Tuning in to Inner Peace: The Surprisingly Fun Way to Transform Your Life (7 page)

So, when we make silly blunders here and there throughout our days, the ego is deflated quickly. We can laugh at our mistakes and not take ourselves so seriously. We can lighten up and enjoy things more.

Because from this vantage point, we can recognize the true perfection of the human condition. Ourselves included.

Write a polite note to the perfectionist critic, and send it packing! Let’s stop inviting the party pooper to the parties!

To err is human.

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Listen to the mental chatter about the big and little mistakes you make. Observe the tone of voice and words used. Would you use the same words to a friend? Would your assessment be so harsh? Is there a way to be honest, yet more gentle and encouraging with yourself?

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Make a list of dreams pushed aside. Have you wanted to read a poem at Open Mic night? Did you want to learn guitar? Dream of having a painting exhibit? Want to learn ballroom dancing?

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Is there a pushed-aside dream you could nudge over to your “To Try List”?

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If your friend was doing the same analysis about her life, what would you encourage her to do? Can you accept that advice for yourself?

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Notice the things you think you’d like to do, but decline with, “No, I can’t.”  Is there a more gentle answer that could provide an opening, such as, “I tried it when I was younger, but I was too shy. Maybe I’ll try it again.”

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If you can’t get up the courage to try something for your own enjoyment, can you for someone else? Try playing tennis with your five-year-old niece, even though you haven’t tried to hit a ball for a decade.

As a young girl, my friends’ nickname for me was Twiggy, after the slender actress/model of the times. My brothers just called me Toothpick.

Holding onto this skinny image of myself, I was nothing less than stunned when I was trying to wriggle into a pair of size 14 jeans in the dressing room, and couldn’t get them on. By that point, a good 15 years out of college, I’d lost a sense of what my ‘natural size’ was, but I knew it wasn’t size 16.

At age 21, I'd been a size 8 or 10. Somehow, that had slid to size 12, then 14. On the day, when I was going to have to buy a size 16, I for the first time ever, looked in the mirror and declared a simple truth, “You’re fat!”

I went to the YMCA and weighed and recorded my weight as 168 pounds. With help from my sister, I figured out a likely natural weight (in college we were the same height and build). She said she’d maintained within +/- 2 pounds of 130 since college. So, I realized, I was about 38 pounds overweight, and hadn’t ever considered that I might be fat. How did it happen? I’d gained about 3 pounds per year, a quarter-pound per month, steadily for a decade.

With all the books I’d read about nutrition and healthy meals, you might have thought I was an expert on the topic. I did. But the sheer size of my body showed otherwise.

Even though I might have known the facts about nutrition, I wasn’t able to feed myself and exercise myself properly to maintain a healthy weight. I needed help and I finally admitted that. A friend had transformed her health and I asked her for advice. I enrolled in her nutrition support group, and began the weekly meetings.

I had to give up my deeply ingrained habits, and start from scratch. We weighed and measured and wrote down our food. Our food choices were limited initially, and gradually expanded throughout the program. We learned about common emotional issues around food and explored their impact on us individually in daily journals. We learned how changes in the food industry might also interfere with our ability to control our food intake responsibly. We learned from nutrition experts about recent findings in nutrition research.

During the first week of the program, the biggest change I noticed was a dramatically more peaceful brainspace. Seeing an item that I wasn’t going to eat, the process became simply:

“Brownie?”

“No.”

End of mental discussion.

Before the program, each opportunity to eat generated rounds of pro/con arguments. The simple appearance of a brownie could generate minutes of internal debating. I never realized how exhausting of a way this was to live, all day every day, until I experienced life without this running commentary.

Like most of our mental chatter, seen from a distance, it was really quite entertaining. I chuckled replaying the scenes: Me, a rather fat lady, launching into declarations like, “I need this!” “I’m so busy taking care of everyone else, I don’t have time to eat anything else!” “I work so
hard and no one notices. I’m going to treat myself! I deserve it!” "It's on sale!" “It’s healthy! It’s a whole-wheat brownie!” “I’m only eating this because it’s your birthday!”

Throughout the program, as other foods were reintroduced, we learned how to recalibrate our intuition. The goal was to develop a healthy relationship with food, so it would be instantly obvious what to eat and what not to eat. No internal debates required.

Every six weeks, we stepped on the scale for the reality check. If we were being honest in our choices and our internal discussions, we would be closer to our natural weight. If we spent the time deceiving ourselves, no progress was made. It was that simple.

Most powerfully, we submitted ourselves humbly as novices who were ready to learn anew how to feed our bodies. Painful knees, allergy troubles, and skin problems faded or disappeared. When we dealt with ourselves honestly, our inner peace soared and our naturally fit bodies emerged.

Lying to Yourself

It doesn’t matter what your addiction is. It always involves lying to yourself.

For an alcoholic, the topic for debate is how there can be no harm in ‘just one drink’. For a workaholic, it’s ‘just one hour’. For a smoker, it’s ‘just one cigarette’.

While addictions are difficult to kick, they have one feature that makes it easier. Addictions happen within a person. It is what a person is doing to himself or herself. Period.

Yes, addiction is typically a family disease and there are many aspects to solving it. But, the addiction itself belongs to one person alone. As long as the person maintains the line, “I’m okay”, nothing will change. And as long as that person is content with tenaciously lying to themselves, the addiction will continue.

Anytime you take a stand against the truth, you can expect an argument.

Excuse Me, Who am I Talking To?

When we are dealing with an addict, confusion is the modus operandi.

If I’m an addict, and you’re talking to me, you see one person. But you’re dealing with two or more competing world views! Part of me wants to maintain the status quo, wants you to see me as a person who has my act together. Another part wants to come clean and change!

You’re going to get mixed messages, because you just stepped into the middle of an ongoing argument with myself.

The more you try to clarify what’s happening, the more confused you are going to get. One side will be outraged, and the other side will be begging for attention.

You will walk away, shaking your head, wondering what you said wrong.

The Body Says…

If I pour honey into the gas tank of a car, and insist it’s a good idea, no matter how much I say it, I would be proven completely wrong when the car itself sputtered, stopped and prove otherwise.

The land of thinking and talking is rich with the spontaneous, creative, contradictory, oftentimes irrational beliefs. In contrast, the body itself can be a simple repository and display of truth.

The body can thrive in a wide variety of conditions. It does not require perfection in its care and feeding. But after suffering persistent lack of care, luckily, the body will protest.

When we persist in acting in a way that is harmful to ourselves, that social self that we present to the outside world, will insist that we are acting responsibly. The body, luckily, will provide a solid counter-argument.

Just like when I was unable to get into a size 14, it was my body that finally stated irrefutably what my thinking had dismissed as impossible.

Growing Up: Moving beyond Emotional Immaturity

Imagine if your fashion style had not changed since age eight. That’s a scary thought, right? (That’s worth pondering for a moment, just for the hilarious images you’ll generate of you and your coworkers!)

Addictions are our way of handling our emotions in ways that we may have learned as kids, and dismissing any facts that don’t support our simplistic reactions.

Scrape your knee? Here’s a lollipop! All better! When we eat chocolate because someone didn’t return our phone call, we’re using that kid-logic to address our adult emotional needs.

As a 50-year-old, if you still define ‘good food’, the same way you did at your eight-year-old birthday party, you’re kidding yourself. Read one basic article on nutrition and you’ll know our bodies thrive on fresh produce, and have problems with heavily processed food. If you still think vegetables are for health fanatics and fast food and sweets are the only good food, you’re stuck.