Saturday, June 13, 2009

Reawakening Our Inner Tinker Bell

Sunday, June 7th, 2009

I don’t know about anyone else, but as a little girl/baby boomer, I grew up loving and wanting to be Tinker Bell. Tink was everything I wasn’t: she was beautiful, petite, independent, flirtatious, ferociously in love, dedicated, had that awesome magical pixie dust, and had more sass than anyone I knew. In my house, in my generation, young girls/even women were taught to behave, ‘mind our manners’, do what was expected of us, not make waves. Some of us rebelled in the late 60’s and burned our bras, but many more of us were too ingrained in the “good girl behavior” to do something as outrageous as burning our bras. We towed the line, just like we were taught to and as was expected of us. Still, I always loved Tink.

Looking back now, I can see that all of this “towing the line” behavior is the root of why we with weight problems almost ALL are emotional eaters. Don’t you see it? In essence, all along, we were trained to ignore our inner Tinker Bell ways, our “ugly” emotions. It wasn’t right for us to be angry, pissed off, jealous, or really show any serious emotions whatsoever. We simply weren’t supposed to make waves. So what did we end up doing? We shoved them down….deep, deep down inside WITH FOOD. Lots and lots of food. Food that tasted really good and gave us the levels of satisfaction that we couldn’t achieve by merely letting our feelings out…because we couldn’t let those feelings out. We weren’t supposed to. We couldn’t be Tink. We couldn’t be pissed and let it show!

We couldn’t get angry at someone and emotionally or verbally duke it out with them!

We couldn’t JUST.SAY.NO.

Heck, most of the time, we couldn’t even laugh uproariously anymore, either! :(

All we could do was bottle up our real feelings. So we ate and we ate and we ate to try and stuff those feelings down. By the time we were old and independent enough to do it, it was kind of too late. The bad habit of eating instead of expressing ourselves was already set.

So here we are now. I learned, via the testosterone of menopause, to let part of my inner Tinker out. I learned it was ok sometimes to say NO! To get pissed and let it show. To belly laugh when I really felt like it. To show my feelings. Sure, sometimes there were repercussions. But that’s ok. At least I was being honest. Other people were entitled to their reactions to my reaction. Such is life. I guess I had to get good enough at doing that-being myself and letting my real feelings show and be expressed-before I could get to this juncture to where there really is no good, legitimate reason to overeat anymore. To get to the point where I respect myself, my body, and my future enough to change the lifelong bad habits. To not only let my inner Tinker Bell out, but to embrace her in all her imperfections. To feel and express my passions, both the good ones and the “bad” ones. To be TINKER BELL.

I owe a lot to Tinker Bell. I learned to be a full fledged, imperfect, but honest woman. Now, I can stop hiding behind food, stop ignoring what I was really feeling, and let my passion out/show. I can stop going through the motions of life and REALLY start living it and FEELING it! And dang, it feels AWESOME!!!!

So please, please, start letting your inner Tinker Bell out. Release her! Let her belly laugh and get pissed and throw a tantrum and be flirty. Be who you REALLY are. Once you are, you won’t need the mounds and mounds and ridiculous mounds of food to hide behind anymore. I promise!!!

ETA: because I did some research, and Disney says it’s Tinker Bell. As in Miss Bell. :D

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