Sacred Life Sunday: Easy Does It

Today I took some time and reread "Transformational Weight Loss" (TWL) by Charles Eisenstein very slowly. Very, very slowly. This time I really paid attention and looked at what I'd absorbed and what I'd forgotten. When I first read TWL back in early December, I was so excited. It resonated with me after years of dieting and reading diet books and following unusual and rigid diet plans. I began to apply the concepts and then promptly forgot so much of what I'd read.

Rereading TWL yet again impressed upon me how revolutionary the concepts are and how vigilantly I'll need to apply them, at least at first. On the one hand, TWL is extremely easy and simple. On the other, it is challenging because it involves major changes in my long-standing beliefs. It is important to me to make the necessary changes now in preparation for the group that starts in February. I want to try out many things that I just read about and then never applied. In rereading TWL, I realized:

1. I did not learn in my body (i.e., get the "body knowledge") about which foods truly feed me and which do not nurture me. I accepted TWL in my mind but didn't apply it in order to have my body learn as well.

2. I wrote the TWL mantras down and then didn't use them. I totally forgot about them. I just blanked on them! Thus, I didn't really apply what I knew at all. I never developed self-trust, but still struggled with "explosions of pent-up desire", perceiving a "gap" that really wasn't there. Today Rick sent me an email that caused me to realize how this "gap" or wall or barrier was self-created.

3. I never really let go of control, thus continued to react to strict control by going out of control.

4. I never paused to check in with myself and thus stayed in out of control mode and never created any new habits.

5. I stayed in thinking mode also, eschewing venturing into feeling mode. I didn't continue to experiment with feeling my feelings. I stayed in my head.

6. I only ever had that one mindful meal which I vlogged about, but never did again, and totally forgot about it (or went unconscious about it) afterwards. All of my meals were accompanied by television. Thoughts of eating alone without television or reading petrified me so I didn't go there.

7. I didn't create a new vision for myself.



TWL is actually a natural process, even an easy process. But I didn't take it that way. First, I made it hard. Then I kept it in my head, never learning any new body knowledge to integrate. Lastly I forgot that I was in my head. And I ended up in a recovery group, at least knowing that something was off, but lost in a fog of remembrances and desires and control and habit.

ARRRGGGHHH!

Well, at least I realized this after only a couple of months and...umm...several pounds (I think we're into the double digits here...). But oddly enough, after rereading the book it seems amusing to me. I've made the mistakes, and I'm hoping to have learned from them. TWL will change everything for me---my entire approach to life---if I apply it! And there is no turning back now for me. I want this so badly I can taste it :)

"Most of all, you don't have to "figure out" what you are going to do. You don't need to find an answer. You don't need to find a way out. Don't go down that road. That is the road of trying hard, of struggle, and ultimately of despair. [Emphasis added.] It is enough just to be there, to be and to feel."---Charles Eisenstein in TWL

I hope think I got it. Finally.

Presence.

Breathing.

Awareness.

Feeling.

Ok, I'm there...