5th Day Raw - Raw Feelings

Howdy,

I wish I could say I felt happier this today...especially this being my 5th day raw, but I think i'm going through a little emotional cleansing. A necessary, but not a happy pleasant thing.

It reminds me of something Dustin talked about, crying alot after he started raw and after he released cooked food.

Last night i was feeling seriously depressed and cried almost the whole evening. Today i'm feeling out of sorts. And i got my period. So, there you go.

Yesterday, I went to the opera with my mother's cousin, Pauline (we have a subscription together), and as I watched the soprano up on the stage, i fully realized and I KNEW in my heart of hearts that "I could do that."

Before the opera started, Pauline and I talked about a PBS special we had both seen, a documentary of auditions at the Metropolitan Opera. 3 of the winners were plus sized women. And we were certain they had ALL lied about their age, having to meet the requirement of being under 31. I acknowledged that I could do it, audition professionally, and should do it, and i replied, "Yes, i know. I'll do it."

Later, i looked at myself in the bathroom mirror of the Academy of Music, and my heart sank. Wrinkles. How am i going to say i'm 28, when i'm 42??? Suddenly, "I'll do it" felt like an impossibility.

Why does every push to change in me feel like it gets beaten down internally before i even try to do it?

When i got home from the opera, i was feeling seriously down, but I wasn't really aware of what was bothering me. You know, hindsight is 20-20. I knew I wanted comfort. That means food. Was i hungry? I really don't think so, but I ate a big raw meal, and a big raw shake, which really filled me, but didn't satisfy me. I suppose it wasn't food i needed. A little late to recognize that. You 'd think i'd be more advanced skillwise than this with my eating, but i am not. It's a long frustrating journey with food and emotional eating and feeding myself and comforting myself and what kind of raw food i need. It's exhausting to be me...

Feeling too full and like I had done a really bad thing, i had seriously enormous binge impulses. I wanted bread and butter and i wanted to fill this hole in me. I wanted to FEEL better. What was wierd was i was already overly full. How would being any fuller make me feel BETTER? I realized and even SAID to myself, "there's not enough food in the world to fill this hole, this ache." I skulked away from the kitchen no bread and butter in hand, plopped on the sofa and started to cry. Cliff tried to comfort me, but i couldn't even verbalise what was bothering me. I just kept repeating, "I'm so depressed. I'm so depressed."

Cliffy held me and hugged me on the sofa and we popped in a movie, "Antwone Fisher," starring Denzel Washington. Talk about an emotional movie. Not exactly uplifting, but amazingly moving to me. Have you seen it? It's a slow character and relationship study, very moving, about a young man in the navy who has anger issues and is sent to the base psychiatrist. Abuse and abandonment on so many levels is uncovered in this young man's life. And through his healing relationship with the psychiatrist played by Denzel Washington, he is able to move through his anger and overcome his need to constantly fight. He is reunited with his birth family at the end of the movie and he falls in love, now able to accept love and give love.

It was so good. Being adopted (abandonment issue) and having lived through familial abuse myself (emotional and sexual), this movie touched me to the core, and I literally couldn't stop crying. I kept feeling such a deep sadness for this character, for myself, for my lack of children, and how i wanted a child. I've been wanting to adopt a foster child, a child no one else wanted, and this movie really stirred all of that up.

Somehow this is all related to the opera. My fear of pursuing music is akin to my fear of having a child.

I just have never felt 'good enough.' I never wanted to fuck up a child. And I never felt i was strong enough to go through the audition process to actually become a professional singer.

Dustin's interview brought up powerful realizations. That i'm not shit. That i'm worthy. Remember that visual i had heard of that his interview reminded me of? Of that giant diamond in each of us, that we've allowed to cake over with shit...that we then paint with nailpolish, thinking no one can see the shit beneath it?

I've always focused on the shit part of myself. Not good enough. Not thin enough. Not smart enough, or musical enough or strong enough. And then i think of those kids on American Idol. Some of them aren't even that GOOD, but their self image is so strong, they SEE and KNOW and BELIEVE they are the diamond.

Some people like the Simon Cowell's of the world see through somebody's "nailpolish" surface like a radar detector. They can see the shit OR the diamond, depending on which you project.

Some good souls look at people and only SEE the diamond. They can see right through to the good in you and overlook everything else. Some people look at you and all they see is the shit caked. They're the abusers, the ones who called you names and made me feel like you were never good enough.

So, how do i view myself? It's the most important point of view of all.

Robert Driver, the head of the Opera Company of Philadelphia, walked past me yesterday at the opera. My mouth dropped open and i whispered to Pauline, "It's Robert Driver!" I stared over at him, not a foot away from me and I imagined myself going up to him, "Sir, my name is Michelle Schulman. Michelle Schulman! Remember that name! I'd like to come and audition for you! You have quite literally never heard a voice like mine. Michelle Schulman, remember that name."

And then i thought of how easy it would be for him to discover on the internet that i am actually 42 and i felt defeated almost immediately.

Not good enough. Not young enough. Not thin enough. It's like a mantra in how NOT to succeed. Now, i'm being real honest right now. I'm not trying to be an inspiration, i'm just telling you how it IS for me. I KNOW, i recognize i have ALOT of work to do on my self esteem and my...what i feel are my limitations.

So, as i looked in the fridge to fill that hole, i actually FELT myself fighting that idea of being the 'diamond.' "Yeah, right, that is SUCH bullshit. Who am I to think i am that diamond!"

All of the crying that came afterwards when i didn't shove down the feelings with anymore food was cathartic. It was self love. I was telling myself i was better than all of that food.

After Cliff went upstairs, I held this stuffed animal we call 'Wendy,' right there on the living room sofa, and i comforted her, and my tears made her wet and cold. I comforted her like she was MY child, and like she was the child in ME. "I love you so much and i'll never let anything happen to you. You're perfect just the way you are."

Antwone Fisher was a diamond, who believed he was crap, an then that fine doctor made him realize his own strength. At the end of the movie, he confronted his abusers and his abandoners, "I just want you to know you didn't kill me. I'm strong. I'm a good person. I made it out alive even though you tried to get me. But, you didn't get me. I'm good and i'm strong."

I'm so sensitive and insecure, if someone tells me i'm shit, i'll believe them.

[i'm practicing] "I'm good. I'm strong. I am the diamond. I'm not the shit, OR the nailpolish on top."

I really am the diamond, but i just don't always realize it. Cliff knows it.

And sometimes there's just not enough comfort in the world for me. There is never enough bread and butter. There is never enough of Cliff hugging me or telling me he loves me and will never leave me. My needs for comfort are ENORMOUS.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

So, since there is never enough cooked food to make me feel better....my new venture has just been to eat raw, eat what i want, walk daily, forget about losing weight, satisfy myself, give up dieting, give up binge eating....and just live and re-embrace, re-fall in love with raw food. Love myself. Accept myself. Just BE. I always gain the weight back after I diet, anyway, so why even bother?

Loving a fatter me is NOT easy. But, i don't think self hatred is the way to heal. I have to love me fat if i'm going to love myself thin. My boss, Arnold, always says, "Love is the answer."

I worked with Carlene for a month, lost like 20 lbs and then gained it back with fried onion rings. She was so controlling. Not loving at all. There was no joy in it.

So, why deprive myself any longer? If i need comfort, i'll give myself comfort FOOD and it'll be RAW comfort food. I swear, I can't fight anymore. I feel like a burnt out race horse.

I surrender.

Plus, practically speaking, I couldn't shit on cooked, i snored again, and looked bloated every morning and still dreamed of onion rings and fried eggrolls.

I was kidding myself, but I turned to cooked food in desperation trying to lose weight even quicker than with raw. I supposed that cooked veggies were calorie free, much LESS than fruit, and i'd lose like crazy. When i didn't, i mean i did lose, but not like crazy, and when that taste for cooked junk food was still being lit daily by cooking food, and I ended gaining weight with cooked instead of losing even quicker, I realized eating cooked was not really bringing me any closer to my goals. No, pizza and eggrolls is not making me any healthier.

So, I re-draw that line in the sand. To say that Dustin and Tim Arnold didn't help, i'd be lying. How powerful is it to hear them BOTH say, "cooked food is POISON!" To me, it's like a DRUG. There is just NOT enough fried food, not enough bread and butter in the world to fill that hole inside of me.

I chuckle when i think of what Dustin said to explain his intense cravings for cooked food sometimes, "Sometimes i want to take a pizza and stuff it with everything and just roll it up and deep fry it." I'm so THERE with you, brother!

I am so wild about anything fried. Did you happen to catch Richard Simmons on TV last week talking about fried food? "A sliver becomes a slab becomes a slob." How profound is THAT. Simmons is from Louisianna. Home of the fried catfish and fried shrimp and fried hushpuppies. Fry it, and i'm sure i'd like it.

But, what's amazing is, Dustin doesn't do it. He may verbalize it. But he doesn't do it. And he eats avocados and Tim eats dressing on his salad and 10 banana-banana whips at night. And they got skinny. Seriously skinny!!!!

They are both MEN...and i do have my intellectual doubts about women eating like that on raw and losing. If there are any, please write in!

Yet, I'm willing to suspend disbelief for now because what i've been doing obviously isn't working..... I have to keep reminding myself...i lost 140 lbs eating raw gourmet sometimes 4-5x a week. The rest of the time i ate lightly. I can learn a LOT from that.

Dustin's highlghting how we have to work out the emotions and how we have to let them flow through us and let go of them, let go of the false limiting beliefs, and how we have to be creative and let that flow through us has had a very big impact on me.

Also, both men's ability to draw thinness into their lives still astounds me. Dustin told himself, "I weigh 200 lbs." and a year later, he did. Tim Arnold, literally, every time i saw him at Arnold's Way, he stated, "I want to be SVELTE." (His favorite word for thin). "I want to be svelte. I want to be svelte. Guess what? I want to be svelte."

Successful people have mantras for success!!!!! (Clue to self!)

I WANT TO BE THIN. I WANT TO EAT WHAT I WANT, RAW. I WANT TO BE A PROFESSIONAL OPERA SINGER. I WANT TO LIVE IN A NICE HOME. I WANT TO BE HAPPY AND BE FREE OF AN EATING DISORDER.

And Tim and Dustin just eating what they want as long as it's raw has also impacted me hugely. I'm TRYING with all my might to really believe that could be true for me. I'm praying alot more. I'm eating raw fattening food and i'm asking it to make me healthy and thin. And i'm trying to turn this all over to God, for him to work in me and make me thin. I think if i let him, he could do it. I think he could lead me and guide me better than i've been guiding myself. I mean, if you read this blog frequently, you KNOW how nuts it is to TRY to guide yourself using EFFORT. It just don't work. I try it every day. I drive myself nuts doing it.

There has GOT to be something much more powerful at work here. Tim meditates EVERY morning. Dustin has this amazing positive attitude. As does his wife, Meredith. The soul has GOT to lead. I just don't think the intellect is enough.

Anyway, I'm also determined i'm going to stop TRYING to lose weight with effort, i mean, with dieting. I've stopped weighing myself.

I still eat emotionally. I tend toward everything fatty and fattening and salty. It tastes good but bloats me. But, it's what i WANT. But, i'm hoping God will make it like-calorie free to my body and heal me with it. That would be really nice. Or he will change my desires and lead me through this. I will be led through AWARENESS instead of EFFORT. You know what i mean?

The phone is ringing...and that's my signal to say SHALOM for now. Peace, and goodbye~! There will be more 'pure raw joy' coming... Not everyday is sad. I've been feeling a lot of joy, too, over the last days. But my greatest joy will be when i have overcome all of this shit with food, when i KNOW i'm the diamond, when i'm on stage at the Opera Company of Philadelphia singing my heart out and everyone else knows i'm the diamond, too :-))) Then all of these daily frustrations on 'pure raw joy' will have made sense and will have lead to something truly amazing.

Thank you for your support.

P.S. Who can make me a fake I.D.?

xoxo michelle joy