Adventures in The Process® is an on-going series of articles by Shana Kuhn-Siegel detailing her experiences of powerful transformation while doing The Process® with founder International Scherick.
Part IV - Lean, Mean Believing Machine
Part III - Abundance: Sound Your Note
Adventures in The Process®
Part IV -- Lean, Mean Believing Machine
by Shana Kuhn-Siegel
My adventures in The Process® continue. Every day I am feeling more and more grateful to have found International Scherick and The Process®. He has taught me to see miracles everywhere and given me a context for my life far more amazing than I ever could have dreamed. On the surface, I am an average thirty-four year old woman living on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, but look a little bit closer and you just might see a fierce warrior slaying demons and dragons of the most beguiling kind, those unseen by the naked eye, made manifest by my own destructive, unconscious beliefs. It has been an amazing fortune to have found someone whose mastery over his own ego has helped me to unlock incredible doors in my life, opening me up to the power and possibility of listening to my intuition to gain access to objective truth. I am being trained by a master to become a master and it’s the wildest ride I have ever been on.
Writing this adventure story has been an exciting challenge because its focus is that dreaded topic for women: body image. Yet this story offers the hope that all women seek -- a way out of the prison; freedom from cultural entrapment. To call what International offers women revolutionary would be an understatement. My experience has been one of extraordinary liberation. I have learned to see and experience my body in a whole new way. One that doesn’t leave me feeling less than, but instead enhances my overall value and confidence about my self. Now tell me, what woman is not looking for that?
After a long winter I faced the ghastly reality: I had gained weight. It was all of 10 pounds, but the way I experienced it, it might as well have been 100. My clothes didn’t feel like they fit me anymore and I felt like shit because of it. At first, I pretended that I didn’t care, that I was in a state of acceptance but that wasn’t what was happening at all. I was shutting down, letting my body go. I kept hoping I could make the extra pounds disappear before the warm weather arrived or that I would be able to hide it away and no one would be the wiser. In my sessions with International, he tried to get me to see what I was doing, but I resisted. For reasons I couldn’t understand, I wanted to go further into the fat, rebelling with more and more chocolate. He was teaching me about value beyond the scale, but I couldn’t receive it. I feigned interest, but my ego was insistent on maintaining control.
What made the problem worse is I was tormented by memories of being young -- when my body didn’t feel like a burden. I remembered being a little girl running on the beach, in love with the water, in love with the wind. I loved the feeling of being scantily clad and getting so tired from swimming and running in the sand that my body would collapse in a heap of towels. I wasn’t aware of my body in the same way then; I just loved using it. My body now seemed like a prison. I had bought the cultural lie that my worth depended on its being perfect. But even when I was at my perfect weight, the illusion of the ego’s promise fell short. How was I ever going to get back to those childhood days of freedom? I knew International could do it. He’d transformed my life already, in unimaginable ways. He helped me triumph over challenges that seemed impossible. Body image is a monster, devouring women’s self esteem, but International had already helped women defeat that pernicious beast. I’d seen it. It was masterful. Why couldn’t I listen? Why couldn’t I accept his help? Maybe there was something that the extra weight was giving me. As International would later explain, the drama around my body was a distraction of my own creation to keep me from realizing my purpose in the world. For now, I remained immature and was pissed that I couldn’t control my weight the way I wanted to.
As I approached my first weekend in the Hamptons, I could feel the terror, night sweats and the like. Summer in the Hamptons meant less clothing, more exposure and that dreaded word: bikini.
Driving out east, I was haunted by more memories: my grandmother picking my sisters apart when they were younger, commenting on their weight whenever we would come for a family visit. Back then I would get so upset and communicated to her about the effect that her words were having on them. It always surprised me that she was not able to see how she was teaching them that being successful meant being thin. But looking back, she was hardly to blame. Somewhere, she too had been fed the same lie. Despite my youthful assertiveness, I wasn’t able to hold myself accountable in the same way. I arrogantly let myself judge my body heedlessly, deluded by some idea that my self-loathing was useful and harmless.
Driving on little sleep and feeling the weight of my ass in the seat of my car, I let the thoughts rattle in my head, cataloguing all the physical imperfections. I was like a pig in shit, indulging the lies and getting a high off of my self-hatred. The world around me grew smaller and smaller. The Divine was gone. I had pushed that loving hand away, insisting on my unworthiness. It was grotesque.
I couldn’t stop thinking about my last phone session with International. He had said something that I couldn’t dismiss, “Your thoughts of self-hatred are far uglier than your body could ever be.” Why couldn’t I take that in? It was brilliant. Nobody had ever spoken to me in that way. That is the thing about International, he sees solutions where everyone else sees dead ends. Or in my case, fat ends.
I wanted to drive to the Juicy Naam and get some raw chocolate, but my intuition was screaming, “Go to yoga!” That was the last place I wanted to go feeling the way I did. Everyone was in such good shape at yoga class.
My car wouldn’t listen. It seemed to be following where my higher self wanted to go – straight to yoga class. When I pulled into the parking lot and got out, there were two women talking. One I knew well, she was the epitome of fit. I tried to avoid her. She was the skinniest person I knew. She saw me and screamed my name, “Shana, Oh my god! You look so good.” Was she crazy? She cornered me and launched into all the problems she was having with her husband, spewing all kinds of drama. Listening to her, it suddenly hit me. This was the real fat. Just like International had said. Before my eyes, I saw how she felt about herself become her physical form. It was as if she weighed 500 pounds. There was her obese belief system right in front of my face. It was vile. I was yanked back to sanity. What was I thinking? International had made me a lean, mean believing machine and somewhere I went off track. The weight I was hiding from had nothing to do with my body. I was fat in my thinking, gorging on cultural lies that had been fed to me growing up. I had been led to believe that my body was my value, indiscriminately letting others determine my fate. I was totally missing the point. I had the fittest, trimmest belief system around. That is what the woman at yoga was seeing. That is what made me so attractive to her. I had something that she would never have (unless she worked with International, of course!). In an instant my belief system dropped all its extra weight. This was the best diet I had ever been on! I felt revitalized, renewed, attractive and sexy. I took my ten extra pounds and strode proudly back to my car. Yoga class could wait. I knew where I needed to go.
I got back in my car and drove to the beach. I parked and opened the back. There in my bag was something that a faint voice had told me to pack that I had no intention of wearing: a bikini. No way was I going to let anyone see the flaws and the flab. Hours ago putting that damn thing on would have felt like torture, but now getting into that suit was a badge of courage. I walked down the beach with a confidence I had never felt before, wearing only the bikini. I looked at the ocean and felt time collapse. I was that little girl again: free and alive; proud and beautiful; self-possessed and brave; before I became so preoccupied with my body in a destructive way.
I knew the water was freezing. It wasn’t even Memorial Day. No one was going in, but I did. The sting of that water on my near naked skin felt like the Divine snapping me out of my hysteria, disciplining me into powerful action. I was so grateful for all that International was teaching me. He was showing me how to truly be present for the enormity and wonder of life. I gazed at the horizon that seemed to extend to infinity and asked for forgiveness. I felt so grateful that I could see clearly how I was ruining my life and the lives of others with all of this selfish indulgence. It was shitty and painful. I owed the sea an apology. I had allowed myself to feel separate and disconnected from the stunning immensity of the Divine. I was humbled and I had International to thank for getting me to that place where I could fully drop into my destiny. I made a vow to show up for my life and let that water cleanse me. I let a big chunk of my ego die that day and allowed my soul to breathe again. I wore my self proudly.
I could hear International’s voice in the wind, “The fat is the thinking, the bluberous belief systems, overgrown, fed by the ego.” I could finally take in what he was so generously and patiently teaching me. I owed him an apology too for being so defiant.
I still have the 10 extra pounds, but it doesn’t really matter. Having that extra weight gives me an opportunity to assert the truth that my life has more meaning now than it ever did. I am of significant value and am here to serve. That has very little to do with the numbers on the scale.
International has taught me a far more valuable way to live -- that surrender and humility leave you in charge in a wild new way, poised at the battlefield of life ready to live completely and authentically every single day.