resolution vs. management

Once upon a time, back in the day, whatever, the term conflict resolution was bandied about and held as this ideal approach to dealing with workplace (and other) issues. In the management skills class I took in my last quarter of culinary school, our smart (sassy) instructor explained that conflict resolution has been replaced, in most progressive (and otherwise) environments with the idea of conflict management. The idea is that seeking to resolve conflict is often a pipe dream, and in its very impossibility, discouraging and counterproductive. This means that it sometimes makes even more trouble. Conflict management, on the other hand, acknowledges that significant differences and issues between parties exist, that they may never disappear (nor should they), and that we can find ways to work around them, with them, and even use them to our own betterment.

I'm not babbling on about this because I have a fever-- that ended a couple days ago. I'm thinking about the ideas of resolution and management as they pertain to our work (with our selves) around weight loss. When I consider that I've been overweight (on and off) for the majority of my life-- well over 30 years now-- I have to acknowledge that some of my patterns are so deeply ingrained that I'm not gonna get rid of them. It's okay. I can tell you right now that I am a deeply flawed human being, and I'll also tell you that those flaws that can work so hard against me are also part of what keeps me alive and, in this very moment, thinking about this and writing on this here blog. Open the gate to push out the demons and the angels fly away, too.

I want to talk about peanut butter. I don't keep peanut butter in the house. I have a not very good relationship to peanut butter (and I can remember my Dad macking on it late at night, so maybe it's genetic). I don't know that I will ever "resolve" my PB issue. The way I manage it is to not have it here, so that I don't go off the deep end with it. Occasionally, I will hit periods where it feels like I can be okay with it (or I am so damn active that it doesn't matter)-- those times are rare. I can't pretend that a) I'm okay, then b)get out of control, then c)hate myself for my behavior. I'm not so interested in setting myself up for failure (a+b=c), nor am I into testing myself against some ideal relationship to food that for me, doesn't exist. At least not with Peanut Butter.

I do believe that behaviors can be modified over time-- I think that's a big part of my success with WW-- but conflict management is just as a big an element, and part of the modification process. The management takes the form of inner dialogue, or reaching these compromises between the me I want and need to be, and that other, god knows how old self, who wants to revert to the old ways of feeling/eating (they're the same thing, right?), who refuses to sacrifice her own pleasure (this tastes/feels good!) for the sake of health and wellness, and who is generally stubborn and stuck and -- I'll say it-- afraid of being anything other than overweight and invisible.

For years and years I've wanted to believe in resolution. I've wanted to believe that when I hit that magic GOAL number, my issues will be resolved and voila! I'll be cured of, well, my whole life and I'll start anew and I won't be knock-kneed, pigeon-toed, the child of alcoholics and abuse, I won't have that little scar between my eyes from that giant pimple I popped in the 7th grade, and I will be "normal," carefree, thin and able to eat whatever the hell I want.

When I hit my first summer of maximum fatness (wherein I established all those fat cells that my body still longs to fill), I turned to dieting. As part of that dieting, I created this fantasy in my mind, of the perfection I would achieve when the weight was gone. There were three elements to that fantasy:

• I was riding a green metallic Schwinn Varsity 10-Speed
• I was wearing a pair of OshKosh (B'Gosh!) denim overalls
• I was feeling as sparkly and metallic as the paint job on that brand-new Schwinn-- or perhaps some glittery shoelaces on my rollerskates. In short, everything in my world was so unbelievably happy.

Yeah, my fantasies were pretty basic (and believe me, years later, we spent a lot of time on that in therapy), but that sense that everything will be great IF... was established way back then. Somehow, I wanted to obliterate who I'd become and replace her with this other person. I'm not so into that anymore. Now I wanna work with me, let me be, let me thrive, and yes, on occasion, get the hell out of my own way so that I can succeed. I'm not saying I need to disappear-- I think it's the opposite. I need to say hello to myself-- even the parts I'm ashamed of and loathe-- I don't have to engage her-- just give her a nod of the head and a smile.

Sometimes, the people who are the biggest pains in the ass, the ones you don't even want to talk to-- they're the ones you need to give the love. It can be an amazing practice, and a way to create joy.

That's what I'm gonna do.