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I have a fear of police officers. Ever since my Unfortunate Incarceration (just try to say that without hearing Anthony Bouvier’s voice in your head), and an ugly incident that started with me trying to help a woman pay for gas, I have had a real phobia. I see police cars and my stomach starts to roil. However, I know a few ladies who work with officers they say are amazing people, and they assure me that the good officers far out number the bad cops.

Police officers have hard jobs. I feel especially sorry for the ones who have to direct traffic. I have a feeling that, in Dallas, that is just as much hazard as being on the SWAT team. I jest.

Because I appreciate that anyone would be willing to choose a job that required them to show up at my childhood home and deal with domestic violence issues, or come talk me out of a closet after a home invasion, or make sure the pervert who was stalking our hospital room after Mom and I were in a horrific car accident left us alone, and promise us protection at our hotel until my grandparents arrived, or pull my skirt down to save my modesty when I was strapped to a stretcher, I do my best to show all police officers great respect. And, a few years ago, finding myself in front of a squad car in a drive-thru, I decided to start paying for their meals whenever I was in that situation.

It happens rarely, but I’ve had the opportunity to pay it forward a handful of times. Once, an officer scared the tar out of me, chasing me down with sirens, just to wave and shout, “Thank you!” I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

I found myself in front of an officer this morning, so I got his tab and waved when he waved. Then, I saw him start typing into his dashboard computer and nearly wet myself.

Listen, an eight hour stay in a jail cell, wearing nothing but your panties and an orange jumpsuit, after having been frisked, spread-eagle-style on the side of a highway, face pressed against the hot metal of the trunk of a squad car, handcuffed in front of rubber-necking traffic, bounced around and bruised in the backseat of said car, where I had been shoved–hands restrained behind my back–no seatbelt, strip searched and screamed at over an unpaid traffic violation will do things to a girl. No need to tell me about excessive force. I absolutely have a PTSD stemming from that day. And poor Laura Christian thought I had stood her up, and thought I was making fun when I told her I had spent the day in jail. I’m still sorry about that, Laura! (Laura had driven down from MO, and we were planning to meet up. I couldn’t even extend the courtesy of calling her to say I would be late. Then, I was so ashamed and embarrassed about the circumstances surrounding me standing her up, I think I behaved very badly.)

Yeah, so afraid of police officers.

I had a point when I started writing this, but then I lost the plot remembering Big Mean Annie demanding I get off “her bunk”, and asking me if I still had my panties because they had taken hers away and she wanted some. *shudder*

This is what 206 lbs looks like.  That’s what I weigh.  You would be surprised, at least I am always surprised, by the number of people who ask me my number.  I’m never quite sure how to take the reaction either.

Most of the time I get, “no way!”  Like 206 is some mammoth number.  The other reaction is that I am so brave to admit I weigh more than 165 lbs.  Clearly, I am not thin, so what does it matter?  It’s like being brave for being photographed without makeup.  It’s what I look like.  What’s brave about looking like myself?

We get so hung up on shapes and sizes.  So my backside doesn’t look like Giselle’s?  It is functional and does everything it is supposed to do.  So does the rest of me.  I am fine with it, whether anyone else is, or not.

I am excited to annouce that Amy, from BackseatWriter.com, has won the tagline contest.

Our new tagline will be, “Inside the Outside,” which is a very slight moderation of Amy’s original suggestion, but suits the blog just fine.

Congratulations, Amy!

More than a few people have asked me if I would tell them how my endoscopy/colonoscopy procedures went, so I figured I would just write it up here. Short story: Not too bad.

I stopped eating solids (save for a snack of sheer roughage) around 5pm on Saturday, then went on a liquid fast Sunday. At 5pm on Sunday, I started the MoviPrep treatment, which is basically 2 liters of evil that you drink, separated by and followed by another liter each of clear liquid (I chose water.) The first liter of evil will relieve you of anything solid. The second liter of evil will turn your backside into a full blast shower head.

I did all right on the first LoE. You drink it in 3 or 4 doses over the course of an hour. I did it in 3 because I am a masochist. When I got to the second liter, I wasn’t feeling it at all. No, that’s not true. I was feeling it, and it was feeling like it was going to come right back up. Afraid they would tell me I had to drink more, I defied my tummy thetans and kept it down. I was immediately, and seriously ill. I got in bed and whined until I fell asleep/passed out (kind of more the latter) for two hours. Then, the unnatural call of nature arrived. I stopped having liquids around 10pm.

The draino doing its work wasn’t even so bad. I expected cramping and pain, but didn’t have any at all. A pretty impressive laxative, if you ask me. I was up every hour, or so, but it wasn’t ever painful.

I got up Monday morning, and even though I felt a little weak, I was okay. I wanted a cup of coffee, but did not give in. Walked Thor to school, and came home to get dressed for the doctor. I had prepped, in my Sunday bath, as though for a hot date. After my first dose of drugs, I told this to the nurses, who were appreciative. They said a lot of people didn’t bother. Listen, if someone has to be down there, we may as well make it as pleasant as possible.

I checked into the surgery center, my mother at my side, at 9:15, and was in the prep station at 10:15. The staff were fantastic and helpful, and everyone was quite merry for people who spend their days poking cameras up anuses. I got into my gown (open at the back) and under my warm blanket, and the nurse started my I.V. with one poke. That done, I was rolled down the hall into my procedure room, where the real fun began.

Another nurse and scope tech explained what was about to happen (this was the 3rd explanation–endoscopy first, where they would snake my esophagus, and then they would turn the table around and snake my intestines), and my doctor appeared to make sure I was happy. He gave the nod and I was asked to curl up on my side. I got my first shot of cocktail, made a couple of dirty remarks about the anesthesia used to kill my gag reflex, and my hot date prep, and I had time to say, “I’m feeling kind of groggy,” before it all went black.

I vaguely remember hearing someone say, “Okay, we’re starting the next procedure now,” and then nothing until I woke up with a start in the recovery room, with my mother staring at me.

The ride home is a blur. I got into the house in time for some copious vomiting, but for the volume, that wasn’t even so bad. I slept most of the day, only really getting up around 6pm, then going back to bed for the night at 8.

I got up at 6:30 this morning, and as I was warned, I have a sore throat (feels like I’ve coughed too much) and have the feeling that I’ve overdone it on the situps (from the pressure applied to my abdomen to help the scope go in the right direction.) I am not uncomfortable or inconvenienced in any way, though. I think I might like another day to sleep, but that’s because I like sleeping. I’m headed to work in 10 minutes.

I got a really good report. Everything looked normal and nice (and very clean!) save for some esophageal erosion from reflux. The doctor biopsied my esophagus, and I should have the pathology back next week.

Horror! Is that really Carrie Fisher on my television hawking Jenny Craig? No!

Anyway, it wasn’t bad. For those of you who are up next, the worst part is the MoviPrep. It is truly evil tasting–I can’t even explain it–but it works. No need to worry. No need to be afraid. I have boldly gone there ahead of you, and am happy to say it wasn’t bad at all. It was much easier and less embarrassing than a gyno exam! Maybe I should ask for knock out drops for those, too?

Republished from Jewels from the Roving Stove, with gracious permission from Julie Anne Rhodes. This is Julie Anne’s interview with Marianne Williamson. Julie Anne has been writing about how Marianne’s instruction has changed the way she looks at food and the relationship she has with it. I know that a lot of you have a love-hate relationship with your dinner plates, and thought you’d like to read this. Remember to visit Julie Anne’s site, and put it on your RSS feed. She offers great recipes, heaping helpings of inspiration, and shares her photo album, which is full of amazing fashion.

Thursday, December 16, 2010
An Interview with Marianne Williamson
I’ve lived in pain-tinged silence over my weight, both thin and heavy, most of my life. I know food is not the enemy, but what I didn’t understand was just how cruel and abusive all the diets, binges, and self ridicule have truly been – that until I start working on healing my soul, the turmoil will continue no matter how well versed in healthy eating and exercise I am.

Julie Anne Rhodes

When my friend Marianne Williamson told me about the book she was writing last summer – I couldn’t wait to pry an advance copy from her hands, because I knew I was ready to heal. I was ecstatic to learn many of you felt the same way. Sharing our experiences while working through the lessons has given me enormous inspiration and support, and I hope it is mutual.

As you know, I’ve found the course slow going, often uncomfortable, yet infinitely rewarding. My dysfunctional eating habits appear to have realigned to my own biological on/off switch, therefore I am convinced my healthiest weight will naturally follow. I am not one that always follows a spiritual path with ease and grace, so I had some more questions for Marianne:

Marianne Williamson

JA: I know you wrote the book for a friend (it is dedicated to Oprah), but where did these incredibly deep insights on weight problems come from, and when/how did you first make the spiritual connection?

MW: In A COURSE IN MIRACLES, it’s written that we think we have many different problems but we really only have one: our separation from God. I’ve known that’s true for a long time — not just intellectually but viscerally. No matter what my problems have been in life, the one constant there was me — my thoughts, my energy, my behavior and so forth.

I’ve had a long career in applying spiritual principles to practical day-to-day issues in our lives, and weight loss is just one more issue. When any area of your life becomes a challenge, one of the most significant places to deal with it is inside your own mind. I’ve seen over and over — not only in my own life but in the lives of those I’ve worked with — that changing your mind about something can absolutely work a miracle.

In my own life, I was a compulsive overeater from about 17 to 27, and it stopped when I started doing A Course in Miracles. Once I learned to reach my hand beyond the wall of protection I had built in front of my heart, the wall simply disappeared. I wrote this book because I wanted others who have the same problem that I had to experience the miracle that I experienced.

JA: I struggled a little with all the religious terminology in the beginning. Are you referring to a specific religion, or what is your intention when you use words like God and Divine Mind?

MW: I use the word God the way it’s used in Alcoholics Anonymous: as God as you understand Him. The words don’t matter, but the concept does. And without the concept — that there’s a Higher Power that can do for you what you cannot do for yourself, then you can’t receive the healing because your mind isn’t open to receive it.

As far as the phrase Divine Mind is concerned, this concept — in Christianity, it’s the Holy Spirit — means there is literally a force of consciousness that, if consciously and willingly invited by you to do so, has been authorized by God to help you change your mind! I mean, really. How profound is that.

JA: This has been an amazing and often surprising journey of self-realization for me. Many past experiences I thought I had processed and released reared their ugly heads again. Why does this happen, and when do you know you have truly come to terms with an emotional wound?

MW: Any kind of healing is a journey. It’s a process more than a destination. And the healing often involves sadness, because it’s a kind of detox process: things have to come up in order to be released. We’ve all experienced this kind of thing: you think you’re over some loss, and then one day it hits you again like a giant wave. That’s why community is important: so that on any given day when you feel that a burden is just too hard to bear, angels can appear to you in the form of other human beings who understand and care.

This isn’t about ever coming to the point where you know all your issues are handled once and for all. That would be total enlightenment, and I can’t say I know about that one yet. But I know that you can get to the point where self-sabotaging, dysfunctional thought and behavior in an area become the exception and not the rule, and if you’ve known enough suffering in your life then that right there is a miracle.

JA: Do we need to consciously know the source of every unconscious wound before God can heal them?

MW: Yes and no. On the one hand, you don’t have to know the specific source of your pain, and yet you do have to acknowledge the twisted thoughts that the pain produced inside you. In A Course in Miracles, it says that God cannot take from us what we won’t release to him.

For instance, let’s say that a parent abandoned you. What matters is not simply the abandonment; what matters is that because of it you became a very needy person, and now that neediness is poisoning your relationships. Having been taught it wasn’t safe to lean on the person that in the natural scheme of things you should be able to lean on, you now lean on people or things – for the overeater, on food – in an inappropriate way. So it only matters that you identify the source of the pain in order to be able to identify the real wound, and then you can apply the medicine that heals it.

JA: I made a commitment to surrender to these lessons, because it makes such logical sense to me that the spiritual aspect of weight loss is what has been missing in my life. Some of the lessons are easy for me, and extremely emancipating, but others I don’t feel as connected to. How do you recommend dealing with any resistance one encounters on the way?

MW: I think you should take it all as lightly as you can. If a lesson doesn’t speak to you, I’d just move on. The last thing I’d want you to feel is guilty. How can you heal a problem that is basically a form of self-abuse with more self-abuse?

When you eat unwisely, you’re being unkind to yourself. You might think otherwise at the time, of course; you might think that that hot fudge sundae is comforting you. But when you realize all the toxic chemicals that that sundae is dumping into your body, you realize that it’s anything but comforting.

In other words, you have self-abuse confused with self-care. That’s why the last thing you should say to yourself if you’re having trouble with the lessons is, “I’m bad! I’m not doing it right!” If the course is anything, it’s a course in learning to be kind to yourself. And once you really get there, you won’t want to abuse yourself, and you’ll be very clear that a consistent pattern of unwise eating is a form of self-abuse.

JA: Do you need to agree with and “feel” every lesson, or is action enough?

Boy, you ask good questions. The answer to that is simple: action is enough. And as it says in the Workbook of A Course in Miracles about the lessons there, “Remember this: you need not believe the ideas, you need not accept them, and you need not even welcome them. Some of them you may actively resist. None of that will matter, or decrease their efficacy.” I love that.

JA: There was a question posted on my blog to the effect of why do we torture ourselves with feelings of “not being enough”, or not “having enough? ” I answered to the best of my ability, but we would both like to know your thoughts?

MW: You’re “enough” for one reason and one reason only: because God created you and God does not create junk. No one’s personality is totally “enough;” who among us has never made a mistake? But we’re enough because we are children of God, and the essence within us is divine and eternally innocent. The point of walking a spiritual path is to unravel the thinking that you are your resume, and replace it with the absolute knowledge that your spirit, and not your physical self, is the essence of who you are.

JA: As you acknowledge, an alarming percentage of people struggling with weight have been sexually abused. Do you believe that spiritual practice alone is enough to heal that kind of fiercely deep wound?

MW: In A Course in Miracles, it says that religion and psycho-therapy are at their peak the same thing. Any fierce wound calls for a spiritual healing, but sometimes spiritual healing has a distinctly secular face. Spiritual healing, psychotherapy….sometimes there is no difference except in words.

JA: What would life look like from the perspective of a person who’s healed their inner wounds and discovered spiritual peace? How do you know when you are there?

MW: You laugh more; you are triggered less; you feel serene and act serenely; you attract more abundance and harmony and peace. We’ve all been there; the point is that we haven’t been there often enough or consistently enough. And that’s the goal.

JA: Why does spiritual practice focused in one area of our lives have so much impact on others? Is it just that we are more attuned to recognizing miracles when they manifest?

MW: You’re one person, and there’s no actual fence between your work life and your private life, or your finances and your marriage. Those categories are simply concepts. As you get more peaceful in one area, the healing can’t but seep into others. Doing this course will affect not only the weight you carry on your body but the weight you carry on your mind; and that will have an extraordinary effect on every area of your life.

JA: If you could share only one lesson in the book, which would it be?

MW: I love the last lesson, where angels come into your house and clean out your cupboards and your closets … and then what happens when they see you.

JA: I’ve bought this book as holiday gifts for many people I care about, but I’m not sure how well received it will be. Do you have any advice on making it clear it is given out of love, not judgment?

MW: Never risk hurting someone’s feelings. Maybe it’s a better gift for after the New Year!

JA: Please tell us more about the upcoming A Course in Weight Loss Retreats you are doing. Why you have joined forces with the people you have chosen to involve?

MW: Tal Ronen, the “Conscious Cook” will be there. So will yoga teacher Tracee Stanley, and therapist Grace Gedeon. It’s very, very exciting.

JA: What is the goal of the retreat?

MW: Three days of intensive work, baby! You’ll be sick of me by the time you leave!:)

JA: Do you feel the A Course in Weight Loss will be more effective in a group setting?

MW: That’s not for me to say. Everyone has their own way of doing these things. Some people will want to be alone with the book; other will want to work with others. Learning to listen to yourself and to honor your own rhythms is an important part of the process.

Julie Anne Rhodes today

JA: Thank you for writing the book, and sharing your insight with us. For me, the lessons are not merely about weight loss and a healthy relationship with food; it is about learning what makes me tick, knowing exactly who I am, forgiving myself for transgressions of the past, appreciating the woman I am today, and always treating myself with the same kindness and respect I would afford others. I feel more comfortable in my own skin, no matter what my weight happens to be, than ever before. What a gift!

Republished from Jewels from the Roving Stove, with gracious permission from Julie Anne Rhodes.