Hey Kids... lets go play on the swings !
 

I love this place. I love the fact that my own humility is not alone, that no matter how bad I think I look and feel, how humiliated I feel among my lean former crowd of friends, or how impossibly infantile I feel making a basic food choice (((icecream? No, watermelon... please just a little icecream? NO>>> WATERMELON ! .. ICECREAM OR I"M GOING TO CRY -- Whahhhhhaaaaaaaaa.))) yes, no matter how bad I feel about my status of physical Self (which governs all levels of SELF, I truly believe) I have only touched the tip of some kind of iceburg. I know squealing about the 50 pounds I packed on in the last decade, isn't the end of the world, nor are my kinda HotFlashes and moodiness, or my desparate nagging feeling of I have to make my place in this world (against an impossible backdrop of low self-esteem), but I just feel like I don't have much time left. I know you all feel my pain, for your own. Some of you much worse, and I'm feeling yours... truly. So, I want to think where my morbid fears entered the picture, and why several times a day I think about dying from some morbid disease or accident >> this unreasonable fear of losing my life << which is choking the life out of me, ironically. Is that because I don't feel young anymore? I'm *not* 90 years old for pete's sake!!!! I need my life back, frankly. I think I know the trick... find some elements of youth. REal essence of youth... innocence. It's all a frame of mind , really. When we go around thinking we've 'been there, done that' , and feeling jaded about so much in life > it somehow separates us from innocence. I need to begin thirsting for experience again, place myself in awe and courage, instead of hiding from it. What is it about having a body that is burdened by fat, that makes us want to leave the playground? That is sadly amazing, the kids who are lean love to play, the kids who aren't , never even learn to... but disappear into intellectual bliss and private world of fantasy with books and drawing, and all kinds of loftier satisfaction. I was a kid who played in the playground, and had the loftier inner world, both, but I think I'm an adult who is afraid of the playground, and has thus abandoned it for many years.

So, I would like to somehow set up a challenge... to get us all back out on the swings and slides ! . ~Jen

It is so hard to get out of your head. I have had the kind of thoughts that you are writing about. They seem to play in an endless loop. So. How about this -- let's try to spend more time out of our heads and into our bodies Replace those self destructive thought patterns with thoughts about healthy food, healthy living and losing fat. I am also at 163 pounds. Maybe we can turn all that negative energy into positive fat loss just by concentrating on a future that is leaner (in weight) and fuller in life force than the that which exists at the present moment.

I so much relate to your solution, and I have this gut feeling it's a Forties Thing ?

Thanks :hug:

I am 49. I have achieved much in my life considering all the baggage I have had to carry around. I was never fat until I entered my 40's. I had a long and chronic illness that affected me both physically and mentally. I was not until I began to get healthy that I started packing on the pounds. Now my goal is to get rid of every ounce of waste whether it is physical or mental/emotional. We are not our thoughts. We are not our bodies. Both are changeable.

Mermom~ Your words are punches in the solar plexis, of wonderful, truthful wisdom. :D

I agree with all the Buddhist philosophy, utterly and thouroughly, however, though I know I am not my thoughts, I respect the dragon which devours them too much. I have a difficult time keeping the saboteur at bay.

I think I'm afraid of myself... basically. I spook myself , wandering in and out of my subconscious freely, and wondering about alternate planes of existance in past and future and everywhere else but The Moment... then slapped by sudden soberness of Here and Now. I get tossled about too much, like my head is too big for it's britches. I should probably stop coffee addiction, it doesn't help matters. ~Jen

.... Where is the playground? I need to find the playground !!!

The Dragon does not devour your thoughts. The Dragon fuels them with flames created by your own subconscious. You are fighting against your Self. The key is to put those realities in another place. Those realities are well...real. Create a world for those realities. Write literary fiction. That was/is my playground. The practice of taming led me to become an internationally published author.

Okay Mermom, enough of my sloppy visual tactics (of dragons eating thoughts, etc) The fact is that I *do* love to write > to penpals, in journal, in occasional forums (till they upset me, and I move on). It would be wonderful if I had means to write with a goal to publish. I am very impressed you are a published author.

I write so much in the day it is almost worrisome. In the bigger picture of my life, and what I can accomplish in my days, all this writing rather seems self indulgent. I do it guiltfully at times, but mostly , I feel it is my lifeline. I am very isolated at this time in my life, so the writing to penpals and forums like this , is an anchor I could not live without. Thank you. ~Jen

I think there is nothing wrong with being self-indulgent. The older I become the more self-centered I become. Works for me! There is no reason that you can't write with a goal to publish. I am a writing teacher and I see by how you handle a keyboard you have the words to do the job.

You're a GREAT influence on me !!! :hug: Why don't you come up for coffee? ;) ~J

Okay, just give me directions!

.... the directions are in the Tree Fort. The link works now. ;)