On Congruence and Judgements

Lately, I've been traveling quite a lot for business.  On my last business trip - and by last, I mean the one that happened a few weeks ago, not the one I'm about to start today - I attended a Communications/Relationship Management workshop.  I've probably taken a half dozen similar courses in my career and speaking from experience, you're generally lucky if one or two things per course really stick with you. 

The one that stuck with me this time was the idea of congruence.  In psychology, congruence is essentially the consististency between your inner and outer selves - who you say you are and what you actually do that shows the world who you are.  Sure, this is primarily based on perception, but there is a strong case to be made about congruence.  If you lack it, people generally won't trust you because there will always be something off about you.  A lack of genuineness.  It's an important thing to have for a number of reasons, but it's especially important for me - not just because I believe in living as authentic a life as possible - but because if you're going to be an open book (and unless you want to be labeled as James Frey and Greg Mortenson, i.e. frauds), you've absolutely got to have congruence.  For my words to carry any weight, I must live by them - for they are not mere words on paper or screen - but the very proof of my existence.

This is really heavy for a weight loss blog - no pun intended, you're probably thinking.  I know.  But I'm getting there.  I promise.

It's imperative for my own ethical and moral sanity (I've given up on attempting to achieve psychological sanity, at least) that I have congruence in my life.  To me that means not backing down unless it's a battle that's not worth fighting; trying again and again and again and never giving up on something if it's what I really want; being open to life - that no matter how many times I am burned or hurt, I will still approach people with an open heart and open mind; believing that the vast majority of people are genuinely 'good'; allowing intention to carry weight.

Being an open book isn't the easier choice here.  Just so you know, keeping all of this in my head and struggling with my weight or other challenges in my life and just not telling another soul about it would be incredibly easier.  I wouldn't have to answer to anyone for my decisions.  I wouldn't have to justify anything.  I would just go about my life in a bubble and not share anything about it.  But that's just not who I am at my core, because at my core, I believe we learn and grow by our own experiences and that we instinctively choose to surround ourselves with people who have also gone through them so that we have a baseline of understanding.  Let's be honest - it's why the majority of my friends aren't thin or at least weren't always that way.  My weight has been a huge challenge for me and to try to separate it from who I am is next to impossible.

But what all of this means is that I also have to bear some of the responsibility when people take offense or feel strongly about something in my life.  Because I am not hiding it.  Because I am being open about it and some people just don't like that.  And so, I've found, it's the same with the choice I've made here, the one regarding bariatric surgery. 

I met my first real detractor this weekend and it was tough.  I know this is the right thing for me.  I know that given my medical history and how long I've been overweight that the chances of my successfully losing the weight AND keeping it off are less than 5%.  I also know, in theory at least, that there will be people who disagree with this decision.  I don't think it's that I didn't expect that; it was really that they refused to listen to reason and not having had any of the issues I've had, can't at all relate.

No one would ever tell an amputee to try harder to walk.  Just push yourself harder in physical therapy and you can overcome the greatest of odds.  No one would tell a diabetic to go off their insulin and just change their eating habits to control their blood sugar.  No one would tell someone with a life-threatening disease to just work harder and get over it.

But apparently it's acceptable to tell a fat person that they're just not trying hard enough.  That because Weight Watchers worked for them, it will work for me.  That because they never learned to maintain their weight loss, that I won't either and that bariatric surgery won't fix that.  That because I have lost weight before, I can do it again.  And I can keep doing it - living in this yo-yo pattern - gaining back every pound and then some after each diet.

Let me tell you, it is not acceptable to tell a fat person they're not trying hard enough.  Weight in this country is out of control.  It has a lot less to do with the choices people make than the choices that have already been made for them.  Food dyes, additives, preservatives, the high cost of whole/real/unprocessed foods, the inability to trust that even the fruits and vegetables are safe let alone that our meat isn't contanimated.  If the 20-30 minutes of daily exercise that the Federal Government "recommends" were enough to make us thin, well, I wouldn't have this blog. 

Fallacies abound and the weight loss industry with their almost $60 billion in revenues spread the worst of them:  That if you eat 'this' and not 'that' that you can be thin; that if you take this supplement, the weight will melt off; that if you buy this product or work out 7 days a week for an hour a day or push yourself past the point of exhaustion and just continue to spend money in search of that elusive number on the scale, you will finally be happy. 

What's worse is that we buy into them.  I've bought into them.  And now it's time for reality to get it's fair share:  I will not ever lose the weight I need to lose to be in the 'normal' BMI range by dieting and exercise.  No amount of shitty Nutrisystem food or P90X will change that.  You don't have to like it or my choices, but until they're yours to make, you really shouldn't be judging mine.