Zen practice, habits, and the bounce

Sei-in's post about fingernail biting helped me reflect on a habit pattern that I've been struggling with lately (thank you Sei-in!); the opportunities that the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha provide to face the difficult emotions that can come up around habits; and an associated phenomenon I've been noticing a lot lately, the desire to withdraw from things that feel unpleasant.

I grew up in a secular Jewish family and community, and have lots of strong and pleasant memories about food from my childhood -- associations of food with physical sensations of delight and also emotional sensations of comfort, love, abundance, and security. I also grew up in the 1970s, a time when there was a lot of attention to diet and being thin, and was often teased at school for being fat (along with being Jewish and in an actively left-wing family with a working mother, which was not a happy combo in a rich, right-wing, WASP neighbourhood). So, like many people there is both a neurotic tendency to cling to food and want more of it because it makes me feel good, and at the same time a neurotic aversion to it because it brings up feelings of disgust, self loathing, and shame.

Shortly before starting at the VZC I was at an all time low in terms of my physical and mental health. A very stressful job, burnout from years of difficult community work, grief over deaths of scores of friends and clients, and difficulty walking due to a brain virus several years previously led to increasing reliance on food both to cope with the difficult feelings and also, in hindsight, to try to obliterate my self and create a wall between me and the world. Although I took a political position on fat pride, really I was completely embarrassed at the binge eating I would do, smothering rage and frustration with loaves of bread and bowl after bowl of noodles.

When I started practising with the VZC there were obvious and dramatic physical changes. I put down the cane I'd been using for several years and realized that I had been hanging onto it far past the point of recovery from the brain virus. I also lost forty pounds. The physical pain from sitting, and the seemingly endless enthusiasm of Seishin ("It'll be SO MUCH FUN!"), inspired me to start Bikram Yoga and I started to regain physical strength. Then my gallbladder succumbed to the years of food abuse and I had a very restricted, no-fat diet to try to prevent more gallstones from developing. Another thirty pounds came off.

At this point I got pretty cocky. I figured I had beaten my old food habits and had got to a resting place of being balanced and healthy around food, body image, and using Zen practice to deal with difficult feelings. My family oohed and aahed at my bucking of the genetic and cultural trend. I had it all figured out. I was in control.

So, in April out came the gallbladder. I could eat whatever I wanted again, and the physical recovery of surgery was more difficult than expected and so I stopped going to yoga for a while.

Right back into old habits. Eating compulsively for comfort (to alleviate the physical pain of recovery from surgery and to deal with work stresses), and also for the physical pleasure of food. It has been mortifying to realize the depth of depravity still there for me relating to food. Not only am I greedy, I'm so greedy that I'll sneak food out of my husband's bowl just for the sheer satisfaction of knowing I'm getting more than him. It's a mess. I'm a mess. And I'm totally embarrassed that all the people who have been giving me props for losing weight are going to realize that I'm gaining it back and think I'm a loser.

So, I take it to the cushion. What the hell. Isn't sitting supposed to give me strength to face things that are difficult? And isn't that going to make me feel better?

But of course sitting is not an escape. Increasing awareness is not just of the interconnectedness of all things, the possibility of letting go of the constructed dramas of ego into the fundamental activity of the universe, of letting go of self and relaxing into just being. It is also seeing, more clearly, the crazy neurotic crap that arises again and again. And again. And again. Ouch.

So, the bounce, the desire to separate out from the experience, pull away, and blame everything around me for making me feel bad. I'm mad at practice. I'm mad at my teacher. I'm mad at the sangha. I'm mad at the board and the people I work with within the VZC. I'm mad at my gi. I'm mad at the cushion. I'm mad at myself. I'm mad at people who are at a place in their practice where they're excited about its transformative potential. I'm mad at my yoga mat and the yoga teacher and how hard it is to be the worst one in yoga class and have to sit down all the time because I'm physically and mentally weak again. Bleah. I hate practice. I want to pull away, to bounce away from the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha, to run away from practice and from myself.

Aha. It's really myself I'm mad at. So I just keep sitting with it, even lean into it a little. Because this is not the first time in practice that something difficult has come up. So I start talking about it with the person who I trust most to help me when I'm being a nutcase, my husband (who is unfailingly supportive without letting me get away with feeling sorry for myself). Next steps are to talk with my teacher and with peers in the sangha, who I know from experience will provide that same fantastic balanced support to practice with what is happening without getting ridiculously fascinated by it. There is no real crisis. It's OK. Relaxing again into the activity of the universe and letting go just a smidge, it all seems kind of funny, this freakout about self and wanting to look good and be in control. I'm good, I'm bad, I'm thin, I'm fat, I, I, I, I. Ding a ling a ling! More zazen!