Thank you guys for all the thoughtful comments from the other day. I think I have that center-of-the-universe fallacy, where I believe that everyone thinks about me as much as I do myself. Not bloody likely. But what matters to me most right this second, just for a few more days, is that feeling watched makes me less motivated, whether or not that feeling is a fallacy. I want to hide so that people will start watching someone else instead. And, while I admire Naoko's style and deeply wish it was effective for me, I have a perverse reaction to the expectations of my acquaintances.
In case that wasn't contradictory enough, I do like the accountability of this small, self-selected community. In truth, I'm much better at keeping commitments to other people than ones solely to myself. So I'm doing this for me, and only a group of people I love and/or trust is watching, plus feeling like I've made a promise to Nathaly and Ramiro and Stu to keep showing up adds an extra dimension.
It's a mess, I admit. Perhaps as I get more comfortable with the way my body looks and feels, I'll also be able emotionally believe that a. most people aren't looking at me anyway and b. even if they are, I feel okay about it. I guess the first step is posting pictures to that damned Flickr feed. Tomorrow, I'll do Day One and Day Fourteen pics.
P.S. Sarah, please email me at peakconditionkim at gmail and we can talk HK! I was going to take a guess at your email address, but started to worry that there had been previous Sarahs...
P.P.S. Grace, I know what you mean about well-intentioned, and that totally helps. When one of the cleaning ladies asked me in the elevator one day if I was pregnant, she was so happy at the idea. It was sweet, but demoralizing.
Kim -- thanks for being present with us. Both Ramiro and I are in the same boat. We've been talking about it with folks on a sort of need-to-know basis. I even went as far as not making my flickr stream public. Maybe at the end, but not yet. i really don't like to look at the photos. But having you guys there definitely helps. I should start engaging more with other PCPers blogs, too. I did a bunch of browsing before starting the program (mostly of the handful of couples that have done the program), but haven't really gone outside of our cohort since Day 1.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I definitely need you guys. I do like reading the other current blogs, too. There are some scary previews (egg white, apple, milk dinners and all kinds of mysteriously named exercises), but they're working their various ways to wisdom and are really interesting.
ReplyDelete