Food, Sex and Over Achievers

I am lonely, and I can be lonely with a gorgeous woman on my arm. Fuck is this all there is? I am bored with females to be really honest. Josh was angry and needed to vent.

“If I am sober and straight, available, attrative intelligent male talks to me, I am terrified, I just want to run. What is wrong with me?” Sue pleaded fighting back her tears.

Josh is an elite sportsman, at the top of his game. He is an international celebrity. Good looking, financially wealthy, he has the body of an Adonis, is in his late twenties and in demand from national and international clubs and sponsors.

Sue is in her early thirties with the body of an elite athlete herself. She is a highly paid international career woman, well dressed, well educated, financially independent and from the outside looking in, has it all.

Josh and Sue like many high achievers I work with live in their head and their body. Thought and Action are their Gods.

The sports phrase “Just Do It” has never been a problem for either of them. They are what I call alpha male and female. Trouble is just doing it, gets boring after a while.

I am speaking from personal experience. I spent the first three decades of my life, just getting on with doing what I thought I should be doing. I was disconnected from my own heart. I was an emotional virgin when I got clean and sober back in 1995 at the ripe old age of 33.

“Yeah I can get girls, and they want sex, but I am over the sex. I have probably had too much for someone my age. It’s like a good training session; yeah it’s a good workout, but so what, what’s next, who’s next? Josh explained.

"I really just want good company, from a smart, gutsy woman with a good sense of humour. I want a woman with self respect, that I can get good advice and support from. Not an insecure body obsessed child that expects me to save her, and look after her like a kept pet. His frustration was palpable.

The common denominator I observe when working with Over Achievers is that they struggle, like I did, and sometimes still do, with being and feeling. Over achievers are different from a High Achievers as they are excessive in most areas of their lives.  Balance is absent across the board.  They are also suseptible to self harm if they have no safe tribe, elder and capacity to "be" rather than keep doing.

"Well Josh, it is difficult to attract someone who loves you for being who you are, if you don’t know who you are to start with." I said slowly and respectfully.

“What do you mean dont know who I am ?” Josh challenged.

“I am a fuckin’ international athlete.   They love me in Japan, everyone knows who I am Cynthia, what the fuck?” He was annoyed with me.

“No Josh, everyone knows what you do. Yes I know you are an elite athlete and you are adored for your skills. But who are you? Explain that to me, leaving out any reference to what you do?” I gently asked.

He sat quietly for almost two minutes. Exhaled deeply then looked at me with the saddest eyes I have seen in quite some time.  Probably the last time I saw this depth of sadness was in the eyes of prisoners in a maximum security prison where I was working with inmates.

“I don’t fuckin know who I am, without my career I am a big fuckin’ nobody.” His voice lowered to almost a whisper.

In my expereince I have observed that Over Achievers who rely on substances to relate to others, attract partners that are impressed by what they do, because that is all they offer as a connection point. Their head, body and what they do with the two.  These are the only two portals of connection they make available.

Our heart, our passion and our emotional appetite are as important, I believe, as our physical and intellectual appetites. Unless we train on a daily basis to build our emotional fitness levels we will remain unfit, and unable to bring our heart safely to any relationship, if we can’t even bring it into our own relationship with ourselves.

Sue and Josh have their heart in jail; it is not free to express itself. It is dominated by their fear that reigns over their head and body.

Sue, as she ages and remains single becomes increasingly obsessed with keeping her face and figure perfect. Her appetite for different foods and a range of choice is monitored and controlled by fear. She counts calories, botox is like a secret drug she abuses and lies about to others.  If she dares to eat chocolate she flogs herself at the gym. So much so that she causes herself physical injury at times.

Her libido she finds inconvenient. The thought of masturbation to release natural sexual desire repulses her. Sue has a history of sexual abuse. She tries to ignore and bury this truth with being busy, busy, busy and keeping her body so tired and exhausted most of the time she doesn’t have the time or energy to bother with her sexuality.

However it does reach overflow at times and she copes with this by flirting with married men in the work place. She only has affairs with emotionally unavailable men. When she goes on an alcohol bender she will have anonymous sex with strangers. The next day she can hardly recall their name. She feels worse about herself afterwards so she becomes more controlling with her head and body because she feels so out of control emotionally in her heart. She punishes her body with cruel training sessions and moves into workaholic mode.

Sue’s heart, mind and body are strangers. Disconnected. They are warring with each other; she is divorced from her own heart, there is little self love, mostly fear.

Josh is Sue, but in male form. His behaviors’ mirror hers but in reverse. He lets his libido do what it wants, when it wants, with whomever he wants like an irresponsible teenager. He masturbates excessively to try to exhaust his sexual desire. Josh has a history of sexual abuse also. He was sexualized by a male and is disgusted by the truth within his own life history. He too keeps himself busy, busy, busy, doing, thinking, doing and thinking some more. He gets so tired and exhausted that he doesn’t make space or time to acknowledge how he feels. Except when he comes to see me and his therapist.

Both Sue and Josh are working with trained clinicians on their childhood history of abuse. I like to call clinicians Emotional Surgeons. They, I believe, are an essential component in building Emotional Fitness for many recovering their self love and respect. Clinician I refer clients to,  are qualified and trained to perform emotional surgery and operate on intricate heart re-wiring.

Heart work is what Emotional Fitness is all about, and is like an emotional massage. It helps keep those in recovery emotionally flexible, comfortable and able to identify tender areas that may later need to be addressed by their Emotional Surgeon. If we choose to improve physical fitness we must train regularly. If we choose to improve Emotional Fitness the same principal applies. Repetition, commitment and a healthy routine.

“Sue when I first started to reconnect my heart with my body it took time. I was 33 years of age and an emotional virgin.” I was the mother of two children and had been married for almost ten years.” I explained.

“I had used drugs and alcohol to numb me off any time I needed to be sexually intimate. I left my heart out of the room when I had sex. So I had to court myself when I got into recovery, I had no idea what my sexual appetite was. I started with baby steps like lighting candles when I was alone to help relax. I would run myself a bath, put music on that turned my head off and turned my heart on. Then I had to practice being with me. Being kind to my body, loving, gentle and emotionally present.” Sue nodded beckoning for me to continue.

“When my Emotional Surgeon explained to me that I deserved to enjoy my sexuality and have it feel like a fresh bunch of flowers within me, instead of the dirty ashtray, I cried.” I was relaying how this journey started for me 14 years ago.

“It took time for me to relax my body enough to explore it respectfully and keep my destructive thoughts out of the room. My practice of daily mediation helped me here”.

“I am starting meditation classes this week, how weird is that?” Sue interrupted with enthusiasm.

“Great you can use those techniques to strengthen being with yourself it will help you immensely” I smiled as I saw the hope return to her face.

Beautiful Barb (my Heart Mother) over the past 14 years of my recovery has also become my loyal, wise and reliable emotional massuese.  Without drugs and alcohol in my system I was extremely emotionally unfit in the beginning and needed a daily hope massage.

“Josh how is the cocaine use these days?” I asked.

“I am so fuckin’ bored, I have it when I am with women to make them interesting”.  He admitted.

Cocaine, like many drugs and alcohol keeps our hearts locked away in jail. We get chemically induced pleasure but it is only temporary and not real, so nothing real can be built for Josh in relationships whilst he continues to use. But he is willing to decrease his usage slowly so I will keep you posted on his progress.

Josh feels hopeful about a better life, and reads my blog daily as a part of his new Emotional Fitness Training regime. He is keen to help others by sharing his story through this Blog, even though we have changed some details to protect his career.

I believe that we compromise our capacity to feel love and passion for ourselves and our own lives when we are dominated by fearful ego based behaviours.

Being loving towards ourselves and our bodies is the birthing of a respectful relationship with our self. Until this is strong, we are not able to maintain an enduring loving relationship with anyone else.

Our appetite for a healthy, nourishing and diverse diet physically and sexually, is our birthright. Ice cream, chocolate and pizza are not naughty foods to my way of thinking. There is a time and a place to enjoy delights without compromising our self respect.

I see many people abuse the terms moderation and balance. My view is, let’s be balanced about balance and ensure we practice moderation in moderation. A life lived obsessing about balance and moderation has no freedom. It is the opposite of what these words mean.

When you love a child or lover you only want what is best for their emotional and physical health and wellbeing. Discipline and freedom both need to be incorporated into a healthy relationship.

Desire is neither naughty or bad, in my view.  It also requires discipline and freedom of expression through a respectful heart connection with ourselves and our lover in order to build a healthy relationship.

So it starts with us. Loving ourselves as we would a loved one. Being who we are, and not just saying that, but spending time being with ourselves, not just doing but being still. Quiet time, mediation or prayer if they work for you. If prayer and meditation isn’t your thing connecting with Mother Nature and Father Time are also extremely productive and cost effective ways to learn how to be. Sitting at the beach, in a rainforest, on your own steps watching the moon. Day dreaming is essential. Hang out with a four year old if you don’t know how.

Loving being you is as important as loving what you do in life.

My Word Vitamins when I need to remind myself to do less and be more are summed up with Sir James M. Barrie’s words..

"If you have it (love), you don’t need to have anything else, and if you don’t have it, it doesn’t matter much what else you have."