Did Fat Acceptance Help Me Lose Weight?
In 1998 I became aware of the idea of “fat acceptance” and it may have changed my life. I say may have, because it was not until a couple of years later that I started making even the tiniest positive life changes that eventually led me to where I am today, over 100 pounds lighter than I was at my heaviest weight and finally living in a clutter-free, functional and peaceful home.
Have you heard of the fat acceptance movement? It is a loose affiliation of individuals and organizations uniting around the idea that fat people are unfairly targeted for discrimination and hatred in our society. Of course, any of us who are or who have been fat know the truth of this like we know our own names. The revolutionary idea, to me at the time at least, is that this is not okay. Being reviled, discriminated against and treated poorly simply because we are fat is not okay. And, conversely, it’s okay to be fat. Read more
What Does it Mean to Offer Ourselves Radical Acceptance?
For the last year I’ve been blessed to be working with Bill Baren, a wonderful business and life coach. We talk weekly and he has been by my side throughout the process of bringing NurturingHope.com from a spark of an idea to the actuality of a home for those of us who struggle with compulsive hoarding and eating.
There is a critical, self-loathing voice inside my head, and it seems like it has always been there for as long as I can remember. Perhaps you have one too. It tells me that I’m just not good enough, that maybe I don’t really have my life under control, that maybe I’m just a misstep or two away from living in squalor and filth again, that maybe my eating is already out of control and I’m back on the road to morbid obesity. It tells me that I can’t trust myself, that I have to be self-critical and hard on myself or my life will fall apart again. The voice both creates and expresses a sense of fear and anxiety that can be paralyzing at times.
A month or two ago I was discussing this self-critical voice with Bill. He asked me a question that boggled my mind: “Catherine, what would it take to accept the part of you that does not accept yourself?” At first this question seemed so paradoxical that I could not even comprehend it. My self-loathing voice is like an enemy who is determined to make me miserable, an enemy whom I cannot escape. I desperately wanted to eliminate this part of me, not accept it! Read more