Heidi's Food Addicts Boot Camp Journey/Journal - Week 7

I am having a very difficult week.  Our phone line was disconnected because someone applied for new service with our address.  So I have been unable to get online.  Writing has also been difficult.
I am frustrated and angry.  I guess I did not realize how dependent I am on the wireless internet.  I have not been able to keep up with the program this week.  I feel that I do not have much to say and even less time to write about it.

As to the questions posed to me last week, I have not spent a great amount of time reflecting on them. It is obvious to me and to others who look at me that at 380 pounds I have tried to an extreme length to fill my blackness with food.  I have tried to fill everything with food. 

"What is the difference between blackness and nothingness?  Black is the operable word here."

I have to say that I did think about this question through out the week and I was unable to get anywhere with it.  Other than perhaps blackness is "something" or has "something" under/behind it and nothingness is well, nothing.  Definite "wall" action with this one.

Are you aware that nothingness is the source of all there is?  Theologically, God created the universe out of nothing.  Nothing (philosophically) contains everything.

I have at different times in my life fleetingly entertained the notion that my nothingness was a direct connection to God.  I have been unwilling to explore that connection.  Even now.  I am still ambivalent about exploring my spirituality at such depths.  As a young person, filled with the hope, enthusiasm and blind faith prevalent in youth, I felt very connected with God and excited about my spiritual journey.  I was very interested in exploring and deepening my spirituality.  Then life happened: a series of events that left me with more questions than I was able to assimilate.  For a long time I was angry with God; we were in a boxing ring, doing the dance that boxers do.  I have not been in that ring for quite a while now, but I am shy and timid, unsure of where I stand and how I feel.

And so I am at a stand still.  Acting as if, until I do.  I go to church, I say my prayers and tell my baby every night how much every one loves her, especially "Papa Dios" - God.  And when my husband is disheartened by how his business is going, I pray for God to help him.  Sometimes, I even ask God to help me.

What would happen if I did begin to find answers to all my questions?  I hope I would be able to live the answers better than I have been able to live the questions.  Beyond that, only God knows.

Dr A Responds to Heidi.

Heidi, since this is boot camp and that gives me a bit of permission to be in your face (at least a little), I will begin with a couple of tough minded comments.

You began your journal with these words: “I am having a very difficult week”.

You then described what made the week “difficult”.  As I read what you wrote I reflected on how we food addicts react to life.  We typically think of life as hard and stressful and “difficult” and we feel/think we are unable to meet its challenges and so we run to food to comfort us.  That attitude, unquestioned and challenged, leads us to confirm our belief in our own inadequacy and drives us to our fattening drug of choice to escape.

Heidi, I ask you to take a closer look at what you call “difficult”.  If your phone line and computer being down is difficult what then will you do with the rest of what life brings?  Real recovery for all of us food addicts begins when we accept life on its own terms.  Then we can find the strength to manage our reactions including our eating habits.

The reality is, in affluent America, that stuff breaks on a regular basis.  In the last 7 days my pool pump stopped working, my printer broke, my home computer froze and remains that way, 4 clients cancelled or needed to change appointments, my dog broke out in rashes from an allergy, someone crashed into my daughter’s car, the cable guy took 4 hours to finish a 30 minute job and the electricity went out on our office building and my office refrigerator defrosted and overflowed onto the carpet.  This is not all that occurred but it is a good sample.  I have learned to think of this as life and I no longer sigh and say the famous food addicts complaint about the “difficult” things in life.....”I don’t need this.”

My theological comfort for this kind of weekly experience is a sign on my refrigerator:  WE PLAN.  GOD LAUGHS!  I look at it every single day and I also laugh.  Then I make my plans anyway and wait for the surprises to occur.  This attitude really helps me with my food addiction.  Laughing about “difficulties” is more pleasant than complaining and is a lot less fattening.

Now for the next subject.  You said:

“As to the questions posed to me last week, I have not spent a great amount of time reflecting on them.”

Heidi, what will it take for you to really make a commitment to your self and your health?  You have quite a bit of support for this.  Why have you not made the time?  Is it because you don’t care?  Is it because you are belligerent about losing weight?  Is it because you refuse to grow up?  Is it because you are afraid of the changes that will occur when you are thinner?  Is it because blackness is safer than light for you?

I only have one more thing to say on this subject.

Heidi, it is time to drop the “I don’t knows” and the “unsures” or the “only God knows” from your vocabulary.  Drop them forever. These are a child’s phrases.  They are irresponsible.  This is unbecoming (and unproductive) to one as wonderfully intelligent as you.  You are capable of answering these questions with great insight and care.  ............figure out what you do know..........face the truth about what you do know and what you have to do.  Wake up to the messages God is sending you.  The wall is placed there from your fears.........on the other side of the bricks is a life that is open to receiving these messages and a healthier Heidi. So get on with it.  I will accept nothing less from you.  You deserve the best you have to offer.  Go for it.

A brief comment about you and God.  I suspect that you are correct when you said “As a young person, filled with the hope, enthusiasm and blind faith prevalent in youth,”  Then difficult things occurred.  Things that made you angry at God and in that anger you disconnected from your faith and from God.  I understand that.  As a young person you had pretty normal reactions.

Heidi, the trouble is that you are no longer young or naive and you are very intelligent.  It is time to let go of your child’s image of God and explore an image and a relationship that is grounded in maturity and depth.  Your soul wants this.  I know you well enough to be certain of this.  You have a deep desire to be connected to God in a meaningful and joyous way.  Yet you still hide behind a youthful misunderstanding and hurt.  I invite you to drop the timidity along with the “I don’t knows” and interact with God with the passion and intensity that is truly you.  You will be amazed at what occurs.  Amazed.