I know, I’ve been one of them. I come from a family of body-obsessed dieters. I cannot even recall when I first began to diet with my Mother, but I’m sure I didn’t need to lose weight when I did it. As adolescence hit I hated my changing body and the attention it got. Once I went away to college I put on more weight. I kept putting it on until my early 30s, I felt more comfortable in my large body.

When I was diagnosed with Degenerative Disc Disease one of the first things I was told to consider was weight loss. At the time I was also receiving news that I had very high cholesterol and I’m from a family where heart disease and strokes mortally affect the women. So I set about to lose weight like I was told to.

At first it was easy, I had decided to become vegan as part of both my yoga practice, particularly when I became a teacher and wanted to find ways to really live my practice, and my deepening practice in a Buddhist community. That dietary change had dramatic, entirely unexpected, benefits to my health. My cholesterol dropped by over 100 points and the ratios were now ideal. My allergies improved noticeably and I stopped having sinus infections, leading to lung infections, multiple times a year. I lost 100 pounds with ease.

My back pain didn’t improve.

Then it stopped being easy and I really wanted to get back down to a size I was when I was at 18. At time point my physician wasn’t encouraging weight loss any longer, my change was profound and more than hoped for. I was the one who kept pushing, falling prey to the constant dieting I’d done throughout adolescence. When the loss slowed down I turned it into a project.

I used multiple websites, and eventually apps for my phone as well, to meticulously track every calorie in and out in my day. I rigorously kept under 1500 calories a day while pursuing an increasingly vigorous yoga practice. After two years in that mode I’d lost 50 more pounds and was down to a Size 8. I’d made it.

My back pain never was changed by weight loss. Yoga remains the single most beneficial tool in managing my pain.

In the past 10 years since I made that goal I’ve regained 40 pounds. Given that most people gain back all of what they lost and more, I’ve done really well. I’m about the size I was when I left college, Size 14.

This January came around and I felt the siren song of weight loss. I could do it again. I have bins of too small clothing I’m saving for when I drop that weight again. I could devote most of my free time to obsessively tracking calories again, becoming an internal bully to not eat more calories than I am “allowed”, and constantly avoiding social engagements where people might comment on my not eating. I can turn it into a project and do it again, “It is only 40 pounds this time!!”, sings the song.

A lot has changed though. In becoming an Integrated Movement Therapist I’ve become devoted to helping people cultivate friendship with their bodies. I interrupt my students fixating on weight and body size as being linked to actual health, reminding them that healthy has a variety of shapes and sizes.

It really hit me this January that I simply cannot tell my students that weight is not an indicator of health when I am spending all my time obsessing over calories and how to push myself to lose those 40 pounds again. While I can teach postures I cannot do myself, I cannot teach people to see themselves and whole and complete, just as they are, when I’m bullying myself into weight loss.

My body has seen me through some truly hellacious experiences. Despite being in chronic pain, my body moves me trough teaching 5-6 days a week. I have to be careful. mindful of my body more now, approaching 50 years of age and having lived in chronic pain for 18 years, but my body still supports me doing so many things. So this year, for the first time in decades, I’m resolving to love and appreciate my body, just as it is.

My body isn’t a problem, it isn’t a project to be managed and solved.

The focus on generosity as an act of material giving leaves out a variety of opportunities to practice generosity. We can be generous with our time, from volunteering our time to taking a moment to listen to a friend who needs a kind ear. We can be generous when we choose to be compassionate and patient instead of giving into frustration when we deal with irritations we run into from day-to-day. We can choose to treat ourselves with kindness instead of listening to negative self-judgement.

This month, I’m particularly getting to practice with that last one as I address some long overdue dental work. I’ve had some pretty terrible experiences with dentists in the past, including being repeatedly shamed for having anxiety. I also have an intersection of childhood trauma and dental work that makes the having dental treatment tremendously difficult for me. At the beginning of the month I had the whole 3.5 hour experience of having full x-rays taken, major cleaning, and an exam. It was exhausting and my tender gums are still not wanting anything crunchy in my mouth.

After that, relatively endurable experience, and in order to really maximize the meager dental insurance benefit I have, I scheduled two crowns to be done the week before Christmas. That turned into a root canal, my first ever, followed by the crown later in the week. This means I’ve another crown, the dentist suspects a second root canal too, to plan in 2018. I also have a tooth with what look like an unusual, in that it is in a straight line, pattern of decay, that will be evaluated in mid-January by a specialist as it may well need removal and an implant. I’m trying to take this in stride and be both vocal, consistent, and transparent with my new oral care-providers; making sure they know exactly how I am doing with appointments, during and afterward, and just how severe my dental anxiety is, and why.

With this added load of anxiety this month I’ve been focusing on keeping my energy up so I can teach my classes and connect with people I love. While teaching is tiring, it helps me to feel grounded and balanced; connecting with my students and clients truly lifts my spirits as well. I’m continuing to practice telling people I’m grateful instead of apologizing for what I see as personal failings, something I wrote about last month. I’m using my mindfulness practice to catch when anxiety is steering me into the dangerous shoals of negative self-judgement and shame, instead finding what might soothe my energy in that moment. I’m taking anxiety medication without getting caught up on some idea that I should be better at all this already; accepting that not everything can be “yoga’d” away, yet.

On Christmas Eve a storm arrived in the morning and we spent the day watching ice form on the plants and roads. We hunkered down, made lasagna together, and enjoyed one another’s company. We’re starting to invite people over again, but also keeping things a little smaller and more simple. Our New Year’s Eve was spent having dinner together and trying to stay up until midnight. We danced with the dogs wth the music on loud, so as to drown out the fireworks people were setting off, then went to bed.

Looking forward to exploring more posts, more pictures of yoga, and podcasts in the coming year. I’ll personally be making more art and committing to the hard work to dismantle the shame I have around money and my body.

Meaning: benevolence, friendliness, amity, kindness, good-will, and an active interest in the well-being of others.

Metta is considered one of the sublime attitudes of an enlightened being, the first of the Four Immeasurables, Brahmavihāras (“Divine Abodes”), which also include: compassion (Karuṇā), empathetic joy (Muditā), and equanimity (Upekkhā). While Metta meditation practice is often associated in Buddhist communities, the first mention of practicing with kindness appears in the Chandogya Upanishad, one of the oldest of the Upanishads, found within the Samaveda.

Further, the Brahmavihāras also appear in The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali as a guide on relationships with others:

*1.33 In relationships, the mind becomes purified by cultivating feelings of friendliness towards those who are happy, compassion for those who are suffering, goodwill towards those who are virtuous, and indifference or neutrality towards those we perceive as wicked or evil.

(maitri karuna mudita upekshanam sukha duhka punya apunya vishayanam bhavanatah chitta prasadanam)

Metta Meditation has been a part of my practice for many years. It helps me to settle anxiety, calm busy thoughts, and ease the times I find myself caught up in negative self-judgement. Metta is a perfect response when I feel helpless to help in a situation; when I cannot assist directly I can at least send loving-kindness to those suffering. When Chozen Bays, Roshi, was still my teacher she would say that Metta is the only tool you need in any situation.

Metta meditation practice is done as a set of phrases you repeat mentally or aloud, often with the breath. I was taught to repeat each phrase on an exhale.

The phrases are repeated in four rounds. The first round is to generate loving-kindness for the self. This is quite literally a meditation example of “putting on your own oxygen mask first”; you make sure you’re ready to offer Metta to others before proceeding.

Second, you offer loving-kindness to a person you are fond of. Third, you consider someone you feel neutral for; the cashier that helped you at the grocery store, for example. For the fourth round you focus loving-kindness on a person you have difficulty with; letting us practice offering goodwill despite having negative feelings about a person.

There are many different suggestions for scripts to use for the phrases. Some are more detailed, for example these from Jack Kornfield:

May all beings have happiness and the cause of happiness.
May they be free of suffering and the cause of suffering.
May they never be disassociated from the supreme happiness which is without suffering.
May they remain in the boundless equanimity, free from both attachment to close ones and rejection of others.

Another of my Zen teachers, Hogen Bays, would use only two phrases. It is this more simple approach I’ve continued to practice with over the years. The phrases I use in my practice now are:

May I be free from anxiety and fear.
May I be peaceful and happy.

That word “Happy” can catch people. Some days we don’t feel ready for happy or ready to wish some people happiness. Rather than judging ourselves harshly for struggling over a word, we can chose to use the word “Content” instead. As Chozen Bays noted during the loving-kindness retreat I attended, contentment really is happiness after all.

Through the process of deepening my own practice with Metta, I began thinking about how to incorporate this practice in healing myself. While having a practice that lets us open our heart to the world is deeply beneficial, this practice can be used as a way to reconnect with the body. I began incorporating it while teaching yoga movement to help students manage the negative self-judgement that arrises, to help heal the relationship with the body directly.

As I started to explore applying the phrases of Metta to my chronic pain, to the toxic messages I absorbed as a child, and to the abuse and sexual trauma I’d experienced across the early years of my life, I experienced a growing comfort with my body, my back pain, and with my trauma history. Turning Metta inward opened it up for me, offering me insight for my own healing and in my work with others.

Some of us live with a condition that causes chronic physical pain and creates limitations; we can offer loving-kindness for a body that works especially hard. Using the lens of Metta we look deeply at the physical pain the body experiences; offering tenderness instead of flinching away from discomfort.

Many of us were taught to judge our bodies or how we view the world harshly, we need a way to temper the voice of the Inner Critic or the felt sense of unease and unhappiness held in the body. Metta provides space to be curious about our bodies and our insight into the world, instead of critical.

For those of us who’ve experienced the violation of our bodily integrity through abuse, sexual trauma, or domestic violence, Metta can offer a way to befriend the body again. We can cultivate loving-kindness for the very anxiety, fear, and anger we still experience, held in our bodies.

In doing this work to befriend the body, I’ve changed the phrases I use. Instead of offering the energy outwards to others, the loving-kindness energy is sent inwards, directly to the body.

May I be free from the anxiety and fear I have about my body (I feel in my body).
May I feel peaceful and happy about my body.

It can be tough to offer yourself loving-kindness. When I first started this practice I found it so difficult to offer it to myself that I worked my way around to it, offering it to everyone else ahead of me as a kind of warm-up! Chozen would advise me to picture myself as a small child. Hogen even suggested visualizing myself as a tiny kitten, so in need of love.

During some meditation sessions, instead of offering myself Metta, I’d find myself disassociated from the present moment. My struggles with offering myself loving-kindness opened my eyes to the depth of trauma I’d experienced from my family of origin. This was part of the impetus to begin work with a therapist who specialized in trauma recovery and used EMDR, which really set me upon the path to healing.

I still struggle with shame. I’ve come to realize shame underlies most of my anxiety and all of my negative self-judgement. When I’m deep in a struggle with shame I am certain that I don’t deserve loving-kindness. Of course, that’s exactly when I need it most.

I’ve learned to respond to those shame messages as a signal to stop and do Metta meditation, as soon as I can. I’ve sat and meditated in all kinds of places, including a bathroom stall! I recognize that I need to turn down the toxic messages that can still bubble up from the past before they overwhelm me, so any place is a good place for Metta practice!

The more we befriend our body, treat it like a treasure and an ally, the more resources we have for healing ourselves and others. The more curiosity we can have for those things like fear, anger, and pain, the more spaciousness we will have around those experiences, rather than being overwhelmed by them. Metta practice is a valuable tool for this journey, may it help us all to find peace.

May our practice together be meaningful.
May our practice together bear fruit.
May the fruits of our practice benefit others.

Metta Prayer;
for Everyone Who’s Been Abused

May we be
Freed from
The misery
Of shame.

May we
Be released
From the thought
That somehow
It was our fault.

May we
Rest in the
Truth that we
Never did
Anything
Wrong.

May the too many
Who’ve experienced
Abuse in any way
Be free from
Anxiety and fear.

May we all
Be peaceful.

May we all
Be happy.

*Thanks to Swami J for the translation of the Yoga Sutras.

A year ago it was #NotOK, although this year it seems an even greater number of people are responding. I am sad, but not terribly surprised to see the number of people coming forward to share what they’ve lived through. Tarana Burke, who created the #MeToo movement, noted on Twitter that 1.7 million people in 85 different countries have responded to this movement across social media.

If there are so many of us, then how do we begin to help one another heal? How do we begin to dismantle a system that not only enables rape culture, but at times seems to revel in it? A system that protects, sometimes rewards serial abusers, while calling those brave enough to speak of the trauma they experienced liars.

At times this task seems so monumental that it feels impossible to do anything more than offer comfort, sympathy, and warnings about which predatory men to avoid.

Discovering yoga in 2003 changed my life. I began practicing because it was the only thing that helped with the pain from degenerative disc disease in the bottom of my spine. I’d been diagnosed in 2000, with my three lowest lumbar vertebrae affected. By the time I tried yoga, even swimming was causing me pain.

Becoming a teacher in 2005 deepened my yoga practice enormously. Over the years yoga has changed from being the tool to help me manage chronic physical pain. It is still how I help manage my back pain, but now it also helps me manage the anxiety and depression that arise out of living with complex PTSD. My practice informs my daily living in ways I would have never expected when I anxiously went to my first class with lots of other people who’d made resolutions to move more in the New Year.

My practice is what sustains me as I continue to move into acknowledging the trauma I’ve experienced and finding the strength to not turn away from the truth. It is the tool that is helping me learn how to step outside of the shame I struggle with.

Now my yoga practice is what has lead me to join in the voices that say “Me too.”

I am here and ready to offer my knowledge and my heart to help others heal, to work together to find tools to soothe and restore us, and to dismantle the belief that we are broken by what we’ve experienced. Instead that wounding, I’ll share the knowledge that we’re all already whole and complete, just as we are.

A year ago I responded on Twitter to a hashtag, #NotOK, created by author Kelly Oxford, and spoke publicly about the sexual trauma I’d experienced in the years before I turned 21. Although I’d started to share my experience privately, and in trauma therapy, I’d never revealed myself as one of the far too many people who’ve experienced sexual trauma. That moment became a turning point and I began sharing more often, publicly, about my journey with Complex PTSD, my history of sexual trauma and the abuse I experienced from my Mother throughout my life, into my mid-40s.

Last week, while on retreat, I had the pleasure of sitting down with my dear friend, artist Sarah Jane, to create my “portrait” for the participatory art project she created to honor those who have experienced sexual violence, Mere Objects. I was honored to be part of some early discussions she began as she considered how to turn her ideas into an ever-growing art installation. I’m thrilled that this project will have it’s first exhibition in November 2017.

All of the portraits submitted to the project are anonymously given and nothing revealing is shared. Participants send objects to a post office box with a small note to introduce their portrait for the installation. Portrait objects are put into small glass bubbles which are hung using ball chain. People viewing the installation will be able to walk under these portraits. Sarah Jane strives to make sure that all participants will feel safe sharing their experience with sexual trauma.

I’m choosing to break my own anonymity so I can share this part of my healing journey. Sexual trauma is a big part of my story and is one of the dangerous undercurrents of shame that has shaped me. I first experienced sexual trauma at age 7. I experienced several more instances, a total of 4 different male abuses, all before my 21st birthday. All of these men were known to me. I trusted them. I was engaged to marry one of them until he raped me.

Most painfully, but also most necessary, has been naming the unease I felt throughout my adolescence, until I gained a significant amount of weight in my 20s, as coming from the sexual grooming that was part of my Mother’s abuse. My relationship with Sarah Jane as a friend, artist, and co-creator, and my participation in Mere Objects has helped me to name this abuse which has felt particularly shameful, so much so that I only have just spoke about it in the past two years of my 48 years.

It is deeply vulnerable to share this part of my story but, in my efforts to reduce the shame I’ve lived under for so long, I’m practicing courage. To quote Brené Brown, “Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.”

I lived under the family code, “Don’t air the family’s dirty laundry in public.”, code for the usual message in abusive families, “Don’t tell. Keep your mouth shut.” Through sharing my story I’m breaking the silence that helped keep me mired in shame. I’m letting my whole self, light and dark, be seen.

Making my portrait, with Sarah Jane’s coaching, felt like the right decision for so many reasons and I was glad I’d held off mailing my objects. It was deeply healing to help place all the items in a tiny bubble of glass.

I’d practiced folding my origami crane tightly in half, the soft dictionary paper allowing it to carefully slip it into the top of the bubble. I was thrilled when it popped back open quickly. We used toothpicks to help open up the wings of the tiny crane. Sarah Jane showed me how she uses tweezers to put tiny items into the bubble; I had silver and gold “treasure” for the crane to sit on. I was fascinated watching her cap the jar so it can be hung, setting everything, and polishing the glass back up before taking a series of photographs and video. Her photo is the one for this post.

I was delighted when Sarah Jane found the glass bubbles for the portraits; I still find great joy and peace in blowing bubbles. After she finished my bubble I had the opportunity to sit and hold portraits from other people who’d shared their story and objects with the project. I felt so much love for all these people, some of whom had never shared their experience before now. Holding their tiny portraits felt like such a precious gift, a deep honoring, I sent love outwards to all people who’ve experienced sexual trauma and offered to help hold the burden of silence they’ve carried.

If you would like to participate in Mere Objects, you can send your objects anonymously to the post office box for the project.

Portrait Objects:

• An origami crane made from a piece of old dictionary paper with the definition of the word “complete.
  Origami cranes have been precious to me of many years. For me they symbolize love, liberation, and my hope for peace for all who’ve experienced sexual trauma. Dictionaries helped me understand language better as a child, I chose to use a piece of one with the definition for the word “complete”, a reminder that we’re all whole and complete, lacking nothing, worthy just as we are.
• “Treasure” for the crane to nest on.
  I love the line in Mary Oliver’s poem “The Buddha’s Last Instruction” about “…turning into something of inexplicable value.”, it helps me to remember that my experiences of sexual trauma did not stain me, have not broken me, All beings are of inexplicable value in this world. I hit upon the idea of honoring my new journey as an artist and symbolizing that sense of value by using flecks of dry, silver & gold acrylic paint; treasure.

This summer I got to get acquainted with Brown’s work on shame and vulnerability, starting with the lecture she recorded for Sounds True, The Power of Vulnerability. I just finished her audio recording of her book, Rising Strong, and started the audio book of her most recent work, Braving the Wilderness. I’m really enjoying hearing her read her work and her speaking, so I’ve focused on the recordings she’s done herself.

As someone who struggles with shame and vulnerability, I’m finding Brown’s writing pretty potent stuff. Right now it is bringing me up close with the uncomfortable, ugly truth that shame drives me.

Over the past few years I’ve worked to reduce my anxiety, the feeling of constant apprehension and foreboding. Now that I’m not driven by fear, the shame that drove the dread is clearly visible. Underneath all of my major anxiety topics, shame drives my fear.

Anxiety about my body. Shame.

Anxiety about money. Shame.

Anxiety about my productivity. Shame.

Anxiety about relationships. Yes, shame.

Anxiety about being an abuse survivor. Still more shame.

Anxiety about experiencing sexual trauma. Loads of shame.

Anxiety about my anxiety. Yep, more shame.

Shame upon shame upon shame. Shame all the way down and I’m not sure where it began. It is an early part of me, I know it began at such a young age that my cognitive brain has a hard time getting at it.

Some days my layers and varieties of shame feel like the are the very fabric I’m made up of. I don’t really believe it, but I recognize that some days it feels that big.

What I recognize is just how much shame gets in my way. It stops me from believing in myself, trying things, and asking for help. It holds me back and leaves me constantly questioning my worthiness. It drives both my anxiety and my depression.

“Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.” (Brené Brown, I Thought It Was Just Me).

Recognizing how limiting shame is has prompted me to start paying attention to it, start trying to learn if it is really pointing me to something useful or if it is just old patterns of behavior that no longer help me. Exposing the shame I feel to the light of day, so to speak, feels like an important next step in healing.

Yoga is the practice of letting the energy, the prana, of our system show us the path to our Essential Self. I can no longer avoid the fact that shame is currently blocking my energy, my connection to my True Self. It is what keeps me from shining brightly.

Dismantling this roadblock of shame is the path prana is pointing me now.