Commitment

I am world class at announcing my work. At making bold declarations. I’m a certified master at coming up with clever, compelling strategies that should, in theory, move my life in a more beautiful direction, and then telling people, loudly and proudly.

I’m not particularly good, however, at following through. At staying course when the path gets rocky, when the voices in my head pipe up with their doubts, their accusations, their seductions, their taunts. When my body constricts, and the fear and shame start working their dark magic.

Two years ago, I swore to myself that Megan’s writing challenge would be a turning point for me. That I would show up to it fully, do my truest, most honest writing, and use that to launch myself onto a new path as a writing coach. It made so much sense in my head.

I made it 13 days before bailing.

I’ve struggled with food, weight, and body image all my life. It’s been one of the core sources of insecurity and shame for me, though not the only one. I would frequently tell my mom about my attempts to lose weight—about how I was doing keto now, or CrossFit, or 75Hard, or whatever my flavor of the month weight loss challenge might be. She would always say the same thing. “You just have to decide to solve this problem. You just have to commit to controlling yourself. That’s how I did it.”

I’ve long resented my mom for this. The more I’ve tried to exert control over myself and my eating, the more I’ve felt like a failure, a broken human being, when I’d inevitably slip up. It kept me trapped in a cycle of making ever more extreme attempts to control myself, to finally commit, for real this time, inevitably followed by a slip, a binge, a shame spiral. Just control yourself. Just do it. Why aren’t you strong enough to commit?

There’s another little voice in the back of my head—different in flavor than the others, yet no less disturbing. It says, “Your mom is right, and you know it. You haven’t decided. Not really. You’ve never committed to solving the problem with food, let alone anything else in your life. You’re afraid of real commitment. It’s such an frustrating voice, that one. So I’ve long done battle with it, swatting it away like a gnat buzzing in my ear, deflecting its inconveniently truthful whispers away with my rationalizations and resentments.

But frankly, I’m at a point in my life where I can’t do that anymore. The last three years have been an escalating series of rock bottoms, each more painful than the last. I won’t get into the details, but two months ago, I was damn near convinced I didn’t want to live anymore, that my life was an utter wreckage, and that there was nothing I could do to get it back in order again, let alone live well and happily. All of that seemed out of reach, because I had tried everything over the years, every strategy, tool, method. But that little voice, buzzing like a gnat, whispered once again, “There is one thing you haven’t tried yet.”

In this series of writings, I’m going to explore my relationship to commitment, along with what’s stood in the way of showing up fully, with fidelity and consistency, to the processes of living well. But more than that, I’d like to explore new possibilities, new stories of commitment and devotion that I can live into, one day at a time, to begin rebuilding my relationship to self, to my family, to my creative work, and if I’m being honest, to God.

I should note that this is some raw, live-wire shit for me. Something I’m still figuring out in real time, as I slowly integrate new ways of being into my mind and heart and body. I expect it to be messy and emotionally challenging. Maybe even painful at times. But as I was contemplating possible themes for this writing challenge, this is the thing that felt alive, a bit scary, and like the truest, most urgent place to direct deep, sustained attention.

But something Megan said in a call earlier in the week is sticking with me. It was about how the Art Paradigm doesn’t deal in absolutes, about how it shouldn’t feel brutal and taxing, like an all-or-nothing sacrifice, which is my default way of relating to my work. No, the Art Paradigm is gentle, kind, inviting.

Maybe, just maybe, commitment doesn’t have to be brutal or taxing either. Perhaps it can be gentle, kind, and even enjoyable. That is a thread which I am excited to pull in the weeks ahead.