How I Lost 125 lbs- Part 6: "The Worst Lies Are The Lies We Tell Ourselves."

My weight loss journey continues. Thanks for coming along! 

In part 5, I took a look at how a flaw in my thinking hindered my every attempt at weight loss. I discovered I had a root of rejection deep within me. I saw myself as broken and needing fixing when instead, I needed to accept and love myself simply for being. 

I now believe that most problems can be traced to the flaw in our thinking that we are anything other than Divine at our core.   

So, in the aftermath of this spiritual awakening, I saw myself differently. I indeed was a child of God and needed to act accordingly. I wanted to be a better wife,  a more present mother,  a healthier woman, a more loving friend.  I wanted to let the Light shine through.   We are all intended for Light of Love to express Itself through us.  

One of the many teachers I read during this time was James Ray and he uses the metaphor of a glass of water for the way we enter the world, clear... clean... light able to shine right through us. And then the world comes in or as he puts it, someone pours cranberry juice into your clean, clear water.  So, now your water is all muddied and mucked up. How do you get it clean? You can’t dump the glass out, so you have to just keep pouring clear water back in till you flush out all the cranberry juice. This process takes a while. The world and its programming are hard to reverse. It’s a daily renewal of your thinking and a commitment to filling your vessel with clean, clear water. Meditation is an integral part of that filling up for me. It allows my own thinking to be quieted for a while and the clear water to be poured.  

During my meditations, I began to dedicate time to actively visualize myself as the person I wanted to be. I didn’t just focus on how thin my thighs would be, but I pictured myself doing what those thinner thighs would allow me to do.  I also allowed myself to feel the feelings I’d get from  playing with my girls and running around the yard.  I knew running was something I could never do at my current weight, so it was a good exercise in visualizing to see myself running.  At first, it was really hard. It was always ‘someone else’ who was running in my mind’s eye... never me... never my face if the body was thinner and running.  It was hard for me to accept that I could actually make that happen for myself.  

I was working against limiting beliefs that had been ingrained in my thinking for years- lots of cranberry juice!  But,  I continued visualizing and kept trying to feel the feelings of exhilaration as I ran in my mind. I felt the happiness.  And as I kept pouring the water in, it got easier.  But, I wasn't letting things flow freely just yet.   

About the same time, I began reading a book called Loving What Is by Byron Katie. In the book, she teaches you to do “The Work” where you challenge assumptions, ways of thinking or even just individual thoughts. I needed to challenge my assumption that I’d always be heavy.  I had always called myself a “big girl.”  

"I'll always be a big girl."  "That’s just the way I am."  Or so I thought.

In doing “The Work” you ask 4 questions. The first of which is: “Is it true?” This forces you to look the ‘issue’ in the face and call it out. 

So, let’s take my statement, “I am a big girl and always will be.”   Is that true?  And question #2: Can you absolutely know it’s true?   No... not absolutely. I may be a big girl, but will I always be one?  No. I do not know or can not know that to be true.  So, no. That is not true. Even if it is the way things are right now, it is not a life sentence.  So, here I am stacking my blocks on an idea that isn’t even true.  Nice.  

I was living question #3: What happens when you believe that thought or how does the thought make you feel? Our lives are a reflection of the pervading thoughts we have been thinking most of our lives. I never felt victorious with my weight loss because I always saw it as a temporary state and saw myself as a victim of circumstance. I always felt like I had very little control over anything to do with my weight and would fall back into old patterns or let things go when I should have exerted self control.

The next question, #4,  was life changing for me in many areas of my life: Who would you be without that thought? 

 

Wow. I had to stop and take a breath. Who would I be?? 

As I began to look back at my life and how being the ‘fat girl’ in my own mind.... not anyone else's mind, but only my own...  had affected so many areas of my life from friends, to school, to how I chose not to do certain things in life.  I never would have admitted it back then, but I saw it sticking out like a sore thumb now.  It had always seems so innocuous too.  I mean, the word ‘fat’ isn’t even used.  I’m just big... big boned... big boobied... big butted... Just big.  But maybe, I wasn't meant to be this big. Maybe I'm a smaller framed girl, but it just feels better to say I am bigger boned... But was I really? No. I really wasn't. I believed that lie for long enough.  

Combine this with the other lie I believed because I was told over and over, "Nobody likes a fat girl."  These two thoughts were at the core of my self esteem issues: I was just a ‘big girl’ and because of that, I was unworthy of love from anyone. 

I had given up many years of my life to those thoughts and they weren’t even true.  Where would I be without those thoughts?  I wouldn't have felt so unacceptable by others for looking the way I did. I wouldn’t have felt like I needed to change to be OK. I think part of me actually rebelled against the fact that  people were constantly on my back to lose weight and felt like I would control what I could control and that was the amount I ate, so I ate a lot.  It was like, See? I can still be wonderful and be heavy! I was trying to convince myself and everyone else that I was ok with being overweight.  But in my heart of hearts,  I wasn’t ok with it.  So, it was all just confusion in the end.   I was manic, I was either the “I’m-cool-with-being-heavy-Dina” or “Dieting-frantically-Dina,” because I was so disgusted with myself.  Either way, I wasn’t being me.  I knew I was in there somewhere.  I had to find her!

Instead of continuing to associate all of those negative feelings with my weight, I began to do what Byron Katie calls “the turn around” or the last part of The Work.  The ‘turn around’ involves you taking that limiting belief you are challenging and turning the thought around while finding evidence of it in your life.  In my case: “I am just a big girl and always will be,” became "I am not just a big girl. I have not always been and will not always be." For me, I might find pictures of myself when I was a smaller person after dieting or a younger child before I gained weight and see that I have not always been a big girl and that I am indeed capable of losing weight.  I also read many success stories of others who had changed their lives and eating habits and changed their bodies and kept the weight off for good.  I realized how I was lying to myself and believing it every time I didn't expect more from myself. 

So, I began to believe that it could be done.  If others can do it, I can do it.  The truth was right there.  I had just been programmed to not see it.  Why? Why are we so hard on ourselves? Why would we settle for less than every good thing? Why does that scare us so? 

I saw that it was a lie I was telling myself that I would always be the big girl. It wasn’t true. People lose weight every day. It is as simple as calories in and calories out.  Nothing more.  If I wanted to, I could do it.  I began to see it as possible. It could even be easy, I began to believe. The more I visualized, the more the picture of myself that I had in my head began to change as well. 

To organize my thoughts and give myself a reference point to return to again and again, I began making a vision board. I had heard many ‘new ager’ types talk about the vision board and had always kind of scoffed at the idea. It seemed childish and unnecessary.  But since I was trying to reprogram my brain, I figured I’d give it all the help I could. So, I got out my magazines, a big piece of cardboard/posterboard, scissors and glue and began looking for pictures that made me feel good and represented what I wanted or how I wanted to feel.  I have included an actual picture of my first vision board. It amazes me how accurate it is now.  A little scary even.  I had included other areas in addition to weight. Those other things are things I’d like to have or experience.

 The point of the vision board is to help you focus your thoughts and to help you visualize what you want to see happen in your life. The Bible says: "As a man thinketh in his heart so shall he be." The Buddha said, "All we are is a result of what we have thought." I think this  idea  bears some attention, don't you?

I thought so, so much so that I would dedicate time during my morning hour of meditation just for visualizing. I would look at my vision board and picture myself doing the things I had always wanted to do with my kids.  I really began to try to feel how I was going to feel after losing the weight. I began to feel the feeling of liking how I looked when I saw my reflection in the mirror. I began to feel the feeling of running and it not hurting. I began to feel the feelings of putting on a pair of jeans and liking the way I looked in them and then looking at the tag and seeing a size I wanted to be.  I also began visualizing stepping on the scale and seeing the numbers I wanted to see. 

Needless to say, I kept my vision board handy and I went on to do the work with so many limiting thoughts and beliefs I had and I still use the technique today when I find myself entertaining thoughts that don’t serve me in any way.  It really keeps my mind in check and the bad thoughts... or good ones that can be us trying to fool ourselves... from becoming too loud and distracting.  And thus the tide began to turn for me. In a very good way.

What limiting beliefs can you do The Work on today? I challenge you to take one, do The Work on it and then share the results with me in the comment section. I look forward to hearing from many of you. :)