Skip to main content

Pull up your Big People Pants...Get Redirecting



I had this discussion about food and exercise and addiction and environmental upbringing with an old superior in the Marines last night. She'd been through all ways to stop her overeating... two failed gastric bypasses, aside from all sorts of diets.  

Finally, she went to the VA and they resolved her diet issue (she lost over 80 pounds in ten months). But to keep the weight off, the VA realized she needed to look at her ancestoral habits.  We shared our flaws that we never knew of each other. And I'd never shared with anyone ever. I traded potentially bad habits for somethings that were innocuous, and I am blessed with being able to have redirected myself when overeating.

I figured out why we did these things. She was busy being a caregiver. I was that way most of my childhood and a large part of my adulthood along with being fantastic worriers. I told her things I do when I worry. I used to not be able to find the tools to satiate my automatic worrying.  I was a workaholic, so was she. She held a full time government job, going on Reserve, while she attended college and raised three children with NO Nanny.

If I wasn't working (I held a full time job, and at times either created health care  classes and taught classes on a weekend or had a speech at night... while training as a professional athlete 16-36 hours a week. Never mind raising children w/hubby, making meals, house chores and the like.)
Basically. I barely slept for the better part of two of the three decades of child-raising and putting in insane hours during day and evening at work. And training many times at 1am in the morning. I was there for everyone in our little family. I did enjoy it.
Yet my husband would shake his head when I'd ask "Why am I so tired?".
My drive was pursued by witnessing my mother's lack of equality, will, etc... And constantly reminded that... "Idleness is the devil's workshop." I despised that saying from my Mom.
My dad would call me "lazy" and "a dummy", just to say it. Meanwhile, I realized even as a child that my parents were quite flawed and that I'd not ever waste time, because I knew I was flawed. So, to not compound the flaws I knew I had being human, I overcompensated by putting out work loads in every aspect of my life. My family did benefit. I may have. One thing I've known, is this life is a constant cycle breaking job.
As my friend and I agreed it's part of being human. And we are all flawed in some way and it's up to each individual to figure it out. Our thoughts became that things we witnessed are now in our rear-view mirror, yet we must acknowledge not to repeat our past ancestoral habits and its a work in progress. Also those habits may arrive in different formats, and you'll wonder why you do what you do in an obsessive compulsive manner.---Jody-Lynn Reicher 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2023 Holiday Letter from the Reicher's

Well, I didn't think I'd be doing a Holiday Letter this year, but here goes... The Spirit of Norm is in the air. As the wind whips with minus a true snowstorm.  In hopes the Farmers Almanac was correct, I pray to the snow gods. Rain ensued the month of December thus far. We have nearly tripled the amount of rainfall usual for December in New Jersey. And I've witnessed its treachery. Storms such as these hit us hardest in July. Then remained fairly intense through til about early October.  Our daughters are doing well, Thank God.  Their Dad would be proud of them. Our oldest Sarah, now a Junior at UCLA pursuing her degree in Chemical Engineering. She's digging the whole California scene. Which I thought it was for her. She's had some good traveling on her off times from school. For her March 2023 week off, she drove her and a few friends out to Lake Tahoe and went downhill skiing for a first in nearly 5 years. She had to rent the ski equipment.  Funny enough when
3 comments
Read more

Sledging the Hammer

  "You could have a steam trainIf you'd just lay down your tracks..."---Peter Gabriel's 'Sledgehammer' lyrics. This is not the tune that lay in my mind this morning as I reminisced about yesterday's volunteers to help on trail crew.    However, as I looked up the proper definition of sledging that song popped up. I say sledging, which is my own take on swinging a hammer that we call a "Double Jack". The Single Jack is six pounds. I know that because our regular crew of five including me and one staff supervisor are handling Harriman State Park Trails, and have to carry about four of those, two shaping hammers, along with a hoist, belay bag with heavy equipment, first aid kit, double Jack, three 18lb rock bars, a lopper, three buckets, three eye to eyes, two burlap straps, two green wrapping straps, two pick Mattox, a roe hoe or two, a bar for either the two ton or one ton hoist, the feathers with pegs for splitting rocks that we drill... s
Post a Comment
Read more

It Follows Me...

One may wonder what would inspire someone to work hard labor voluntarily. For me it’s the love of many things. It’s the passion that won’t be broken. Because there are so many aspects to such service for me, that it may seem beyond comprehension. I’d compare it to my youthful desire to enter the military as a young child. Then for a multitude of reasons only to follow through thirteen years later at age eighteen entering the Marines. There were things that followed me throughout my life. Sometimes they were questions of how I ever gave up my over decade’s life dream to become a New Jersey State Trooper. My childhood desire to never wed—to never have any serious relationships with another human being. I desired only service in military and law enforcement nearly my whole childhood. Too the extent that even one of my Marine Corps superiors expressed to me last July, “I never thought you’d ever get married. It just wasn’t who you were. You were always a loner.” I replied, “Yeah. I know.
Post a Comment
Read more