Filler

In all the weight loss books I've read they always talk about examining why you overeat. What void are you trying to fill? Is a question often asked. It came up on the Oprah show will all the amazing weight loss stories and it makes sense. Any addiction or habit forms as some way to feel full or fulfilled or to escape reality of some sort. So the question I am pondering is...what is my void? Its a complex question that requires a great deal of introspection. What am I missing in my life? What do I long for? The first thing that pops into my head is a sense of community and a feeling of belonging. Years ago-eleven years ago to be exact-I embarked on an adventure known as Mission Year where I experienced for the first time in my life a true sense of community that filled that place of longing. I lived with five amazing, unique, hysterical, intelligent young adults who surprised me every day with experiences of deep unity and compassion. It was the most challenging year of my life and experiences I had forced me to face some of my deepest issues, among them a deep fear of being unworthy of love and of being alone which led me to spend the first 22 years of my life building up thick walls to protect myself and distance myself from people. Some of these walls were anger, sarcasm, wit, and some were fat. Its easy to hide from the world and hide from intimacy when you are hiding behind extra pounds. I used the rolls of fat to explain my loneliness...if I were just skinny or thin...then people would like me. The eating and lack of exercise formed a barrier that kept me safe from being hurt but also kept me from experience love and friendship. During mission year, I was able to break through those walls and fall in love with my teammates and the neighborhood we lived in, the church, the people I worked with, the kids we developed relationships with...everyone. I felt safe. I felt complete. I felt connected. During that time, I would get up at 6am and walk to the neighborhood park and go walking around the track with my mission year teammates supporting me....encouraging me. I also became a vegetarian and did not look to food for any level of fulfillment. I didn't think about food. I didn't crave food. I cooked meals for my team-I did the grocery shopping for our little household and I felt needed. I was a part of an unique, crazy, interesting, family that honestly was intensely mutually supportive so the void I felt, that longing for a place of intimacy and belonging, was filled. Since that time, I haven't found a place like that...a place of spiritual, emotional, psychological, and familial intimacy where those needs, those longings are met. So the question now becomes, how do I find that place again? How do I fill those needs? Getting involved in a church again seems the obvious answer...but...to be frank...i gots issues with church...meaning established church. They lack authenticity and community and I just don't seem to fit. I have tried a few over the years but none seem to be right. I know that I will not find the community that I had during mission year in a church or neighborhood or any where else. Mission year provided the opportunity, guidance, and God put Team Voltron together in an amazingly perfect way that can not be repeated...

I have people in my life who accept me and love me and support me but they are scattered all over the country which make the day to day intimacy I crave impossible to maintain...or does it? Community has many facets and definitions. It looks differently for different people and different situations. If the void I use food to fill is a sense of community and belonging, I need to explore ways to fill that need. One major way would be to get the heck out of the house. I have become a hermit of sorts as of late. I also do need to explore spiritual community, to figure out what that needs to look like in my life and how to create it. As I add exercise into my daily life, I am also seeking to fill those needs-community and belonging.