The Nine Rooms of Happiness: Loving Yourself, Finding Your Purpose, and Getting Over Life's Little Imperfections (17 page)

In doing this, you’re filling yourself out into 3-D, instead of seeing the two-dimensional image in the mirror as the “you” the world sees. Want to experience yourself differently in the world? You can do it any number of ways. What’s important is to try to make
this
the self-image you are investing in, since the one in the mirror will not always match the way you feel.

You can’t completely control the outer self because aging is inevitable, but you
can
control the inner self. You have the opportunity here to bring meaning to your life from the inside out. The mirror is not the real you. What you do, outside the bathroom, and how you contribute to the world around you, is.

Marissa is well on her way to accepting this notion of actions making her happier, and of listening to her inner authentic voice. She says that when she is feeling good about herself it’s because she has done something positive for others, or challenging for herself, like volunteering or rock-climbing or taking an extension course. She likes to tell herself, “Happiness is a choice. I choose happy!” And it’s this upbeat personality that makes her so attractive and her laugh lines beautiful.

So we say: It’s important to spend enough time in the bathroom to take good care of yourself, but stop obsessing about your reflection. Get out of the bathroom and back to your life. And remember that a smile is gorgeous at every age. And that smile is best when it comes from within.

Marissa’s pearl works for her, and it is simply: Happiness is a choice. “I choose happy!”

Casey had zero sex drive because of her body image issues. The scale and bathroom were making her unhappy, but she took it out on her marriage, in the bedroom.

She wasn’t having sex even while reveling on the island paradise of Maui. “I had no sex drive, I wasn’t feeling any desire at all. So when we got back, I went to my doctor and said, ‘This just can’t be right!’ She tested me, and guess what? I had nothing wrong except that I was mildly anemic. The doctor told me women feel this way all the time—that I should take vitamins—but more important, I had to take better care of myself. She used a word I’ll never forget: She told me, ‘You
deserve
to take better care of yourself.’

“That was
so
interesting because I never thought I deserved anything. I had too much, and had been given so much. And now it’s like it was doctor’s orders: I
deserve
it. I decided to make my health a priority. My doctor’s ‘prescription’ made it okay somehow—I now felt that I deserved to sleep more and eat well and exercise and get back in shape.”

Deserve
is a tricky word for women, because it implies that we have to get permission in order to be happy, to be successful, to have it all. The church, our families, and our upbringings teach us not to stand out; it is drummed into us to be modest, supportive, helpful.

Most men consider winning to be the goal, particularly in competitive endeavors like sports and work. Women prefer collaborating to competing. If you sense you are “ahead of the pack,” you may hold yourself back in one way or another. Casey did that by being heavy, which was a comfortable place to exist.

She had to resolve her feelings about “having it all” and “that’s too much.” Where did they come from? The answer wasn’t in the bathroom; it was in her other rooms, including the family room (her mother and siblings), the living room (where friends would be envious), and the basement (she was brought up with a good dose of Catholic guilt). Her feeling of not
deserving
success follows her from room to room. “People are starving in Africa, and I am so lucky and fortunate and it doesn’t feel right to me to be so blessed.”

When Casey thinks back, she remembers the nuns at her Catholic school always telling her not to be “piggy” at the lunch table, that God would punish her. “I remember thinking I was going to burn in hell because I used to take a second roll and put it in my pocket and sneak-eat it
in the girls’ bathroom after lunch. And when I was successful in school I felt guilty, like I didn’t deserve it because I was a pig.” The idea that she “deserved” something, coming from a doctor, was enough to turn this screen memory on its head and give her the clarity to realize she was thinking about “deserve” in a negative way. “I do so much for others, I finally realized I do deserve to take care of myself.”

Catherine says, “This is an important issue for many women who feel that when too much is going right, something bad is bound to happen. The fear of being envied can make a woman feel uncomfortable.” They would rather eat the birthday cake at the office party—the cake they don’t even really want—than be called out by co-workers for trying to “better” themselves and pass on the cake. If Casey were true to herself, she would say, “No thanks, I’m on a diet,” and even though her co-workers might say, “You look fine!,” the helpful ones would not pressure her to eat. We would say to Casey, Be true to yourself and don’t let the pings of those who want you to stay the same bring you down.

Casey thought being fat made her more likable and less threatening. Avoiding potential criticism, jealousy, and even animosity from her peers was something that, until now, she cared about more than her own healthy body.

But this came at a personal cost.

Casey was sabotaging herself by overeating, which meant that she didn’t have to deal with the issue of sex, since she didn’t feel attractive. Food became her turn-on. “I could eat till the cows come home,” she says. “It was filling a purpose, and I didn’t know what that was until my doctor said I deserved to put myself first. That’s when I started to turn things around.”

For Casey, her pearl came from her doctor: “I deserve it,” and suddenly she realized she was entitled to her success, a healthy body, a good sex life, and everything else she wanted. She changed her approach to food, and for the first time in her life started planning her meals, her snacks, and her shopping list. She added workouts to her schedule, and they became a part of her new “job”—taking care of herself. It wasn’t something to feel guilty about—it was just another item on her to-do list, stripped
of all the emotional baggage that she’d brought to it for years. She’s lost thirty-five pounds in a year and is keeping it off. She exercises and eats right and her sex life is back and her energy level is high. Her body image is soaring, but she continues to work at it daily.

Now, instead of saying “I don’t deserve to be happy,” she says, “We all deserve to be happy, and when I make myself happy I can better help all those around me.” Being overweight or feeling down about herself took up so much of her energy that she was unable to get outside herself. “I now know that the best thing is to be good to myself and
then
go out and give back. Trying to be less than who I can be was not giving back—it was giving up.”

So the pearl here is: You deserve to be happy, healthy,
and
fit. You deserve it all.

For years, Connie resented her older sister Noelle because she had had liposuction and looked amazing. “It became an issue between us, and I gave her a lot of grief about cheating while I spent hours at the gym doing it the right way.”

This tension came to a head when Connie had her first child and didn’t dress the baby in the outfit Noelle had given her for the christening. After Noelle made an innocent inquiry—“What happened to the gown I gave you for the baby?”—Connie lost it, screaming things like, “You don’t have the right to tell me what to do!” and decided to have it out with her
sister right in front of the guests. There was nothing particularly offensive about Noelle’s inquiry, but Connie felt bad about herself—she was still carrying extra weight four months postpartum and, as always, was jealous of her sister’s slender body—and decided that Noelle was being Little Miss Perfect again. “Everything comes so easily for you…why do you think you deserve to have it all? A great job, beautiful kids, a nice husband, and a perfect body, even if you did have to pay for it! Forget it, you can have that outfit back!”

Even as those harsh words flew out of her mouth, Connie knew she was overreacting. Catherine calls what she was doing “displacing” her own body issues onto her sister. This wasn’t about Noelle and her perfect body; it was about Connie’s own saddlebags and self-image, which she couldn’t get rid of, no matter how hard she tried.

Catherine says that Connie was exhibiting what Freud called “the return of the repressed,” or, in more user-friendly terms, “hysterical is historical” behavior, in which a minor event becomes major, since it brings up some unpleasant baggage from the past. The emotional outburst is informed by years of accumulated pent-up feelings, and they finally come rushing out in an inappropriate way. In this case, Connie’s hysterical reaction to Noelle was not a result of how she felt about her sister’s body, but of how she felt about her own. She had displaced her anger and pain and turned it on her sister.

For Connie, the bathroom was connected to the family room, as well as to the bedroom. (She wasn’t feeling sexually attracted to her husband. The thought bubble was:
I’m gross, so how could you possibly find me attractive?
She started treating him badly as well.) Clearly she needed to change her body image and perhaps even her body.

She got a trainer and started working out five days a week and watching her diet. The baby weight finally came off, but even after a year, the shape of her upper legs hadn’t changed. Connie finally had to admit that the saddlebags were never going away. Naturally, that is. She refused to tell her sister or her mother that she was going to get liposuction because she was so embarrassed about how contemptuously she’d acted toward Noelle over her decision to do it. After the swelling went down postsurgery, how
ever, and Connie saw how great she looked, she couldn’t wait to put on a bathing suit and show off her new backside to her mother and her sister.

When the annual family beach vacation rolled around, Connie looked stunning in her suit, and Noelle was thrilled for her. And Connie had an epiphany: “I didn’t hate my sister for being perfect. I hated myself for being flawed. The fact that she was so happy for me made me realize there was no malice on her side. I was bitter, and it was all about me.”

That “all about me” attitude can emerge in the bathroom when you have too intimate a relationship with your mirror. Your actions toward others are based more on how you feel about yourself, and it becomes hard to be empathetic or feel connected to those around you, except as far as how you feel about yourself in relationship to them.

Connie was acting out her negative emotions toward her sister. If she had been able to explain that she was feeling bad about her body, her sister would have been sympathetic.

For Connie, the pearl is to be honest with yourself, then to express yourself and be direct. Others (husbands, sisters, friends) may be more supportive than you can imagine, and that may lead to a closer bond between you. And close ties are an important factor in lifelong happiness. So by being honest with yourself and others, you can live a happier, healthier life.

Lori is a self-described “big girl,” with long black hair and bright blue eyes, who works in commercial real estate. She says, “Being a size fourteen or sixteen has always plagued me. I feel best as a size ten or twelve, but that’s not easy for me. For most men, my size is an impediment, even if
they don’t actually say so. My thin girlfriends—even those who aren’t as nice or as attractive as me—always had dates, serious boyfriends, and are now mostly married with kids. The only thing I can figure out is that my weight turns people off.”

Even so, Lori finds dating a much more pleasant experience these days because of the Internet. “It’s just easier to get a date. Before the Internet I would go a whole year and maybe be fixed up once or twice. Now, if I want to go on a date, I can go on a date.” And she doesn’t go out with just anyone. She pores over profiles and has very high standards. “The men have to be really smart, interesting, and motivated. I really don’t want to waste my time if they aren’t my type.”

Because she believes her size turns some men off, Lori posts several pictures of herself on her dating profiles that hide little. “I want them to know what I really look like. No surprises. It’s too painful to worry if they are going to flip out about my size when they meet me. Let them know ahead of time! And if they don’t like it, don’t go out with me.”

Food has always been a major topic of discussion in Lori’s Italian family. “I wouldn’t say my mother force-fed us, but she did, kind of.” Lori smirks when she talks about the family meals. “Eating was almost a form of recreation in my family. My sister got lucky—she found a man who loves to eat too, but he’s always been thin, and her weight (she’s built like me) doesn’t seem to bother him. I couldn’t be with someone who wasn’t an eater.