Written by: Marcella Friel, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Brenda’s boss was not to be disobeyed. So when he would request, at 5:30 p.m., that Brenda deliver an “emergency” report to his inbox by 9 the following morning, Brenda felt no choice but to comply.
Even though Mr. Boss Man would send these emails just as she was leaving for the day, Brenda would nonetheless sigh, drop her bags, turn her desk lamp back on, and continue working, uncompensated, long after everyone else (including her boss) had left.
When Brenda finally got home at 10 at night, she was too exhausted to even think about dinner. And she would never consider inconveniencing her husband to have some food ready when she got home.
So Brenda often went to bed hungry, rushed out the door at 7 the next morning, and devoured the bowls of M&M’s in the office breakroom for “breakfast.”
When Brenda and I met for an initial consultation, hot tears streamed down her flushed face as she lamented that her weight-loss goals were drifting farther and farther away.
The “Type-W” Personality
If you, like Brenda, put yourself 23rd on the list of people you care for, and if you inwardly rage or despair at your body for holding on to every pound of weight, you might have what I’ve come to call the “Type-W” Personality.
Lest this ersatz diagnosis gives you some reason to beat yourself up—again—let me unpack what I mean.
So many of us, when we hear the term self-care, think of pedicures at the day spa.
And yes indeed, on the right day, at the right time, for the right reason, a pedicure at the day spa can be just what we need to lift our spirits and face life anew.
However, if you want that sustained breakthrough to well-being that includes a naturally comfortable body size … then pedicures at the day spa will only take you so far.
True self-care—the kind that restores and sustains you spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically—is a way of life.
A series of tiny habits that you build as you go, inside of a community of support.
Yet, although you already know this, here’s where “Type-W” comes in:
You know it but you don’t do it.
Why not?
It’s not because you’re lazy. It’s not because you don’t have will-power.
It’s because of the one thing that’s so obvious it would never occur to you as a problem.
Let’s take a deeper look together, shall we?
The Body Does What the Soul Cannot
Trauma and addiction expert Gabor Maté states that, in early life, we human beings have two non-negotiable needs that must be met in order for us to survive:
The first is the deep need to attach to adults who will not only provide food, clothing, touch, and shelter but who will also soothe us when we cry, celebrate us when we succeed, and help us find our way in the world.
Without this attachment to our human caregivers, we simply cannot thrive.
So when those adults—due to stress, addiction, mental illness, or habitual conditioning—can’t attach lovingly to their offspring, that child’s pre-cognitive brain will seek to meet its needs as a matter of life or death.
As a little girl, Brenda learned how eke out whatever approval she could get from her rageaholic father and co-dependent mother—two adults unable to form healthy bonds with each other or with her.
In order to siphon whatever nurturance she could from the rubble of her upbringing, Brenda had to forego the second essential need Dr. Maté identifies: the need for authenticity.
Unbeknownst to her, in her early life Brenda faced a dilemma:
If she were truly to express the rage, despair, and sorrow she felt from her mistreatment, she would risk Mommy and Daddy’s rejection or punishment.
And since no child’s soul can tolerate such abandonment, she will instead sacrifice her authentic emotions on the altar of attachment and banish her needs to the hinterlands of her psyche.
What happens then?
Brenda grows up suppressing her gut feelings. Panicking when difficult emotions surface.
Yanking the plug from her inner GPS and losing all direction in the terra incognita of her true needs.
Brenda—and others just like her—become a nice girl—to gain accolades from her supervisors and praises from her peers—while feeling a pervasive, unnamable shame for asking for what she needs or receiving what she’s owed.
While people-pleasing is more socially acceptable than other addictions, Brenda paid a high price for holding up such a heavy façade.
Having lost touch with her inner voice, Brenda’s body took up the slack and shouted its protest loud and clear in the form of weight gain and other inflammatory afflictions.
In her words,
“I am afraid to be seen. When I lose weight, I get lots of compliments and attention. I then get uncomfortable getting noticed. I want to look and feel good for me, but I don’t want everyone else to make a fuss. I also know it’s a security blanket. My dad was an abuser and always watched women and made inappropriate comments. I was very aware of how some people watch women and despised it.”
Brenda turned her subconscious fury inward through a lifetime of sugar addiction, yo-yo dieting, and relentless body hatred, all the while continuing to play nice-nice in the eyes of others.
Calling Her Soul Back Home
The good news in Brenda’s otherwise hopeless morass is that Mother Nature, in her infinite mercy, blessed her—and all of us—with qualities of resilience such that, despite a lifetime of attempted suppression, the authentic self cannot completely disappear.
Somewhere—somehow—in the deepest depths of her being, Brenda knew it sucked to treat herself so badly.
That inner knowing broke wide open one day when Brenda stepped on the scale and nearly fainted in tears.
Her inner GPS could no longer be ignored. The incongruence could no longer be tolerated.
She recognized that old wounds were opening. She wanted to work on them but didn’t want to do it alone.
When Brenda joined my Women, Food & Forgiveness Academy and heard the term self-abandonment, a light abruptly snapped on:
“This is so on the mark!” she wrote. “I’ve tried counseling, weight-loss plans, exercise plans, clean-food plans, and I’ve only focused on the behaviors I need to change instead of exploring the why. This uncovers so much for me.”
From that moment on, Brenda set to work calling her soul home from the “Type-W Personality.”
Sharing her experiences inside an intimate group of women who understood her struggles enabled Brenda to understand herself as never before.
As she rolled up her sleeves and dug in to 12 months of rigorous learning and unlearning, Brenda’s people-pleasing nice girl got on board with her healing.
She educated herself on the importance of blood-sugar regulation to tame her moods and curb her cravings.
She repeatedly traded in her “not good enough” self-talk for “I deserve” affirmations.
Most important, Brenda revisited the darkest moments of her childhood and gave herself permission to feel and release the rage that she had literally eaten her entire life.
Using EFT Tapping and other somatic tools, Brenda washed the early-life traumas out of her brain and soothed her panic around eating and self-care.
She lovingly recognized that her parents’ sicknesses were not about her and dropped the emotional weight of giving them power over her life, along with the shame and guilt she carried on their behalf.
As Brenda grounded herself more and more in self-respect, she came to see that, in fact, she had never betrayed herself.
Everything she had ever done was born from the desire to love and protect herself against all odds.
Brenda’s soul got the coast-is-clear sign to start tip-toeing back home to her body.
As it did, her habits began to change.
She packed her lunch for work most days and walked past the M&M’s.
She stopped taking her boss’s intimidation so personally and gradually set more limits with him, including leaving work on time.
She set aside weekend time to move her body in ways that felt joyful to do.
The next time she stepped on the scale, Brenda wasn’t surprised to see that she’d lost 40 pounds living a lifestyle that prioritized her self-care.
A year after she completed the Academy, Brenda dropped me a line and had this to say:
I feel like I’m in a good place right now. I was offered another job, and my boss really 'got it.' He took a ton of things off my plate. He is respecting my personal and professional needs more. Our relationship is less strained. So I declined the other position and am truly looking forward to next year. … My youngest daughter just left for college, and my husband and I are excited about getting to know each other again in this next chapter of our lives.”
The great Zen master Shunryu Suzuki-roshi once said, “Sometimes the worst horse is the best horse.”
Sometimes the worst “Type-W”s become the best masters of self-care.
So take heart. Far from being a life sentence, the “Type-W” Personality contains within it gifts and blessings and lessons that, when mined properly, become your strongest allies on the healing journey.
You can’t mean-talk yourself to body-love. Sign up for Marcella’s free webinar, Love the Woman You See in the Mirror without Doing Another Damn Diet, and find the self-respect that no number on the scale—high or low—can ever give you.
Marcella Friel, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine MARCELLA FRIEL is a mindful eating mentor who helps health-conscious women love and forgive themselves, their food, and their figure. Marcella is author of "Tap, Taste, Heal: Use Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) to Eat Joyfully and Love Your Body." In 2018 Marcella founded the Women, Food & Forgiveness Academy, an online transformational mentorship program to help health-conscious women heal the emotional and metabolic roots of yo-yo dieting, binge eating, sugar addiction, and chronic body shaming. Marcella draws on nearly 3 decades of 12-step recovery and 35 years’ practice of Tibetan Buddhism to help women heal the self-hatred traumas that lie at the very root of their nervous system. She passionately holds an unflinching faith in trauma as the catalyst of evolution and guides others in dowsing their life experiences to find the gold amidst the dross. Learn more about Marcella by visiting marcellafriel.com
