I posted yesterday about how I ate more fat and protein than my system could handle, and I wanted to get at the root of why. I mentioned that cheap and easy answers won’t change anything.
Of course, it’s important to be fair to myself about the circumstance. The same meal that sits well with me one day might not sit well at all on another. Hindsight is 20-20, and there can be plenty of days where I eat the same way with impunity. It won’t occur to me that I had the same warning voice that day as I did the day I paid a price for my meal.
I want to be fair, but my goal isn’t to let myself off the hook – nor is it to chastise myself unfairly. My goal is to figure out why I overload my system so I can remove the obstacles that prevent me from eating in ways that promote health and healing. That requires me to understand what happens and what I want to have happen. It requires that I help myself stay completely conscious at the decision points of eating.
This principle applies to any way we overload our systems and for any decision that is less than optimal.
Angela made an important point. She says she’ll make a less nurturing choice when her “yes” isn’t big enough. To make it easier to make the most optimal choice, she cultivates a bigger “YES.“
Yesterday, when I tasted my lunch, I noticed it tasted like it had more fat than usual. I had the thought that I should probably just eat half of what was on my plate. That would have been a good time to put half in the fridge.
Instead, I ate it all.
What did I trade off for the pleasure of eating the whole thing? I traded a Sunday of enjoyment for a Sunday of discomfort. Sounds like a devil’s bargain to me.
Seems obvious to me now. Why didn’t it seem obvious at the choice point? How can I make it more obvious next time? How can I make my YES to eating without overloading my system big enough that it will be bigger than my desire to keep eating?
I’m still working with that one. I mentioned yesterday, cheap and easy answers won’t change life-long patterns. I’m aiming at root cause here.
I invite you to work one of your own challenges through in a similar way. Bob and I just now explored his overloading his day yesterday, leading to restless sleep. Oh, and the extra handful of sunflower seeds didn’t help. He has made remarkable strides thanks to his big YES to creating Space for Grace. He is one step closer to creating that reality.
When will we ever learn? Now. It’s just that it’s a process to go deep into the root cause.
