I didn't think I had an expectation linked to weight and shape, especially as any changes I've made to date have been more focused on me discovering more about my relationship rather than heading towards any results. However, one of my discoveries has been that as a result of knowing that I am eating less food overall, I do have an expectation that my body weight will decrease. How do I know there is some power to that expectation? Well, simply one morning, upon stepping on the scales, I was not any different to the few days before and there was a body sensation of some sort. Perhaps disapproval, perhaps disappointment - I don't know and it wasn't something I was going to act to so I didn't look into it anymore. However, the key feature was there had been expectation and I didn't expect that!
I don't see expectation as a bad thing. I don't think it is any worse or better than hearing a weather prediction or anticipating what someones reaction will be when you tell them something. However, expectation seems to come with added power. Expectation seems to take an idea of what something will be and adds success or failure to the experience. By adding a measure of positive or negative, a good and a bad to an experience it adds weight to the end result. Giving it power - or is the more suitable word, force. The concept of anticipation is similar - looking towards a certain outcome or happening and experiencing an edge while waiting for a delight to unfold. Anticipation, like expectation can come with disappointment and sadness, however the difference is that expectation seems to have a measure to it. As though one way would have been right, and the other was wrong.
It is in this way that expectation can be a killer. A killer of dreams, goals and action. It can silently kill possibility by gradually strangling, gradually reducing the oxygen which would usually keep an idea alive. Expectation can act in sudden death too, when the disappointment and feeling of failure combines into something which feels so bad and so painful that hopelessness overides any action or movement. Expectation can certainly be a killer, but this is more because of how we have come to feel it, use it and experience life with it.
So why is this of interest? Well, when it comes to self compassion and love, any emotional experience that occurs with a judgemental undertone is of interest to me. It immediately alerts me to a mind and body expression which has been learnt, is likely to have been effective using fear or creating a "you are less" picture. In addition, it is of interest because just like any other emotional and energetic experience there are at least two sides to the metaphorical coin. A useful side and perhaps the 'light', as well as the 'dark'. Anger for instance can be damaging, justification for aggression and a red mist that lands on and overwhelms everything in its path. However, it can be one of the best fuels for decisive action and it has the power to facilitate clarity of perspective but this cannot happen without practice. So too expectation can be a driver rather than a judge. See Driving Miss Daisy rather than Judge Judy! Quite a contrast isn't it?!
When it comes to changing weight or shape - this is how it applies to me.
I learnt that I had an expectation relating to changing body weight. I expected loss or lower numbers to feature over time. I know that on its own, having a measure, can be helpful. However, linking it to success or failure is not helpful. So, I took some time to consider what is the body weight change that I didn't realise I expected!? and did it fit into how I live and what I choose to do in my daily life, relationships and interaction.
Upon taking a moment to reflect, I calculated that I had gained about 10 kgs between 2009 and 2012, and then another 10kgs over the last two years. So my first question to myself was - Am I ok to lose as I gained? gradually and around 300-500gms per month?
Which would mean accepting an equivalent release and using up of fat storage of around 5kgs/year. Am I ok to take 4 years to return to the body weight I felt to be a starting point?
If yes - how differently would I see my daily experience with food, exercise, emotion and relationships as a result of a more honest and compassionate timeframe?
Admittedly, it took some moments of adjustment to look at things this way but what it definitely revealed were the food choices, lifestyle habits and adjustments which I constructed for more immediate gain or an outcome. I am enjoying noticing these moments of expectation as they help me filter out the actions, decisions and thoughts I have around my relationship with food that link to good or bad, right or wrong and with purpose vs reflective of myself.
FOOD AND ACTION NOTES
Water. I'm very affected by inconvenience and become another job to fit into my day. I dont' mind filling or even refilling a water bottle but I DO mind having to go to the toilet an extra five to ten times a day! Actually, it isn't going to the bathroom that is a problem on its own - it is the fact that I spend alot of my day with a 22month old and if I'm driving, I can't just run in to a toilet leaving her in the car. Just going to a public toilet, and having to manage the little one, means I tend to 'hold on' in favour of getting home but there have been numerous close calls (ahem..or even overflows!) because heaven forbid I cough or sneeze without some opportunity to muscle prep!
Anyhoo ... that was the long way of saying ... the consequence of drinking more water is inconvenient on many days, so I drink less. When I'm at home this isn't so much of an issue.
I don't want dairy products as much as I thought. I still love the creaminess and smoothness, particularly in ice cream, but I don't 'need' to have dairy as often as I thought I did. This still really surprises me. There are days now when I have only had a shot of milk with my morning coffee and that has been it!
I love the experience of eating some foods. I love chips for their crunch and the textural disintegration. I have flavour preferences but these are second or third place to the experience of crunching something down into a smushy noisy paste! and then enjoying just that moving about in my mouth. The experience of crunching will completely override any awareness of hunger or nutrition or any decisions which have been made consciously. It is like I go into a wonderfully calm 'me' world where others do not disturb me, bother or worry me. These foods are ones I would need to monitor. Just like a parent guides their children away and towards their meals and balance, so too I would need to parent myself with any foods that feature as "sensationally calming". Unless and until I find another way to move through that.
And there are more thoughts, but I'll have to write again soon .... and in the meantime attend to my daughter (Elodie 22mths) and the boxes and clearing after moving in-house over the weekend.
And there are more thoughts, but I'll have to write again soon .... and in the meantime attend to my daughter (Elodie 22mths) and the boxes and clearing after moving in-house over the weekend.
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