The magic pill for weight loss, is truth.
Today’s Wisdom Bite about truth suggests everything changes when you can humble yourself to truth. It’s not about finding the ‘best’ diet or the ‘right’ exercise. These things can convince you the solution to your weight loss struggle exists outside of yourself. Even the most brilliant diet or exercise program will backfire if you bring resistance to it. Truth is your most powerful tool in addressing everything that has distorted your relationships with food and movement, and more importantly, your relationship with yourself. Your personal evolution isn’t so much about losing anything. It’s about unlearning all that keeps the weight here.
The first half of self-love is learning to be a compassionate witness to yourself…
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The first half of self-love is learning to be a compassionate witness to yourself. Have you ever noticed how looking at a photo of yourself is much harder to be with than say, a quick glimpse in the mirror? Photos (a.k.a. frozen calories in time) can be confronting to your self-image. Your self-image is the idea you hold about your appearance, personality, abilities, etc. It’s not unusual for someone who’s uncomfortable with their weight to find photos so confronting they remove them from their family albums altogether. Photos can also be an eye-opening wakeup call. It all depends on whether you can humble yourself to the truth you’re seeing.
To be a compassionate witness is to be with the truth of yourself – in photos, on the scale, your eating, your movement (or lack thereof), your life choices, their consequences, all of it – without taking it to judgement. Any time you encounter truth that doesn’t fit your self-image and you judge it harshly, you are no longer looking at truth. You are looking at your distorted perception of truth. For example, a photo of yourself that disgusts you might get you into action but it lacks the compassion needed to keep you in action when things get challenging later on.
Remember this: truth is neutral. It is neither good nor bad. It is simply ‘what is’. Humbling yourself to truth is like building a muscle. If you’ve spent a lifetime avoiding this kind of discomfort, you’ll need to start small but eventually you’ll find this witnessing process to have a sense of fun to it. Here are three guidelines for learning to be with truth:
- Everything’s a choice. It’s easy to point to the circumstances of your life as your reason for reaching for excess food or dismissing movement. But life doesn’t just happen to you. The truth is you are here, in this moment, in this body, as a culmination of the choices you have made whether you were conscious to those choices or not. Acknowledging you have choice makes you less passive and more proactive with your life. Self-knowledge is the concept to embrace here.
- Stay conscious to your choices. As you practice being conscious to your choices, there will be a part of you that stubbornly insists on checking out. Your resistance will be particularly high when you know the better choice but you’re not making it. It might be a moment of “I don’t care – I want this dessert anyway” or it could be when your capacity is taxed and you just want to veg in front of the tv rather than workout. Regardless, you will inevitably find yourself resorting to old patterns. Leaning in and witnessing these patterns is the truthful engagement you need to address more entrenched habits.
- Discern the quality of your choices and their outcomes. Your choices domino into predictable outcomes. There are strings of choices that pull your energy down and spiral into things like anxiety, shame and anger. Another collection of choices lifts your energy up and makes you feel greater calm, self-respect and peace. Be truthful with yourself and own where your choices predictably take you. You’ll be able to interrupt those negative patterns earlier and redirect your energy towards that which serves you better.
Here’s what you can expect in Module 2: the Truth stage
“I searched everywhere for a weight loss cure, except within myself.” – L.R., Vice President (Financial Services Industry)
Core Value: Energy; Primary Skill: Ownership
Coming into this stage you’ve softened your self-talk and you’re more patient with your efforts. Truth takes things further by peeling back the layers that have you running away, hiding or shutting down when things get uncomfortable in your life. It reveals and sheds some light on this compartmentalized version of yourself. The focus of this stage has you handling your triggers and your interactions with others better. Your longstanding coping mechanisms are evolving into more effective life skills. You’re developing efficacy with food, movement and your quality of life you didn’t think was possible.
You start to comprehend you are neither Ego nor Soul. You are the observer of these two influences in your life – the consciousness behind your choices. You are able to recognize this consciousness within has a wisdom and power to it you’ve only just begun to tap into. There’s a solid sense of self-like and moments of self-love. You shift from “I have a body and I’m learning to relate to it.” to “I inhabit my body and I’m owning where I’ve taken it.”
Here’s what you can practice
‘Sneak eating’ is a distortion of one’s relationship with food and it’s common among people struggling with their weight. It typically happens in reaction to being (or even feeling) controlled or criticized by others when you eat. Being with truth here is two-fold: 1) It starts by pulling your energy back from guilt, inviting some discomfort and being more transparent with your eating in front of others; and 2) It requires you to establish boundaries with others, regarding what is and isn’t OK in how they treat you in those moments. When you’re prepared to own it, the day you decide to have that extra cookie (or entire cake) in front of others is a liberating experience.
‘Perfectionism’ is a personality trait that can permeate so much of your life it distorts your relationship with yourself. In this case, the control or criticism comes from within as you hold your efforts up to an unrealistic standard. At its core, perfectionism is a refusal to be with truth. How many times have you started and restarted a new diet or exercise program? What would have been uncomfortable to be with had you continued? How often have you delayed a creative project or not finished it at all? What are you trying to avoid by not putting it out there? Experimentation is unpredictable. Creativity is subjective. Growth is messy. These truths help dial down perfectionism.
At this stage, success is…when someone else’s growth is essential to your own. As you unlearn your conditioning around weight loss, you might have to educate those around you if you want better quality support from them. When you stop participating in diet commiseration or body shaming with your friends, you start modelling what it means to be a compassionate witness. Modelling this for them helps all of you be with truth.
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How did it go for you?
I learned early on as a coach that while I am not responsible for my clients’ weight loss success, I am dedicated to modelling and teaching them how to be with truth and how to use this to fully own their lives. They needed to own where they had taken their life before they could harness their power to change it.
Pick something uncomfortable you have come to own more fully about yourself and share it in the Members-Only Comments section below.
Tell us what quality or qualities this truth calls forth in your growth and evolution.
Be sure to check back in too, to let us know how it’s going!
Conscious Weight Loss®
New to Conscious Weight Loss? Continue to this next Wisdom Bite
Deep Truth (Module 3: The second half of self-love…)
Interested in more? Check out these related Wisdom Bites
Resistance
Personal Evolution
Ego and Soul (Members-Only)
Awareness (Module 1)
Alignment (Module 4)
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The Three and a Half BIG Questions You Gotta Ask Yourself to Lose Weight
My biggest takeaway – strings of choices can pull energy down spiraling into shame and anxiety or conversely, “lifts your energy up and makes you feel greater calm, self-respect and peace.” This hits home, especially after the first module where the truth is, I can’t deceive myself anymore, strings of choices have absolutely pulled me down and caused shame and anxiety! Looking forward to the next few months!
Indeed, once we have awakened we are no longer operating from self-deception. Now if we refuse to own where our choices predictably take us, we’re operating from self-betrayal & that ALWAYS disconnects us from Soul.
Getting used to Truth as neutral is a challenge for me. Now, and always, I attach or respond to Truth with judgement and criticism. Using Truth as a tool is something I am adapting to.
Keep in mind that judgement and criticism change what you’re looking at, such that you are no longer looking at Truth – you’re now looking at a distorted version of it. If you were looking at a funhouse mirror, Truth would be the constant but the mirrors of judgement and criticism are distorting it.
I think this wisdom bite spoke directly to a part deep with in me. The truth wisdom bite spoke truth to me! The part about staying conscious in your choice and a part of us that stubbornly insists on checking out – felt so true.
Learning to be a compassionate witness to yourself in those moments can help you gently coax that stubborn part of you into: being with some discomfort you might be avoiding; or granting some quality time you might be denying yourself.
I am beginning to learn about truth. I graduated Module 1 and am beginning Module 2. What I’ve learned about truth from this article is that truth is neutral, being a compassionate witness to my truth is more likely to lead to success, and to stay conscious of choice. It’ll be interesting to gently confront my coping mechanisms when things get tough or uncomfortable, and I welcome it. Thanks Coach Kath.
Gentle confrontation and welcoming discomfort will serve you well in the Truth module. The more you do of this, the quicker you’ll be able to trade your coping mechanisms for life skills 🙂
“How often have you delayed a creative project or not finished it at all?” This resonates with me. I often like to “think” about doing things, but when it comes time to actually “do” them, I balk. I have come to realize that I am squandering my energy and time in these moments of resistance. I have noticed that when I take the step forward and fulfill a commitment I’ve made — whether it be to myself or others — I realize that it really wasn’t that hard, and the activity usually gives me energy, especially if it engages my play styles, as it is usually “play” activities that I back out on. Work activities, while also fun, I typically have no problem fulfilling. I look forward to setting and fulfilling play goals.
“Thinking” – & especially insight – helps you develop your life skills & consciousness. “Doing” helps you increase your life capacity & energy. Too much learning/not enough execution = Dreamer. Too much execution/not enough learning = TaskMaster. We need a balance of thinking AND doing to access our bigger life. Do all that with a sense of play and experimentation? You’ve found the joyful path!
The uncomfortable truth is that I have engaged others to play the role of enabler. Through my words and actions my family learned to please me, and comfort me with food and the promise of no activity (e.g., you sit and put your feet up – I’ll do the dishes).
Not only do I need to unlearn my habits and rituals but i need to re-educate my entire support system.
I am where I am because of my actions.
Wonderful insight & ownership Michelle. The beauty is, what we inadvertently learned or how we unintentionally trained others over time, can be unlearned & untrained much quicker.
This sentence resonated strongly for me: “At its core, perfectionism is a refusal to be with truth.” I’ve missed out on many opportunities to play, “wander off the path”, refind the path, and learn from all of it because of a fear of making a mistake and appearing less than 100% capable and clear on where I was going. I thought anything other than a straight line was a waste or a failure. The truth is the entire journey is valuable, straight or meandering. Often those meandering side trips bring the most joy and learning.
You’re referring to what I affectionately call the “scenic route”. Hopefully, you’re now recognizing that straight lines are simply us trying to control our way to outcomes, whereas the scenic route offers a richness of experience that enhances the journey beyond what we initially imagined.
I have learned to be a more compassionate witness in my life. Which has allowed me to embrace joy when it presents itself.
Another way to think about this is, you have more self-love which gives you more capacity for joy – nicely done!
I really appreciate this Bite, especially the statement, You shift from “I have a body and I’m learning to relate to it.” to “I inhabit my body and I’m owning where I’ve taken it.”
I have spent a lot of time and energy rejecting (punishing, insulting, and neglecting) myself. I’ve found that being in the body feels overwhelming and overstimulating; instead of asking myself what I might need or how I could address my environment and the people around me, I’ve fled from the discomfort and distracted (and comforted) myself with food and eating. I’m still a long way from accepting ownership of and inhabiting my body, but have faith that exercises like these can help “bring me home.”
Beautifully said Kat, thank you. I know your words will ring true with others & help them not feel so alone with these kinds of feelings.