New Rules for Body Image

I never thought I'd live to wish that I'd paid more attention in typing class. So many of us were told we didn't NEED to learn to type well, and now look at me. It takes me an hour to transcribe 10 minutes of audio recording. Well, I'm putting on my turtle mindset... he finished the race eventually, right? Just keep plugging along.

I'm transcribing the three hour Love Your Body Workshop that I hosted a couple weeks ago, and the benefit of the recording is collecting all the stories and voices of the women who participated, without having to rely on my faulty memory or scattered notes.

Some of the great new rules about body image we made up in the workshop:
Nourish Yourself.
Always Eat Lunch.
Celebrate All Types of Bodies
Get and Give Massage
Love Your Body, No Matter What It Looks Like

Got any other ideas?

Final Two Chapters coming up soon, stay tuned!

Someone last week told me (I think approvingly?) that it was gutsy to put my first draft deadline just all out there like that. Hanging on the clothesline, flapping around in the breeze. Well... what if I'm done a week early? I finished chapter 15 today, and I expect to finish chapters 16 & 17 between 3/31 and 4/7. I think there's a reasonably good chance I'll have the first draft mostly complete by then. Then I'll give myself one more week to add in the missing pieces, you know the puzzle pieces that were hiding under the carpet and in the sofa. Whew! After six years of working on this, it's great to feel so close.

Today I was writing about the crazy experience of being asked by Lululemon three years ago to do a yoga photoshoot... in the cold, rain, and wind, with barely any clothes on! You can see pictures from that shoot on my website by clicking here. You can't tell from the pics, but I was freezing my butt off. The really amazing thing about the shoot was that after thirty-odd years of torturing myself over any photos that showed my legs and hips... I loved the shots. They were totally fine. I didn't freak out or anything. I used to treat photos of myself like a bat I could hit myself over the head with. So reacting (or not reacting) to these photos with pleasure and without judgment was a huge deal for me, and really helped me see clearly how far I'd come in starting to love my body more and more.

And Onward!

Finished Chapter 14 yesterday afternoon. Is it possible I only have 3 more chapters left? I'm a little worried that chapter 17 will turn into chapter 18 and then 19 and 20... it will be like Sisyphus... every time I think I'm done, there will be another chapter to write. But no. I promise myself, and everyone: the book will not be infinitely long. I have five more days in my schedule to write chapter 15, so I'm treating myself today to Sianna Sherman's yoga class this afternoon in SF. It will feel great, since I've been skimping a little on my yoga practice lately. Writing seems to have taken over everything.

This morning I took went up to Sibley with the dog... it was so clear and gorgeous... easy to get lots of perspective on the book, on life, on the world from up there.

May all of our works-in-progress make progress during this waxing moon.

Fear

Fear. I'm pretty sure that's why I didn't start a blog about the book earlier. I was feeling superstitious... that if I started writing a blog about the book, I wouldn't be actually writing the book. And, I ask you, what would be the point of having a blog about a book I wasn't actually writing? But now, at Chapter 14, I feel confident enough to say... the book has some momentum behind it, and actually has a date when I think all the chapters (17) will be done. Dare I say it? Will I jinx myself if I do? The date is... drumroll, please... Ugh. I can't do it. April 14! There, I said it. Whew.

Even seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, I realize there will be a lot more to do even when the first draft is finished. Rewriting, editing, having readers look at it. Writing a book proposal, looking for a publisher, maybe an agent, an editor. Writing the first draft is just the beginning. So Chapter 14 feels like a perfectly good place to start. At the crest of the wave, ready to crash into shore and stir up a few treasures!

Chapter 14

It seems funny to start the blog with "Chapter 14" as the heading, but that's where I am with the book right now. I've been working for the last six weeks on finishing up the first draft of the book I've been working on for six years, called Finding Fullness. It's about how my yoga practice has helped me overcome the residual effects of the eating disorder I had as a teenager. I noticed a few years back that not everyone in the world was hungry all the time. This was shocking to me... I thought hunger was just the human condition. I was wrong. Some people actually walk around during the day and go for long periods without feeling hungry! Some people actually forget to eat. As someone who finds it hard to go for more than a few hours without a snack, I found this amazing, and I set out to discover whether I could learn the secret to feeling full. Hence the title, Finding Fullness. Whether or not I've found it... well, you'll have to read the book. Looking at my hunger, how I relate to food, exercise, weight, and the scale, have all helped me understand more about how to actually take care of my body and treat it (myself!) with love.

I'll be posting regularly about how the writing is going... two weeks until I hope to be finished with my first draft! Wish me luck!