am worthy, loveable and significant. Five years ago, I did the Hoffman Process and completely re-engineered my feelings of self worth. I moved from being an angry and unhappy critic to a (mostly) loving and (mostly) forgiving woman. My dips into self regret and misery are spaced further and further apart.. Hooray!