Today's been one of those funny days filled with a strange mix of things ... one of which was attending a preaching workshop this afternoon held over at Glasgow Uni.
The workshop was part of a lecture series entitled 'Preaching Jonah' which involved 'playing' about in a variety of ways using the biblical text of the Jonah narrative. The person leading it has taken different acting classes, so many of the techniques he was showing us today actors use before going on stage and we as preachers can use before preaching. The first thing was about becoming aware and relaxing different parts of the body ... breathing ... belly ... jaw ...
... belly???
Yes, you read right, belly. Apparently by "just relaxing it and letting it hang out" (what was it he said, oh yeah, "everyone has a pot-belly unless your 14, so relax") we enhance out lung capacity. Hmmm, didn't know that. Has something to do with it being relaxed rather than tense. Yet for me this raised a whole different set of issues ...
My mind automatically screamed "NO" at him!!! It didn't take me more than two seconds to realise where that response was coming from. As someone who has suffered from 'eating issues' related around control, self-esteem, and self-image telling me to "just let it hang out" is one of the worst things you can say to me!!! The whole time we spent focusing on that made me intensely uncomfortable, distracted and ill-feeling. It became such a hard excercise and took much self-control to attempt to engage with it. At the same time my mind was screaming at me "where is all this coming from? I'm meant to be ok with all this stuff now!"
While I may not suffer from the issues in the same way that I used to by any manner of means (evidenced most easily now by the fact I will eat in front of people now - though I still dislike people watching me eat - as well as my steadying weight and stomach development), I realised today that I am still as self-concious about my body. If I'm really honest its not that I didn't know that before today, more that unless your doing something obvious like we were its really easy to hide the self-conciousness from others and from self. Suddenly I was totally shoved out my comfort zone ... the safety of all the normal things I can do to hide my fears, insecurities, nagging and persistant thoughts ... I was watching people to see if they were looking at me, which most of the time they weren't in reality ... and then if I did catch someones eye there was a split second where I imagined what negative comment would be going round their head ... and then I was mad at myself for that process taking place at all.
As I write it I know it sounds utterly ridiculous, but it was honestly what was going around in my head. I realised I still live in such a way that my natural position is to pull in my stomach, only not doing that at times if sitting forward and totally unaware of it. I realised that I had to face up to the fact I had been trying to deny ... that recently those old tendancies and thoughts have begun to plague me again.
It's not that I'm going to revert back to my old ways of not really eating for days or anything like that ... those thoughts are slightly easier to take captive of when they come into my mind ... I do not want to go through that again, nor get to a stage where it would be worse than it was before people stepped in to help ... but perhaps my self-image and self-esteem issues are not as resolved as I liked to believe. And I know that if I do not deal with them, then in reality the 'not eating thing' thoughts becomes much harder to dismiss and easier to entertain.
Mmmmm, has left me with some thoughts to ponder tonight and some praying to do. Funny how little things spark off bigger things isn't it. The man leading the workshop thought he was asking us to let our belly's relax in order to increase our lung capacity ... for me he was asking something that helped me realise that the thoughts I have been having recently need addressed, as my immediate negative response conveyed. Mmmmmm
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