Religion and Chick-Fil-A

If you've ever had Chick-Fil-A, you know why many people absolutely love it. I am one of them. I wanted to post the article below for two reasons: 1) I have gotten the occasional annoyance when I really want one of those chicken sandwiches on Sunday and 2) I think this is a great illustration of how any faith should be at work in other people's lives.

No need for separation of church and chicken
Issue Date: 04-25-2007; Section: Editorial Section; Rachael Brady, Opinion Editor

Nearly every Sunday, I subconsciously sabotage myself into the misery of an
unsatisfied craving for Chick-fil-a.

Since the dine-in Chick-fil-a opened on Patteson Drive last year, I've actually shown up in the empty parking lot. Twice. But I should have known better.

Anyone who knows of the fast-food chain and its chickeny goodness also knows of its affiliation with the Christian faith. Specifically, the corporation's mission statement pledges to ''glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us and to have a positive influence on all
who come in contact with Chick-fil-a.''

Founder S. Truett Cathy is a devout Southern Baptist, and so in accordance with his beliefs and the company's mission statement, all Chick-fil-a locations are closed on Sunday, the Christian Sabbath. Monday through Saturday, those who dine in get an earful of God's glory, as the restaurant always has Christian-themed pop-sounding music wafting on the breeze alongside the alluring smells of chicken and waffle fries.

Normally, when aspects of the Christian faith -- or any religion -- are thrust into my life without invitation, I get a little bit cranky. I'm old enough and smart enough now that if I wanted to be converted to your religion, I'd have figured it out by now.

So when a Jehovah's witness shows up on my doorstep, I politely turn down the offers for conversation/conversion. And when an old guy in a suit jacket tries to hand me a tiny Bible, I politely decline. All the while, I'm miffed that someone out there thinks they know just exactly ''what's missing'' in my life.

Somehow, though, Chick-fil-a has gotten it right. No one from the corporation is beating down any doors for converts, and they don't distribute printed materials about faith or damnation while you eat.

What they will actually do while you eat, though, is refill your drink, dump your tray or even must carry on a polite conversation. The people of Chick-fil-a have taken an essential part of Christianity -- the Golden Rule of treating others as you would like to be treated -- and they've made it their mantra. And they're not preachy or pushy; they're just polite.

It's refreshing to see people who are most happy to display their religion by example rather than through radical, alienating evangelism. Most people don't want to be approached by strangers about how they may be living their lives in sin. Most people don't feel like divulging personal secrets and entrusting their spiritual lives to people they've never even met. Most of us just need to be permitted to live our lives and learn our own lessons.

And some of us, along the way, want to eat some chicken. So Chick-fil-a is, all-around, the purveyor of good news that all Christians should be. If you want a tasty chicken sandwich, there's no need to worry about choking down a lesson on moral values with it. Chick-fil-a exhibits its Christian values with its excellent service, and that's that. The other things -- the ''no business on Sunday'' rule, the music and the occasional Veggie Tales kid's meal toy -- are
mere peripherals which have no real effect on any consumer.

The Christianity is offered, though unspoken, and there are no hard feelings if you leave it rather than take it. If you've never experienced the service at Chick-fil-a, I urge you to do so. You'll find that everything you ask for is someone's pleasure to provide to you. The entire experience is simply delicious. Here, have some chicken. Fries? My pleasure. Dipping sauce? Of
course. How about some salvation through Jesus Christ? No? All right, well, have a nice day. And you're on your way.

So when Sunday rolls around and I'm jonesin' for some chicken strips and waffle fries, I do my best to shrug the craving off. Each time I realize my Sunday craving just isn't meant to be satiated, I gain a little respect for the place, despite my empty stomach.

Tagged

I have had the privilege of being tagged by ldissing, so in 15 minutes or less, you will get as many "I ams" that I can come up with:

I am a woman

I am adopted

I am a product of both nature and nurture

I am a daughter

I am a daughter of God

I am extremely sensitive

I am highly empathetic

I am in recovery from an eating disorder

I am a perfectionist

I am a private person with my emotions

I am an open person with my affections

I am a good listener

I am a good writer

I am someone who loves to eat

I am working in the motorsports industry around too much testosterone

I am smart

I am looking forward to the long weekend

I am thankful for all of those people in my life that have supported me throughout my battle with bulimia

I am someone who likes to have a good time

I am a lover of humor…especially sarcastic humor

I am wondering where my life is going

I am amazed at grace

I am allowing myself to be more open

I am having a difficult time thinking of more “I am’s”

I am being interrupted by a co-worker

I am glad it is almost 5

I am learning how to be “me” again

I am feeling good

I am unsure of who to tag

I am out of time!

Don’t know how insightful this was, but was fun to do. Have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Extreme Emotional Sensitivity

I have finally truly figured out where I get my ideas that people expect so much out of me...even if they really don't. I read an article and the lightbulb went off.

The article is entitled "Gifted Children and Sensitivity" (I was considered a gifted child.)

Your gifted child may very well be both emotionally sensitive and intellectually sensitive; that is, acutely aware of everything in his environment and within himself.

Intellectual sensitivity refers to an openness to ideas, which allows your child to be receptive to his own imaginative creativity and that of others. Emotional and social sensitivity -- an acute awareness of other people and the environment -- allows a child to sense the emotional temperature in a room, heightened tension, for example.

Heightened emotional and social sensitivity affects your child's perception of expectations from peers, parents, and other adults, and may be accompanied by heightened vulnerability to criticism, suggestions, and emotional appeals from others. One problem is that well-meaning parents, relatives, friends, siblings, and teachers are often eager to add their own expectations to the bright child's own dreams, plans, and goals. Sometimes, the greater the child's talent, the greater the expectations and outside interference.

Keep in mind that although your child may be emotionally sensitive, it does not make him emotionally mature. His reactions and behavior to people and events may be age appropriate but seem immature when compared to his sophisticated intellectual and emotional awareness. When we understand just how much gifted children absorb from every environment, we can support them in times of stress.

I not only am abnormally sensitive to other's emotions but I take things so hard on a level that most people cannot understand. I have been asked repeatedly why I take things so hard and why I dwell on things that other's say...even if know them to not be true. I truly have an inability or deficiency to process criticism. I also react poorly to emotional appeals and fall prey to giving into things because I can't stand hurting someone else. I get pain two-fold because I already feel bad about hurting them, but then I literally get their hurt back too.

I would still gather that even though I am very emotionally sensitive, I still am very emotionally immature in a lot of respects. I used my eating disorder as an outlet for not having to deal with my emotions...or feeling other's emotions for that matter.

I'm going to end this post with a quote about us sensitive types:

"The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive.
To him...
a touch is a blow,
a sound is a noise,
a misfortune is a tragedy,
a joy is an ecstasy,
a friend is a lover,
a lover is a god,
and failure is death.

Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create - - - so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating."

-Pearl Buck-

On Judging Others...

I am going to write about a topic that I usually avoid. I avoid this particular topic because it is a very deeply personal issue and one that brings up strong feelings in other individuals as well as within myself.

I am speaking about Christianity, judgment and forgiveness. Let me start out by saying that I am a Christian. I believe in God, Jesus as his son and that he died so that other’s might live and be saved through God’s grace. (Please note I said we are saved by GOD’s grace…not because we did anything to deserve it, because we asked for it, or because we worked for it.) My faith journey has been one of peaks and valleys and much monotony in-between. As I child, I understood faith as a child, simply allowing God to be a part of my life, going to church and marveling at Biblical stories. As a young teen, I was active in church, church choirs, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Bible Study groups, mission trips, etc… Even later on in my teen years, prior to college, I tried to keep my faith simple focusing on trying to make Christ-like decisions, treat other’s with dignity and respect and sharing my faith if felt called to do so.

My understanding of Christianity stemmed from a more reformed idea of what it means to be loved by God, saved by grace and living by example. I think most people prior to college would say several things about me. 1) I definitely was not perfect, but that I strived to make my faith a part of my life. 2) That I did not judge. I made mistakes; Friends made mistakes. But the most important part was that no matter what, God’s grace was always a safe haven to turn to in times of despair, hopelessness and sin. 3) I hung out with a variety of people no matter who you were, what you looked like and where you were at in your faith…even if you had any at all. I try to have a sincere appreciation for the human population as a whole and learned VERY early on that looks are very deceiving when it comes to being surprised by kindness and care.

My faith was greatly tested when I went off to college. I went to a very small, Lutheran college in NE Iowa. To say the least, I really did not want to go to this school and I knew this deep in my heart, but did because my boyfriend went there and I thought it would be good for us. Due to some low-self esteem and perfectionist tendencies, I started to rebel against myself and made a few mistakes very early on. I tried to turn to the people of the college and the faith community. I was rejected. My mistakes (or sins if you will) caused several people to say some very terrible things to me. My humanness was not acceptable despite having a very deep and long-standing faith in Christ. One person actually had the arrogance and audacity to tell me that I was going to hell. All of my notions about the people in God's church were challenged and I quit going. If people were going to run the church by their ideas of who was and was not acceptable to walk through those doors and into God's arms, I wanted no part of it. I began to think like those people that I had tried so desperately hard to show otherwise...that church was a place to feel bad about yourself. Church was for those that considered themselves above sin and that us sinners may as well go on sinning. There was no hope from Christians. Fortunately a wonderful husband and wife team challenged me to join their Bible Study and get back involved in the Bible. They showed me the next two years what real Grace and Love was all about. They talked less and demonstrated a lot.

Ok, so let’s back up a few minutes. Who were these people judging me and what specifically were they judging? Let’s start with possibility #1. I had sex with my long-term boyfriend before marriage…nope that couldn’t be it because they were friend’s of his and all of them had done the same thing. Possibility #2. I broke up with this boyfriend after having a mental breakdown and cutting myself. Ok, well…I don’t recall calling off a relationship a “sin” and my personal struggles with self-blame really weren’t anyone else’s struggle but my own…so that couldn’t be it. Possibility #3. I began dating another very nice gentleman and therefore hurt the ex-boyfriend. That one is a stretch because I wasn’t acting out with the new boyfriend, no was I sleeping around, nor was I getting drunk. I was leveling out in normalcy. Possibility #4. The people that said these things to me had an ulterior motive. Ding, ding, ding…we have a winner!

I have a theory you see, that people that make an issue of judging others when they have NO RIGHT whatsoever to do so, are actually doing one of several things:

1) They are fundamentally uncomfortable with themselves and some of their own struggles and therefore displace their own insecurities on pointing out other’s shortcomings.
2) They are currently committing a sin that they wish to be kept secret and distract other’s by pointing fingers at other people.
3) They are arrogant in their own faith and build themselves up morally by pointing out how righteous they are and how other’s fall short or
4) They deep down feel they are doing right and carrying out God’s judgment on sins by “caring” enough about you to tell you that they don’t “agree” or “condone” your actions, but God has given them enough love so that they can love you in spite of your sinful nature.

There are very few people in my life that have earned the earthly right by loving me unconditionally over a very, very long period of time, who I know have absolutely no ulterior motive for working through my mistakes with me and lovingly point out that I am hurting others and myself with a decision. Those people are my parents, my godmother and our long-time Pastor friend and his wife. I am loved by those people no matter what. If they ever say anything to me about my life or disagreeing with a particular decision, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they simply care. All of these people have shown by example that they do not think they are perfect and would expect the same sort of feedback about their own actions from me or their own accountability partners.

But let’s go back to the 4 possibilities of why some people feel it is their right and perhaps “God-given” duty to reign judgment or take every opportunity possible to let you know how much they disagree and are disappointed with your choices, but “they love you anyway.” THAT people, right there, is what has the possibility of turning otherwise faith striving people into angry, bitter people who want to run away screaming from the Church and from so called Christian people.

I am reading a book right now by Christian theologian Philip Yancey called, “What’s So Amazing About Grace?” It is a follow-up to his book, “The Jesus I Never Knew” which goes back to what the Gospels really have to say about Jesus and His ministry. My mom and I are actually starting a book/Bible study on the Grace book. The very first chapter, the very first opening story tells of a woman with a young daughter… I want to say the daughter is 3 or 4 years old. The woman herself sells her own body for money, but she is also selling her daughter to people for several times more per hour than she can make herself in a day. Deep down, she knew this was wrong but saw no other choice to keep both her and her daughter fed. At a shelter she ended up at, a well-intentioned person suggested she get help from a church. The woman nearly spat as she said, “Why would I go to church? They would just make me feel worse!”

The author then asks, “What has happened to the modern day church?” Why are those that need to be in church the most and hear the message of God’s grace and salvation running the opposite direction screaming? Why have I even stopped going to church in times when I have needed the grace and understanding of God and the people who claim to be his followers? The answer is very simple. Church has become a place where many people feel they can only go when they have their life straightened out. Everyday sinners, such as myself, only feel comfortable going when there is no possibility of fellow church-goers to look at others and make a judgment. “Oooh, did you hear that Harry gambled away $10,000? No wonder he won’t show his face in church.” Or “Did you hear that Jane had an affair?” Or, “I hear that Tom and Sarah’s Billy got picked up for a DUI. How embarrassing. Well, they should have had more control.” And all the while, these people that have made some visible mistakes feel that they can’t go back to church for fear of ridicule, judgment, nosiness, inappropriate comments, and those that seek to rub it in.

That should NOT be the message we are sending to God’s children. People that have made mistakes should feel like church is the place they should go to get a hug despite themselves. People should feel free in the understanding that God forgives whether we acknowledge it or not. And who are these people that think they are so almighty that they get to reign out judgment?

The Bible said that no sin is lesser than another. All sins are equal in God’s eyes. All sins cause us to fall short of the glory of God. Lazy people might as well steal. Angry people may as well commit murder. Those glancing lustfully at someone else for 2 seconds may as well have an affair. Gluttonous people might as well be alcoholics. Gossips should just go ahead and slandarize God and take his name in vein.

You might be reading these and saying some have more consequences to others. Yes, that is true. On this earth, certain decisions affect those around you more than others. There are earthly consequences to murder and thievery. You have the likelihood of jail time or in the case of murder, the death penalty. An affair can rip apart a family. Alcoholics can go into a rage and beat or emotionally abuse the people in their lives that they supposedly love the most.

But what about the “lesser” sins that are not as obvious to others. Laziness that causes someone to not want to work and therefore put a family in financial jeopardy. Anger that unintentionally splinters and abuses a loved one’s heart. Neglectful behavior that causes a spouse to feel unloved and worthless. Arrogance that causes another to feel diminished. Continued unhealthy lifestyles where overweight people have health problems that could cause them to die or not be able to help those that they love. Gossiping that is unwarranted, untrue or really no one else’s business that ruins someone’s reputation. ALL of these and so many more cause equal amounts of destruction. The problem is, like emotional scars, they are not as visible to those around or those on the outside.

I have encountered more than my fair share of judgment from other’s who never took the time to understand a situation or dig into the “real” story. People see my marriage falling apart. I’m sure some blame me. After all, I’ve made some big mistakes; I have allowed an eating disorder to rule my life for 7 years and I have been neglectful of myself and those around me because I’ve been so buried in my own head. I left my husband, and that alone is enough to make people think that I am an awful sinner. After all, I promised to love, honor and cherish until death do us part.

Yes, that all is true. I have committed many sins and not upheld parts of my bargain. But as with everything in life, every relationship, every marriage, it is a two-way street. Both parties have decisions. While some poor choices are visible, no one but the two people in the relationship know all of the things not so visible. What others don’t see or don’t hear about might be years of emotional neglect. What other’s don’t see is that the other has been cheating and hiding for a decade an addiction to pornography that has chipped away at the other’s self-esteem and been part of the fuel for an eating disorder, other self-injurious behavior and cheapening the act of sex. What other’s might not see is a person in such despair who has asked for help and been rejected. What other’s might not see is a refusal by one to place their marriage and sanctity of that relationship above all else. To treat others better than the spouse. To use children as an excuse to not have to be a husband/wife. All they see are the other person’s desperation in finding anything to save them, to keep them alive. And those decisions are probably at that point going to be a poor choice(s).

Is it really helpful at any point to condemn? Is it really going to draw people to God’s grace to re-iterate their wrongs and how much you disagree with certain choices? Is it really at all necessary to have any comment whatsoever on a situation that you really do not understand because it is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS to know all of the depths of issues and problems between other people? Are you really acting with Christ-like behavior?

I would instead challenge those with too many opinions to first examine themselves and ask their real motivation for pointing out other’s mistakes and re-iterating over and over how much you “disagree” and are “disappointed” with another’s behavior? Is it truly an act of love or is it deflection or arrogance? Or both?

God’s kingdom is wonderfully made up of all types. We all have our mistakes. We all have our pasts. And to be honest, until the day we die, we are all going to continue to make mistakes, continue to hurt others, and continue to hurt ourselves. None of us are even remotely close to perfection. Our decisions will have consequences and some of them might be fierce. But I am very content in the knowledge that I am God’s child. He loves me and will welcome me with open arms no matter the state I am in. The only thing I can do to bring a little heaven on earth is by sharing that same attitude with others. Love, grace and an open heart of forgiveness is what changes lives. Reflecting the love that Christ showed to all types of people including prostitutes, tax collectors, the poor, the weak, the disgraced, the helpless, and so many other sinners and those society deemed as a waste of time is what I believe is our highest calling. Above all else love, love deeply and without selfishness. And for heaven's sake, quit talking so much! A more impactful statement is made by simply living and leading through example.

Someone said it best with, "God gave us TWO ears and ONE mouth for a reason."

God Bless.

Eating Disorder Forum

I found this transcript of an online conference about eating disorders to be interesting and helpful. The guest was "Aimee Liu, author of the bestseller: "Gaining: The Truth About Life After Eating Disorders." Ms. Liu suffered from severe anorexia as a teen, thought she had recovered, then faced a severe relapse in her 40s. Now she says "I’m fully recovered.""

Here are some of the parts I found most insightful and personally helpful.

Natalie: So our audience members understand, Aimee – when you were 19, how did you get to the point in your mind where you said “I really need help.”

Aimee Liu: In 1973, I reached what psychologist Sheila Reindl calls the “limit of distress.” That summer, following my sophomore year at Yale, I had designed my life to accommodate the demands of anorexia. I’d broken up with my boyfriend, pushed my friends and family away. As a painting major, I argued that I needed the summer to be alone and paint.
I earned money working in a room by myself, matting prints for the Yale Art gallery. I house sat for vacationing faculty. And I painted in the otherwise empty undergraduate art studio. I ate less than minimally and walked miles back and forth to the studio every day.
One very hot evening in August, I reached the center of campus and noticed that I was all alone. Everyone else in the university, it seemed, was away on vacation. The whole city seemed to have emptied to escape the heat. I felt a crippling wave of loneliness, and it dawned on me that I had done this to myself, that the compulsion to avoid food and keep losing weight was making me unbearably miserable.

Although I didn’t consciously connect the dots, emotionally I sensed that what I was avoiding was not really food but human contact; what I was so desperately afraid of was not weight but the risk of exposing myself to others – and yet what I most craved was human contact and intimacy. So I was denying myself what I most desperately wanted and needed.
It was a very, very distinct sensation and a very particular moment in my memory, and I’ve since learned that most people who recover can recall a specific turning point like this when they DECIDE they have to change. What’s critical to understand, though, is that this turning point is only the beginning of a very long and variable process of recovery.
Natalie: What kind of help did you initially get for the eating disorder?
Aimee Liu: In 1973, I had never heard of anorexia or eating disorders, even though I’d been watching many of my classmates starving, bingeing, and purging since junior high school.
One of my high school classmates had been hospitalized -- but she’d returned with her face bloated from drugs, and no one ever mentioned what was wrong with her or what had been done to her in treatment. Another girl in a class behind me died from anorexia while I was in college. Still, no one named the problem, and when I did approach the doctors at the university, they ran me through a battery of tests and informed me that I “should gain a little weight.” And although I’d daydreamed in high school about talking to a therapist, my family would not hear of this. So when I reached my turning point, it did not occur to me to seek professional help. Instead, I tried to think of the happiest, healthiest people I knew who would not judge or reject me for seeking their company.

Over the next two years, I watched these “normal” friends eat and party and talk, and I tried to imitate them, spending less time by myself, seeking out people who made me feel good and accepted. Two months after that summer turning point, I fell in love with a grad student who was so exuberant, so joyful, that I learned what it means to revel in life. He eventually broke my heart and I crashed hard, but in the meantime I’d learned enough from him to avoid sinking all the way back into anorexia. Instead, I became bulimic for several years. I wrote Solitaire as I was phasing out of bulimia – still on my own, with no therapy.

Natalie: And at that time, we’re talking about the early 1980’s, did you feel confident that you had beat this thing?

Aimee Liu: When Solitaire was published in 1979, I was 25, and I did think I was cured. As many people I’ve interviewed have found, it is enormously therapeutic to write out one’s entire life story, to tell the whole truth in one’s own words, and to see the connections between things that others have done to us and the behaviors that so often crop up in response, as well as the choices we make to excuse or cover up those events and behaviors.

But as important as it is to make sense of one’s past, the bigger challenge is to adjust one’s present choices and to develop the strength of identity and the skills to move forward. I’m talking about genuine self-awareness. And what I couldn’t admit at the end of Solitaire was that this level of self-awareness still eluded me. I was still faking a lot of my confidence, still trying on and throwing off different roles and jobs and relationships in an attempt to find one that would tell me who I was. What I did not realize until many years later, when I wrote GAINING, was that I was still restricting, bingeing, and purging – but I was doing it with sex, work, friends, alcohol, and exercise, instead of with food.

This persistent tendency to punish oneself and inflict suffering on one’s body for feeling imperfect in life…this is what I now call the half-life of eating disorders.

Natalie: Aimee, you reach your 40s, and bam!, here comes the anorexia again. Was getting to the point of saying “I need help” harder this time around than the first time? If so, why? Or why not?

Aimee Liu: I do not think it’s an accident that anorexia struck again when I separated from my husband after 20 years together. It did not strike when our marital struggles began a year earlier. It did not strike when we began therapy. It struck when I found myself alone with myself and realized I still had no idea who I was!
T
his, I’ve since learned, is exceedingly common among people with only partially resolved histories of eating disorders – who have been leaning on a spouse or partner to supply or prop up their sense of self. What was crucially different for me this time around was the therapist my husband and I were already seeing. He was not an eating disorder specialist, but he was a tremendously empathic and wise individual who refused to indulge me when I joked about the “benefits of the divorce diet.”

At his insistence, I stepped back and learned to observe what I was doing without judging or denying it. I learned to be interested in my actions and feelings instead of running from them. Fortunately, I had not lost a great deal of weight and was nowhere near a dangerously low weight, so my brain was in good shape to cooperate with my mind in this process. I was in psychological but not physical distress, and that made it much, much easier to commit to therapy. I realized just how much of my life had been short-changed by my failure to enter therapy when I was in my teens. Better late than never!

Natalie: Just so we’re all on the same page, how are you defining “recovery” from an eating disorder?

Aimee Liu: I call my book GAINING because I really do think that the ability – eagerness, even – to “gain” in all areas of life is a good definition of recovery. Note that I say gaining in “life” because I think that eating disorders are seated in core anxieties over what it means to be alive. Someone who is fully recovered embraces genuine (as opposed to superficial) gains in confidence, trust, intimacy, personal power, perspective, insight, faith, joy, nourishment, health, peace, love, and pleasures of the body and mind. Crucially, she makes choices in life out of desire, passion, compassion, and love instead of fear. She does not confuse perfection with suffering, nor does she feel she must measure up to some external standard of perfection.

Natalie: Since the mind can play tricks on you, how does one know if they’ve truly recovered?

Aimee Liu: There are so many signs!
- Can you sit quietly with yourself and be at peace?
- Can you face a significant problem or decision or experience stress without obsessing about your body or what you’ve just eaten or are planning to eat?
- Do you exercise because you honestly enjoy the activity – and not because you’ll feel “guilty” if you don’t?
- Can you look at your body with appreciation for all that it does, and not berate yourself for how it looks?
- Can you be open and intimate with those you love, without worrying about how they’ll judge you?
- Can you enter an argument without feeling that you either have to dominate or disappear?
- Are you able to joke about your human failings and your flaws without secretly feeling ashamed of them?

Natalie: One audience member asked this question Aimee: Many of us are told that recovery is an "ongoing process" that never ends. Yet, you speak about having fully recovered as "being cured." Do you see it that way?

Aimee Liu: What never ends are the temperament traits that make us vulnerable to eating disorders. Scientists liken an eating disorder to a gun.
Genetics, which account for around 60% of one’s vulnerability, manufacture the gun;
Environment, which includes family dynamics, fashion magazines, social and cultural attitudes, loads the gun; and
The personal experience of unbearable distress pulls the trigger.
Genetics combine with family dynamics to create the personality types that are most at risk. We have these personalities as long as we live, but once we learn to re-direct our core traits -- perfectionism, hyper-sensitivity, persistence -- to goals and values that have genuine meaning TO US... then we become protected against the eating disorder.
Many of us start to relapse instinctively under intense stress, but if we know this tendency is there -- and that it's a natural attempt to cope -- we can redirect the instinct . It helps to develop an arsenal of positive, constructive coping mechanisms -- true friends, passions, interests, music, etc -- that can help us through the bad times. These are "life skills" that will help anyone; we just need to work harder to learn them!

Natalie: You interviewed 40 people, women and men, who you knew from your youth. One of the things that really struck me, was the common theme of “shame” that each felt. Shame that they had an eating disorder. Shame that they shied away from intimacy or had a compulsion to be perfect. Could you talk about that?

Aimee Liu: In general, I’ve found, an eating disorder is a response to shame. In other words, the shame comes first. The shame is in the body and mind before the eating becomes disordered. So the shame that may develop about the eating disorder is usually an extension of distress that runs much deeper. People need to understand that an eating disorder is a coping mechanism. No one chooses to become anorexic or bulimic. It’s that experience of unbearable distress that triggers the obsession with body and food as an escape or distraction or attempt to reconcile pressures that cannot be reconciled. Usually that unbearable distress involves shame.
Several of the people I interviewed had, like me, been molested as children. Others had been sent to fat farms as children and told by their parents that no one would love them if they didn’t lose weight. Others had struggled since childhood with shame over their sexuality. Some had been shamed by parents because they did not sufficiently mirror the parents’ values or appearance.

The persistence of an eating disorder is a signal that the underlying shame is still driving one’s thoughts and behavior. And of course, because this group is perfectionistic, any residual problems are seen as imperfections and thus a source of further shame! That cycle can be broken, however, if we treat eating disorders as natural signals, instead of as character flaws.

Natalie: From guests we interview during our monthly chats, it’s not uncommon to hear “don’t give up hope. There’s reason for hope.” When it comes to having anorexia or bulimia, why should anyone believe that?

Aimee Liu: The best evidence comes from neuroscience, and it’s not remotely trite. The brain has an almost miraculous ability to change, and researchers are finding that we hold the keys to that change within our minds. I have met many, many gifted therapists who have helped people who have been sick for decades. Therapies such as dialectic behavior training (DBT), equine therapy, the Maudsley Method, and mindful awareness practices are showing tremendously promising results. But the brain cannot rewire itself over night or, in most cases, without a good therapist. And no one can “cure” someone who is unwilling to change. An eating disorder masquerades as an identity and it offers a compelling illusion of escape and comfort. You have to be willing to give up that illusion and take the risk of developing a healthy identity – as long as that takes. One of the obstacles to recovery I hear over and over is the notion that there is a moment when one is “recovered.” Recovery is not a grade, or a state, or a status to be attained – it is an ongoing process that begins from the turning point when you decide you have simply had enough.

A young woman who wrote to me recently described this process best: “We have trained ourselves to empower our minds/bodies to restrict the foods, now we have to use that same power to re-feed ourselves. In other words, the reason we develop these disorders in most cases is to have power, and what we need to do instead of complaining or saying we can't, is just training the power to be used in a different way.” That way leads to life instead of loss, love instead of isolation, self-direction instead of self-denial, and hope instead of shame. It’s all part of the process not just of recovery but of being fully human.

On being perfect...

One of my faithful blog readers posted writing about “If there is anything I am perfect at, it is being imperfect.”

Yesterday I went on a journey through emails and journal entries I wrote last year. Exchanges with people while I was trying to figure out what was wrong with me, make sense out of my decisions and to see how far I have come in terms of my thinking. What struck me the most was how completely and totally hard I was on myself about everything. All relationships, failed friendships, bad decisions, etc…were all my fault. Completely my fault.

I found one particular exchange with a friend writing about how my marriage was failing due to my eating disorder. I called myself in this email “stupid and selfish.” In other emails I lamented how my husband was “great” and I was throwing away a perfectly good life and person. I was the one constantly screwing up. I was the one who couldn’t get a grip. I was the one who f-ed up everything.

While it sounds like a depressing exercise to undertake, it was a rather cathartic experience seeing the journey and transformation my mind has undergone over the past 15 months. While I still have trouble with too much self-blame or “perfectionism,” I have more of an ability to evaluate situations at face value, take my share of the responsibility, but let others have their share of accountability.

My husband, who I am separated from at this time, has asked me for a couple of months now (since I left) to write him emails back, even if they are angry. He invited me to write to vent or say things I needed to say to him. I hadn’t taken him up on the offer for fear of “hurting his feelings” or rather deep down knowing that it was going to be an exercise in futility. He wrote me over and over again how he is “so much stronger than I give him credit for.” That “he can take whatever it is I have to say.”

Well, finally he wrote me a short email that really ticked me off. He asked if I had found another counselor. (My previous therapist was not on the new insurance list when we switched over.) I replied that no I hadn’t and he responded angrily with, “I don’t understand why you are not looking for a counselor because that is the most important part of your recovery. You were willing to leave me because you said you would get better, but you’re not doing anything else.” Not that he didn’t have a point about looking for a counselor, but it was the judgmental tone that I was upset about. He didn’t do ANYTHING for 9 months yet he had the audacity to talk to me like that. I was mad. So I did what he asked. I wrote him an email about my feelings solely pertaining to the time between May 6, 2006 (when I told him about my eating disorder) and up to the point when I left at the beginning of Feb. I wrote about how his neglect and avoidance made me feel worthless and that his excuses on why he wasn’t available to me when I asked for his help made it even worse.

He responded with the most subtly cruel and sarcastic email I have ever received with such rantings like: “Now you are judging me and psycho analyzing me and my ability to deal with the bomb you dropped in my lap” “Don’t put our marriage 100% on my shoulders. And for the love of God don’t sit there and say that your health problems are in my hands.” “Are you perfect? This is the real world Kate. This is how people deal with things. People make mistakes.” “If you are to proud of your analysis of our lives together to give me a second chance then I will continue to wait and hope that eventually you realize what a blessing you are simply dismissing as a passive aggressive man that holds no value to someone like you.”

The part that really got to me was him having to deal with “the bomb that I dropped on his lap. Like I purposefully gave him something to deal with that messed up his life. What I wanted to say back was, “Life is full of bombs. That is the real world. Something could happen at any given moment that changes your life or your paradigm that you’ve been operating under.” Does it take people 9 months to deal with a BOMB???

I go back to the fact that my parents, in their late 20’s, had to deal with the news that my mom had endometriosis. She was going to have to have her entire reproductive system removed to save her life and that meant that she could never have her own children. My mom and dad had to deal with the fact that all of their hopes and dreams for building a family were done…at least in the way that they had planned. THAT is a bomb. That is a HUGE bomb.

When I relayed my husband’s email to my dad, I asked him a few questions. My parents, while always supporting me, are not happy with my decision to leave and separate. They are very religious and fundamentally believe that you should give a marriage every opportunity to succeed. I can also relay many things back to them that my husband says or does, but it is still my take on it. I forwarded his email to both of my parents so they could see in HIS own words what I’ve had to deal with. But I asked my dad a few things. “Dad, when you and mom found out she was sick, I’m sure that was a pretty big life bomb was it not? And I’m sure that you, being a guy who can’t go through the same thing, really didn’t understand the complexities and emotional hardships my mom would have to go through. I’m sure you were scared and confused yourself. But Dad, I’m willing to bet that no matter how much you didn’t understand, didn’t know what would happen in the future and questioned your own ability to deal, that you were there for my mom. I bet you went to every doctor appointment with her. I bet you held her as she cried. I bet you were there with her during her surgery. I bet you waited on her during her recovery. I bet you researched and tried to understand as best you could. And I bet that you worked with her to reshape your goals and dreams for a family and helped determine the next course of action. AND, I bet you did most of this without my mom having to ask because you saw her hurt and wanted to do everything to make sure #1 that she was ok.”

My dad had nothing to say but yes. I then went on to say that, “someone not understanding and thinking something is too big of a bomb to deal with is not an excuse to not be there. I don’t even understand that line of thinking.” My husband should have no matter the problems in our marriage, no matter how much he was scared, no matter how much he didn’t understand, should have been concerned about my failing healthy first and foremost. He should have taken charge and just done for me…without me even having to spell out every single thing. His email was a load of excuses of every reason why he couldn’t be there and placed all of the blame on me. I didn’t tell him what I needed. I didn’t communicate to him. I dropped all of my problems in his lap. I didn’t help myself. Etc… In many respects, he was right. I didn’t communicate a lot to him because I didn’t know how to in a healthy manner. I was sick both mentally and physically. I barely understood myself what I had done. That’s part of the problem of an eating disorder. But one thing I did do was try. I got myself to counseling. I got myself into a doctor. I did tell him about my problem and I did ask for help even though I didn’t know exactly what help I needed. It took him until the day I walked out to even research ANYTHING about bulimia or ask about my counseling or my doctor appointments.

Wow…I’ve completely gone away from my original intent. I guess I needed to write about all of that. My original point was going to be this. I expected myself to be perfect to my standards of perfection. I expected myself to be everything to everyone and everything they need without expectations of that ever being returned. I expected myself to know through all of my disorder and messed up way of thinking that I should be the one responsible for the care of myself and that I needed to save my marriage because it was the Biblically right thing to do.

But you know what? I am not perfect. I can’t live up to my own expectations. And I can’t live up to other’s expectations whether real or perceived. I am so excited about saying that because I have found freedom in my imperfections. I have found freedom in the fact that no matter how much people try to make me responsible, because in the past I’ve let them, that I don’t have to tolerate it. I am free to make decisions, perfect or not, right or wrong. I am beginning to enjoy life and all of its messiness and imperfections again and I am enjoying just being me again. Perfect or not, being me is just fine.

May We All Be Coffee

I got this as a forward this morning and really liked it. Indeed "May we all be coffee."

A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil; without saying a word. In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl. Turning to her daughter, she asked, "Tell me what you see." "Carrots, eggs, and coffee," she replied. Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft. The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard boiled egg. Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma.

The daughter then asked, "What does it mean, mother?" Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water. Each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.

"Which are you?" she asked her daughter. "When adversity knocks onyour door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean? Think of this: Which am I? Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength? Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff? Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and hardened heart? Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor.

If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you. When the hour is the darkest and trials are their greatest, do you elevate yourself to another level? How do you handle adversity? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean.

May we all be COFFEE.