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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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Trump a three time draft-dodger, with no understanding of military history nor foreign policy experience, has not one vein of miltary honor or duty. He thinks of our military as his personal toy soldiers who should jump at his command(like the strike on Iran and sending troops to the southern border) and boost his image. His narcissism prevents him from understanding that the purpose of the military to "protect and defend" the American people and the Constitution. Trump's view of the military endangers our national security and the American people.

Trump questioned why the United States couldn’t get some oil as payment for the troops stationed in the Persian Gulf. “We spent $7 trillion; they’re ripping us off,” Trump boomed. “Where is the f---ing oil?”

‘You’re a bunch of dopes and babies’: Inside Trump’s stunning tirade against generals

By Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker |

Published Jan 17 at 6:00 AM EST | Washington Post | Posted Jan 17, 2020 |

[This article is adapted from “A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump’s Testing of America,” which will be published on Jan. 21 by Penguin Press.]

There is no more sacred room for military officers than 2E924 of the Pentagon, a windowless and secure vault where the Joint Chiefs of Staff meet regularly to wrestle with classified matters. Its more common name is “the Tank.” The Tank resembles a small corporate boardroom, with a gleaming golden oak table, leather swivel armchairs and other mid-century stylings. Inside its walls, flag officers observe a reverence and decorum for the wrenching decisions that have been made there.

Hanging prominently on one of the walls is The Peacemakers, a painting that depicts an 1865 Civil War strategy session with President Abraham Lincoln and his three service chiefs — Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, Major General William Tecumseh Sherman, and Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter. One hundred fifty-two years after Lincoln hatched plans to preserve the Union, President Trump’s advisers staged an intervention inside the Tank to try to preserve the world order.

By that point, six months into his administration, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Director of the National Economic Council Gary Cohn, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had grown alarmed by gaping holes in Trump’s knowledge of history, especially the key alliances forged following World War II. Trump had dismissed allies as worthless, cozied up to authoritarian regimes in Russia and elsewhere, and advocated withdrawing troops from strategic outposts and active theaters alike.

Trump organized his unorthodox worldview under the simplistic banner of “America First,” but Mattis, Tillerson, and Cohn feared his proposals were rash, barely considered, and a danger to America’s superpower standing. They also felt that many of Trump’s impulsive ideas stemmed from his lack of familiarity with U.S. history and, even, where countries were located. To have a useful discussion with him, the trio agreed, they had to create a basic knowledge, a shared language.

So on July 20, 2017, Mattis invited Trump to the Tank for what he, Tillerson, and Cohn had carefully organized as a tailored tutorial. What happened inside the Tank that day crystallized the commander in chief’s berating, derisive and dismissive manner, foreshadowing decisions such as the one earlier this month that brought the United States to the brink of war with Iran. The Tank meeting was a turning point in Trump’s presidency. Rather than getting him to appreciate America’s traditional role and alliances, Trump began to tune out and eventually push away the experts who believed their duty was to protect the country by restraining his more dangerous impulses.

The episode has been documented numerous times, but subsequent reporting reveals a more complete picture of the moment and the chilling effect Trump’s comments and hostility had on the nation’s military and national security leadership.

Just before 10 a.m. on a scorching summer Thursday, Trump arrived at the Pentagon. He stepped out of his motorcade, walked along a corridor with portraits honoring former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs, and stepped inside the Tank. The uniformed officers greeted their commander in chief. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Joseph F. Dunford Jr. sat in the seat of honor midway down the table, because this was his room, and Trump sat at the head of the table facing a projection screen. Mattis and the newly confirmed deputy defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan, sat to the president’s left, with Vice President Pence and Tillerson to his right. Down the table sat the leaders of the military branches, along with Cohn and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon was in the outer ring of chairs with other staff, taking his seat just behind Mattis and directly in Trump’s line of sight.

Mattis, Cohn, and Tillerson and their aides decided to use maps, graphics, and charts to tutor the president, figuring they would help keep him from getting bored. Mattis opened with a slide show punctuated by lots of dollar signs. Mattis devised a strategy to use terms the impatient president, schooled in real estate, would appreciate to impress upon him the value of U.S. investments abroad. He sought to explain why U.S. troops were deployed in so many regions and why America’s safety hinged on a complex web of trade deals, alliances, and bases across the globe.

An opening line flashed on the screen, setting the tone: “The post-war international rules-based order is the greatest gift of the greatest generation.” Mattis then gave a 20-minute briefing on the power of the NATO alliance to stabilize Europe and keep the United States safe. Bannon thought to himself, “Not good. Trump is not going to like that one bit.” The internationalist language Mattis was using was a trigger for Trump.

“Oh, baby, this is going to be f---ing wild,” Bannon thought. “If you stood up and threatened to shoot [Trump], he couldn’t say ‘postwar rules-based international order.’ It’s just not the way he thinks.”

For the next 90 minutes, Mattis, Tillerson, and Cohn took turns trying to emphasize their points, pointing to their charts and diagrams. They showed where U.S. personnel were positioned, at military bases, CIA stations, and embassies, and how U.S. deployments fended off the threats of terror cells, nuclear blasts, and destabilizing enemies in places including Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, the Korea Peninsula, and Syria. Cohn spoke for about 20 minutes about the value of free trade with America’s allies, emphasizing how he saw each trade agreement working together as part of an overall structure to solidify U.S. economic and national security.

Trump appeared peeved by the schoolhouse vibe but also allergic to the dynamic of his advisers talking at him. His ricocheting attention span led him to repeatedly interrupt the lesson. He heard an adviser say a word or phrase and then seized on that to interject with his take. For instance, the word “base” prompted him to launch in to say how “crazy” and “stupid” it was to pay for bases in some countries.

Trump’s first complaint was to repeat what he had vented about to his national security adviser months earlier: South Korea should pay for a $10 billion missile defense system that the United States built for it. The system was designed to shoot down any short- and medium-range ballistic missiles from North Korea to protect South Korea and American troops stationed there. But Trump argued that the South Koreans should pay for it, proposing that the administration pull U.S. troops out of the region or bill the South Koreans for their protection.

“We should charge them rent,” Trump said of South Korea. “We should make them pay for our soldiers. We should make money off of everything.”

Trump proceeded to explain that NATO, too, was worthless. U.S. generals were letting the allied member countries get away with murder, he said, and they owed the United States a lot of money after not living up to their promise of paying their dues.

“They’re in arrears,” Trump said, reverting to the language of real estate. He lifted both his arms at his sides in frustration. Then he scolded top officials for the untold millions of dollars he believed they had let slip through their fingers by allowing allies to avoid their obligations.

“We are owed money you haven’t been collecting!” Trump told them. “You would totally go bankrupt if you had to run your own business.”

Mattis wasn’t trying to convince the president of anything, only to explain and provide facts. Now things were devolving quickly. The general tried to calmly explain to the president that he was not quite right. The NATO allies didn’t owe the United States back rent, he said. The truth was more complicated. NATO had a nonbinding goal that members should pay at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on their defenses. Only five of the countries currently met that goal, but it wasn’t as if they were shorting the United States on the bill.

More broadly, Mattis argued, the NATO alliance was not serving only to protect western Europe. It protected America, too. “This is what keeps us safe,” Mattis said. Cohn tried to explain to Trump that he needed to see the value of the trade deals. “These are commitments that help keep us safe,” Cohn said.

Bannon interjected. “Stop, stop, stop,” he said. “All you guys talk about all these great things, they’re all our partners, I want you to name me now one country and one company that’s going to have his back.”

Trump then repeated a threat he’d made countless times before. He wanted out of the Iran nuclear deal that President Obama had struck in 2015, which called for Iran to reduce its uranium stockpile and cut its nuclear program.

“It’s the worst deal in history!” Trump declared.

“Well, actually . . .,” Tillerson interjected.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Trump said, cutting off the secretary of state before he could explain some of the benefits of the agreement. “They’re cheating. They’re building. We’re getting out of it. I keep telling you, I keep giving you time, and you keep delaying me. I want out of it.”

Before they could debate the Iran deal, Trump erupted to revive another frequent complaint: the war in Afghanistan, which was now America’s longest war. He demanded an explanation for why the United States hadn’t won in Afghanistan yet, now 16 years after the nation began fighting there in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Trump unleashed his disdain, calling Afghanistan a “loser war.” That phrase hung in the air and disgusted not only the military leaders at the table but also the men and women in uniform sitting along the back wall behind their principals. They all were sworn to obey their commander in chief’s commands, and here he was calling the war they had been fighting a loser war.

“You’re all losers,” Trump said. “You don’t know how to win anymore.”

Trump seemed to be speaking up for the voters who elected him, and several attendees thought they heard Bannon in Trump’s words. Bannon had been trying to persuade Trump to withdraw forces by telling him, “The American people are saying we can’t spend a trillion dollars a year on this. We just can’t. It’s going to bankrupt us.”

“And not just that, the deplorables don’t want their kids in the South China Sea at the 38th parallel or in Syria, in Afghanistan, in perpetuity,” Bannon would add, invoking Hillary Clinton’s infamous “basket of deplorables” reference to Trump supporters.

Trump mused about removing General John Nicholson, the U.S. commander in charge of troops in Afghanistan. “I don’t think he knows how to win,” the president said, impugning Nicholson, who was not present at the meeting.

Dunford tried to come to Nicholson’s defense, but the mild-mannered general struggled to convey his points to the irascible president.

“Mr. President, that’s just not . . .,” Dunford started. “We’ve been under different orders.”

Dunford sought to explain that he hadn’t been charged with annihilating the enemy in Afghanistan but was instead following a strategy started by the Obama administration to gradually reduce the military presence in the country in hopes of training locals to maintain a stable government so that eventually the United States could pull out. Trump shot back in more plain language.

“I want to win,” he said. “We don’t win any wars anymore . . . We spend $7 trillion, everybody else got the oil and we’re not winning anymore.”

Trump by now was in one of his rages. He was so angry that he wasn’t taking many breaths. All morning, he had been coarse and cavalier, but the next several things he bellowed went beyond that description. They stunned nearly everyone in the room, and some vowed that they would never repeat them. Indeed, they have not been reported until now.

“I wouldn’t go to war with you people,” Trump told the assembled brass.

Addressing the room, the commander in chief barked, “You’re a bunch of dopes and babies.”

For a president known for verbiage he euphemistically called “locker room talk,” this was the gravest insult he could have delivered to these people, in this sacred space. The flag officers in the room were shocked. Some staff began looking down at their papers, rearranging folders, almost wishing themselves out of the room. A few considered walking out. They tried not to reveal their revulsion on their faces, but questions raced through their minds. “How does the commander in chief say that?” one thought. “What would our worst adversaries think if they knew he said this?”

This was a president who had been labeled a “draft dodger” for avoiding service in the Vietnam War under questionable circumstances. Trump was a young man born of privilege and in seemingly perfect health: six feet two inches with a muscular build and a flawless medical record. He played several sports, including football. Then, in 1968 at age 22, he obtained a diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels that exempted him from military service just as the United States was drafting men his age to fulfill massive troop deployments to Vietnam.

Tillerson in particular was stunned by Trump’s diatribe and began visibly seething. For too many minutes, others in the room noticed, he had been staring straight, dumbfounded, at Mattis, who was speechless, his head bowed down toward the table. Tillerson thought to himself, “Gosh darn it, Jim, say something. Why aren’t you saying something?”

But, as he would later tell close aides, Tillerson realized in that moment that Mattis was genetically a Marine, unable to talk back to his commander in chief, no matter what nonsense came out of his mouth.

The more perplexing silence was from Pence, a leader who should have been able to stand up to Trump. Instead, one attendee thought, “He’s sitting there frozen like a statue. Why doesn’t he stop the president?” Another recalled the vice president was “a wax museum guy.” From the start of the meeting, Pence looked as if he wanted to escape and put an end to the president’s torrent. Surely, he disagreed with Trump’s characterization of military leaders as “dopes and babies,” considering his son, Michael, was a Marine first lieutenant then training for his naval aviator wings. But some surmised Pence feared getting crosswise with Trump. “A total deer in the headlights,” recalled a third attendee.

Others at the table noticed Trump’s stream of venom had taken an emotional toll. So many people in that room had gone to war and risked their lives for their country, and now they were being dressed down by a president who had not. They felt sick to their stomachs. Tillerson told others he thought he saw a woman in the room silently crying. He was furious and decided he couldn’t stand it another minute. His voice broke into Trump’s tirade, this one about trying to make money off U.S. troops.

“No, that’s just wrong,” the secretary of state said. “Mr. President, you’re totally wrong. None of that is true.”

Tillerson’s father and uncle had both been combat veterans, and he was deeply proud of their service.

“The men and women who put on a uniform don’t do it to become soldiers of fortune,” Tillerson said. “That’s not why they put on a uniform and go out and die . . . They do it to protect our freedom.”

There was silence in the Tank. Several military officers in the room were grateful to the secretary of state for defending them when no one else would. The meeting soon ended and Trump walked out, saying goodbye to a group of servicemen lining the corridor as he made his way to his motorcade waiting outside. Mattis, Tillerson, and Cohn were deflated. Standing in the hall with a small cluster of people he trusted, Tillerson finally let down his guard.

“He’s a f---ing moron,” the secretary of state said of the president.

The plan by Mattis, Tillerson, and Cohn to train the president to appreciate the internationalist view had clearly backfired.

“We were starting to get out on the wrong path, and we really needed to have a course correction and needed to educate, to teach, to help him understand the reason and basis for a lot of these things,” said one senior official involved in the planning. “We needed to change how he thinks about this, to course correct. Everybody was on board, 100 percent agreed with that sentiment. [But] they were dismayed and in shock when not only did it not have the intended effect, but he dug in his heels and pushed it even further on the spectrum, further solidifying his views.”

A few days later, Pence’s national security adviser, Andrea Thompson, a retired Army colonel who had served in Afghanistan and Iraq, reached out to thank Tillerson for speaking up on behalf of the military and the public servants who had been in the Tank. By September 2017, she would leave the White House and join Tillerson at Foggy Bottom as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs.

The Tank meeting had so thoroughly shocked the conscience of military leaders that they tried to keep it a secret. At the Aspen Security Forum two days later, longtime NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell asked Dunford how Trump had interacted during the Tank meeting. The Joint Chiefs chairman misleadingly described the meeting, skipping over the fireworks.

“He asked a lot of hard questions, and the one thing he does is question some fundamental assumptions that we make as military leaders — and he will come in and question those,” Dunford told Mitchell on July 22. “It’s a pretty energetic and an interactive dialogue.”

One victim of the Tank meeting was Trump’s relationship with Tillerson, which forever after was strained. The secretary of state came to see it as the beginning of the end. It would only worsen when news that Tillerson had called Trump a “moron” was first reported in October 2017 by NBC News.

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Trump once again gathered his generals and top diplomats in December 2017 for a meeting as part of the administration’s ongoing strategy talks about troop deployments in Afghanistan in the Situation Room, a secure meeting room on the ground floor of the West Wing. Trump didn’t like the Situation Room as much as the Pentagon’s Tank, because he didn’t think it had enough gravitas. It just wasn’t impressive.

But there Trump was, struggling to come up with a new Afghanistan policy and frustrated that so many U.S. forces were deployed in so many places around the world. The conversation began to tilt in the same direction as it had in the Tank back in July.

“All these countries need to start paying us for the troops we are sending to their countries. We need to be making a profit,” Trump said. “We could turn a profit on this.”

Dunford tried to explain to the president once again, gently, that troops deployed in these regions provided stability there, which helped make America safer. Another officer chimed in that charging other countries for U.S. soldiers would be against the law.

“But it just wasn’t working,” one former Trump aide recalled. “Nothing worked.”

Following the Tank meeting, Tillerson had told his aides that he would never silently tolerate such demeaning talk from Trump about making money off the deployments of U.S. soldiers. Tillerson’s father, at the age of 17, had committed to enlist in the Navy on his next birthday, wanting so much to serve his country in World War II. His great-uncle was a career officer in the Navy as well. Both men had been on his mind, Tillerson told aides, when Trump unleashed his tirade in the Tank and again when he repeated those points in the Situation Room in December.

“We need to get our money back,” Trump told his assembled advisers.

That was it. Tillerson stood up. But when he did so, he turned his back to the president and faced the flag officers and the rest of the aides in the room. He didn’t want a repeat of the scene in the Tank.

“I’ve never put on a uniform, but I know this,” Tillerson said. “Every person who has put on a uniform, the people in this room, they don’t do it to make a buck. They did it for their country, to protect us. I want everyone to be clear about how much we as a country value their service.”

Tillerson’s rebuke made Trump angry. He got a little red in the face. But the president decided not to engage Tillerson at that moment. He would wait to take him on another day.

Later that evening, after 8:00, Tillerson was working in his office at the State Department’s Foggy Bottom headquarters, preparing for the next day. The phone rang. It was Dunford. The Joint Chiefs chairman’s voice was unsteady with emotion. Dunford had much earlier joked with Tillerson that in past administrations the secretaries of state and Defense Department leaders wouldn’t be caught dead walking on the same side of the street, for their rivalry was that fierce. But now, as both men served Trump, they were brothers joined against what they saw as disrespect for service members. Dunford thanked Tillerson for standing up for them in the Situation Room.

“You took the body blows for us,” Dunford said. “Punch after punch. Thank you. I will never forget it.”

Tillerson, Dunford, and Mattis would not take those body blows for much longer. They failed to rein in Trump’s impulses or to break through what they regarded as the president’s stubborn, even dangerous insistence that he knew best. Piece by piece, the guardrails that had hemmed in the chaos of Trump’s presidency crumpled.

In March 2018, Trump abruptly fired Tillerson while the secretary of state was halfway across the globe on a sensitive diplomatic mission to Africa to ease tensions caused by Trump’s demeaning insults about African countries. Trump gave Tillerson no rationale for his firing, and afterward acted as if they were buddies, inviting him to come by the Oval Office to take a picture and have the president sign it. Tillerson never went.

Mattis continued serving as the defense secretary, but the president’s sudden decision in December 2018 to withdraw troops from Syria and abandon America’s Kurdish allies there — one the president soon reversed, only to remake 10 months later — inspired him to resign. Mattis saw Trump’s desired withdrawal as an assault on a soldier’s code. “He began to feel like he was becoming complicit,” recalled one of the secretary’s confidants.

The media interpretation of Mattis’ resignation letter as a scathing rebuke of Trump’s worldview brought the president’s anger to a boiling point. Trump decided to remove Mattis two months ahead of the secretary’s chosen departure date. His treatment of Mattis upset the secretary’s staff. They decided to arrange the biggest clap out they could. The event was a tradition for all departing secretaries. They wanted a line of Pentagon personnel that stretched for a mile applauding Mattis as he left for the last time. It was going to be “yuge,” staffers joked, borrowing from Trump’s glossary.

But Mattis would not allow it.

“No, we are not doing that,” he told his aides. “You don’t understand the president. I work with him. You don’t know him like I do. He will take it out on Shanahan and Dunford.”

Dunford stayed on until September 2019, retiring at the conclusion of his four-year term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. One of Dunford’s first public acts after leaving office was to defend a military officer attacked by Trump, Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council official who testified in the House impeachment inquiry about his worries over Trump’s conduct with Ukraine. Trump dismissed Vindman as a “Never Trumper,” but Dunford stepped forward to praise the Purple Heart recipient as “a professional, competent, patriotic, and loyal officer. He has made an extraordinary contribution to the security of our nation.”

By then, however, Trump had become a president entirely unrestrained. He had replaced his raft of seasoned advisers with a cast of enablers who executed his orders and engaged his obsessions. They saw their mission as telling the president yes.

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REMEMBER this is not happening in a vacuum.🤔 The Trump and minions have weakened Zelensky because of their shenanigans and made them more vulnerable to Putin’s Russia. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it best, "All roads lead to Putin." It should be obvious to everyone that everything Trump touches turns to shit 💩.

Ukraine’s Premier Offers Resignation as Political Infighting Grows

In a leaked audio recording, Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk appears to criticize the economic acumen of President Volodymyr Zelensky

By Anton Troianovski | Published Jan. 17, 2020, 8:20 a.m. ET | New York Times | Posted January 17, 2020 |

MOSCOW — President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine is already juggling multiple international crises: A war with Russia-backed separatists, an unwanted starring role in the impeachment drama gripping Washington, and tensions with Iran over the downing of Ukrainian jetliner.

Now he is facing growing political turbulence at home.

Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk, an ally of Mr. Zelensky, tendered his resignation on Friday after leaks of clandestine audio recordings that appear to show Mr. Honcharuk criticizing the president’s knowledge of economics.

It was unclear whether Mr. Zelensky and the Ukrainian Parliament would accept Mr. Honcharuk’s resignation, or just take it as a public show of contrition and move on. But the developments indicated that Mr. Zelensky, a 41-year-old former comedian, faces a power struggle within Ukraine’s elite, despite landslide victories in the presidential election last spring and parliamentary elections last summer.

Mr. Honcharuk said the recordings of discussions with senior government officials had been doctored and leaked by people seeking to show that he and his team “don’t respect the president,” in hopes of impeding Mr. Zelensky’s efforts to fight systemic corruption.

“Many influential groups that aim to get access to financial flows would benefit from things appearing that way,” Mr. Honcharuk said on Friday in a statement announcing that he had submitted his resignation. “But this is not true.”

There was no clear indication as to who leaked the audio files, in which government officials discuss how to make a presentation about economic policy to Mr. Zelensky. A voice that sounds like Mr. Honcharuk’s can be heard describing Mr. Zelensky’s understanding of economics as “primitive.” The same voice also says, “I am a complete ignoramus in economics.”

Mr. Honcharuk said he was submitting his letter of resignation to Mr. Zelensky in order to “remove any doubt as to our respect for and trust in the president.”

Mr. Zelensky’s office said that the president had received Mr. Honcharuk’s letter and would consider it. For Mr. Honcharuk to leave his post, however, the Ukrainian Parliament would need to vote to dismiss him.

Even if Mr. Honcharuk remains in office, the leak of high-level government discussions hints at the intensity of political infighting in Ukraine, as Mr. Zelensky takes steps to follow through on a campaign pledge to take on corruption and the country’s entrenched interests.

Mr. Zelensky has promised to rein in the business tycoons known as oligarchs, who have long held outsize sway in Ukraine with influential media holdings and deep political ties. Parliament has approved a raft of anticorruption laws in recent months, but analysts say it is too early to judge the effectiveness of the efforts.

“Unfortunately, it is rather difficult to destroy criminal schemes that were built up over decades in the course of several months,” Mr. Honcharuk said.

Mr. Zelensky’s office issued a statement saying the president had ordered law enforcement to find out within two weeks who was responsible for the recordings, which it described as stemming from a meeting between Mr. Honcharuk and other government ministers and central bank officials.

“The unsanctioned surveillance and recording of conversations must not occur in the offices of the state authorities,” the president’s office said. “This is a question of national security.”

The government has also announced a criminal investigation into different allegations of secret surveillance. That inquiry was based on published text messages suggesting that a United States ambassador, Marie L. Yovanovitch, was being watched in Kyiv.

Maria Varenikova contributed reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine.

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Iran’s Supreme Leader Rebukes U.S. in Rare Friday Sermon

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told thousands of worshipers that God’s backing had allowed Iran to “slap the face” of the United States with a missile attack.

By Farnaz Fassihi and Ben Hubbard | Published Jan. 17, 2020 Updated 9:29 a.m. ET | New York Times | Posted January 17, 2020 |

Iran’s supreme leader struck a defiant tone in a rare public sermon on Friday, calling the United States an “arrogant power” and telling tens of thousands of chanting worshipers that God’s backing had allowed his country to “slap the face” of the United States.

In his first such address in eight years, the leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sought to rally supporters and undermine critics after weeks of turbulence in the Middle East that brought Iran and the United States to the brink of war and prompted street protests in Iran over the accidental downing of a civilian jetliner by Iranian forces.

Ayatollah Khamenei offered only scant condolences to the families who lost relatives in the crash, and instead sought to project strength. He dismissed protesters as “stooges of the United States,” lauded Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran’s foreign operations chief who was killed in an American drone strike, and praised a retaliatory Iranian missile attack on United States forces in Iraq.

“These two weeks were extraordinary and eventful. Bitter and sweet events. Lessons we learned. The Iranian people went through a lot,” he said. “We delivered a slap to U.S.’s image as a superpower.”

He added that President Trump was a “clown” who only pretended to support the Iranian people but would “push a poisonous dagger” into their backs.

The event, choreographed to present an image of power and unity, skirted the accidental downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane on Jan. 8 by Iranian forces that killed all 176 people on board. A lone banner featuring an airplane hung between huge pictures of General Suleimani.

The downing of the jet — followed by three days of denials by Iranian officials — spurred a new wave of protests across the country that Iranian security forces have sought to quell with bullets and tear gas.

On Friday, the Ukrainian foreign minister, Vadym Prystaiko, said that an Iranian representative would travel to Ukraine next week and that Iran had agreed to hand over data and voice recorders from the downed plane after they had been examined by a team of experts from Canada, Iran and Ukraine.

Nearly 45 minutes into his sermon, Ayatollah Khamenei said his “heart burned” for the victims of the crash, but he quickly accused Iran’s enemies of seeking to capitalize on the tragedy to overshadow the killing of General Suleimani and the missile strikes on two bases that housed American troops in Iraq.

“As much as we were sad about the crash, our enemy was happy about it,” he said. “They thought they found an excuse to undermine the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and our armed forces and question the Islamic Republic.”

Forgoing Tehran University, where Ayatollah Khamenei usually speaks, he appeared for communal Muslim prayers on Friday at Tehran’s Grand Mosalla, a large complex used as a communal prayer center for Muslim holidays and as an arena for election campaigns.

Crowds streamed in several hours before his sermon began, including schoolchildren, government employees and worshipers from neighboring provinces who had been bused in from their local mosques.

The complex had been outfitted with political messages: American flags were spread on the floor in the entrances so that worshipers could tread on them. Uniformed soldiers handed out posters of General Suleimani and red headbands with “God is Great” written in Arabic.

President Hassan Rouhani, who is seen as a moderate, was in the front row as Ayatollah Khamenei spoke. Former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also sat nearby, as did Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ aerospace forces who has said units under his command were responsible for shooting down the plane. Iranian lawmakers, politicians and other citizens have called for his resignation over the downing.

Large banners inside the complex featured the face of General Suleimani and other men who were killed alongside him in United States drone strikes, ordered by Mr. Trump, near the Baghdad airport on Jan. 2. Other banners read, “Death to America.”

Ayatollah Khamenei, 80, Iran’s top political and religious official, delivers Friday sermons only at times of serious crisis that require his intervention. His last such sermon was in 2012, during the Arab Spring uprisings in the region. He also spoke in 2009, during widespread protests in Iran contesting the results of a presidential election that became known as the Green Movement.

In both instances, Ayatollah Khamenei’s reinforced the government’s hard line by ordering people off the streets.

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11 Americans Were Hurt in Iranian Strike, Military Says, Contradicting Trump

The servicemembers were treated for concussion symptoms after Iranian missiles hit air bases in Iraq last week. President Trump had said that “no Americans were harmed.”

By Russell Goldman | Published Jan. 17, 2020 Updated 9:08 a.m. ET | New York Times | Posted January 17, 2020 |

Eleven American troops were treated for concussions after Iranian missiles struck two Iraqi bases where the servicemembers were stationed, the military said on Thursday, contradicting earlier statements by President Trump that no Americans had been injured.

The Jan. 8 attack on bases near Baghdad and Erbil, Iraq, were launched in retaliation for the killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, a senior figure in Iran’s military, in a drone strike ordered by Mr. Trump.

“While no U.S. servicemembers were killed in the Jan. 8 Iranian attack on Al Asad air base, several were treated for concussion symptoms from the blast and are still being assessed,” Capt. Bill Urban, a spokesman for United States Central Command, said in a statement.

In a speech, Mr. Trump had said that no Americans were hurt in the strike, in which at least a dozen missiles were fired.

“I’m pleased to inform you the American people should be extremely grateful and happy,” the president said on Jan. 8. “No Americans were harmed in last night’s attack by the Iranian regime.”

Captain Urban said the injured troops were taken to American military sites in Germany and Kuwait to undergo screening, and that “when deemed fit for duty, the servicemembers are expected to return to Iraq.”

The lack of American deaths in the strikes was a welcome relief to American officials, who had feared General Suleimani’s killing could set off a larger regional conflict. By Jan. 9, the day after the strike, both countries had publicly said they would de-escalate direct military action.

The general’s death and the subsequent missile strike, however, set other events in motion, including the accidental downing of a Ukrainian passenger jet in Tehran by the Iranian military, in which 176 people were killed, and a resolution by the Iraqi Parliament calling for the expulsion of foreign forces from the country.

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In rare Friday sermon, Iran’s Khamenei says U.S. suffered blow to ‘superpower image’

By Erin Cunningham | Published Jan 17 at 9:49 AM EST | Washington Post | Posted January 17, 2020 |

ISTANBUL — Iran's supreme leader said in a rare sermon Friday that the United States suffered a "strong blow" to its "superpower image" following an Iranian strike on U.S. facilities in Iraq, and he urged Iranians to unite amid a worsening economic crisis and escalating tensions with the West.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's top political and religious authority, spoke at the Grand Mosalla mosque complex in central Tehran, where he led Friday prayers for the first time in eight years. His appearance was a nod to the multiple domestic and foreign troubles convulsing Iran, including fallout from the U.S. killing of Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, commander of the elite Quds Force, in Iraq earlier this month.

“These are turning points, historical days. The Iranian people are resilient,” Khamenei said Friday amid anti-American chants from the congregation.

Large crowds filled the mosque and surrounding courtyard, and banners with likenesses of Soleimani were draped from its balconies, according to images shown on state television.

“Neither compromise nor surrender — only battle with America!” the crowd chanted.

“For a nation to have the ability to slap the face of the world’s bully, this shows the power of God,” Khamenei said, referring to Iran’s missile strikes on Iraqi military bases hosting U.S. troops on Jan. 8. The barrages, which caused damage but injured fewer than a dozen Americans, were in retaliation for Soleimani’s death, Iranian officials said.

“It was a blow to the United States militarily,” Khamenei said of the attack. “But what matters more is that it was a blow to America’s superpower image. This blow was the strongest of all.”

Leading the weekly sermon in Tehran is a task normally carried out by one of Khamenei’s loyal Shiite clerics. The last time the 80-year-old leader spoke at Friday prayers was in 2012.

At the time, Iran was under growing economic pressure due to international sanctions imposed because of its uranium-enrichment program.

Now Tehran is again suffering economic hardship as a result of a U.S. trade embargo. Iran also faces censure from European nations over its moves away from a 2015 nuclear deal, following a U.S. decision to abandon the agreement in 2018.

This week, Britain, France and Germany formally launched a process that could trigger European sanctions on Iran and lead to the accord’s eventual collapse. The deal curbed Iran’s atomic energy activities in exchange for major sanctions relief.

Khamenei said in his address that Iran was open to negotiations with other nations, except the United States. Still, he criticized Britain, France and Germany as “U.S. puppets” and warned against trusting European negotiators.

“They cover their cast iron hand with a velvet glove,” he said.

At home, Iran is also grappling with a flagging economy and sporadic outbursts of unrest. Last week, Iranian officials admitted that the armed forces shot down a Ukrainian airliner they mistook for a hostile aircraft, killing all 176 people on board.

The disaster and the government’s mishandling of the investigation prompted protests in Tehran and other cities. Khamenei downplayed the demonstrations in his remarks.

Instead, he thanked Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the security branch responsible for the crash, for “offering explanations” of what happened.

“We need to follow up,” he said. “It’s important to follow up, but what matters more is preventing such an incident from happening again.”

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11 U.S. troops were hurt in the Iranian missile strike, reversing assurances of no injuries

By Louisa Loveluck and Alex Horton | Published January 17 at 9:36 AM EST | Washington Post | Posted Jan 17, 2020

BAGHDAD — Eleven U.S. troops were injured following the Jan. 8 Iranian strikes on a base in Iraq, defense officials said Thursday, reversing assurances from President Trump and the Pentagon that no Americans had been hurt.

Those troops are still being assessed for concussion symptoms following the blast, Navy Capt. Bill Urban, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said in a statement. Eight U.S. troops were evacuated to a U.S. base in Germany, he said, and the other three were sent to Camp Arifjan in Kuwait.

“When deemed fit for duty, the service members are expected to return to Iraq,” Urban said.

The missile barrage last week against the sprawling Ain al-Asad air base in western Iraq left deep craters and the crumpled wreckage of living quarters and a helicopter launch site. At least two soldiers were thrown through the window of a meters-high tower.

U.S. officials disclosed numerous concussions as early as Jan. 13 but did not announce their severity or the evacuations until Defense One, a news website focusing on national security, reported those details. At least two dozen soldiers were treated for concussions at the base, a U.S. official said.

The acknowledgment is a departure from initial reports from defense officials and the president, who described as inconsequential the effects of the missile salvos launched in retaliation for a U.S. strike that killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad.

“No Americans were harmed in last night’s attack by the Iranian regime. We suffered no casualties. All of our soldiers are safe, and only minimal damage was sustained at our military bases,” Trump said soon after the attack.

But concussions are not always as immediately evident as shrapnel or gunshot wounds, and in the ensuing days, U.S. troops were assessed for blast injuries. The 11 evacuated were sent for further care and screening “in an abundance of caution,” Urban said.

It is not clear when the personnel were evacuated. On Jan. 12, four days after the attack, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper described damage to facilities and equipment but offered assurances that there were “no casualties.” Casualties are typically described by the U.S. military as personnel both wounded and killed.

The attacks came in waves for more than an hour and a half. The air turned warm as light filled the night sky and shock waves ripped through the air, soldiers said in interviews, and the impact sent door frames deeper into the ground.

In the aftermath of the attack, Army Lt. Col. Tim Garland said he had combed through the damage assessments with skepticism, believing it was impossible that no soldiers had been killed.

“We all know that the initial report is always somewhat inaccurate. . . . I personally almost lost two of my soldiers,” Garland told reporters at the base, describing how a blast as far as 50 yards from their position blew them out of a guard tower.

“How they survived that, I have no idea. It’s an absolute miracle,” he said. The base hosts about 2,000 troops, 1,500 of them from the U.S.-led coalition.

Commanders placed the base on lockdown at 11 p.m. on Jan. 8 following initial warnings of an attack. Then, before 1:30 a.m., a staff weather officer monitoring radar in the tactical operations center detected an imminent ballistic missile strike.

Soldiers scrambled in response. Nonessential personnel who were not already inside bunkers were sent out to run for cover, said Army Chief Warrant Officer Alex Bender. The staff weather officer closed the door behind him, Bender said, right before an explosion tore through the night.

“I’d just sent him to a bunker when the first round impacted,” Bender said. “I thought: ‘I’ve just killed him.’ ”

Inside the operations room, Bender lay beneath his desk as everything seemed to fall — pin boards, lamps, shards of glass.

The all-clear came shortly before sunrise, and as troops stepped into the open, they passed around cellphones so that people could inform their families that they were safe.

Although there was some speculation that the attacks were designed to avoid casualties, commanders at the base believe that the strikes were intended to kill U.S. troops.

______

Horton reported from Washington.

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0 notes

ruthkgjornary93insurance-blog · 5 years

Text

Car insurance for a 21 year old?

I d like to know (roughly) how much it would cost to insure a 2001 NISSAN MICRA 1.0 SE 3dr Auto Hatchback for a year? I m 21 female Have a brand new license (never had a car nor been insured ever before) How much would it cost if i wanted a temp licence for a month? I know all companies are different so just a rough quote please from anyone who knows abt car insurance, thanks.

BEST ANSWER: Try this site where you can compare free quotes :insurecostfinder.xyz

SOURCES:

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topicprinter · 5 years

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A little background-I worked for a consulting firm for years managing market research projects and writing automation software. Through a series of unfortunate events (everyone in my family is dead), I ended up with 15 acres of land in rural Pennsylvania. My wife and I decided to retire and homestead on our little parcel of secluded farmland. We raised all of our own meats (pork, chicken, duck, rabbit, turkey, goose, venison, squirrel, grouse), as well as started a small orchard and a fairly large network of annual gardens. Because we were raising pigs, I got into making charcuterie. Everything from salamis to hams and bacon... with some more esoteric things mixed in (duck blood sausages, head cheese, etc). Along the way, an old friend came back into my life and I started getting an extra pig for him. Then, through a mutual acquaintance, I made a second friend and started raising a pig for him, too. After a couple years, we had gotten to the point where we had put up almost 3,000 lbs of cured product. It was getting out of hand, so we had to choose: either we take a year or two off from doing this or we open a business so we can do this without having to eat thousands of pounds of cured meats. We opened a shop.Initially, we looked at buildings in a nearby town that starting to turn around a bit. However, those buildings are all 100 years old and not laid out well for a butcher shop. The owners are 2nd and 3rd generation and they all think their buildings are worth their weight in gold. 250k+ to buy a building that needs 250k+ in repairs and upgrades to be serviceable? Not likely.So, we expanded our search radius. 2 weeks into receiving the weekly listings, I found an old bank in an out-of-the-way town 25 minutes from my house and 25 minutes from my friends’ houses. It was listed for 35k. We made an appointment to look at it. It was love at first sight. As soon as we walked in, we knew where we’d put the curing chamber, the deli cases, and how we’d keep the teller cage area behind the bullet proof glass as our cutting room. The walk-in would go in one of the drive-through lanes. The vault would be dry-storage until we could start moving stabilized prosciutto back there. We had a building. I bought it for 30k.For the next 9 months, we labored and toiled and fought with the local permitting body... I put 180k into the renovations. There was more than one occasion where I felt a 3 gallon can of gasoline and a match would solve a lot more problems than another 20 grand and 3 weeks... But on December 19, the health inspector cleared us to sell meat to the public. We were open.We started slow. We made sure we were open for our stated hours. We made product. We invited people we knew to the shop. Our grand opening was mid-January. We built up a nice following on facebook and instagram. We joined local facebook groups and donated money and product to school musicals, hospital fundraisers, and the Christmas parade. Our grand opening party resulted in about 1.75x as many sales as I had forecast.We are located in a “shit town” of about 660 residents. It’s an old coal-mining town that saw its mine shut down in 1987. We didn’t expect to sustain ourselves on walk-in customers, so we developed some lines of business that would make up for the lack of foot traffic.First, we intended to hold monthly butchery clinics. People would come into our shop and have charcuterie and cheese boards ready for them. We’d prepare a “family-style” dinner... and then we’d move into the cutting room where we’d show them how we break down half a pig. After our first clinic, we were so inundated with word-of-mouth and facebook-generated leads that we have basically done a butchery clinic every week since the end of January. In addition, we do off-site clinics at restaurants, taverns, and cafes. A couple of weeks ago, we did 5 clinics in 10 days. We charge 65 dollars per person and host up to 12 people in-house. For off-site clinics, we push the ticket price up to 85 dollars and have the host establishment provide dinner. Those events generally hold 25-35 people. For June, we have 3 in-house clinics scheduled (I had to take off June 16 because it’s my wife’s birthday) and 3 off-site clinics.Second, we developed a dining experience centered around a 150 year old butcher block we acquired. We call it “The Butcher’s Table” and it’s a dining experience for up to 6 guests. We cover our butcher block with charcuterie, cheese, house-made pickles, condiments and wild-foraged edibles. We charge 175 for reservations during business hours and 235 for off-hours reservations. On average, we are doing 5 of these per week now.Third, we started a “butcher bag” program that is unapologetically a ripoff of Butcher Box. Our general conceit is that we use heritage breed animals from local farms. Our butcher bags are filled with meats, sausages, and other products we make. The value of what’s in your bag is 25% higher than our standard retail price for the same stuff. So, for 100 bucks, you get 125 dollars worth of product. We have a bacon add-on and a charcuterie add-on. We have pickup locations at 10, 15, 25, and 55 miles away from the shop. This gets our product into the hands, mouths, and stomachs of people who probably wouldn’t come into the shop on a regular basis. Plus, our pick up locations are cheese shops and specialty food stores. These are prime customers coming in to pick up their fancy meat bag... you better believe they drop 25-50 bucks each on cheeses and other foods from our partners’ stores. It’s a win-win.Fourth- one of our partners is one of only 8 people in the entire state approved by the department of agriculture to be a commercial mushroom forager. So, we’ve started a program called “forage and feast” where people reserve a spot for a weekend nature walk where our guy identifies wild edibles and plants of particular interest. At the end of the walk in the woods, the whole party returns to our shop where our Chief Flavor Officer has prepared lunch or dinner featuring in-season wild edibles. So all the shit you just found in the woods, you get to eat for lunch. That’s pretty neat.Those 4 lines of business represent anywhere from 40-60% of our monthly business. The remainder is made up of people coming in and buying steaks, charcuterie, or whatever.We are 6 months into this venure. We’ve achieved 110k in revenue and the trendline suggests we should hit about 250k of revenue for 2019.We are opening a retail-only store in a neighboring town. It’s in a high-traffic area and we will stock this location with simple staples like ground beef, steaks, pork chops, sausages, milk, eggs, etc... There won’t be any production of salmis or whole-muscle cures there. I am estimating another 16k in montly revenue from that location with expenses being about 6k per month.Overall, I am estimating about 350k in revenue in our first year in business. Our net margins are around 20%, so I’m looking at 70k profit on top of rents and W2 income (we bought the building as an LLC that was just for holding the building). If the retail store works out, I have two locations lined up in other towns. I think we can average 20k per retail store in addition to the 20-25k at our HQ.It’s very late and I need to go to bed, but I’ll answer any questions people have tomorrow.Here’s some pics:The bank project: https://imgur.com/gallery/zYftvJfThe butcher’s table: https://imgur.com/gallery/2ELUnunI don’t have any pics of the clinics, forage and feast, or butcher bags... but they make money and that’s all that counts, right?Thank you for reading about my meat shop. I really love doing this and providing these products to people.

#/r/entrepreneur #reddit

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blackbrian6-blog · 6 years

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The Financial Confessions: “A Scary Roommate Situation Left Me Nearly Homeless”

This post is brought to you by Wealthsimple.

Screwing up your finances is one of the most horrifying things that can happen during your adult life. Although nobody is perfect, the reality is that one misguided decision can have a tremendous effect on a person’s future. And when the negative outcomes of those decisions spiral out of control, it can lead to some dangerous situations. For instance, I’ve made many, many money mistakes in my life — several of which I’ve written about on this site. But none of those mistakes haunt me as much as one decision from several years ago that placed my financial stability and safety at risk.

The story begins back when I was a college student on the hunt for housing. I desperately wanted to live with my good friend, Kylee*. Initially, Kylee suggested we share an apartment together for $2,200, but I couldn’t afford to spend $1,100 on rent. I felt discouraged by our apartment hunt and considered applying for student housing instead. In retrospect, this would have been a smarter long-term financial decision. But, of course, my 20-year-old self was far more concerned with satisfying my social needs than my practical ones.

One day, Kylee came to me with an idea: Instead of going with an overpriced apartment, we would go bigger. The plan was to rent a house and fill it with more people to make living expenses cheaper. She pitched it to me like it was going to be one big, happy reality show. And while I’m pretty embarrassed to admit it, I was immediately sold on the idea. (To be fair, Jersey Shore was also really popular at the time.) We would do our homework while sipping wine outside in our beautiful backyard. There would be barbecues all summer that we’d talk about for years to come. Plus, we were going to save money! What could possibly go wrong?

After touring the location once and meeting only three of the seven potential housemates, we agreed to sign the lease. $7,200 per month. To be honest, I’m not sure how I deluded myself into believing that shelling out $850 to occupy half of a bedroom was “a steal.” However, in effort to pretend like I was a responsible adult, I used my lump sum financial aid check to pay ahead for three months of my rent. I continued this pattern for the rest of the school year. This meant I never really “felt” that money disappear. Plus, I remained optimistic by justifying all the perks that came with the house. I was now within walking distance of my campus. I had a view of the ocean. And best of all, we had our own washing machine.

But eventually, on any given day, the general vibe of the place was somewhere between an unkempt hostel and never-ending spring break party. In other words, it wasn’t a functional place to live — and it didn’t take long for things to take a turn for the worse. Around December, tensions were rising among all the housemates. Of course, that’s to be expected when cramming nine twenty-somethings under the same roof, but believe me when I say the situation started seriously getting out of hand. Some memorable issues included people having sex in the only downstairs bathroom during most hours of the day and night. There were other problems too, like people smoking cigarettes indoors, neglecting to clean up their messes and, the most criminal of all, stealing food. I wish I could say we all handled these disputes like rational adults. But after my car was mysteriously scratched days after sending a text asking about a missing container of hummus, I knew it wasn’t going to go down that way.

I was finding it increasingly difficult to justify staying there. I constantly joked about it with friends to convince myself it was fine. Yes, I had to remember to label my hummus immediately if I ever wanted to eat it, but hey, I was saving $300. (Technically, that money went directly toward my other bills, so I never actually saw that savings.) And it wasn’t like I was totally alone in the house with a bunch of strangers. I had Kylee, who had a patience level I could only hope to develop over a lifetime of serious meditation. All I had was a fear that I had paid close to $8,000 to hide for nine months spent in one small corner of an entire house.

There were just over two months left on the lease when everything came crashing down. One morning, two police officers greeted me at my doorstep as I was leaving for class. It turns out one of my housemates had been accused of a serious crime, and they needed to interview the rest of us as witnesses. (For the sake of privacy, I won’t go into details about the exact nature of the crime. However, I’ll say it was serious enough to make me realize there was absolutely no way I could stay living in that shitshow any longer.) That evening, I stuffed my suitcase with as much clothing as it could fit and headed for my friend Maya’s* place, six blocks away. I spent about a week sleeping on the floor of her bedroom before her housemates rightfully became annoyed with my presence and asked what my plan was. Of course, that was the problem: I didn’t have one.

Remember how I had paid my rent up front every three months? Well, I had no way of getting that already-paid money back. And my part-time jobs weren’t going to make me enough money in time to put a deposit on a new place to live.

I returned to my former home one day to chat with one of my housemates, Mason*. He was the guy responsible for collecting the rent money from everyone. I explained to him that I had been gone for the week because I didn’t feel safe anymore. I also mentioned that I wanted to find a subleaser to take over my spot for the final two months so I could make up my loss. He laughed. “I don’t really get why you’re worried since he (the roommate dealing with the police) hasn’t technically been convicted of anything yet,” he said. “There’s only two months left on the lease. If I were you, I’d just stick it out and avoid him.”

Avoid him. I was at a loss for words. Mason’s advice was to continue hiding in my own house. Nevermind that one of the women who lived with us had already placed a deposit on a new place because our problematic housemate made her uncomfortable. On top of that, Kylee had started sleeping over at boyfriend’s so often that I rarely saw her. She wasn’t even around when the chaos ensued. I didn’t have those options.

Despite what Mason said, I tried to find a subleaser anyway. I put an ad on Craigslist and hoped for the best. No bites. Not one. I was caught between two terrible choices: stay and potentially risk my safety, or walk away from $1,560 that I would never see again, with nowhere to go. My savings balance was barely above the threshold where the bank starts charging fees for having an account. For lack of a better word, I was fucked.

Eventually, one of my coworkers noticed I looked severely stressed and exhausted at work. After nearly breaking down when explaining my situation, she graciously offered to help. I slept on her couch for an entire month and a half before I had enough money to stand on my feet again. Between all the double shifts I picked up that month, I must have worked between 25 and 30 hours during the weekends alone. The only time I went back to the house was on move-out day to retrieve the personal belongings I left that I felt were worth keeping. And once I found a new roommate whose personality and livelihood was a better match for me, I paid my friend back for her kindness and never looked back.

I share this story because that year would have ended differently for me if I didn’t have a friend who was willing to save me in that moment of crisis. I know not everyone has the privilege of help, and every time I reflect on this experience, I realize how lucky I am that I didn’t end up living on the street. But more importantly, I know now this situation could have been avoided had I been more careful with my decisions — especially when they involved my finances.

The truth is I didn’t pay several months of rent ahead of time to prove to myself that I was responsible. I did it because I didn’t want to think about it. I lived like I was destined for this negative, self-fulfilling prophecy, wherein I would always struggle financially. If I ever came upon what I considered “extra” money, I spent it. To be honest, I didn’t even consider saving to be a real possibility for people who weren’t already wealthy. I thought I had to have all the resources in place first — the right career, a degree, a certain amount of disposable income — before I could even start feeling like I was allowed to form a long-term plan.

But in reality, there is no rulebook that says you have to be at a certain point in your life to start thinking strategically about your finances. I started getting serious about saving immediately after I left that scary situation, even though I hadn’t yet secured a new home. Years later, I make sure a portion of my income goes toward developing a fund that allows me to make those adult life decisions with confidence. If you’re interested in taking that step to better prepare for your own future, Wealthsimple makes the process super easy and stress free. It takes less than 15 minutes to start building a personalized investment portfolio on their platform that lets you connect with money experts who can help you reach your goals.

Remember, the scariest things that can happen to your finances might not be some expected. Whenever I look back on this horrific situation, I feel an immense gratitude for what I have today. It’s so easy to say paying for things we don’t want to pay for sucks, especially emergencies. But when you have specific funds set aside to comfortably care for yourself — whether it means buying a tire when yours pops on the freeway, or securing a deposit on an apartment — suddenly paying for those things isn’t so annoying. It’s as if the very act of paying for an emergency on your own becomes a constant reminder of how far you’ve come with your money, and to a greater extent, your mindset.

Learn how you can protect your tomorrow by investing today with Wealthsimple. *Names have been changed.

Savanna is a freelance writer in Northern California whose hobbies include all things theater and dog-related. She hopes for a world where avocados will be included in the price of her entrée and a 12-step program is widely available to people who obsessively collect air miles. Follow her on Twitter here.

Image via Unsplash

Source: https://thefinancialdiet.com/the-financial-confessions-a-scary-roommate-situation-left-me-nearly-homeless/

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treeyo · 6 years

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When its been six months since your last blog, where do you even begin? Many changes happened in my life and am still processing them all but very much in the forward motion with the learning lessons acquired. With that, well I finally moved to Treasure lake, like finally really landed this March once I got my vehicle situation sorted and its been practically non stop work since. I will try to keep it short by using headers and pics then be more regular with it all so its not so much to cover and more valuable detail can come out. In essence, this places sheer beauty continues to amaze me and the people who observe and interact with it are a true blessing.

Community

You know the hokey part of permaculture about community and all of that social permaculture. Well it’s so true in the end. My Cincinnati, city based friends, have largely disappeared from my life, all but a select few now that i have properly moved here (only 35 minutes away). My Northern Kentucky network grows constantly. And to state it plainly, much of my successes or this places growth hinges upon selfless acts from others, service, community. Gifts beyond value but that also save on finances allowing me to stay with this project fully during the growing season. (Yes foreshadowing). It’s quite a mix here and i honor diversity and am enjoying this blend of Appalachian and river town culture scores to the city.

Past student and dear friend Kaila from BC, Canada stopping on her way across country. What a reunion, giving her a glimpse of the KY culture

Gil, such a generous person, getting ready to transport a beehive from his land to the lake to support both the garden and ecology here

Annie and her rolling around ways in the garden

Mike Lobb, a fishing enthusiast and proud supporter of the lake. and and his restaurant wastes help to feed the worms

Tom and his crafty skills and silly look helping me build artificial fish habitat

permablitz implementation of mushroom beds in hedgerow. it was almost all people from my town of Petersburg, Ky

Mary and Luke, two beautiful souled people who volunteered here often

Bryan and Daniel, two of my besties, jamming together. love them both

Stream Rehabilitation

Over the winter myself and part of the Berea, KY crew, who actually are connections from Portugal, implemented heaps of what I categorize in the PDC as restoring natural hydrology. The one rock dams, large and small woody debris jams have simply worked. The sediment has been trapped, the lake hasn’t muddied other than in the crazy amounts of rain that break or meet records. It’s helped as well with the nutrient overload which to deal with this problem we met it with these elements but also microbial blocks and pellets and also ducks.

one rock dams working to hold sediment back

Pools forming

one rock dams and small woddy debris

stair stepped approach

Animals

How much duckweed could a duck weed if a duck could weed duckweed?

Well it’s a lot and they do weed duckweed. As the nutrients pour in from the large watershed of the lake it causes each year relentless growth of duckweed. And I have been eating duckweed through the eggs that the ducks have steadily been producing. These ducks, mostly pekings, were gifts from the community and their rich golden eggs have delighted many. The golden color comes from the high amounts of lysine in the duckweed, just as I teach it in the PDC.

Also goats were lent to me and are fun, productive in their clearing, good at leaving fertility behind, but also a lot of work. Part of that comes from their sheer numbers, 17 in all. They require a lot of fencing moves to keep them on fresh pasture and their health in good shape. I have been really enjoying it but it in the end is consuming lots of hours. I did, of course along with the help from my NKY community, move their cages which had been in the same place for a few weeks. Instead of cleaning the cages and moving the manure to the compost area I decided to leave it right there and mulch on top so it didn’t all wash away in the rains just after the move. Next year i can carry seeds down there instead of manure to the compost area. an idea….

Alex welcoming the goats on their first day

Goats from the boat, having cleared back lots of weeds, mainly invasive

Compost

As always, as my students know, I am making, along with the help of many, lots of hot compost, completely square on the edge and at least one cubic meter in size. I did invest in a compost thermometer which has been helping with the quality control. The best compost piles have been coming from the lactobacillus rich beet kvass wastes from my friends at fab ferments. It quickly finishes and i am stockpiling lots of it right now for future use. Annie, the lead gardener of her brand Dark Wood Farm that leases land from us, has even used a bit. Also vermicompost has been expanding. I have the unique opportunity to sell worms to the fishing customers or simply give them away. We have scaled up to 275 gallons. Next door to fab ferments is La Terza coffee and their wastes have also been helping to feed the worms.

Beet Kvass waste

loading up the worm bin with Romain

Business

All these farming ventures of perennial systems are running concurrently to the running of the business here already. Pay fishing lake, bar, camping and events to be exact. It’s a lot of work and requires me to answer the phone, market, mow, weed eat, provide customer service and provide a better experience for those who come. It’s been a good year, the camping helping a lot in terms of revenue. And of course through community, Daniel, one of my closest neighbors has helped bring a lot of bar business in the last month or so through starting a tuesday night ping pong and a friday night open jam. Eternally grateful to him and his extended family as well as his front yard that has no grass in it which i drive by when i do leave the property. And the event production, we have many successful concerts, parties, weddings, and educational events. Plant based, not permaculture as i just cant seem to get people to sign up for my permaculture courses around here. And that is ok, i needed a break and its fun to have such a diversity. but yes its a lot of work. I work every weekend from friday morning to sunday evening here at the bar/ fishing lake/camping registration. I sneak away for farming ventures on the weekends by leaving my number on the door which is part of why i haven’t written a blog in so long.

Bryan in serious prep mode for our July 4th event

Park here!

Positive reaction laying down on our fourth of july event

the lists that make it happen, my goodness this project management is intense

Maria and Ron post marriage ceremony at the campsites

entrance to the bar

Campsite 2

biodiversity

As always my pursuit of biodiversity rages. I am still hacking away at the invasive and overcrowded natives. It helps my paw paws. Paw paw paradise is coming to fruition. We also planted in our some of our wonderful forest native medicinal herbs. Ginseng, goldenseal, bloodroot, blue and black cohosh, and wild ginger. They have done ok but are so far away its hard to get to them. It’s definitely a zone 4 and future plantings will be on the edge of zone 1 in sandy soil. I have also planted a hedgerow with different tree crops, berry bushes, and perennial vegetables. Taking care of the one we planted in the fall of last year also has been a continual maintenance. We also did quite a bit with mushrooms through both logs of oyster and wine cap on wood chips. It’s definitely developing a nice zone 1 for me around the edge of Annie’s 1 acre market garden. And in general this place is alive, teaming with biodiversity to create stability, resilience, and abundance!

More wooded wood chip beds and remay cloth covering logs to keep woodpeckers away

mushroom spawn in chunks of wine cap being placed in between layers of cardboard and wood chips

caterpillar on milkweed, i guess monarchs?

Phoebe babies in the same nest spot as last year on the back patio of the bar

the beaver is back!

freshwater mussel shell, food for other wildlife

oyster mushroom logs

Foraging

You cant have a paw paw paradise and not then go out and harvest. Hauling well over 50 lbs from the lake property and already another 20 or so lbs from 1 tree at my parents house, its been great. I have been saving the seeds and these will turn into hundreds, maybe 1000’s of more paw paw plant for the land and for sale. I am saving seeds of the big ones and random ones with great flavor. We also have stumbled upon some great mushroom patches and will we get to the spicebush harvest with all that is going on?

25 lbs plus haul in one morning, mainly thanks to the beavers chopping trees down years ago to give this patch space

native black capped raspberry that went in Annie’s CSA fruit add on

just a bit of the paw paw on the bar, giving lots away

huge wild fruits at the lake. giving thanks to the natives who once lived here and probably worked on the genetics

Abby and me looking for paw paw just before our successful event. thanks abby for referring a spark for foraging

Holiday

I end with the vacation i got to go on to the Asheville, North Carolina area for the SE Permaculture gathering. It also included a professional gathering and i loved meeting others from the area and finally meeting Courtney Brooke who Robina McCurdy, our common mentor, connected but we never got to meet in person until then. They have a great culture built down there and was inspiring to say the least. I know it will grow here, we have done an amazing work in this area over the years but i look forward to treasure lake being a growing point of culture.

Zev talking mutual aid, this guy is on it

So thank you to all who have contributed with volunteering, attending events, paying to go fish, to camp, to drink, to rent the place out. There is more for sure that has happened but i had to get this one out to press refresh on releasing these update blogs more often . I also pressed refresh on my life by moving back here, staying in one place for over a year, which basically hasn’t happened in almost 20 years and seeking help with my mental health. Never be afraid to do that. gardening is sometimes not enough, nor traveling the world and living your passion. I am glad i did it, i am blessed to have this place to experiment on. The development goes on here and please contact me on how to get involved. thank you to the community and the treasure lake experience. Never forget the final message of my patterns slideshow, LOVE. and that includes love for yourself. sounds simple but it takes effort that is well worth it!

ps the tip jar at the bar is going well with it being tips for tree planting. so this fall,

#letsplantsometreesyo

Project Update: A long Overdue one for Treasure Lake When its been six months since your last blog, where do you even begin? Many changes happened in my life and am still processing them all but very much in the forward motion with the learning lessons acquired.

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rad-and-punk · 6 years

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You’ve got me so fucked up. You’re grown. 23. You’ve been on our own for a few years, I would’ve thought that you’d learned something by now.

First of all you’re my ex. I’ve been living with you and your new girlfriend since April. Back then, you told me you wanted to be with me. You told me (still tell me) you care about me. I took you to work and we slept together every night. Little did I know that you fucked 3 of my friends while we were together and had this girl on the side the whole time. You then proceeded to lie to me and not give me closure because you wanted to keep me around. For 2+ months I sat alone and watched you make out with and fuck her and couldn’t do anything about it.

Then I started talking to someone and you got bitter. You got jealous. You got nasty. I took care of your bitch when you got her too fucked up to function (TWICE). And you have the audacity to be shitty to someone because you don’t like that I’m moving on.

You’ve repeatedly done things I’ve asked you not to: going into my purse without permission, playing with my hoop and other flow toys AND BROKE THEM when you and your new bitch decided that you wanted to play with them. You knew the circumstances and didn’t care.

I got over all of it. I humbled myself and accepted it. You didn’t care about me like you said you did, not even as a friend, and that’s my fault for letting myself get my hopes up. But nothing prepared me for the last couple of weeks.

We told you that we would be moved out by August. We went down to the office, got the roommate release, and held your fucking hand through the process. I have not had my own room or privacy in a year. I have to sit and watch you and this bitch EVERY DAY. I wasn’t sleeping on my own time, I wake up at 5am for work and everyone would be watching a movie until 2am. That takes a toll. All you had to do to keep the apartment by yourself was get a letter from your manager stating you make X amount of money a month. It takes 10 minutes. And you couldn’t even get your shit together enough for that.

You caused a scene in the office that day and I fought it. You knew what you needed. We literally walked you through everything. It’s not my fault that you got fired for too many no call no shows. It’s not my fault that you didn’t listen when the lease was up.

Fast forward to 2 days ago. You had the audacity to tell us to leave August rent on the counter ($600). You’ve known since June that you had to pay this month by yourself. We don’t live there anymore. We moved out. My roommates covered 4 of your bills last month, and we’re all covering 2 of them for you this month. And you still decided that arguing at 1am about how this is are fault.

You knew that you couldn’t pay rent by yourself, you should’ve sucked up your pride and figured it out. We gave you options. If you get evicted, that is on you. you had until yesterday to sign the vacate notice.

LET ME BE CLEAR: we did not have to do any of this for you. We did not have to wait for you to get your letter, we did not have to leave the couches and patio furniture, we did not have to tell you that you could stay with us. We did that out of the kindness of our hearts because we care about you.

But I’m not fighting for someone who doesn’t want to be fought for. It’s not fair that we’re doing everything and you’re still going to be bitter and slander our names. You’ve never been able to accept responsibility, but that is not on me. It is not my job to mold you or take care of you. I’ve done enough of that, and you don’t even care about me. You’ve proved it. I’m 20, I can barely support myself, let alone someone who isn’t trying and won’t help me if it came down to it.

I’ve been hurt and disappointed by you since I reaslized who you were. You’re the guy who wants but won’t give. You’re the guy who wants stability and love without commitment and effort. You brag about you and your friends staying the same for years. You can lie without skipping a beat and no feel guilt. You’re fucking a girl that you don’t care about and doesn’t care about you. You’re the guy who’s turning into the one person that they despise. You’ve got so much hate and anger in your heart and you’re projecting because you won’t let yourself accept that this whole situation is due to your own lack of preparation.

You can open that mouth of yours and tell everyone and their mom what horrible people we are and how dirty we did you. But at the end of the day, I have a clean conscience and anyone who knows me will come talk to me before making assumptions. You are not special, we’ve all been through shit. But I will no longer put myself out for someone who wouldn’t do the same for me.

You had it all, it was spread out in front of you on the backs of my roommates and I. And you still pretended to not see it. I wish you luck and hope that you learn your lesson quicker than you have been. Or life is gonna get rough for you.

#long post #im so sorry #when you live with your ex for 5 monts #you build up some emotions #rambles #mo

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sherlocklexa · 7 years

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Lessons in Fence Fixing, Part 1: How NOT to Anchor a Fence Post

When I first moved into the UDH, one of the very first projects my dad and I ever tackled was adding a small fence and gate to close off the back yard. In fact, it was the second blog post that I ever wrote — it was that early!

Since then, quite a lot of things have changed, including other improvements to the fence: replacing part of the chain link on the other side of the house, adding better gate hardware, planting garden beds next to it for added foliage (and to hide my neighbor’s fence that’s falling apart, which you can see more of in the pics below), and more. I’d like to think I’ve actually learned quite a bit about fences during that time. But last fall, there was a bit of an accident to this little section:

It happened during that awesome, sweaty week last summer when I rented a backhoe, ordered truckloads of dirt, and filled in the sink hole in a brutally humid August. My friends stopped by one night to help (truthfully, they really just wanted to play with the backhoe for a bit)…

…but as usual, it was my dad who helped out the most. Look at him go!

Please note: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, which allows me to make a small commission from your purchase (but your purchase price stays the same). Thank you for helping support the blog! I appreciate it!

Even though we got a huge amount done in that week, there’s was just one little step in the wrong direction: during one of the return passes through the gate to get more dirt…

…Dad turned the wheel and crashed directly into my fence. It wasn’t enough of a collision to take out the fence as a whole or for him to be injured in any way (and it was kind of funny since all bets would have been on me to be the one with a runaway backhoe), but it did just enough damage to loosen the concrete and make the whole thing unstable. The post had been bent to an angle that could not be repaired, so I would have to replace it in order for the gate hardware (actually, the newly-installed gate hardware) to close properly.

I took the fence panel off and came up with a game plan to fix it, but I wasn’t in a huge hurry since I was busy working on lots of other projects all winter. Typically, you just buy a new pre-treated 4×4 and a bag of quick-dry concrete, reattach the hardware, and done (you actually don’t even need to separately mix the concrete… you literally pour the bag into the hole and water it down, poke it a few times to make sure the water mixes well enough, and stabilize the post so that it’s level — not a difficult DIY at all, just heavy). But as I made one of my usual supply runs to my local Orange, I spotted this little display:

According to the product’s advertising:

This new product could fix my fence without the inconvenience of carrying around 50 pound bags of concrete through the store — “effectively replaces two 50 lb. bags of concrete mix.” Since I don’t like carrying heavy stuff unless it’s part of an obstacle course race, this was a selling point for me.

The two components that are separated in the bag, once popped and mixed for about 20 seconds, form an expanding polyurethane resin that you pour it into the hole; in just 3 minutes, the product expands around the post and stabilizes it.

Basically, magic.

Given that I also love trying out new DIY products and being the guinea pig to see if something *really* works or not, I figured it would make for a really cool experiment. For around 3x the price (online it says it’s now cheaper, but I remember spending more), it was more expensive than the bag of concrete I’d initially planned to use, but I liked the idea of trying it out and picked it up anyway. Could it really work?

The short answer: no. Nope, nope, nope. But hey, I have cool pictures!

With the weather warming back up (and dry), the temperature was right to finally give it a try. I started by cleaning out the existing hole that contained the original post (any softer dirt, debris and such — Georgia’s red clay is pretty hard to begin with, but spring rain had caused some mud at the bottom of the hole). It may not look it from this photo, but the hole I started with was deep enough for the usual concrete that I would have poured otherwise (probably two-ish bags). It doesn’t really say it on the bag, but an online video that I found for this product says the hole should be 8 inches in diameter and one third of the length of the post should be in the ground.

I popped the bag and did a quick shimmy to get the two components to mix (note: there’s a very short window of time for this, about 20-30 seconds), then snipped a corner with some scissors and started pouring it into the post hole. The goop almost instantly started foaming up before I could snap a few pictures with my phone, which was pretty cool to watch. Over the next few minutes, I monitored the expansion and made sure the post stayed level (a post level would have been even better to use, but since I didn’t feel like making another trip to the store, two levels measuring both directions worked in a pinch).

I stood around for another ten minutes, watching the foam expand even further and even above ground (according to package directions, you can just trim off excess after it’s hardened). You’re supposed to let things cure additionally for another two hours before attaching anything to the post, but I had other things to tackle the rest of the afternoon, so I let it be for the rest of the day.

I gave it a few test wiggles that evening (well after the 2-hour “fully hardened” window on the packaging), which proved disappointing. The product wasn’t super stable around the post, and as you can see in the photo above, had even pulled away from the post while it expanded. I was still outside working on a few other things, and I could clearly see the post swaying slightly in the wind. I chose to leave it overnight and decide whether or not to re-attach the fence panel the next day.

The next afternoon, I pushed on the post. While it didn’t fall over, it still wiggled at the slightest nudge — nothing like the secure stability of setting the post in concrete. I guess one could argue not to expect they’d be exactly similar, except that the video I watched about the product literally had a guy climbing onto and hanging off the post as a demonstration of its strength. In my case, it took just a few more strong nudges, and the whole thing came right up out of the ground. Womp, womp.

Perhaps the hole I dug was still not deep enough (the foam only came up out of the ground a little, similar to what I’d seen in the video, so it looked plenty deep enough for the equivalent in concrete that it’s supposed to replace). Perhaps the ground around the hole wasn’t dry enough (the product didn’t really say much about water except to remove any standing water in the hole, and any loose soil had already been cleared out). So, while I’m sure that a lengthy investigation with the manufacturer would point out what step I must have not done perfectly in perfect conditions (because that hardly ever exists in real life, duh), I’d had enough of my experiment. I certainly think it’s cool when new products come out, and I’m willing to try them, but if the original way is both pretty much fool-proof and cheaper, I consider this a product flop.

The foam is easy to remove — I just hacked at it with a reciprocating saw and dumped the pieces. I noticed while removing it that the lack of expanding around the post was actually worse than I thought; somehow, air pockets had gotten into the resin, which probably contributed to its lack of stability.

With the junky foam shorn off, I grabbed an ol’ reliable bag of concrete and reset the post. Even though it took about fifteen minutes longer (well, a day of the other product and then fifteen minutes) to set enough to feel comfortable walking away, for me, concrete is the way to go from now on.

This post has gone on long enough, but there’s more that needed to still be done to get my fence and gate fixed up, so I’ll save that for part 2. And if you saw on Instagram, even more was accomplished elsewhere over the same weekend (remember this project?). More of that is coming as quickly as I can edit the photos!

P.S. In case you’re wondering, this wasn’t a sponsored post or anything, merely something I saw in store and wanted to try out. I know how it is when you see a new product and wonder if it’s worth the extra cost compared to the alternative — which is often cheaper, but more labor intensive — so from time to time, I let my house test things out. In years past, manufacturers have even reached out later to let me know these posts have helped them improve products that don’t work out, so I hope you found this helpful too!

The post Lessons in Fence Fixing, Part 1: How NOT to Anchor a Fence Post appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.

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from car2 http://ift.tt/2owkCln via as shown a lot

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chocdono · 7 years

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Lessons in Fence Fixing, Part 1: How NOT to Anchor a Fence Post

…but as usual, it was my dad who helped out the most. Look at him go!

Even though we got a huge amount done in that week, there’s was just one little step in the wrong direction: during one of the return passes through the gate to get more dirt…

According to the product’s advertising:

Basically, magic.

The short answer: no. Nope, nope, nope. But hey, I have cool pictures!

The post Lessons in Fence Fixing, Part 1: How NOT to Anchor a Fence Post appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.

Website // Subscribe // Advertise // Twitter // Facebook // Google+

from mix1 http://ift.tt/2owkCln via with this info

#mix1

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petraself · 7 years

Text

Lessons in Fence Fixing, Part 1: How NOT to Anchor a Fence Post

…but as usual, it was my dad who helped out the most. Look at him go!

Even though we got a huge amount done in that week, there’s was just one little step in the wrong direction: during one of the return passes through the gate to get more dirt…

According to the product’s advertising:

Basically, magic.

The short answer: no. Nope, nope, nope. But hey, I have cool pictures!

The post Lessons in Fence Fixing, Part 1: How NOT to Anchor a Fence Post appeared first on The Ugly Duckling House.

Website // Subscribe // Advertise // Twitter // Facebook // Google+

Lessons in Fence Fixing, Part 1: How NOT to Anchor a Fence Post published first on http://ift.tt/1kI9W8s

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robertsmorgan · 8 years

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Psychology of Eating Podcast: Episode #189 – A Bodybuilder Confronts Her Body Image

Is it possible to practice self-love and mindful eating while also entering a bodybuilding competition? That’s the question Megan is asking herself. As a fitness trainer and a IFBB bikini pro, Megan is grappling with her desire to compete and her desire to heal her relationship with her body and food. Can she have both? In this unique session, Marc David, Founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating, and Megan discuss what’s possible for her future in fitness. She wants to end the torture of obsessive dieting and the fear she feels around weight gain and tracking her food. She also wants to continue pursing professional bodybuilding. Marc guides Megan into how to create balance and awareness so that her next competition is one she is ready to face with less fear and anxiety and more compassion, forgiveness, and self-acceptance.

Below is a transcript of this podcast episode:

Marc David: Welcome, everybody. I’m Marc David, founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating. And here we are back in the Psychology of Eating podcast. And I’m with Megan today. Welcome, Megan.

Megan Anderson: It’s good to be here.

Marc: I’m glad you’re here. And Megan, let me just fill in people for a moment who may be new to the podcast. So here’s how this goes. Megan and I just met. We’ve been chit chatting for a few minutes before we hopped on here. And we’re going to see if we can do some good work in less than an hour and move the needle and figure out what would best serve you, Miss Megan.

So here’s my question for you. If you could wave your magic wand and get whatever you wanted to get out of this session, what would that be for you?

Megan: Really, I want to have clarity of not feeling bad about wanting to compete in bodybuilding shows but also just clarity of what I want, I suppose, in my relationship with my body.

Marc: So what’s unclear for you?

Megan: So ever since I’ve started the Eating Psychology course, and even before that, I noticed that my current diet, my current lifestyle weren’t really serving me to my best ability. My company is all about teaching people about self-love and self-acceptance. And it seemed so counterproductive of what I was trying to do. And then I just felt stuck as a coach.

It’s been hard for me to come to the terms of, do I have to give up doing bodybuilding shows in order to really realistically reach this goal of loving myself and accepting myself?

And it’s this weird combination of loving yourself and accepting yourself, yet it being okay to continually progress forward.

Marc: So let’s say you were clear, just give me a sense what that might look like or feel like.

Megan: I wouldn’t struggle. I wouldn’t feel shame and guilt when it comes to wanting to compete in a show. I wouldn’t feel like I’m stuck in this halfway wanting to reach a new goal. I’m fine with my body right now. I love it. It’s great. The amount of stress where I don’t have to worry about food right now is fabulous. I’m not constantly thinking about food. I don’t have to weigh and track my food. And that’s so nice. And I love that. But then there’s this part of me that’s like, “Well, I’m a fitness coach. I teach people how to be better with themselves.”

That’s what the line is. It’s between—I started out being a personal trainer and fitness coach, and now I’m shifting more into self-acceptance. And I’m trying to figure out where that meets in the middle. And ultimately, I feel like I’m trying to teach what I’m also trying to find. And it causes a lot of feeling like I’m going nowhere sometimes.

Marc: I hear you. So how old are you?

Megan: 24.

Marc: 24. So how long have you been doing sort of the fitness thing?

Megan: So I started competing three, four years ago. And I’ve been doing personal training and stuff like that for about five now.

Marc: What inspired you to start?

Megan: What inspired me to start was I had seen—so I was training all these people. They were generally overweight. And I was educating them to do better with their food choices and work out and change their habits to be more consistent so that they could reach their goals.

But then I realized that I had never gone through a goal myself. And so then I was like, “Well, I’m going to do a bodybuilding show” because I was never really overweight. But it was like, “I’m going to take it to that next level.” Plus it was always great for marketing.

Marc: To say that you’re doing such competitions kind of thing?

Megan: Well, I would just say I’ve struggled with the fact that people are going to believe what you tell them to do if you look a certain part. And that’s definitely been a controlling factor of why I tended to do them. And now, it’s more so I’m doing it because—I don’t know. I don’t know.

My last show prep was awful. It was the worst. I started binging—not really binging, just overeating on what my macronutrient allotment was for the day basically because I was on a starvation diet for three months. I wasn’t eating more than 30 grams of carbs. And that’s really unrealistic.

Technically, I was eating more than that because I was going over all the time. And that just led to shame. And that shame led to more shame. And then that led to over exercising.

And then I decided that actually it was okay though because it kind of propelled me into shifting more into this self-acceptance and mindful eating versus if it fits your macros and stuff like that.

Marc: So when you’re training, are you working with a coach or a nutritionist kind of thing? Or are you just kind of doing it on your own?

Megan: I was at the time working with a coach. My first shows, I was working with my boyfriend at the time. And I think a lot of how perfect I had to be on my diet was because I wanted to be his best client. And it kind of fed that cycle of—I don’t know if I was really competing in shows for myself. I think I was more so doing it because I wanted to make him proud in a weird way.

And then once that relationship was over, then I was like, “Well, I need to do a show now so that I can prove to myself that I can do it.” And that’s when I started shifting more into—not bingeing, just overeating, I would say—sometimes bingeing. But emotional eating is what I’m pretty sure that it is. It’s just emotional eating and going over.

But then I started working with another coach. And that was good because it almost gave me this excuse that if it doesn’t work out and I don’t place first then it’s not all on me. And so then I did a show. And I looked the best I had ever looked.

And then I was like, “Hey, I’m going to go for nationals because I wanted to get my pro card.” And that show prep was just horrendous because I was going through a lot in life. I was moving out my old roommate situation. It was just not a good environment.

I had gotten a place off Craigslist. But I really didn’t want to stay in Vegas for than a month. I ended up getting all my money stolen from me from this girl that wasn’t paying rent. I moved in. An eviction notice was on the door. Next thing you know, 24 hours later, I’m going to Washington to live in this other place where I could get where I didn’t have to sign a lease. And it was just hard not to emotionally eat.

Marc: No, just hearing that, I want to eat. I didn’t even go through it. Yeah.

So let me ask you this question. Let’s just jump ahead for a second. Where do you see yourself six, seven years from now? Where would you like to be in your life?

Megan: I would like to be a lot more stable. I really like traveling. But I would like to have a place where it feels like my home. It’s been an entire process like this. It went from living with my boyfriend to we were renting from his mom. And so whenever we got in an argument, it was like, “You’re the one to go.”

And then from there, I was in this other living situation that wasn’t very good to this other living situation that I couldn’t stay at for a long period of time. I would like to have a place that would be my own but a lifestyle that would still allow me to travel.

And that’s why I do all online coaching. And it’s nice. It’s why I’m partially doing this program just so I can kind of see what you guys do on the back end and your schedule when you come out with things and everything like that.

So I would like to be more stable. I would like to be traveling. I would like to be inspiring people. I have this goal to help inspire 6 million women to find self love and acceptance and ending this crazy cycle of gaining weight to drop weight to gain weight to drop weight and just all around be unhappy. That’s what I see.

Marc: Good for you. That’s a nice, big vision for yourself.

Megan: Thanks.

Marc: Yeah. So I’d love to share some thoughts with you so far in terms of what we’ve been talking about, questions I’ve been answering, answers you’ve been giving.

Early 20s are a time, I think, when we are naturally unstable on a lot of levels. There’s a lot of shifting. There’s a lot of changing. On the one hand, you’re not a teenager anymore. On another hand, you’re not an established adult. You’re this weird hybrid. You’re kind of in between worlds right now.

And usually when we’re in transition and we’re in between worlds, it’s just tricky territory because there’s not a lot of stability. And there’s not a lot of familiarity. And things are changing quickly. And things are uncertain and are unclear. So all I’m trying to say is if things seem uncertain, unclear, and unstable, you’re in the right place. You follow what I’m saying?

Megan: Yeah.

Marc: So you’re on point for this stage of life where you’re at. If we state it in the positive, what I want to say to you is you’re in a discovery zone. You’re trying out different things. You’re seeing what works, what sticks. What do I like? What don’t I like? Oh, here’s a direction I want to move in. How do I move in that direction? Huh, let me try this. This might work. Whoops! That wasn’t good. Let me try this way.

So there’s a lot of trial and error going down. All I’m saying is good for you because it’s strengthening your trial and error muscles. Talk about a fitness competition. This is you learning how to be, I think, more fit with life. So all I’m saying is if you’re not where you want to be, that’s fine because it’s probably too early in the game right now.

So from that place in terms of you saying, “Okay, there’s this little bit maybe of guilt around wanting to coach people around self love” but here you are doing fitness competitions and kind of pushing it to another level. And those are intense competitions. And it’s intense preparation. And it’s some weird dieting that you have to do. So it’s very extreme. And I hear you asking the question, how does all this mix in together?

And so I’d love to offer some possible answers that I think are all correct even though they all might sound different. I think there’s a level where it’s absolutely fine for you to do what you want to do and explore.

One thing that we do when we’re young or even not so young is we explore, what can I do with this body? How many miles can I run? How long can I bike? Can I win this race? Can I lift this amount of weight? Can I look like this? Can I feel strong like that? That’s totally legitimate. You’re just exploring your own biology. You’re exploring your own potential and learning what that means for you.

So to me, I think you’re gathering information. And you’re learning about yourself. So you have to decide as you’re doing the next competition, “Okay, how is this working for me? Am I okay with this diet? Am I okay with the extreme-ness of it?”

When you tell me you’re prepping for a competition and you say, “Well, I’m emotionally eating the carbs, this, that,” let me tell you something. I’ve seldom met a person—and I meet a lot of people in this realm who are training for competitions, being on intense diets. And this is the common story. They’re always binge eating. They’re always breaking the rules because it’s a virtually-impossible-to-follow diet.

Megan: Yeah.

Marc: And you have to push yourself so hard not to deviate. And then when you deviate, you think there’s something wrong with you. That’s like me pushing your head underwater and saying, “Well, how come you can’t stay under there for ten minutes? What’s your issue?” Biology won’t let you stay there that long.

Megan: Yeah.

Marc: You’ve only got about a minute, a minute and a half till you want some air.

So I’m just hoping if you do continue with competitive fitness kind of stuff that you be a little gentler on yourself around the dieting piece and the places where you fall off the wagon because it’s virtually impossible. It’s so hard, especially you have your life to deal with.

And if you’re feeling lonely or emotional or bored or whatever, we like to turn to food. But in the process, you’re kind of starving anyway. So you probably wish you had more food either way, even if life was perfect.

Megan: Yeah.

Marc: You follow me?

Megan: Yeah.

Marc: So I’m just really wanting you to give yourself a little more space to be an explorer here.

Megan: Okay.

Marc: To gather more information, to learn, to see what works for you, and to let go of the judgment and embrace the good in what you’re doing. So when I say, “Let go of the judgment; embrace the good in what you’re doing,” what do you feel is the good in competition? How does that help you as a person? How does it help you grow as a person?

Megan: Well, I think that there are a lot of positives that come from setting a goal and reaching it. And that’s one that takes an extended period of time. And it allows me to better help my clients, I think, from a certain perspective just for possible insights of different types of food that they could eat to overcome feeling hungry or just a different insight that I think if I had never gone to that level of extreme I wouldn’t have that type of insight. And so that’s nice.

And also one thing that’ll help if I get my pro card this year, what I really love doing is teaching posing. It’s like the art of illusion. And just having that credibility of being a IFBB bikini pro will give me enough credibility for people to want that service from me. And that’s something that I would just really love to teach that I think would really satisfy me and make me happy. And I would love it.

Marc: Yeah. So I say go for it! Why not go for it and learn along the way? And I would say this. You’re in tricky territory. And when I say, “You’re in tricky territory”—and I think you know this. And you’ve kind of said this in your own words.

This is a field, this is a universe—this kind of competition is a place where it’s very easy to become perfectionist. It’s very easy to become overly obsessive and compulsive. It’s very easy to slip into eating behaviors that don’t work for you. It’s easy to slip into mind, thoughts, and beliefs about yourself that don’t serve you.

Megan: Yeah.

Marc: It’s easy to be in a world where women are not always supporting each other. This could be a supported profession. And a lot of times, it’s very competitive, so to speak, where it’s easy for women to hate on each other, or men and women to hate on each other for their successes.

Megan: Yeah.

Marc: So you’re in a place that’s naturally a little tricky. And all I’m saying is, just know that. Just be aware of that and see, “Okay, how do I survive in all that? And how do I even thrive in that? How do I still maintain my sense of dignity if I don’t come in first, second, third, or twenty-third? How do I still love myself in this process? How much are you investing in it in what it means about your self worth?”

Those are the things I want you to keep an eye on so that at the end of the day, you’re able to maintain your dignity and you’re able to keep loving yourself no matter what and that you remember somewhere in the back of your mind that your looks and your beauty and your physique don’t define you. And it’s something you happen to be involved in and working with and exploring and playing with. And that’s a cool thing.

Megan: Yeah. Yeah, it is.

Marc: Right?

Megan: I like it.

Marc: Yeah, so it’s your prerogative. And it’s your choice. And it’s a fascinating choice. And it’s a cool thing.

And I would love to see you empower yourself in this process and not second guess your choice. But you can constantly be checking in with yourself to see, “Okay, how am I doing, Megan? How am I doing? How does this feel? How is this working out? Where’s my head at? Am I getting the real support that I need right now? Am I falling into some bad rabbit hole?”

That’s what I’m interested in you looking out for—to make sure that you just keep maturing as a person and not just getting better as a fitness model.

Megan: Yeah. Yeah. You’re right.

Marc: Make sense?

Megan: Yeah, it does make sense. It does. It does. I think I struggle right now. Right now, I’m not logging my food. And I still eat pretty mindfully. I try not to have anything else going when I’m eating. I try to focus on eating. It takes awhile after you do a show to become in tune with your hunger signals and things like that because your hormones have to get back to normal. Plus, you’re constantly hungry before. And now, you’re like, “Whoa! What is being full?” The dieter’s mentality.

But sometimes, I feel guilty about not logging my food just for the simple fact that I wonder if I’m—because in the off season, I feel like the main goal is to see how much food you can stuff inside yourself and not gain an excess amount of body fat. If I’m not logging my food, how do I know if I’m working my metabolic capacity up to how fast it can be working? And sometimes, I feel guilty about that.

Marc: So what are your choices there?

Megan: Well, I guess my choices are either I have to log my food which is going to make me obsessive and not be the break that I need. I kind of have found a little bit of a balance. I can roughly eyeball food by now. I don’t have to excessively weigh it too much. But I try to make sure that I’m getting enough protein within each meal to just make sure that I’m at least hitting my protein.

And then other than that, I try to just be mindful about whatever’s going on in my life. For example, I’ve been traveling a lot lately. So when I’m home, I try to cook all my meals and hit my protein but be on the lower end of calories. And then when I’m out and I’m traveling, then I still try to get protein in every meal. But I’m not too worried about calories at that point.

Marc: Got it. So it sounds to me like you found a little bit of a sweet spot. You mentioned, “Wow! If I’m really doing this rigorously,” you might get a little obsessive.

Megan: Yep.

Marc: So it sounds like that’s the dangerous territory for you which makes perfect sense to me. So yeah, if you’re not playing by the rules perfectly but you’re taking care of yourself and preventing you from falling into a bad place that could trigger an unhealthy relationship with food, personally, I’m all for you taking care of yourself. And then you’re going to have to learn how to, in your own system, regulate the guilt—meaning you notice it, and you don’t let it consume you because you’re making a choice.

Megan: Right.

Marc: All I’m talking about right now is just one of the aspects of self mastery which is if you choose something consciously, you choose to do something, then the repercussions of that choice we need to, on a certain level, welcome them, to embrace them, to grapple with them as opposed to going, “Oh my god, I made this choice. But now look what happened. Now, I’m feeling guilty. Wow! Let me get sucked into guilt for the next day.”

And you’ve sabotaged yourself simply because you didn’t stand by your own choice. So the choice was, “Yeah, I’m not going to weigh and count calories and everything super specific. I’m going to do this little method that I have found. And even if I feel a little guilty here and there and even if I don’t know 100% about my metabolic potential, I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.”

Megan: Yeah.

Marc: “Because I’m taking care of myself.” So I think it’s about trusting your choices. It’s learning to trust yourself and stand by your own choices.

Megan: Yeah. Okay, I agree with that.

Marc: Does that make sense for you?

Megan: Oh yeah, it does. It definitely does. I think that I’ve been getting better at that. Sometimes, it’s just difficult. When I imagine that I’m going to start prepping again, that’s when I just have to believe that it’s okay that I’ve been doing it the way I’ve been doing it.

And honestly, I actually know in my mind that it’s better the way I’ve been doing it because I know if I was logging that it would just be very unrealistic with how much I’ve been traveling. And that would just lead to more shame and guilt because I wouldn’t be able to do it. I’m okay with what I’ve been doing. It works. My weight has been relatively stable which is nice. I’m okay with it. It’s realistic. It’s the best thing that I could be doing right now. And I know that. I know that.

I just also know that when I start prepping for my show again here in a couple months that I’m just going to also have to be okay with that decision. So I’m okay with it right now. I just realize that in two months I’m going to have to be okay with that. And I’m going to have to be okay with not knowing what my caloric intake and my macronutrients have been starting this in order to have a point to work from which will be fine. It’ll be good. It’ll be fine.

Marc: Let me ask you another question. If you were sitting in my seat right now—you were sitting here looking out—I’m actually in California—at Laguna Beach. So if you were sitting here, talking to a cool young lady like yourself who was presenting this exact same issue and you happen to know a few things because you’ve been down this road a little bit. So you’re sitting in my seat. What would you be saying to this Megan look alike who has this very interesting and similar challenge to what you faced before? What would you say to her from your standpoint of being a coach?

Megan: I would tell her that consistency is the best option always. And whatever diet she feels like she can be consistent with is the best diet. And that she should actually be proud of herself for the fact that she’s no longer having obsessive thoughts or overeating or feeling any of the guilt associated with that. And that it’s okay and it’s kind of all a part of the cycle of competing and not competing. And whatever you need to do in order to get your mindset right is probably the best option.

Marc: I think that’s pretty good advice.

Megan: Yeah.

Marc: So let’s just break that down a little bit more. The last thing you said I found pretty interesting. “Whatever you need to do to get your mindset right is the best option.” So what would that mean for you? What are some things you need to do to get your mindset right? What does that mean?

Megan: To get my mindset right. My mindset right now is the best that it’s been in a very long time. What I mean by that is just being aware of how you feel about certain things. So when I’m logging my food, I get obsessive. And I tend not to feel very good about any situation. I fear going out. I regret going out when I do go out, especially if it wasn’t as fun as I thought it was going to be. I emotionally eat. I can’t handle my emotions very well.

So for me what’s been best, just finding what works has been a combination of just being a little more lenient with my diet, being a little more flexible, working on journaling and handling my emotions and feeling my emotions versus eating when I’m experiencing emotions that I don’t want to deal with, and acceptance. Acceptance has been definitely key. Being not judgmental towards things that are happening has been key.

Today, I caught myself mindlessly eating. And I don’t feel bad about it right now. But I caught myself mindlessly eating. I don’t know.

Marc: So what are some of the challenging emotions that kind of cause you to want to eat?

Megan: Definitely when I feel lonely. Kind of when life starts to get like I just feel like nothing is very stable. Food has always been there. There are certain things about myself that they’re hard for me to look at non judgmentally and accept and love what is. And so when I’m experiencing things like that, sometimes it’s easier to eat than actually sit with my feelings.

And I went through a lot of emotional eating when I got out of my previous relationship which was a little over a year ago. That’s when I noticed I was emotionally eating a lot. And I was emotionally eating in secret all the time. Then this last show prep, I was also eating in secret a lot as well. And I think that that was just because I would feel lonely and unstable. And then I would eat, and it would feel better. And then it wouldn’t feel better. And then it would just continue.

Marc: Understood. Understood. Again, I want to remind you that, given your situation, the stage of life you’re at, the fact that you’re pretty much out there on your own, living in a place where you don’t know a lot of people and where it would be easy to be lonely because you don’t have a support system where you are—that’s hard.

Megan: Yeah.

Marc: That’s hard. That’s hard. Plus, you’re engaging in a very specific and intense kind of training and competition. So I’m just saying give yourself a little space to be imperfect here because you’re doing something that’s not easy at all. And you don’t have necessarily a lot of easy ways to distract yourself or to medicate and feel good. So food is going to be natural for that.

And your task is to learn how to still nurture yourself with food and take care of yourself with food and nourish yourself but not overdo it so you’re not like yourself. And also understand that if you do emotionally eat or if you do overeat, it makes perfect sense.

Megan: Yeah.

Marc: And then the question is how fast can you forgive yourself and move forward as opposed to kick yourself when you’re down and not move forward? So that’s the key. The key is shortening the time—and this is a training. You train yourself from now until the day you die—shortening the time between when we fall off the wagon, any wagon, and when we get back on again.

Megan: Yeah.

Marc: Falling off the wagon could be, “I love myself.” And all of a sudden I’m hating myself. So are you going to hate yourself for two years, two months, two weeks, two days, two hours, two minutes? The more we shorten it, the less time we are in misery, plain and simple. And we have that say. It’s a training. It’s like everything else. It’s like watching your macronutrients. It’s like taking in a certain amount of calories or protein. It’s like you’re just regulating how long we stay on the mat kicking ourselves.

Megan: Okay.

Marc: So what are you thinking? What are your thoughts right now? Where are you at?

Megan: My thoughts…Oh my god, hold on. Everything’s buzzing right now. It makes sense. I feel like I’ve been slowly going through all of this and experiencing it and realizing that I need to be more gentle with myself. I’m definitely a perfectionist. And I have high expectations for myself. And so sometimes when I don’t meet those, I’m not very kind to myself. But it has definitely been better, a lot better, than it used to be. And I’ve just become a lot more aware of it.

There are also things that I don’t know that I have answers to. As far as a weight number is concerned, I’ve never been afraid of the scale. So I weighed myself just the other day because I moved into this place yesterday. And I was unpacking it. And for awhile, I had put my scale away. And I wasn’t weighing myself because it just didn’t matter. I don’t need to weigh myself. I can just feel how I feel about myself and just be aware of how I feel.

But I weighed myself. And I weighed 120. And I haven’t weighed that much in probably three years. And so it was kind of weird. I was thinking about it for awhile. And although I feel good, yeah, there are some days where I’m like, “I feel a little bloated right now. I don’t feel good.” I try to just take it as it comes.

But I started thinking about how I would feel if my weight got up to 125. And I was like, “I would not be okay with that. 125 is the cut off.” And I know that’s still unrealistic in my head. For one, I’ve been maintaining around the 115 to 120 mark for the last three months. And then before that, I was just coming off of show prep. So when I do show, I’m down to 100 pounds. And within four or five months, I gain 20 pounds. And so it’s kind of just a shock. Anyone would go through a shock. If anyone dropped that much weight, they’d have to go through certain mental aspects in dealing with it and handling it.

And I don’t really have to worry about my weight gaining because, honestly, when I’m eating mindfully and just eating without freaking out about it all, I average that weight. And the only way my weight would probably go up is if I gained muscle. But I had to really think about it. I don’t consider myself to be afraid of a number on the scale. But when I think about if I were 5 pounds heavier with fat on me, I couldn’t do it. I don’t think I could ever get my body to that point. I don’t know.

Marc: Yeah. Yeah, you’re in dangerous territory. And the dangerous territory, again, is called the kind of fitness competition that has the body looking so specifically, has us eating so specifically, exercising so specifically, working out so specifically. Everything is so regimented. And people don’t live there all the time because it’s impossible to sustain.

And what happens also is people get high. I’ve seen this about a gazillion times. You get high running a marathon. You can get high running a 100-yard dash. You can get high training for a fitness model competition. And there you are. And you’re at 100 pounds or whatever it is. And for a lot of people, it’s a high.

Megan: Yeah.

Marc: And we think that that’s the new benchmark. We think that’s where we should live which is like saying, “I did drugs. And I should live there because it felt so good.”

Megan: Yeah.

Marc: It’s a temporary experience. So I’m just saying that so you remember that in the back of your mind so when you get sucked into thinking that that’s where you should live, to remember that no one lives there. And I promise you if you meet someone who lives there, that’s all they do. They are spending their entire lives in obsession—

Megan: Yeah.

Marc: And in a very strange kind of living hell—

Megan: Yeah.

Marc: That might look good on the outside.

Megan: I don’t want to be there. I’m okay with not maintaining it. I don’t take as many pictures, flexing photos. But I’m okay with not maintaining that. I am. The level of obsession that comes with it is a different trade off. But I like it. I like right now. Right now is good.

Marc: Yeah.

Megan: Yeah.

Marc: It’s teaching you. You’re learning from it. And again, that’s the stage in your life that you’re in. Early/mid 20s is definitely a time for you to be exploring. It’s definitely a time for you to be pushing your edges in the ways you want to push them, learning about yourself. What do you like? What don’t you like? Where are your gifts? Where are the places that you need to work on? You’re in that kind of territory. And it’s completely fair game. You don’t have to know.

And again, I hope you ongoingly give yourself space to be in this phase of life where you don’t know and there’s not going to be a lot of answers. And I get that you’re going to want stability. That makes total sense. And that will come. That will come in time. But it’s not going to come today or tomorrow. You’ve still got to ride the bucking bronco a little bit.

Megan: Yeah, it’s okay.

Marc: Yeah.

Megan: I don’t mind it.

Marc: What else, Miss Megan? What else is on your mind?

Megan: I don’t know. I think sometimes I wonder how—right now I’m not super obsessive. But when I am logging my food and logging my macros and weighing everything, is there any way that I can—? I know that I can be more gentle with myself and realize that it’s going to be a day-by-day process and accept it and not give myself so much guilt when it does happen.

But are there any ways to not obsess about food so much, would you say? Do you think that there is a good balance between having food—?

So one thing I noticed, my last show prep—well, not my last one but my one before that when I had a stable living situation during that—it was so much easier when I would have certain food, not made into meals. But it would be kind of the vegetables would be chopped. Certain meat would be cooked. And I ate very similarly during certain meals. It was never I had to eat that. But I ate kind of similarly. And I think it led to me not obsessing so much over food; whereas the other show prep that I did, I didn’t have anything prepped because my life was so crazy. And I was obsessing over food a lot more because there were so many choices.

Marc: Sure. Sure, so clearly from what you’re telling me, predictability is helpful for you in this process. A little bit more of a system around food is helpful so you’re not left in the unknown of, “Okay, what am I going to eat? How is this prepped?” When it’s already prepped, you know what it’s going to be. You know how much. When there’s that kind of regularity, then that sounds like it takes away a big unknown for you.

So that’s something to consider. It’s something to play with—creating structure for yourself. Especially this time in life, whatever structure you can create that makes sense is good, given all the instability you’re going to have anyway being a 24 year old.

Megan: Okay.

Marc: You follow me? So whatever stability works. “Okay, I’m prepping. Let’s plan the meals as best I can.” Whatever supports you in doing that, see if that works. Give it a try. And when you do obsess, instead of trying to stop obsessing—

Megan: Yeah.

Marc: Oftentimes, I find a more useful approach is to notice yourself obsessing, observe yourself obsessing, give yourself permission to obsess, and even say to yourself, “This is me obsessing right now.” And the more you can witness it, oftentimes without reacting—

Megan: Yeah, takes the power away.

Marc: It takes a little bit of the power away. You learn to control it better because your first response is not to fight it. Your first response is to allow it and notice it because it’s happening anyway.

Megan: Okay.

Marc: The moment you start to fight it, you create a fight. And you can’t win a fight that’s you against you. You are going to lose.

Megan: Okay.

Marc: Even though it looks like a part of you wins. So all I’m saying is when you start to obsess, give yourself almost permission to obsess.

Megan: Okay.

Marc: “Great. This is me obsessing. Let me push the pedal to the metal and see how much I could obsess and see how that feels.”

Megan: Okay.

Marc: You follow me?

Megan: Yeah.

Marc: So it’s playing. It’s experimenting. It’s trying to be a little playful with the strange, quirky ways that humans can have around food and not take it so seriously.

Megan: Okay, I like that.

Marc: Yeah, I like it too.

Megan: Yeah.

Marc: Megan, I super appreciate you just kind of being so open and sharing about your process and what you’re up to. And I just think you’re super brave for just how you’ve been conducting yourself in your life and really stepping out on your own at a young age. That’s super impressive. It’s not easy. So I really hope you find the little ways to kind of give yourself a good pat on the back and some congratulations around that because you’re doing something very difficult and hard, stepping out on your own and working at something where you’re trying to achieve a form of excellence.

Excellence is good. Learning excellence in one thing will train you to be better at creating excellence in other places. Sports taught me that—martial arts, basketball, football. All of it taught me how to be a better person because I let it teach me that.

So all I’m saying is this could be the same thing for you. Yeah, it’s teaching you about diet and fitness and the body and that sort of thing. But it’s also teaching you about being rigorous. It’s teaching you how to follow a system. It’s teaching you how to push beyond your limits. I think all that’s a pretty good thing.

Megan: Yeah. Yeah! It’s teaching me to find self love in a different way.

Marc: Agreed. Agree, agree. Good for you.

Megan: Thanks.

Marc: Thanks so much for doing this, Megan.

Megan: Yeah, it’s been fun.

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from Robert Morgan Blog http://psychologyofeating.com/psychology-of-eating-podcast-episode-189-a-bodybuilder-confronts-her-body-image/

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