It's an Inside Job!
Attracting and creating our experiences "
by Hava Kohl-Riggs, LCSW
At 35 years old, after my first pregnancy and the C-section delivery of our son, my abdomen was big and distended. Several weeks after he was born, I was taking him for a spin around the block in his stroller when a friendly neighbor greeted me and inquired about my due date. "When are you expecting to have your baby?" she said. Immediately I felt ashamed of my big belly, and replied apologetically that I'd had my baby a month ago and he was sleeping peacefully in the stroller. When she sputtered out an embarrassed "I'm sorry, I didn't realize . . . ," I told her that it was OK, I had gained tons of weight during the pregnancy and hadn't been very diligent in doing my abdominal exercises.
Well, the months went by, years, actually, and, to my mortification, well-wishers with the best of intentions, strangers and acquaintances alike, continued to inquire as to when I was expecting my baby! Each time, I would feel responsible for their embarrassment when they realized their mistake. And each time I did an apologetic song and dance routine about my weight gain and insufficient exercise regimen, telling the mistaken well-wishers that they weren't the only ones to assume I was pregnant, so they shouldn't feel bad about making me feel bad.
I'm not sure how or when it dawned on me, but one day I realized that I was angry and felt rudely treated when yet another person inquired about my due date. I felt violated and asked God to help me understand what the lesson was I still needed to learn. After all, I kept on getting into this unpleasant situation, so it obviously was an opportunity for me to learn something I needed to learn.
One possibility, the one I'd been assuming all along, was that I was a bad girl for having gained so much weight and gotten out of shape and stayed so heavy and stayed out of shape so that people thought I was pregnant. I, who had formerly taken pride in a good, fit figure. A bad girl. I should get more disciplined and rigorous about losing weight and firming up. That was one learning possibility.
But then a different notion came to me, that maybe the lesson had something to do with my reaction, my shameful response. Why was I attracting situations that created shame in me? Because deep down (or maybe not so deep down), I believed I deserved to be shamed for my appearance. I decided then and there that no one ever deserves to be shamed for their appearance, and that accepting myself as I am and loving myself would be much kinder and most likely more effective, too. I also decided that if anybody asked me about a due date again, I would make no excuses and do nothing to make the person feel better.
The universe works in wondrously synchronistic ways, for the very next day, as I was changing in the dressing room at the Y after my daily swim, a woman whom I had never met and have not seen since (maybe she was an angel?), inquired as to when I was expecting my baby. I said simply and politely, "I'm not expecting a baby." As she began to sputter her apologies, I finished dressing, uttered no apologies or excuses for myself, and left.
What's happened since that encounter is what I take as the miracle of learning: after that encounter in the dressing room, no person has ever mistakenly asked me about expecting a baby! I've since had another pregnancy and birth, gained lots of weight, had a poochy belly for a long time, and NO ONE has ever made the same error again. I believe that people stopped asking me questions that brought up shame about my body because I stopped feeling ashamed. I decided I would no longer tolerate (or attract) that kind of shaming experience into my life. Who knows, maybe without realizing it, I began to walk taller, so I looked different!
Is there a pattern in your life that continues to trouble you?
What lesson does this give you the opportunity to learn?
In what way do you need to change your attitude and behavior in order to stop attracting this pattern?
