Ellen Besso Coaching

Having a wardrobe pretty much full of sweat-type and jean-type clothes that all look alike, and wearing the same outfit day after day after day…Running errands in your pyjama(-like clothes)…Mmm. Guess I’m a shlumpadinka! The word’s not in Webster’s dictionary yet, but many other odd and unexpected words have been added in the past few years.

Oprah coined the word years ago, and she says:

“It represents, to me, a woman who dresses like she’s given up, and it shows.

But what if we’re comfortable in those clothes? What if we have a great self-image underneath them? I do concede that a little variety might be nice once in a while, but why the emphasis on outward appearance all the time? If our clothes are (relatively) clean, we look neat, our hair is washed (or up or something), what’s the problem? I feel that there’s a whisper of Charla Krupps in this…remember her…it’s okay to be middle-aged, as long as you don’t look it.

For those of us who don’t live in big city America, or who work at home, this just doesn’t fit. My friend Barb, also a coach, and a rural-resident like me says:

“I’m proud to be a shlumpadinka! I go to the Goodwill to buy my comfortable clothes.”

Eckhart Tolle says that a basic form of identification is with our body. In the West, our physical appearance is a large part of our sense of identity, and many feel lower self-worth because of perceived bodily imperfections. Tolle says that when we identify with our good looks, strength etc. we suffer when those begin to disappear.

I find it ironic that Oprah and Tolle are teaching the tele-course on transcending our ego-based consciousness, yet she still spends so much air time on “make-overs” (to wit the schlumpadinka show last week).

Tolle believes, as I do, that we can still care for our bodies without identifying with them so much. His recipe for changing body-identification is to shift our attention from outside and feel the aliveness of our body from within, beginning with our hands, then feet.

I’ve been familiar with energy in my hands for many years as a practitioner of Trager, Reiki and Jin-shin-do. I’m planning to take Tolle’s recommendation and spend some time focusing on the energy in various parts of my body so I will become more intimately in tune with the aliveness that is me.

1. Lynette Sheppard says:

   March 12, 2008 at 10:05 am

   Ellen,
   I (and the rest of the Menopausal Goddesses) so agree with you – there is a big difference between “letting ourselves go” and “allowing ourselves to be”. visit us at the menopausegoddessblog.org And keep writing!
2. Jacqueline says:

   April 29, 2008 at 12:08 pm

   From a fellow shlumpadinka, thanks for this post. I like Tolle’s thoughts, but find his pairing with Oprah to be a bit incongruous.