Does It Have Power Over You?

Social media, Google, self-help books, podcasts, and seminars have made it easy to look for answers outside ourselves. Continuously looking outside ourselves never gives us the vote of confidence. We never trust ourselves enough or think for ourselves. We don’t believe we are smart enough to know the answer. “Enough” becomes a key word that implies comparison: enough compared to what? And often the answer is a comparison to perfection. Does perfection ever come? The perfect diet, perfect exercise, perfect shake, perfect weight loss pill, perfect weight?

It requires bravery and a bit of unfamiliarity to change this approach and to turn inwards. It is easier to constantly be in the mode of looking for answers in all these other places instead of taking action. It might mean facing some pain to find the answers ourselves. But what feels uncomfortable and unfamiliar is effective work and is better than turning to the next weight loss shake, the next weight loss pill, the next prescribed meal plan, the latest fad, and the perfect exercise plan. All those diet fads avoid turning inwards and asking: does this work for me? We avoid the thinking, avoid the work.

I spent a lot of time in the self-help isles at Indigo. Each book offered me some sort of answer. What was I looking for? Who knows… something to make me feel better, relieved, and happy again. As soon as I finished a book, I didn’t feel any better and thought: it must be in the next book. We see the same cycle with dieting. We try a diet to meet our weight loss goals. We try another diet because it worked for a neighbour, and therefore, it should work for me. I use the word try loosely because in most cases we don’t fully commit to anything as we are constantly searching for easier, better, perfect.

Despite all my reading, I never reached immediate relief from what I no longer wanted to feel. Onto the next book and the next and the next, years later…I had read them all… and never really took any action.

When I was little and would watch shows like The Chipmunks or Inspector Gadget, it never occurred to me that it was really the same episode replayed repeatedly. Alvin was always in trouble and Penny always saved the day. Yet I intently watched every episode wondering what would happen, never recognizing the pattern… much like it was to later play out in my own life. Searching, reading…no action, no looking inwards.

To surrender and finally ask yourself: what am I really looking for when I’m focussing on weight loss? It takes some sort of surrender but that is where true sustainability lies. We eventually must stop the trying and researching and get doing meaningful work on ourselves: investing in learning about your body, the impact your experiences have on your present day, how to fuel your body, and how to optimally move your body. All of this is FOR YOU. It all involves learning instead of being told what to do. Diets are a prescribed list of things to do or avoid and that hasn’t worked for you so far. We don’t always realize this but it’s harder to invest time and energy doing meaningless work, hoping for a quick-fix, than it is to do hard work that has meaning and turns inwards.

What would happen if everyone woke up one day and decided they were enough? When did we lose trust in ourselves that we could live a fully self-expressed life? Disappointments and set backs are part of the processes but they must be better than not taking chances? I mean, we take chances in buying the next book, but when it comes to truly working on ourselves, we are fearful of taking those chances and failing… yet again. When you accept your setbacks, they become an opportunity to turn endings into new beginnings.

I’m hyper aware of the fact that this is easier said than done. We have a set of beliefs, thoughts, and experiences that protect us from owning up and facing our shit. But dieting over and over has convinced us that it is the only way to happiness, the golden ticket to better. But maybe us wanting to control our weight or lose weight is about bridging the gap between:

• The way we thought it would be

• The way it currently is

• The way it could be

When the way it currently is doesn’t reflect the way we thought it would be, we become shut off to the possibility of how it could be. We are effectively trying to turn the past into the present. We are taught to strive, hustle, grind, and kick ass and take names when it comes to owning our body. We are taught that the only way to find results is through deprivation and desperation. But there is another way!

Often when we try to change something on the outside, we are really searching for something that comes only from the inside. Those six-pack abs come from our need to feel worthy or be seen. “I want to feel strong” is about feeling strong on the inside too.

That is why weight is never just about weight alone and waiting for the next perfect moment, the next perfect diet, always saving posts to your files, picking up the next book, isn’t where you’re going to finally feel free from your weight and your body image. It takes time, it takes support, it takes learning some hard-ass stuff about you as a person and how that reflects on your weight. So, when you begin your next search, be sure you are asking the right questions, so you know what you are looking for. Then choose based on that.

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