It Is About the Nail!

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No matter what side of the proverbial well appointed counselor's office I'm on, I want the solutions to be quickly identified.  So it was illuminating when I relayed the situation of the last post to a friend and it was used as a springboard to a teaching moment that furthered my growth.  My friend is wise enough to know the problem couldn't be fixed for me.  I wasn't blindly backed by simply saying "he's a jerk" because the boss had caused me pain.  I was listened to deeply I felt supported and safe enough to contemplate some thought provoking questions that allowed me to come to my own conclusions.  

"Find out for yourself why these situations annoy, anger or bore you. Reflect and identify the buttons that are pushed while working with others on their weight loss issues.  Make a determination as to whether you can work around your feelings to be effective in these situations."   

Weight loss is hard and no one can do it for another.  When a client comes to me it is hopefully so that I can help them in some way.  It never escapes my consciousness that people are paying a dollar a minute for my undivided attention.  Movement quality, strength, and balance are all areas in which I can have an impact almost immediately.  When someone identifies their weight as the issue, I am immediately and intimately aware of the pieces that go part and parcel with that.  Health concerns, the loss of oxygen while tying one's shoe, self loathing, public ridicule, embarrassment, self deprecating wit to cover the pain, a long trail of failed initiatives and the hopeless soul crushing feeling of helplessness.  

I want to rescue them from all of that as swiftly as possible.  I am a "fixer". I could swear I've been equipped with the wrong stereotypical gender qualities.  I've often felt more like one of the boys and mostly ill at ease among the girly-girls. I'm not capable of being stoic but I will talk about a problem only because I'm looking for a solution.  When a client comes to me for help on weight loss I feel responsible for the outcome but at the same time I realize it is a process where success or failure is largely not in my control.  If I were sitting across from the woman in the video I'd want to reach across and pull the nail from her forehead.  That's where I go wrong every time.  I sometimes lack the patience and wisdom to empower another to pull the nail from their own head.  

Telling someone what to do and having them do it and emerge successful is great when it happens.  It's a linear progression that I can see now is seldom successful.  In future I've got to remember the example set by my insightful advisor.  I was asked penetrating questions and allowed to construct my own truth that of course was acceptable to me.  I am thereby gifted the feeling of accomplishment, having figured it out myself.  I now have a clear direction to pursue because it was self selected and not dictated to me.  The next weight loss client will still have my empathy but they will also have a lot of questions to answer for themselves.   

Taming the Tempest That Brews Within 

One Page at a Time

I don't know why my boss gets under my skin the way he does but I'm almost glad for it even if I violently disagree and am left to nurse a bruised ego or a hurt set of feelings while I mutter under my breath.  He pushes me to substantiate the gelatinous mess of standard operating procedure and raw emotion that is me.

So here's the gist of the conversation as I heard it:

A new hire has a significant weight loss experience similar to myself except that he thrives on working with weight loss clients whereas I do not.  When I raised an eyebrow and wondered aloud how he tolerates weight loss clients the boss said he has a real passion for it and I do not because I'm lacking in empathy.  Ouch!
 
I originally got into this business to help others find their way to health as my trainer changed my life.  Rather quickly I became aware of the fact that not everyone is like me. What a wake up call! ;-)  I ran headlong into my problem of being overweight, crashed and burned, picked myself up and dusted myself off, put a helmet on and crashed into a brick wall again and again until I finally, with the help of a $500 "summer fun money" gift from my Dad, enlisted the help of a trained professional.  For 5 years, I had been running marathons and moving the weights around at the gym in an unsuccessful bid to rid myself of myself of my "pregnancy weight". My "baby" was 8 years old!  

It wasn't until I hit rock bottom that I sought professional advice. Rock bottom for me was calling the fit consultant at Lands End because according to my measurements 46-38-40 (man, that's embarrassing) I didn't fall neatly within a size category on the chart so the fit consultant was touted as the person to call in such instances to give garment-specific advice.  When I relayed my measurements the operator giggled nervously and said, "oh dear!" Oh dear indeed!  I don't blame her now but after that call I hung up the phone, cried myself to sleep and then hired a trainer.
 
My trainer sounded the alarm when my efforts were not in keeping with my results.  Turns out that I had an undiagnosed thyroid problem and had been living as a fat anorexic for years.  Eating less and doing more as my father so helpfully suggested all throughout my life, while generally good advice, does not hold if you're hypothyroid. "You've got such a great personality, if only you could lose that weight you'd have an unbeatable combination." was similarly unhelpful.  

As per usual, I was exceedingly slow to seek outside help but when I did I was after the missing piece of information not hand-holding nor moral support.  I had all of the inner strength, determination, and motivation to accomplish the task, I just needed the expertise to guide me to my destination.  I'm not saying that I didn't benefit from the teamwork and collaborative effort of my trainer.  I had an ally in the fight but he couldn't have done it for me. My boss is famous for saying, "meet people where they're at" besides being a grammatically poor statement, it seems that would be a completely ineffective way to proceed. If I'm looking for a way out, I want a guide to show me the way.  I don't want them to sit down right next to me. 

My brother, my sister and myself.
Ocean City, New Jersey 2002.
I'd already run a half marathon the year before.

I know exactly what it's like to lose weight.  It's a gruelingly cruel long haul process. When someone says they want help on the subject I know first hand how to do it and I believe that having been there myself, having walked many miles in size 22 jeans gives me a uniquely empathetic viewpoint that a natural born sanctimonious Adonis would lack. It's when that weight loss client isn't ready to make the lifestyle changes necessary and when I can't substitute my will for theirs that I lose momentum but not empathy. 

Who Are You?

Do you know who you are and if so, how do you know?

I'm not the first one to ponder the concept. The words "know thyself" (well those same words except written in Latin, but I didn't feel copying and pasting from google was necessary) are inscribed in the Temple of Apollo at Delphi built around 1100 BC.  For the record, I googled that last factoid too.  

Then there's the age-old question my father would ask,"Do a**holes know they're a**holes?" The short answer to this one is decidedly, no.  I know an insufferably overbearing person that thinks he or she is "up" and "bubbly".  

Last week, my boss's wife asked ME if it would be OK if she moved the plates of cornbread to a different table during our chili cook-off.  At first, I was perplexed as to why she would check with ME? and I started to launch into a diatribe asking just what kind of control freak she thought I was until I remembered I'm the worst kind of control freak!  I'm the worst kind because I like to think of myself as easy going until somebody has the audacity to do something that isn't in keeping with my standards.  

Do you act a certain way in front of a certain person that just might be a few beads off from the way you really truly are? No? Never? You're telling me you've never dated??? Have you ever had a mutual acquaintance that one friend finds delightful while the other finds that same person disagreeable? What is the truth of that third person's character?  

There are too many players involved to know oneself, I think.  As to our self perception, we might easily ascribe the best of intentions to our actions and be able to recall every mitigating circumstance to excuse our less than stellar behavior. When it comes to self evaluation, I think we wear blinders for our own protection. Ever been in traffic and ascribe the most contemptible loathsome state of being to the witless driver that cut you off?  That could have been the Dalai Lama! You never know! 

Outsiders are left to sort out our actions without the benefit of knowing our intent or just what particular devil made us do it. When someone holds up a mirror to aid in our self awareness, do we gaze intently into the reflection they present or do we consider the filters they use to see, taking note of their blind-spots and their demons?  This is precisely why my first foray into psychotherapy was an total failure. 

In college, during the semester I took philosophy class, I could count on a migraine headache every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon.  According to me, I'm too pragmatic for such esoteric flights of fancy.  It is only due to yet another meeting with my boss in which I, you guessed it, cried, that I'm even contemplating such thoughts.  DARN IT!  I'd say DAMN IT! but I don't curse in front of him and neither he in front of me.  I know I swear like a sailor and I'm pretty sure he lets the occasional vulgarity escape his lips but we don't do so in front of each other. For me, I clean up my act in front of him out of a deep and abiding respect.  Yes, he's a mere mortal, failed and flawed - especially when he doesn't agree with me ;-) - but I've also glimpsed an aura around him.  If you're Christian, it could most easily be described as the light and love of Jesus shining through.  

Anyway, I was crying....again!  Man!  It makes me so mad!  I don't have nearly enough estrogen to send a frigging birthday card on time or to pick up a Cosmo magazine even at the hair salon but should I become flustered, the waterworks start!  

On Monday, I was relieved of my duties as far as teaching group exercise class. He said he had observed a slowing down on my part and an inability to tolerate nor focus in the presence of loud music. Facilitating a group class is a learned skill that necessitates being a dynamic leader with laser focus on the individual while maintaining a nimble control of the group environs at the same time motivating music is blaring away.  

Could it be true?  Is this slippage in ability a result of my having Parkinson's as he believes?  Could I maybe just be a person who doesn't like loud music?  Is he seeing things that aren't even there or apparent only to him?  At what point to I accept someone else's appraisal of me as truth?  Until what time am I able to go on believing my own version of my truth?  

I cried because I realized that I stopped listening to the car radio about a year and a half ago.  At the time, I thought I was heeding the advice of others to slow down and decompress.  Since my most frequent commute is the 9 minutes it takes me to get to work I figured I could at least be quiet for that short of a period.  I recalled the many times I've asked my family to turn down the television or to lower their voices.  Is this Parkinson's or is that just me and every other middle aged parent?  I truly thought these preferences were normal and just in keeping with who I am.  But now, with my boss ascribing my behavior and motivations to this disease, how can I be sure where "I" end and "it" begins??

He accused (and there isn't another word choice other than accused, by the way he said it) me of being in denial about my having Parkinson's. True, I told almost no one for a full year after being diagnosed. However, I think I overcame my abject fear and episodic fits of panic quite nicely. My story is on our webpage http://bodybasics.biz/about/ , you're reading my blog, and I'll mention it occasionally in conversation being careful not to overdo it.  He said that I still haven't embraced Parkinson's as a part of myself.  Not that I should proceed as, "I have Parkinson's and my name is _______."  But my understanding is that he thinks I should embrace this disease as a part of myself and seek to be an inspiration to the other half dozen people in my area who have early onset. I think he views my near constant score-keeping appraisal of my abilities as a negative and my bucket list stunt pulling as a destructive or at least distracting force of denial.  

Embrace a DISEASE as a part of myself?? They cut cancer out, don't they?  So what if I'm trying new things before I can't?  I'm on definite notice that I won't always be able. The sin would be not to do as much as I can for as long as I can or as in the case this week until my boss tells me I can't.  That was quite a devastating blow. Being a capable personal trainer has become a part of my identity and it's starting to be chipped away.  I feel pretty low about it.  Am I allowed that?  Is it a real feeling or do I only feel that way because I'm a Parkie? I prefer to keep the whole Parkinson's thing at a shaking arm's length so I can cling to the feeling that I'm still in control.  I want to believe I'm still at the helm of my feelings, preferences and actions even if that sacred self-preserving belief resides in the garden state of denial. I just want to be like everyone else.  Why should I be forced to endure perfect self knowledge?  

Side Bar Notes:

1. A friend aptly pointed out after reading this blog that I'm wound tighter than a banjo string.  Hahaha!  So true!  That appraisal I will humbly accept and in keeping true to my stripes I want the record to reflect I wrote this whole post with earphones blaring music into my ears and yet I was able to focus on the task at hand.  Banjo string is kind, I think.  

2. My husband walked into the room and asked what I was working on.  I think he was checking on my recent vow not to work too much anymore. I nonchalantly replied,"my blog".  He actually said he didn't know I had a blog!!!  I reminded him that I told him twice before.  Don't think I can count him among my readers even still. He grunted and left the room having failed to ask the 64,000 dollar question yet again! Oh well.