Brooks Brothers Break-down

Please tell me that this has happened to someone else. This afternoon I cried in the Brooks Brothers dressing room. Idiot. So much for the "not loathing my body" mentality. And for the spiritual balance. Several professional projects coming to fruition, a big business meeting in Chicago this weekend. My larger than normal ass has been in yoga pants for the majority of the winter- and my super cute pant suits just do not fit.

As for the crying, two ladies were helping me. One asked my size, and I said oh I am not sure. I recently had surgery and gained weight, and I am not sure how things will fit. One said, are you on a diet now? Do you plan to loose the weight? Wow that thought hadn't actually occurred to me. Just give me the frickin' size jumbo fitted shirt for me to stuff under my interview suit from 5 years ago and let me get out of here!

A triple latte later I regrouped and boldly entered Ann Taylor. Found a nice black and white woven jacket. Will wear with white shirt and comfortable black pants. Found red jeweled necklace that will pop. Not exactly a suit, but will be passable.

So still reciting the mantra..... I am not my body. Cripes I am almost to the point where I can do enough exercise to get a cardio work-out. In the mean time it is excruciating- I would run and hide- if only I could run.......

Whenever a tragic loss occurs, you can either resist or yield......Yielding means inner acceptance of what is. You are open to life. -Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

An awakening has been in the works for some time now. My first glimpse of deep spirituality was in high school. In the midst of teenage depression I somehow found my way to an evangelical Baptist church. I was raised in a home very skeptical of organized religion, so church was an odd place for me to flee. I was saved and baptized. Dunking in the holy water, head to toe, Southern Baptist style. There I sensed for the first time a spiritual connection. In fact one day during a call to the alter (which can last upwards of 20 min) I felt that God spoke to me. I had a clear vision of what I was to do, my purpose in life. Healer.

Then the preacher gave genital herpes to my Sunday school teacher, and the affair became the scandal that split the church. It seemed that perhaps my parents were right all along. You really cannot trust those holy-roller types.

In med school crisis in the mission to become healer led me back to church. This time a campus Lutheran Student Center. I thought Luther was on to something, the act of believing is the way to salvation, sans the guilt. Met my husband there. Believed I was again on the right track.

My dear brother had an awakening of his own. Realization that he was born gay, and strength to live his life congruent to his true identity. Never was there a moment that I (or our God avoiding parents) hesitated to stand with him. Inner conversations with God asking why did he make him this way? Why do the leaders of His church not see God's creation of homosexuals to be as beautiful and wondrous as the creation of any living thing? Couldn't much sit through a church service after that.

There were still moments. Discovering the perfect words to comfort a patient. Connecting with another human being deeply, without words. Predicting a reality with intuition, sensing beyond the physical. These moments I still believed to be divine. But where/what was God?

Blogging about my exile to the periphery. No longer able to connect with myself in the role of triathlete, superstar cardiologist, mother. Reading this New Earth book is interesting because Tolle teaches about an inner consciousness. He draws connections to the the world's religions. He suggests that setbacks like my year of illness is a common way that people connect with this spiritual force.

Suddenly "Turn it over to God" has different meaning for me.