Transform Your Life ---Weight
Without Prejudice
"What did you want to be when you were five? "
The sound of Benny's soothing voice, our Life Coach at Camp Eden bounced off the walls of the Meditation Room. Me and sixteen others washed up on our bean bags listened and wrote. Me with lots of mental eye rolling. Warm as babies in their rugs we were. Soft blankets gathered over our inert bodies. Alone in our thoughts.
Benny had told us of his own transformed life. A high powered Businessman, addicted to cocaine and power in Sydney. A " High Flyer " and how that one day it had all ended, the business lunches, the so called " friends" , the false, air kissing life.
He ended up destitute on the side of the road of life, literally with what he stood up in. He was bottomed out, tapped out, wondering how it all had come to this and instead of wallowing in despair he literally crossed the road and began the long haul back to a normal life. He crossed the road to a Church and humbled, tired and emotional he sought help.
He met his wife through the church. She a Yoga Teacher, he a student, taking Yoga clases through the church. A panacea for his ills. Told by others to take it up to calm his shattered nerves, his disillusioned heart and mind. He had lost all his friends, so called, on his downward spiral. Asked how long they lasted after he no longer had the money, he replied
" Gone, in a nano second "
He met people who had been cast aside in life, the fringe dwellers, the disaffected, the mentally unstable, the winos and he decided one day, to help lift them up and in doing so, lift himself. So he began life again, one baby step at a time. And now lived an authentic life.
I had listened with great interest to his welcome speech. I had heard of him through my younger brother, Dave, he had said try and get a private one on one with Barry, he was fantastic. Dave had paid for me to go to Camp Eden and on the first day I wanted to kill him. Withdrawal from caffeine, giving me a violent migraine, the likes of which I had never known before. My toxins leaving my body.
I had been warned of withdrawal from the outside world, no phone, no computer, no social media, no T.V.no texting, no coffee. Dave driving off in his girlfriends Mercedes, after dropping me off, stopped where I stood with my suitcase, not knowing what to do next.
"Oh by the way, there's no coffee and no T.V. "
and I heard his laughter echoing away down the long gravelled driveway. I wanted to run after the car, beg him to take me home. No coffee and no T.V. What the hell ?
I didn't sleep a wink the first night and by morning was going to call my brother and beg him to come and pick me back up. Ha, no mobile phone reception at the end of The Currumbin Valley. Some lovely soul found some headache relief for me and I finally slept and I determined to stay, to see it out, this journey I didn't believe in.
I was more cynical than I had ever been in my life. Building walls against the " Others " who were as far as I was concerned " fucked up ". Why else would they be here in this heavenly retreat. I forced there, they going willingly. Some taking out loans, dipping in to their Super to attend Camp Eden,
some there for three weeks.
I looked around at my fellow companions in the Meditation room. They were relaxed, soothed, big notepads at the ready, me with a piece of paper and pen, unprepared. The smell of timber lined walls, scented candles, incense a fire to the senses, didn't soothe me. I thought what a load of baloney. Why would what I wanted to be as a five year old help me now ?
I didn't write anything.
"what about your dreams and ambitions when you were ten" , Barry continued.
" your thoughts when you were 15 ? "
People around me began scribbling in note books and stillI didn't write.
I decided to just let it wash over me, this experience, absorb it, analyse it ( as I am won't to do ) and see how it all affected me. A man broke wind and everyone tittered.
" Sorry " he piped up and I felt he shouldn't apologise, it just made him stand out more.
I was trying to remember back to the girl I was at 5 and ten and fifteen.
What had I wanted before life took over ?
Barry asked us to write three goals we would like to achieve in the next twelve months. I wrote things
I hoped for but had no idea how to achieve.
I wanted a lean, brown body for one. An athletic girl who swam and danced and ran with my brothers
until fifteen. Played Hockey, tennis, was house captain at swimming at Grammar School. Then found boys and dropped the athletic girl. I was now 5'3" in heels and a solid well packed 84 kgs, unfit, but I had given up smoking cigarettes six months previously. This made me virtuous but still fat.
I had calculated many a time I had to lose 30 kilos and it seemed such a big number I was overwhelmed. I didn't even seem to be able to lose a kilo, my body and me comfortable in fatness. A safe cocoon from Males.
So a lean brown body was one of my three goals. I put the piece of paper in my pocket as we trooped out of the room and walked " killer hill " towards dinner. Food for me, the soothing panacea drug, legal, available and killing me. Food the new porn. The legal high, swamping the senses with sight, sound, smell.
And that night I puzzled over what I had wanted to be. Five to me was vague and hazy as My brother Jamie had died then, aged 11. But I did remember the dreams I had in Canowindra at 7. I remembered that I wanted to be a Teacher, a Writer, a Speaker. I saw myself famous with a large chest and blonde hair sitting on a sofa and people coming to my for advice, friendship, strength.
"What did you want to be when you were five? "
The sound of Benny's soothing voice, our Life Coach at Camp Eden bounced off the walls of the Meditation Room. Me and sixteen others washed up on our bean bags listened and wrote. Me with lots of mental eye rolling. Warm as babies in their rugs we were. Soft blankets gathered over our inert bodies. Alone in our thoughts.
Benny had told us of his own transformed life. A high powered Businessman, addicted to cocaine and power in Sydney. A " High Flyer " and how that one day it had all ended, the business lunches, the so called " friends" , the false, air kissing life.
He ended up destitute on the side of the road of life, literally with what he stood up in. He was bottomed out, tapped out, wondering how it all had come to this and instead of wallowing in despair he literally crossed the road and began the long haul back to a normal life. He crossed the road to a Church and humbled, tired and emotional he sought help.
He met his wife through the church. She a Yoga Teacher, he a student, taking Yoga clases through the church. A panacea for his ills. Told by others to take it up to calm his shattered nerves, his disillusioned heart and mind. He had lost all his friends, so called, on his downward spiral. Asked how long they lasted after he no longer had the money, he replied
" Gone, in a nano second "
He met people who had been cast aside in life, the fringe dwellers, the disaffected, the mentally unstable, the winos and he decided one day, to help lift them up and in doing so, lift himself. So he began life again, one baby step at a time. And now lived an authentic life.
I had listened with great interest to his welcome speech. I had heard of him through my younger brother, Dave, he had said try and get a private one on one with Barry, he was fantastic. Dave had paid for me to go to Camp Eden and on the first day I wanted to kill him. Withdrawal from caffeine, giving me a violent migraine, the likes of which I had never known before. My toxins leaving my body.
I had been warned of withdrawal from the outside world, no phone, no computer, no social media, no T.V.no texting, no coffee. Dave driving off in his girlfriends Mercedes, after dropping me off, stopped where I stood with my suitcase, not knowing what to do next.
"Oh by the way, there's no coffee and no T.V. "
and I heard his laughter echoing away down the long gravelled driveway. I wanted to run after the car, beg him to take me home. No coffee and no T.V. What the hell ?
I didn't sleep a wink the first night and by morning was going to call my brother and beg him to come and pick me back up. Ha, no mobile phone reception at the end of The Currumbin Valley. Some lovely soul found some headache relief for me and I finally slept and I determined to stay, to see it out, this journey I didn't believe in.
I was more cynical than I had ever been in my life. Building walls against the " Others " who were as far as I was concerned " fucked up ". Why else would they be here in this heavenly retreat. I forced there, they going willingly. Some taking out loans, dipping in to their Super to attend Camp Eden,
some there for three weeks.
I looked around at my fellow companions in the Meditation room. They were relaxed, soothed, big notepads at the ready, me with a piece of paper and pen, unprepared. The smell of timber lined walls, scented candles, incense a fire to the senses, didn't soothe me. I thought what a load of baloney. Why would what I wanted to be as a five year old help me now ?
I didn't write anything.
"what about your dreams and ambitions when you were ten" , Barry continued.
" your thoughts when you were 15 ? "
People around me began scribbling in note books and stillI didn't write.
I decided to just let it wash over me, this experience, absorb it, analyse it ( as I am won't to do ) and see how it all affected me. A man broke wind and everyone tittered.
" Sorry " he piped up and I felt he shouldn't apologise, it just made him stand out more.
I was trying to remember back to the girl I was at 5 and ten and fifteen.
What had I wanted before life took over ?
Barry asked us to write three goals we would like to achieve in the next twelve months. I wrote things
I hoped for but had no idea how to achieve.
I wanted a lean, brown body for one. An athletic girl who swam and danced and ran with my brothers
until fifteen. Played Hockey, tennis, was house captain at swimming at Grammar School. Then found boys and dropped the athletic girl. I was now 5'3" in heels and a solid well packed 84 kgs, unfit, but I had given up smoking cigarettes six months previously. This made me virtuous but still fat.
I had calculated many a time I had to lose 30 kilos and it seemed such a big number I was overwhelmed. I didn't even seem to be able to lose a kilo, my body and me comfortable in fatness. A safe cocoon from Males.
So a lean brown body was one of my three goals. I put the piece of paper in my pocket as we trooped out of the room and walked " killer hill " towards dinner. Food for me, the soothing panacea drug, legal, available and killing me. Food the new porn. The legal high, swamping the senses with sight, sound, smell.
And that night I puzzled over what I had wanted to be. Five to me was vague and hazy as My brother Jamie had died then, aged 11. But I did remember the dreams I had in Canowindra at 7. I remembered that I wanted to be a Teacher, a Writer, a Speaker. I saw myself famous with a large chest and blonde hair sitting on a sofa and people coming to my for advice, friendship, strength.
