The Law of Karma

When I was a little girl (waaaaaay back in the early ‘70s), I watched “The Doris Day Show” and Doris sang the theme song “Que Sera, Sera” in such a breezy, lilting way that I believed every word of it:

When I was just a little girlI asked my mother, what will I beWill I be pretty, will I be richHere's what she said to me.Que Sera, Sera,Whatever will be, will beThe future's not ours, to seeQue Sera, SeraWhat will be, will be.

Life was destiny and fate and a big jar of peanut butter. But as I got older, particularly since I turned 40 almost six years ago, I began to understand that there’s a lot about life I am responsible for, separate from “que sera, sera,” the things I cannot change or prevent.

The word “karma” is often (mis)understood in our culture as “what goes around, comes around,” and we hear it most often used to explain someone’s ill fate or as future punishment for wrong doing, a “karma’s gonna bite him in the ass” kind of thing.

But karma isn’t schadenfreude, which means to delight in another's misfortune, nor should it be seen as destiny or fate. Karma isn’t positive or negative. It doesn’t have a conscience or the mind of a deity. We create it. To an extent it is “what goes around, comes around,” but it’s so much more.

I had a helluva time last week dealing with things within my control and things outside my control. So it was like a drink of water in the desert (or “fate,” perhaps?) that I read this teaching by Buddhist nun Pema Chodron:

“According to the law of karma, every action has a result. If you stay in bed all day with the covers over your head, if you overeat for the millionth time in your life, if you get drunk, if you get stoned, you know that’s going to depress you and make you more discouraged, if it’s just this habitual thing that you think is going to make you feel better. The older you get, the more you know how it just makes you feel more wretched. The law of karma says, ‘Well, how do you want to feel tomorrow, next week, next year, five years from now, ten years from now?’”

Now here’s the kicker:

“It’s up to you how to use your life. It doesn’t mean you have to be the best one at cheering up, or that your habitual tendencies never get the better of you. It just has to do with this sense of reminding yourself. The law of karma is that we sow the seeds and reap the fruit…So when you find yourself in a dark place where you’ve been countless, countless times, you can think, ‘Maybe it’s time to get a little golden spade and dig myself out of this place.’”

So I found my little spade (it’s in the garage next to my bound-and-gagged fat chick and Negative Nelly) and dug in the ground until I could say again for the MILLIONTH time, “I’m the one, ME, Lynn Haraldson-Bering, who controls what goes in my mouth, how I move my legs and arms, and what I see in the mirror. I’m the only one who can either allow what someone else says to turn me upside down or to see that their words are their truth, not mine, and to see the beauty in differing points of view.”

Guaranteed there will be a next time and a next time and a 2,000,000th time that I’ll have to find that spade and dig myself out of that space. But each time I do, it gets a little easier.

If there’s one thing the deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson can teach us it’s that we don’t know if we’ll be here tomorrow. So as long as we’re here, we can use the time to made amends with our bodies – to learn and to grow and to heal, to NOT put that food in our mouths and to GET on that treadmill or elliptical, and to LOOK in the mirror and SEE beauty simply because we are who we are with all of our stretch marks and flab, because there is also lovely skin and cute freckles and sparkly eyes and a good hair day once in awhile.

“Que sera, sera” only works for things beyond our control. To help me remember this, I bought a piece of wood carved with the saying “What will be is up to me” and I keep it on the shelf in my office that holds other important reminders: photos of my children and grandchildren, and a card from my husband that says, “Do you know what I love most about us? You.”

Today I choose to stay present and to stay on course for where I want to be tomorrow, five years from now and ten years from now. Today I will remember the rule of karma.

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Learning (Again) To Just Say "No!"

So I was at Target yesterday with Claire. She was in the cart, pointing at and wanting everything on every shelf. Finally, I dug out a box of raisins from my purse, thinking eating them would keep her happily distracted.

“Claire, do you want some raisins?” I asked and held out the box.

“No!” she replied emphatically (emphasis on emphatic) and pushed my hand away.

'Damn,' I thought. 'I wish food was that easy for me to refuse.'

Back at my daughter’s house, Claire and I sat on the deck and blew bubbles and colored and she put Hello Kitty stickers up and down my arm and on my face. It was getting close to lunchtime so I asked her, “Do you want applesauce?” Claire nodded her head yes.

I loved those summer afternoons when my mom would make my brother and me peanut butter sandwiches, fruit cocktail (making sure each serving had the same number of cherries), and Kool-Aid and we’d eat at the picnic table. Usually we had lunch at the kitchen table and watched Casey Jones and Wonderdog cartoons, which was fun, too, but eating outside was always a treat.

In the spirit of my outdoor childhood lunches, I made Claire a peanut butter sandwich and poured Juicy Juice in her sippy cup. I fed her pieces of sandwich instead of letting her feed herself because: A) she was being a monkey and tipping herself upside down in the chair and laughing; and B) peanut butter is difficult to clean off crayons. What I didn’t do, and am very proud of myself for, is lick the peanut butter off my fingers or take “just a bite” of the white bread/peanutty goodness that I love so much. I forced myself to be content to live with the memories of my outdoor picnics.

I thought my resolve was all “I can handle any food temptation today!” until Cassie came home and brought out the homemade chocolate chip cookies she made on Father’s Day. Oy. They looked so good. I know, I know…food is fun and eating the things we love once in awhile is OK. That’s not where I’m going with this. I’m not opposed to a chocolate chip cookie once in awhile, just not when my food mood is “Go ahead…eat whatever…” I’ve been in this food mood all week and it’s been hell to fight, thanks to what I call the “unholy trinity”: stress, pain and hormones.

I’ve done well, for the most part, but an extra carb here and Hershey Kiss there have found their way into my mouth more than once, and all the determination and positive self-talk wasn’t going to stop them until finally yesterday, I found my “stop” button. It’s always there, I just lose sight of it sometimes.

As I drove home from Pittsburgh, I separated the food mood from the emotional mood and waded through the muck. The unholy trinity is still here today, but remembering for the 1 millionth time that I am in control of what I put in my mouth, I’ve got a cleaner playing field on which to live. My strategy is this: when I think about food and I’m not hungry, I think more deeply and try to pinpoint the source of that desire. What I’ve come up with so far is mostly fear and uncertainty spurred by very specific life events and self-expectations as of late. I put a lot of pressure on myself sometimes and instead of see when I’ve gone too far, I see chocolate chip cookies in my head. Go figure.

So here’s to hoping the next time I hear, “Lynn, do you want to eat ________?” I’ll be like Claire and say, emphatically, “No!”

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Best stress reliever ever? Holding Baby Luca.

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“Before” Photos Are Still “Now” Photos

When Hanlie posted a comment on my last entry on Father’s Day about how she’d not seen a “before” photo of me, I started thinking about what “before” implies.

When you lose weight, it’s natural for people to want to compare what you looked like before and what you look like now. Heck, I love seeing how people have transformed physically. In this context, “before” is about what’s changed and “now” is about what’s different. But when I looked at some of my “before” photos, I realized that there’s much more going on in them than just me being fat. There’s a lot of “now” in the “before”s.

This was taken the night my daughter Carlene (now 26) made dinner for my husband Larry and her grandmother and me. She was going to college, living in our basement apartment, and learning how to cook. She made chicken and crescent rolls and a salad, all of which turned out great. Gave her a lot of confidence. I no longer have all that weight on my bones, just as we no longer have that table and those chairs, Carlene has different dishes, and I’m sure she no longer owns that shirt. My husband had a lot more hair then and he wears different glasses. But we’re all four still around, still family, still cooking and laughing together.

This photo’s very difficult for me to take in because…well…there’s so much of me to take in! It was taken Christmas Eve 2003, and I remember seeing my dad out of the corner of my eye standing up to take a photo and thinking, ‘Crap, I hate when he does this. Can’t he see how fat I am? I hate having photos taken!’ all the while trying to concentrate on playing my flute.

Looking at is as a “now” photo, I see my beautiful flute and think about how much I still love music and still love to play. I see Larry playing his guitar and think about much he still loves to play. There’s nothing “before” about that.


It was raining buckets when this photo was taken. It was the night of daughter Cassie’s last marching band performance at the last football game of the season. All seniors and their parents were recognized in a little ceremony on the football field. I remember, again, hating having a photo taken of me in my size 3X coat, but being so happy for and proud of my daughter. Now, while I don’t wear a 3X coat anymore, I’m still happy for and proud of my daughter (I think we still have that umbrella somewhere, too.).

Playing backgammon with my dad. And Dad, if you’re reading this, practice up because I’ll be home in August!

Hanging out after making lefse with my Aunt Shirley. Still make lefse, still love hanging with my aunt.

Four years separate these photos. What makes the one on the left different from the one on the right is the hair, the weight and the fact that we now have two grandchildren and a son-in-law, we live in a different home, we drive different cars, and we exercise regularly.

What makes them the same is the love and respect we had for each other then is the same that we have now. My weight changed nothing about Larry’s feelings toward me or our relationship.

I’m sure most of us still cringe a little when we see “before” photos. But when you look beyond the physical and see the constants in the photos, they become easier to digest.

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Move Over Weight Blog, It's Father's Day

Today marks the 99th time this country has observed Father’s Day. Not quite the sentimental darling as its counterpart Mother’s Day, but we’ll still spend millions of dollars on millions of cards and red-meat dinners to celebrate fatherhood.

But who are we really buying all those ties for?

Many men have fathered many children in this country since 1910, but how many of these “fathers” are deserving of a holiday? “Any man can be a father,” reads a famous bumper sticker. “Not all fathers can be a dad.”

My dad was just 6 years old when his father died. But as hard as it was to lose his father, he grew up, married, and when he and Mom started having my four brothers and sisters and me, he knew how to be a good dad.

Whether he was getting up with us at night when we were 6-weeks-old or offering his arm to lay on during a thunderstorm when we were 6-years-old, my dad didn’t rely on the way he was parented to be the best dad he could.

He knew children needed to be taught the details of life while under the watchful eye of love and protection, even though he wasn’t raised by his father. He read us books and made up stories to tell us before we went to bed. He listened to our prayers, sang silly songs, and bought us chocolate donuts and let us wear paisleys with plaids on Saturday mornings.

He taught us how to paint a house, buy a lawnmower, check the oil in our cars, hang a picture, read a map, and love our spouses. I still call him when a pipe is frozen or my car has overheated. I love my husband and think he’s really smart, but that still small voice inside me always says, “Call Dad” when bad things happen.

My dad never called me “fat” or treated me in a way that would cause me to feel self-conscious.

I know I’m one of the lucky ones because as a mother, my experience with fathers since I grew up and moved away from home hasn’t been as positive as it was when I grew up with my dad. While it doesn’t take more than a few minutes to become a “father,” I’ve learned biology is no guarantee a man will be a good dad. And promises of non-biological fathers mean absolutely nothing to a kid unless it’s backed by a lot of action.

Real dads are the men who actually want to be with the children entrusted to their care and who show them through their words and deeds.
Real dads keep their promises.

They never discipline with violence.

When they tell their children “I love you” it isn’t fraught with conditions.

They say, “Hello, how are you?” when their children walk in the room instead of grunt at them from the couch, their eyes glued to the TV.

They eat Popsicles with their daughters on the front stoop.

They are the men who choose to be foster fathers to show children there’s another way of living other than with neglect and abuse.

They are the grandfathers who shower their grandchildren with love and kindness, or the uncles who take their nieces and nephews on family vacations.

Real dads are also the men who rise above their fears instead of bolting out the door claiming they’re not “ready” when confronted with those three little words: “I am pregnant.”

A real dad loves the children his new wife had before they met.

He keeps his child support commitment despite a disagreement with his child’s mother.

He sees his children every chance he gets no matter how far away he lives.

Good dads raise their children well even if their partner dies.

Real dads balance work and family the same way real moms do.

Real dads are there for a lifetime, even during the teenage years.

To the men who can’t do these things I beg you, stay away from children. Just because you can, don’t father children if you’re not capable of raising them. Don’t fall in love with a woman who has children. Recognize your inability to be a real dad and move on. You’ll be a better man for it.

To my dad and to all the men in this country who play catch and field grounders, mend knees and broken hearts, teach compassion and empathy, work hard and still manage to love children, have a very happy “Real Dad’s” Day this Sunday.

The world is growing up a better place because of you.

My dad and mom with my stepsons. They couldn't be any more their grandsons than if I had them myself.

Dad meeting Claire the first time last year.

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Get Closer

Driving to Pittsburgh yesterday, I heard the song “Get Closer” by Seals and Crofts. “Darling, if you want me to be closer to you, get closer to me.” In light of the online class I’m taking on the Five Hindrances, I thought about that song as if I were talking to myself about being happy and content in light of the way I engage in and respond to the current hindrance of study: sensual desire (or desire in general).

Teacher Gil Fronsdal wrote in a recent daily meditation, “Often, the desire for sensual pleasure is a surface manifestation of desiring something else…Many times it is not the object of desire we want, it is the ideas we have about the desired object.”

There are many things I desire. The one I chose to examine more closely in this course is my desire to stay thin. Like other desires – eating, sleeping, having sex, shopping, etc. – the desire to stay thin can be a helpful and skillful tool, but like food and sleep and sex and shopping, the desire to stay thin can also become that “surface manifestation of desiring something else.”

Some people eat because they’re depressed. Some people have sex in order to not be alone. Some people shop to fill a void. Some people, like…oh…say…ME, stay thin for reasons beyond staying healthy (reasons ones I’m not comfortable confessing just yet). Yuck. This is not a comfortable thing to examine. But if I want to be “closer” to understanding this desire, I need to get “closer” to it, I guess.

I’d rather just have sex or something.

Because my main (and most helpful) reason for staying thin is to be as healthy as I can, NOT staying thin, while an option, is not something I desire or will actively pursue. However, in my desire to stay thin, I’ve noticed that sometimes I get grumpy and discontented when making food choices or exercising. An instruction I found helpful was today’s meditation from Buddhist teacher Ines Freedman, who used taxes as her example, but I inserted “exercise” to illustrate my point.

Freedman wrote, “…We are not our moods, no matter how prevalent. If every time you sit down to exercise, you are unhappy, maybe you have a choice. What would you rather do? You have to exercise in order to stay thin, would you rather exercise happily or angrily? Is it any more authentic to exercise in a bad mood?”

Just as it’s easier to gain weight than lose weight, it’s often easier to feel or react to negative feelings than bad. We dwell on them and personalize them and let them hinder our desire to be happy and content. For instance, I hear from people all the time who tell me they feel stuck and can’t start losing weight because they’re afraid of failure. They don’t feel they have any choice except to lose weight, but they don’t know how to take that first step.

What I’m learning is that we have choices within our choices, like a family tree of choices. I can choose to stay thin, and within that choice, choose to do it with a more positive attitude. You can choose to lose weight or you can choose to not lose weight. From that choice, you can choose to do it in fear or with hope. Within those choices you can choose to be passive or assertive. Our choices are endless. The point is to be mindful of your choices and mindful of why you choose what you choose.

I desire to stay thin. I desire to understand why I want to stay thin and to work through and dismantle the reasons that are not so helpful or skillful. Difficult work, to be sure, but in the end, I’ll be free from that clinging and I can cross one more desire off my laundry list of unskillful desires.

So, my question to you is the same one Gil asked of his students: “What are the root desires that may be the cause and fuel for your sense desires?” Because darling, if you want to be closer to yourself, get closer to your desires.

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Shoes And Veal….Yes, There IS A Connection

If there’s such a thing as the perfect shoe, I found it last weekend at Famous Footwear.

I’m a Skechers whore. Before my latest find, I owned four different pairs and I love them. But the pair I bought last weekend are better than any shoe I’ve ever owned, including my workout shoes. These fit my feet like a glove and give great arch support. If my husband wouldn’t mind, I’d wear them to bed.

After two foot surgeries and advancing arthritis, I gave up heels. And forget flip-flops and open-toed sandals. Without the support of my orthotics, it’s like I’m walking on thumb tacks. So finding the right shoe always makes me do a little happy dance.

For me, shoes are like food. Both have to be just right or I will be terribly uncomfortable. In my post “Hindering My Hindrances,” Karen left a comment and question about how I deal with bringing food to someone else’s house.

She wrote, “About your food planning - I also think that is the secret of weight maintenance. I have kept my weight loss off almost 2 years now and am (like you) very diligent about planning my meals.

“What I haven't gotten past though, is bringing my own food to someone else's house. I know that most of the people we gather with wouldn't like what I eat, but my Midwest politeness won't let me bring my own. I feel like it would be an insult to the hostess. I would really appreciate any suggestions on how you overcame that.”

Here’s how I came to not give a damn what other people think about how and what I eat. I call it “The Veal Experience.”

I moved to Podunkville, Pennsylvania, in 1991 from Minnesota, so I know of this “Midwest politeness” Karen speaks of. I cut beef out of my diet in 1986 after my father had two heart attacks. I was obese then and was afraid I, too, would have a heart attack young, and so I stopped eating most meat. The one time I ate beef was in a homemade taco salad in 1990 (it was almost 100 percent lean, the leanest ground meat I could find) and I spent the rest of the evening in the bathroom. ‘Nuf said. Haven’t touched the stuff since.

Anyway, I moved here to PA with my (now ex) husband who got a job as a professor at our local college. (For those of you keeping track, yes, my current – and last – husband is also a prof at the same school, different department. I have a thing for men with letters after their names, apparently). As part of the orientation for new faculty, ex and I were invited to a faculty member’s home for dinner with other faculty members. (The academia with nauseatingly thick in the room that night, my friends.)

When we sat down for dinner, Hostess began by serving a shrimp salad swimming in a creamy white dressing. I wasn’t watching my weight at the time, although I should have been. I weighed 139 pounds and it would have behooved me to stay there, but I digress. I’ve had high blood pressure since I was 18 and so I watch my sodium intake, and I knew that salad Hostess was passing was afloat in sodium. To be polite, I scooped a miniscule amount. Hostess said, and I’m not kidding, “Is that all you’re going to eat?” Let’s just say she wasn’t the most tactful woman I’d ever met.

I smiled and stood my ground. “Yes, thank you. I have to watch my sodium intake.” Why lie?

I took a rolls, but passed on the butter and the olives and the pickles and the cheese sauce that I think had potatoes floating somewhere in the grease. But the catalyst that guaranteed I was never being invited back and that Hostess and I were not going to be BFF was when Hostess personally walked around the table with a platter of veal.

I don’t eat beef, we’ve established that. I made that decision for health reasons. But I do not and have not and will not ever eat veal. I made that decision for animal rights reasons (a decision I made long before corporate farming and the abhorrent ways in which animals are treated today…a subject for another day and perhaps a different blog format).

Veal? Was she kidding me? Who serves veal to guests she’s never met before? I wanted to walk out in protest, but I was there as the Good Wife and so I politely said no. Again, she berated me. “You don’t eat meat, either? What are you? A vegetarian?” She said “vegetarian” like it was a four-letter word. And I wasn’t even a vegetarian at the time!

“No,” I explained as my husband kicked me under the table. “I haven’t eaten beef in several years.”

I wish now that I’d have launched into my political banter, but I was only 28 and Hostess was 60 and scary. However, she taught me two very important lessons that night. 1) I always, ALWAYS ask my guests if they have a dietary restriction or request before they dine at my house; and 2) I always ALWAYS ask my host/hostess what they are serving and to let them know that they do NOT have to prepare something separate for me, and I am happy to bring along my own food. If they have a problem with that, then they are not worthy of my presence at their dinner table. Word.

Weight loss has made me a bit militant. But it’s my body I’m defending, and I do it in the nicest possible way. What I eat isn’t anyone’s business other than my own since it is MY body the food is passing through and it is ME who has to deal with its repercussions the next day.

So Karen, I don’t know how comfortable you are becoming your own little army, but like a good pair of shoes, if you don’t serve yourself the right food, you will be uncomfortable in some way, shape, or form. And you, not your host or hostess, has to live with that.

And I say all that in the nicest possible way because, well, I’m a nice person. LOL!

On a side note, I know a lot of you have foot issues and can empathize with my feet issues, so I’d love to hear about your favorite shoes. And even if you don’t have foot issues, give us your shoe reviews. If there’s another perfect shoe beyond the Skechers I’ve got on my feet right now, I’d love to know.

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Egg Rolls Are BACK On The Menu...Hurrah!

I don’t personally know Melanie Scott of Amarillo, TX, but for a few moments during dinner last night, she was my BFF.

During these last four years of weight loss and maintenance, I’ve chosen to stop eating several kinds of food including one of my favorites: egg rolls. I always thought egg rolls had to be deep-fat fried, and deep-fat fried anything sits like a lump in my stomach. Despite my love for egg rolls (and funnel cakes, Burger King French fries, and the fish ‘n chips they serve up at a great little basement pub in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, the name of which escapes me), digesting them would not be worth the pleasure of eating them.

I’d made a difficult peace with the fact that I’d never eat egg rolls again and my life went on as usual, albeit a little emptier. Enter Melanie Scott and her recipe for Spinach & Black Bean Egg Rolls in a recent edition of Simple & Delicious, one of my favorite food magazines. Not only is Melanie’s recipe one for low-fat eggs rolls, but low-fat vegetarian egg rolls. They sounded almost too good to be true. But let me tell you, my friends, they are true and they are good. Very good.

Spinach & Black Bean Egg Rolls

2 C frozen corn, thawed
1 can (15 oz) black beans, rinsed and drained
1 pkg (10 oz) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
1 C (4 oz) shredded reduced-fat Mexican cheese blend (I used Cabot 75% Fat-Free cheddar)
1 can (4 oz) chopped green chilies, drained
4 green onions, chopped
1 tsp. ground cumin
½ tsp. chili powder
½ tsp. pepper
20 egg roll wrappers

In a large bowl, combine everything except the egg roll wrappers. Place ¼ cup mixture in the center of one egg roll wrapper. Fold bottom corner over filling. Fold sides toward center over filling. Moisten remaining corner with water; roll up tightly to seal. Repeat.

Place seam side down on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Spray tops of egg rolls with cooking spray. Bake at 425 degrees for 10-15 minutes until lightly brown (I flipped them halfway through cooking).

Serve warm with salsa and/or light ranch dressing.

If using reduced-fat Mexican cheese, each egg roll has 147 calories, 2 grams fat, 26 grams carbs, 2 grams fiber, and 7 grams protein. Using a lower-fat cheese like Cabot or a fat-free cheese, each egg roll is 1 Point; two egg rolls are 3 Points.

Now I can have my egg rolls and eat them, too. However, I’m sure I’m behind the times, and several of you will write to me with “I’ve been eating baked egg rolls for 20 years!” to which I say, bring it on! My only stipulation? Include a recipe.

So Melanie Scott of Amarillo, TX, thank you for your awesome recipe, but mostly for restoring a beloved food back to my repertoire. One that doesn’t sit like a lump in my stomach. Now if I could just find low-fat Burger King fries and funnel cake…

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