Learn to Live Out Loud!

I’ll have people like I used to be the homecoming queen of my school. Right? In high school. And I went to a reunion after 20, 30, 40—I don’t know—some number of years. And I went to the reunion and people said, “Oh, is that you? In that fat body?” I was like, “Wow.” And they say, “You really are fat.” I said, “Yes, I am. But you’re stupid, [laughter] and I can go on a diet.” Some of them couldn’t really appreciate what I was trying to say. But you know, people are sometimes mean to you, and you can respond to that and forget how to live, how to laugh, how to love. You have to live out loud, right? You have to get up every day looking at yourself in the mirror and saying, “There is no person who has any more wonder to bring to this world than I.” You have to say that, yes, you deserve 30 minutes a day that’s just for you. The laundry can wait; those dust balls will just grow a couple more centimeters, it’s okay; they can wait. You deserve to have a time where you go out and sit and relax and enjoy the company of others who know how to enjoy themselves. Make your own small support group when you want to talk about laughing. Find something that makes you laugh. What makes you laugh? I like old Lucille Ball reruns, Carol Burnett. You’re feeling me on that, right? I mean, no one was funnier than these two women. They were absolutely hilarious, and it was all clean comedy. You didn’t have to wonder about who was walking in the room and whether or not you can listen to it at the church. It was all good. Find that space in yourself. I was told a couple of years ago that I need to have bilateral knee replacement. [groans] I mean, knee replacement surgery is about the toughest of the replacements you can go through, not that I want to be replacing anything, but knees are really bad because you can’t get away with not using your knees if you’re going to get around. So I thought, “Well, what will I do?” So, you know, I started taking yoga. I always thought yoga was for all those new-age crazy people who ate granola every day. I mean, you know, there you go, hmm, so do a tree pose. I could just do a bush pose. [laughter] I started to take yoga, and guess what? I felt better because I had to take time to just be still and concentrate on the poses. And I became more flexible, and my knees stopped hurting so much. And I was able to do more things. So I got past my pain. What I found out at one point was that I was actually clinically depressed. I didn’t realize it. Because clinical depression is sneaky. I’d always been a person who laughs and talks and jokes, but I go and I go and I go, and I was at the point where my love affair with my couch was indicative of my depression. If you don’t understand what depression is, it’s a bad thing. It can make you hurt; it will make you lose all of your energy and your ability to get up and move around. So, depression is something that if you’re feeling sad every day, if you really don’t have any joy, if you’ve got a stud muffin in front of you and you don’t want any of that, that’s depression. If you eat chocolate and you just go like, “Yuck.” That’s real depression! [laughter] You need to get to a therapist right away. But think about that because part of what we’re doing here tonight is talking about how to have a better life, and you have to recognize what’s going on with you. You have to be okay with saying that, hm, something’s not right, and also pushy enough to get someone to help you get there. But I think the company of friends will do it for you; it’s a good start because if they don’t help you, or if you don’t want to be with them, that means you might have a clinical issue that you need to get to.

So, when I was still thinking about what to say to those people who were so mean to me because I was fat, I decided that, guess what, they don’t feed me, they don’t hug me when I’m sad, they don’t give me a car to drive, and so what are they of no consequence to me. I decided that instead, I will laugh myself then. You know, I’ve got a lot of laughing to do, but I’m working on it. I get out, and I have fun. I remember when I went to Las Vegas for the first time in my life. I went to speak at a conference at a SHRM Society for Human Resource Management, and I was really worried about it. There were going to be 20,000 people there, and I was worried about what I was going to wear, and I was worried about not being thin enough in front of them, and all that, so I packed, you know, like the carrier. And they’re supposed to be moved, carry on, and when it was time to get off the plane, it actually – I started coming down the jet bridge, coming down the jet bridge, and the wheel broke. I’m trying to think how in the world could not carry this thing. And I got a rush because I was running late because of the flight, so after a minute I thought about it, and I saw this man coming off the plane, and I said, “Sir, Sir, Sir, please excuse me, excuse me, would you mind, would you help me? There’s a luggage shop just about 50 yards down that hallway, which might help me with this.” He looked at me, looked at the bag, looked at me, did the bag, he just walked away. I was like huh? [laughter] So in a little while, I said, “Hmm, well, I need some help.” So I’m still looking for the next sucker to come through. Next guy comes through, “Sir, Sir, I’m really sorry, I’m really sorry, but you know, there’s a luggage shop just 25 yards down the hallway, could you help me?” He stopped, he looked, he said, “Then, well, you know, I think you’re big enough to handle at yourself.” Now I’m starting to wonder if I’m in Las Vegas or West Hill. So while I’m sitting there figuring out what to do because I’m thinking, “Wow, how am I going to get this thing there? I really need this help.” This third man comes around, he picks up my bag, he picks up the bag, and he says, “Well, you know, I’m here to help you.” He says, “I can tell you need help ‘cuz you’re fat. Dang! But you know, I’m not saying anything..My ego can take more of a beating than my back right now.” So we walked on down. He says, “Well, you know, yeah, you’re heavy, you’re solid.” I’m like, has he been in some word games or something? He’s trying to find out how many words he can use to say the same thing. So we walk on down, walk on down to the luggage shop. I’m going, when we get there, I say, “Thank you, bye, see you later,” and he’s just standing there, “No, no, I’ll help you, no, no, no, no, it’s fine, really, it’s fine ‘cuz my smiles about to break ‘cuz I want to kill him, you know.” So he looks at me for a minute, he says, “Oh my goodness, I must have said something to offend you.” You think? This is, “Oh, oh, oh, oh, I get it, I get it, I get it.” “When I said that I meant P-H-A-T, pretty hot and tempting.” He said, “When I said heavy, it was because I was listening to your conversation and it was really deep.” Okay, I’m like. [laughter] “And when I said, ‘solid,’ I meant like the earth, like you are the kind of person I would like to get to know,” and I said, “Can I have your baby?” Because I had been so busy buying into that whole myth of being fat and unattractive, I couldn’t even hear a compliment when it came. Hope you’re not doing the same thing. I hope you’re not hearing the bad stuff that you’re hearing what people are actually saying. He was calling me a fine tall drink of water, and I was just trying to blow him off, and you know, we got to know each other a little bit better. I had to break out my jeweler’s glass.