The Two Whos

Sometimes, You do not Know Something is Wrong, until you know that Something is Wrong!”

Cece has lost a lot of weight and is meticulous about her meal planning.  She uses a nutritional program and plans her menu every day.  This includes weighing and measuring her food when she is home.  As you may remember from a previous post, Cece has been looking at all kinds of variables to explain why she is seemingly unable to lose weight.   It is puzzling.

Maybe it is menopause. Not enough exercise.  Hormones!  Ahhh the hormones!   Maybe it is the sodium in soy sauce.  Maybe she is eating too much…so let’s cut the calories.  Maybe it is this or maybe it is that. Well, since Cece is having surgery in a few days,  she is working hard to find “the cause” of her sluggish metabolism.

Well Yun had  given her a jar of peanuts. It was 16 ounces. Cece had been religiously weighing out one ounce of peanuts on her food scale. Cece looked at that jar the other morning and said to herself, “I am sure I have not eaten 16 servings of these peanuts!”  She looked at her scale with a scowl…out of the corner of her eye …there sat her 10 year old Weight Watchers scale.  She had not considered this scale before.  Had not given it a thought.  She just used it religiously and depended on it to keep her measurements in tact!   But all of a sudden, Cece wondered,”Perhaps my scale is off!”  Hugh!  She looked at the scale again.  Could this be the problem?  The scale was off?

Cece researched digital food scales and then went out to purchase one.  She got home and thanked the good Lord that it was easier to operate then her GPS… then sought to scientifically test the new scale against the old.  GLORY BE!  The old scale was off by 1.5 ounces.  To those of you reading this…it may not seem like a lot…but if we talk peanuts…it is the difference between 160 calories and 400!  Add that up over a day and Cece found that she was adding in over 800  calories a day and thats not peanuts!   VIOLA!   Yun said, “Well, it is a very good news since  you did not gain too much weight! “  Cece said: “That is because I have been  cycling my butt off!”

Now, Cece has a new more calibrated scale for her diet.  We get to thinking  how ironic it is  that we have the same exact problem with our life operating system, a.k.a. our belief system.  We run on the same operating system for years on end (started since we were kids) and never bothered to calibrate the old system against the  new situation.  Most likely, these old systems  no longer reflect the truth of our current life and they do not provide us with the right state of mind.  What we thought was the truth, could be false. But we hang on to them as if they are the truth.

New Year is the time to call for a re-calibration of our belief system (operating system).  It is time to rethink the what and why behind what has not worked well for us  in past year.  As the New Years saying goes, “Out with the Old and In with the New!”

Why not make a new years resolution to re-calibrate the old beliefs that hold us back and adopt some new ones that empower us to go forward  in 2010?

There is a saying, “ When it Rains, It Pours.”   For Yun, it has every truth in it.

After the Saturday fiasco,  (see “I am not Guilty”), Yun is back to her normal self, productive and happy. However, it is as if there is an  after quake for her emotional storm. Yun’s life is full of  ‘events’.  She has had quite an eventful “day after” with one thing going out of order after another.

First,  her computer  stopped working on Saturday. On Sunday, as the snow is melting, her living room is dripping. That night, mysteriously,  she dropped her contact lens right from her hand and it was no where to be found. When Monday came  around, her car is needing major repair… Yun is getting a bit frustrated because all these events are getting in the way of her getting a hair cut that Cece has kindly offered her with part of a gift certificate she had won. For now, Yun  just has to sing and dance with her bad hair.

Life is like a mischievous and playful child.  We can not take it too seriously by giving what happens a lot more meaning than what it deserves. The events, “the what happens”, can turn into life’s drama with emotions tangled up …if one starts to think too much.  Thoughts like….”I really do not have the money to pay all these”, or “how unfair life is”, or “how overwhelming it is for a single mother to handle all these at once.”

When life happens, or shit happens, it is the time to solve the problem ….not the time to contemplate “what if” or “what should have”… Solving problems, including working around them, is necessary.   When it can not be solved for whatever reason, for example, money or time… Never get stuck with the problem, solve it or leave it. Continue on singing and dancing and bloom where you are planted!

Hey!  By now we all know that if our operating system is not working, we change it out and get another. If we were speaking specifically about computers, we might  change from Vista ,which people felt did not work well,  to Windows 7

Yesterday, Yun was working on changing her emotional operating system  and today I am working on changing mine.  Changing our belief systems..or the way we operate is difficult.

Those of you that know me, know that I have lost a great deal of weight.  However, I have more weight to lose and have been at a standstill for the last few months.  In 2 weeks, I will have surgery and that will be difficult.  Since I will be  a lotless active, I will need to cut my calories down.  I will have to walk rather than cycle.  I will have to do things I do not want to do!

So, in preparing for all of this. I have been going to great lengths to lose a few pounds more.  I have been working at changing my operating system so that I eat like a thin person.

Well, I have been watching a few thin friends eat and it has surprised me.  Yun ate 3 pieces of pie in a row and then food, food  and more food.  Another thin friend ate way more than I did the other day when we were out to eat.

So, I have to think, “Hey!  What gives?”  How can they eat that much and be so slim?  To me, it is like a cow playing a guitar! I do not understand it!   I have spoken to a few friends about this and they tell me that it must be that they have a metabolism like a furnace!

The physicist told me, “Maybe we could design a chemical  that would raise the metabolism!”  I told her that if we could, we would make a fortune!  We spoke about all the crazy diet fads…..and the physicist again said…well maybe we could design something….I told her that is was already designed………………………it is called Exercise!

In looking deeper  at the eating habits of thin people, I find that thin people do not think about food.  They do not lust over food.  Many do not eat regularly because they do not remember to eat…so it is very possible that when I watch a thin person eat, they may not have eaten all day…and so they eat a lot at that one meal I see them eating!  There is a thin person at work who eats sugary food for all her meals…she rarely eats real food.  So, the eating habits of  this person are not  the habits I want to adopt.

I think I just need to change my operating system. The point for me  is to eat less and to keep  busy so that I do not think so much about  food.

I am going to move from Vista to Windows 7!

Yesterday was  like a nightmare for Yun.

 This morning, sitting in her study, looking around, yesterday  seemed so surreal.  

 Yesterday, she was  woken up  by a text message accusing her of a wrong doing with fabricated and partial facts and numerous false accusations. At first, she thought it was a mistake, so she simply stated her perspective.  Well, that started a series of more blaming with false facts.   

 She wanted to reason and get to the bottom of it with the other person  by engaging in reasonable  conversation, but the other party would have none of it!    Her reasonable attempt at conversation spiraled down to blaming and shaming and even cursing by the other party.

The frustration of standing up for herself,  got the better side of her and deflated her.  The wounding attack took its toll. 

After much back and forth, Yun  decided not to engage in the ‘she says he says’ conversation.  This only aroused  more blaming and accusations. 

In disbelief, her old thinking kicked in: “ Well, people do not say things like this for no reason.  I must have done something to cause all these accusations.”  With that starting point, she  was going down a slippery hill that challenged her self-esteem and fed her fear .  She began to entertain old thoughts .  Everything she thought was either:

”I am wrongfully accused, why does he  do this to me?  I am one of the most empathic people around.” — the typical  ”poor me”  thinking.

or:

“He is crazy and so messed up.  To hell with him. ”  — the typical ‘judge’ thinking.

Cece says that Yun is a negotiator and mediator and likes to engage in reasoning and this type of violent  interchange is difficult for her because she does not like to engage in hostile behavior for herself.  She does not like its energy.  Setting and hold boundaries with an angry shaming  person is very difficult.

 More and more, Yun started to sink emotionally…and to think about how she was mistreated and misunderstood….how naive she was….  and how stupid she was to trust a significant person to have the genuine kindness and love…She started to think about her children, how her own fears could be  impacting  their lives…she was beating herself up big time (says Cece).

Yun  could not get out of the rut while the love and guilt, the compassion and hate, the anticipating…. of discovering something new about herself and how she handles things took hold. She was  trying to come to grips with it…. and the anger raged  inside.   She realized that she has been and is being tormented. 

She cried, laughed, wrote, read, went to coffee with friends, talked on the phone…  Finally, she  found herself exhausted and at   her computer…. only to realize that somehow the computer had stopped working! Nothing was working right!

She  was so fed up…. then…..suddenly…. she remembered Cece’s painting and Cece’s words came through loud and clear: “I am not guilty”. 

 Another friend’s comment still lingered: “It is not your fault that you are afraid of him.”

” I am not guilty” She repeated this as a mantra  as she drifted to sleep…and into the darkness. ……She knew…..the road out is still long …..but she is certain there is a path,…..a path of healing….. where she can say and truly believe that

“I am not guilty!”

Yun says, “Cece tell a little something about your painting!”   

 ”Not Guilty”  is a silk painting of a woman on a cross.  She is still alive .    At the foot of the cross are a community of women.  They are the   loving community  who takes the living woman off the cross.  These faithful will stand by her at all times.  They affirm her courage.  They affirm her choice.  In a chorus of whispers they shout for her, “Not guilty…Not guilty…Not guilty!”  Soon she will be able to say it for herself  for all women past, present and future…we are “Not Guilty!”

Once upon a time there were Two Whos. One was Mz technology PhD in physics and the other Mz educator artist. They are Yun and Cece. One day Yun emailed Cece and said “Cece! We need SEO” Cece emailed back, “What is SEO?” That should tell you how large is the great divide between their knowledge bases.

One day Yun said, “Cece…just open it up in power point” …Cece said “What is power point?” Yun said “How do you function?” Cece said “I do not have to!”

Cece keeps thinking that she needs a HE WHO or a SHE WHO Geek that will help us. Yun thinks this is a challenge and Cece thinks it is hell!

One night, Cece had a dream. She was dreaming she was writing HTML code. She woke up at 3:30am and started to research on the internet…. but the problem is that she did not understand all that code language so she sent it all to Yun.

Yun woke up the next day and was bombarded by SEO optimization instructions. She read it all and tried to digest it…and downloaded many plug ins…but then said ,”Cece! Now we have all this complex stuff, but how do we work it?

What is a “tag Cloud” a ” post tag” a “slug?” What does a slug have to do with computer? It’s a whole new language! In Chinese we call it this: …if you talk to me in something I do not understand , we say they speak to us like a cow playing the guitar!…We can see the cow playing the guitar… and we laugh as we think of the Geek wondering “Who are you guys?”

In China we have another way to say we do not understand. We say it is like a sky book. It means we are clueless. We are laughing so hard. We need a HE Who Geek…or a SHE Who Geek! HELP! We are having SEO nightmares!

Now what are we going to call this post on SEO language…women building business, women’s emotional strength….clueless…we’ll figure this out eventually!

As Cece was leaving Yun’s house, the physicist said “You know Cece, it will just be the two of us, We will probably not find a He W (more…)