Here is #3 in The BRAVE Interview series! It’s the Who, What, When, Where, How, (and sometimes Why) of YOUR ‘one brave thing’! November’s interview is with Sheila Brownlow!
WHO AM I? Sheila Brownlow
MY ONE BRAVE THING—when, where, with whom: I have stopped discussing eating, how upset I am at my eating, how much I weigh, whether I am peeved at myself for overeating, how awful I am for not weighing 110 lbs., whined about how I can’t eat like a normal person anymore at age 55, or otherwise wasting time – precious time – talking with my friends, so many good friends….about eating and weight. Not in person, not online. For one month.
WHY DO I THINK THIS IS BRAVE? I’m at this age/stage of my life where I’ve felt compelled to start every interaction with a justification of how I look and why I don’t look like a 30-year old anymore. It’s not ok to essentially apologizing for myself to start every interaction. To me it’s brave because I have completely shifted my lens on the world.
WHY: Because I waste so much time and energy where I could be helping others, learning things, doing things, having meaningful conversations, being supportive, just being in the moment…with all this constant food and weight talk I am taking away from the productive possibilities of my life and my friends’ lives.
So how do I feel about this? Well, I miss commiserating, and I’m still working on not “leading” with that foot in every conversation (“let’s talk about food, eating, how much, when, regrets…again?”). I think I am listening better rather than just winding up to say how upset I am about this that or the other weight thing.
Can I continue? I don’t know. Maybe if we all spent a month on something other than our food and body appearance we could make a lot of changes in the world.
Thank you so much, Sheila!
Karen Creamer
