body issues and the like

I just got home from work. It was a grueling 5:15am to 1 shift. I made sure I went to sleep before 11 last night, and I'm really glad that I did. I'm not ready to die from exhaustion right now, which is nice.
I'm almost finished with Buddhism and the 12 Steps. The last chapter that I read kind of changed the way that I think about God. He talks about the Our Father and people's problem with it in AA meetings. I've struggled with this too because that prayer doesn't really mean anything to me. He goes through it line by line and interprets it in his own Buddhist way and I must say that it made me think a little differently about it. He also touches on the problem a lot of people have with praying "to" something when they don't really believe in some magical being in the sky that will somehow take care of their prayers. And without getting too morally superior or intellectual about it, he explained that when he prays, he does so to the divine that is within him and within us all. This idea of having the divine within was a little tricky to me at first, but after reading and practicing a little more I realized that it's sort of like the divine energy of the entire universe that is inside of every living thing. Humans experience it (or don't) when we can be entirely present in the moment, outside of our mindfulness even. I suppose this is possible. According to this guy it is, but it's definitely a place in which everything is the same... I think. I've still got some research to do on this one.

The topic at the meeting last night was acceptance. It was made me think about my acceptance of life on an everyday basis, but especially self acceptance, which led to body acceptance. I've been trying to lose weight on and off for the past ten years and it's only been recently that I think I've tried to stop looking at my relationship with food as something to abuse or neglect and just listen to my body and feed it when it needs to be fed. This is much harder than it seems for someone like me. When I'm watching what I'm eating, it lasts for maybe three months and then I totally binge for a few weeks. Then I go back to watching, so on and so forth. I don't hate my body, and I've come a long way with accepting it. But I feel now that I've stopped using it attract attention and essentially use it as a substance, I'm much easier on myself to look how I look. I always even out to about the weight that I am now everytime I'm not on either side of the scale. I think I look pretty good, I'm working on accepting the parts of my body that I'd like to change, and overall I think getting so attached is pretty fruitless. It's just another way to reach for outside things to make me happy.

Being tattooed has been a big part of my life for the past year also. I would be lying if I said that I don't like the attention that being a heavily tattooed person gets you. But besides this I feel like it's given me a lot of help with accepting my body for what it is also. I felt this way when I got the hood or my clitoris and nipples pierced. It's just a decoration, but also it's sort of a celebration of what you've got. I think that's pretty awesome.

There's this woman that comes into Starbucks that is physically deteriorating. She's obviously anorexic or bulemic or both and my heart cries every time that I see her. It makes me think about how absolutely insane it is that she would look in the mirror and not be able to see what others see. I know that I've struggled with really being honest about what I look like, as I'm sure many other women have also. It's a little like denial. I feel like the more honest I am with myself the more these things just sort of fall into place and for once in my life I feel like I'm on my way to being happy with the way that I look.