Weight, and its ups and downs, is more often than not tied to fear. Fear of failure and fear of success both seem to vie for our focus, distracting us from achieving what could be a lot simpler if we shed the uncertainty and the feelings of being unworthy or weak. Failure is part of the journey; there is a lot to be learned in the process of change. There is no magic potion and no perfection. The grace and love for yourself and others, which you travel with, are what make the journey successful, positive and fruitful. Weight is both symbolically and literally a manifestation of the connection between mind and body, and when we want to make a healthy change, it is the perfect opportunity to delve deeper into that connection and learn more about ourselves.
Confidence and acceptance of who we are, no matter what size or shape, is at the core of dealing with weight and transformation. Your journey has to start there, with self-love and kindness. Weight loss may be your goal, but the motivation must be about making peace with yourself and finding happiness in something larger (no pun intended!) than your physical appearance. When you feel that you are lacking something, whether it is money, love, attention or whatever, it’s easy for food to become your substitution. Again, fear plays a role, this time when it comes to emptiness. Rather than seek help, people use eating to distract and numb themselves. The universe will take care of “lack” – our circumstances are always changing, and the pendulum of life is always moving back and forth. But overcoming the fear, and asking for help when you need it, is necessary to get to the root cause of your feelings of lack. Past events can stop us from trusting that there will always be enough. Everything in your life that is “negative” or uncomfortable is just a messenger to tell you something is out of sync.
Achieving health and wellbeing is a matter of not just looking inward, but connecting with the world and your relationship to it. It’s important to stay engaged and create what you want, need, and what you can share with others. If your mind stops moving, because you’re not creating, we actually start putting on weight in our physical bodies. Both our thinking, and the way we live our lives, become “weighed-down” by the extra pounds, isolating us from true connection with ourselves and with others. Changing the way we picture who we are, and breaking down old preconceptions and limitations, is essential for true and ongoing transformation.
Derek O’Neill
Excerpt from Weight: What’s Eating You?
Resources for Weight Loss
