The Power to Choose

My favorite part of The Power of Now is the last chapter on surrender. I learned so much from reading it and gained so many insights that I could probably write ten different blog posts on that chapter alone. This is just one – admittedly very long - post, so I only have enough room to concentrate one part of this chapter, the power to choose. Interestingly, this is near the very end of the book. I can see why Eckhart Tolle decided to end the book with this very powerful concept. Here is an except from The Power of Now on the power to choose. The Power of Now is written in question and answer format, so the first part of the excerpt is the question, and the second part is Eckhart Tolle’s answer.

“[Question] What about all those people who, it seems, actually want to suffer? I have a friend whose partner is physically abusive toward her, and her previous relationship was of a similar kind. Why does she choose such men, and why is she refusing to get out of the situation now? Why do so many people actually choose pain?

[Answer] I know that the word choose is a favorite New Age term, but it isn’t entirely accurate in this context. It is misleading to say that somebody ‘chose’ a dysfunctional relationship or any other negative situation in his or her life. Choice implies consciousness – a high degree of consciousness. Without it, you have no choice. Choice begins the moment you disidentify from the mind and it’s conditioned patterns, the moment you become present. Until you reach that point, you are unconscious, spiritually speaking. This means that you are compelled to think, feel, and act in certain ways according to the conditioning of your mind…

Your friend is stuck in a relationship with an abusive partner, and not for the first time. Why? No choice. The mind, conditioned as it is by the past, always seeks to re-create what it knows and is familiar with. Even if it is painful, at least it is familiar. The mind always adheres to the known. The unknown is dangerous because it has no control over it. That’s why the mind dislikes and ignores the present moment. Present-moment awareness creates a gap not only in the stream of mind but also in the past-future continuum. Nothing truly new and creative can come into this world except through that gap, that clear space of infinite possibility.

So your friend, being identified with her mind, may be re-creating a pattern learned in the past in which intimacy and abuse are inseparably linked. Alternatively, she may be acting out a mind pattern learned in childhood according to which she is unworthy and deserves to be punished. It is possible, too, that she lives a large part of her life through the pain-body, which always seeks more pain on which to feed. Her partner has his own unconscious patterns, which compliment hers. Of course her situation is self-created, but who or what is the self that is doing the creating? A mental-emotional pattern from the past, no more. Why make a self out of it? If you tell her that she has chosen her condition or situation, you are reinforcing her state of mind identification. But is her mind pattern who she is? Is it her self? Is her true identity derived from the past? Show your friend how to be the observing presence behind her thoughts and her emotions. Tell her about the pain-body and how to free herself from it. Teach her the art of inner-body awareness. Demonstrate to her the meaning of presence. As soon as she is able to access the power of Now, and thereby break through her conditional past, she will have a choice.

Nobody chooses dysfunction, conflict, pain. Nobody chooses insanity. They happen because there is not enough presence in you to dissolve the past, not enough light to dispel the darkness. You are not fully here. You have not woken up yet. In the meantime, the conditioned mind is running your life.

Similarly, if you are one of the many people who have an issue with their parents, if you still harbor resentment about something they did or did not do, then you still believe they had a choice – that they could have acted differently. It always looks as if people had a choice, but that is an illusion. As long as your mind with its conditioned patterns runs your life, as long as you are your mind, what choice do you have? None. You are not even there. The mind-identified state is severely dysfunctional. It is a form of insanity. Almost everyone is suffering from this illness to varying degrees. The moment you realize this, there can be no more resentment. How can you resent somebody’s illness? The only appropriate response is compassion.”

The first time I read this passage, I thought Eckhart Tolle was way off-base. I was one of those people that used to ask why some women choose to stay with abusive men. I thought Eckhart Tolle was nuts when he said that these women had no choice. I was a big believer in choice. I loved 95% of The Power of Now, but I filed this away with other parts of the book that I didn’t quite buy.

The second time I read this passage, I had an epiphany. I thought to myself, what if I change the scenario from a woman who “chooses” abusive relationships to a person who “chooses” to binge and overeat even though they have become overweight as a result? I have spent years wondering why I overate and binged even though it made me heavier than I wanted to be. On the one hand, I certainly knew that I was choosing to put the food in my mouth, but I also felt like I didn’t have a choice. I wanted to stop overeating and binging, but it was impossible for me to make that choice. Why? Because, as Eckhart Tolle wrote, I had no choice. I was overeating and binging because of “a mental-emotional pattern from the past.” Like women who repeatedly “choose” abusive relationships, my situation was self-created. But I was making that choice from a place of mind identification. My true self was not choosing to overeat and binge.

In the past, I had always tried to stop overeating and binging by trying to override my mind, by trying to make my mind make a different choice. There were times in which I was able to do it, but it never lasted longer than a couple of months. Eventually, I would return to what was familiar and start binging and overeating again. After reading this and being able to apply it to my own eating struggles, I realized that the only way I was going to learn how to have a normal relationship with food was to learn to live consciously. I had to learn to live in the now instead of in the mind. Only by living in the present moment would I be able to truly have the choice not to overeat and binge. As Eckhart Tolle wrote in the above excerpt, “As soon as she is able to access the power of Now, and thereby break through her conditional past, she will have a choice.”

There is no conscious eating without conscious living.

Intuitive Eating in Las Vegas

I’m back from Las Vegas. It was a very interesting trip for me in regards to conscious eating. I was there for a bachelorette party with seven other women who appear to range in size from two to six. I spent the months leading up to this getaway freaking out about hanging out at the pool with a large group of size four women. It turns out that wasn’t such a big deal. Oddly enough, I was not so self-conscious.

What ended up being interesting is watching how they eat. While I heard a lot of, “Does this make me look fat?” and “This shirt makes me look like a sausage,” I saw a lot of intuitive eating. I don’t know why, but I expected them all to pick at salads. Instead there were a lot of nachos, burgers, and some salads, too. It was clear that these women ordered exactly what they wanted to order, and then they stopped eating when they were finished.

Another thing I found interesting is that they seemed to know nothing about intuitive eating on a conscious level. I have known all of them long enough to know that they have all always been slim. I guess they have never given how they eat much thought. A few times when I wasn’t hungry and chose not to eat, I was told, “Sometimes you have to eat when you aren’t hungry.”

Overall I ate less than the women I was with, which really surprised me. I have thought about why that is, and I suspect that maybe my body must know that it needs less food because I have extra weight on me. That seems like a logical explanation, doesn’t it? My husband suggested that maybe they were eating more than they usually do because they were on vacation. I suppose that’s just as possible. I can accept that naturally thin people experience what I call “vacation eating,” too.

Spending this last week with a group of natural intuitive eaters was a fascinating experience. It also helped me lighten up about intuitive eating. I still find myself questioning myself about whether or not I am doing this “right” from time to time. Watching these naturally thin women eat what they want and enjoy themselves has helped me to feel more relaxed about this process.

A Little Update

I have had a busy week, and next week is going to be even busier, as I’m leaving for Las Vegas tomorrow. I will return to the blogging world at the end of next week. In the mean time, here is a little update on what has been going on with me.

I tried my first yoga class on Monday. I have done yoga videos at home, but I have never gone to a class before. I really liked it. The yoga studio and the teacher were both wonderful. She talked a lot about being present and coming back to the breath. I’m definitely going to make yoga classes a regular thing.

I have also decided to start therapy. I have thought about it off and on since I started conscious eating almost a year ago. Conscious eating has been going smoothly for me for the last few months, but I feel like I need to do more to address the issues that led me to eat for emotional reasons. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my insurance covers therapy. My first appointment is a week from Saturday. I’m really excited about the therapist I found. When I told her that I follow intuitive eating, she said that was wonderful and that she likes intuitive eating because it is about mindfulness. How lucky am I to have found a therapist that embraces intuitive eating AND mindfulness?

8 Secrets of the Naturally Slim

Somehow I ended up on the WebMD mailing list, and I usually take a peak when it arrives in my inbox. This week it contained an article from Prevention called 8 Secrets of the Naturally Slim. I was surprised to find that it actually contained some good advice, but it was disappointingly diety in places. So now instead of people learning how the naturally slim eat, they are in danger picking up more diet thinking. So close, but yet still so far off the mark.

Here are the 8 Secrets of the Naturally Slim dissected.

1) They Choose Satisfied Over Stuffed - I have no issue with this point, as it is right on. They even invoke a hunger scale and suggest paying attention to your hunger signals while eating. Hurray! Score one for intuitive eating.

2) They Realize Hunger Isn't An Emergency - Another good point. One thing I learned through intuitive eating is that I had developed a fear of being hungry. I have heard other people say the same thing. I believe that the reason why people who struggle with food often view hunger as an emergency is because we have been on so many diets. We have forced ourselves to go without food when we were hungry. A natural reaction to that would be to fear hunger. I wish the article had said that there was a logical reason for this fear, but alas this wasn’t an intuitive eating article.

3) They Don't Use Food To Cure The Blues – Very true. This is pretty much the crux of emotional eating and the heart of why so many of us have a dysfunctional relationship with food. But their suggestions for how to get past this were too simplistic. They recommended that you try to figure out what your body truly wants and give it that. This is good advice, but it’s not that easy! They gave a one paragraph statement on how not to eat emotionally. That’s not exactly something that can be addressed in one paragraph, and I fear that doing so minimizes the gravity of the issue.

4) They Eat More Fruit – Now this is just stupid. I’m as happy about this one as I am about the advice that everyone should eat breakfast. I don’t like fruit, so I eat very little of it. Instead I load up on vegetables, which I love. If I forced myself to eat the 2-3 servings of fruit a day that they recommended, I would be very unhappy with my diet. I know from experience that making myself eat things I don’t like leads to binging and overeating. Hardly a recipe for being slim! I can’t stand food specific advice.

5) They're Creatures Of Habit – Now this one is even more stupid than the fruit advice. They actually suggested that you eat the same thing every day. They recommended, for instance, that you eat cereal every morning for breakfast and a salad every day for lunch. Now I know a lot of people would be fine with this. My mom happily ate a blt for lunch every day for four years. I, on the other hand, get bored if I eat the same thing for lunch two days in a row. I don’t even want to think about all of the binges I would have if I forced myself to eat the same exact thing every day.

6) They Have A Self-Control Gene – I don’t buy into this one, either. This self-control gene is another term for willpower. It’s a myth that willpower is necessary to be at a healthy weight. Don’t believe me? Try googling “willpower myth.” I know from my own experience that relying on willpower or self-control or whatever you want to call it in an attempt to lose weight is going to backfire. It’s only a matter of time until I crack and head into a binge. The desire to overeat needs to be addressed on an emotional level. This whole willpower/self-control thing is nothing more than diet mentality.

7) They're Movers And Shakers – I can’t argue with this one. Being active is obviously important for one’s health and well being. Although, I wish they had suggested finding an activity that you enjoy rather than emphasizing how many calories you are burning. It is destructive to think of exercise solely in terms of burning calories and losing weight. That’s just not a healthy outlook.

8) They Sleep--Well – I like this one, but I don’t think they should have been so specific about the whole eight hours a night thing. The point is that we shouldn’t be depriving ourselves of sleep. I think it’s good enough to honor your tired signals in the same way that you honor hunger and other natural body signals. Going for a specific amount of sleep regardless of how you are feeling isn’t very intuitive.

And they just had to throw in a quick tip in the end about the importance of eating breakfast. Argh!

Seven Random Facts

I’ve been tagged twice now (by Andrea K and WifeMomChocoholic), so I suppose it’s time for me to take my turn at seven random facts.

1) I have been almost vegetarian for the last six years. I eat seafood once or twice a month, but other than that my diet is completely vegetarian.

2) I got arrested when I was 14 for trying to sneak into Elizabeth Taylor’s birthday party at Disneyland.

3) I hate shopping. I don’t mind grocery shopping so much, but I hate shopping for everything else. My poor mother really wanted to have a daughter so that she could have a shopping buddy. Now she is holding out hope that I will have a daughter who will like to shop with her.

4) I love to travel. International travel is my favorite. I have been to many places throughout Europe, a few places in Asia and last summer I went to Peru. This August my husband and I are going to Italy. I’m really looking forward to it!

5) When I was a kid, I wanted to be an actress. I even went to a performing arts high school for my junior and senior years. But then I got burned out and didn’t want to act anymore. I still don’t have any desire to act. I think it’s strange how I have no interest in something after loving it for so many years.

6) It took me seven years to get my bachelor’s degree. School was the source of many battles when I was growing up, and I developed a huge resistance to it. I actually dropped out of college twice. I am really proud of myself for going back, trudging through and getting my degree.

7) I really want to have a baby. My husband isn’t quite ready yet. He wants to finish his master’s degree first, which is logical. We are planning to start trying this winter. I’m so excited!

Now it’s my turn to tag someone, and I’m going to tag…Gemma!

CE is the Way to Be!

I stole that title from someone who posts on one of my conscious eating forums. I love it! I have been feeling very excited and grateful for conscious eating lately. A couple of days ago I was bored, so I started browsing the Weight Watcher’s message boards. I was both saddened and relieved by what I read. Sad for the posters, but relieved for myself since I am free of all that now.

I read one post from someone who ate lunch at a work function. She thought she had done so well, but when she journaled what she ate she realized that she had no points left for dinner. I am so thankful that I never again have to worry about not having any points left for dinner.

I read another post from someone who was so proud of herself because she resisted buying a candy bar. She was at the store with her husband, and he bought some candy. She really wanted to be “bad” and buy some too, but she resisted. I am so happy that I never again have to feel proud of myself for resisting food. Instead, I can feel proud of myself for things that actually matter in life, and food can be just food. I love that! It’s just food! I don’t have to get depressed or worked up over whether or not I ate something. I am forever free to buy any food I want because I am free from trigger foods or red lights foods or whatever you want to call them.

And, as usual, there were a whole slew of posts from people who are recommitting to Weight Watchers. People who had fallen off the wagon and were ready to climb back on. I will never again have to wake up in the morning guilt ridden and tell myself that I will start over yet again. I am so excited that I will never have to go on another diet EVER! I feel so free!

Two days ago Oprah had the update show for Bob Greene’s Best Life Weight Loss Challenge. I missed the previous shows about it because at that point I did not want to watch anything about dieting. But this time I was intrigued, so I watched. I was impressed with how they talked a lot about feelings and why they overeat in the first place. You don’t see that very often in diet plans, and it’s so important. However, I truly believe that dieting is in direct conflict with learning how to feel your emotions and getting past emotional eating. I don’t have a whole lot of confidence that the people on the show will experience lasting weight loss. I hope I’m wrong, but what else could I think based on the well-documented failure of all diets?

I was especially struck by something at the end of the show. One of the diet challengers had only lost six pounds, which was much less than all of the others. She said that this was because she had expected the diet to fit in with her life. She said that she now realized that she needed to change to fit the diet. If you ask me, she had it right the first time! Then Oprah gave her the following advice, “You can never eat anything you want.” Really Oprah? I only eat anything I want!

Breakfast - The Most Important Meal of the Day?

Over the last couple of months I have discovered that I don’t need breakfast. I find that I pretty much never get hungry until lunchtime. This should come as no surprise to me, but somehow it does. Back when I was a kid and still a normal eater, I never wanted breakfast. My mom would make it for me every morning, but I would mostly pick at it and eat no more than a bite or two. But when I grew up and stopped being a normal eater, I started eating breakfast. I think this is largely due to the fact that pretty much every diet tells you to eat breakfast. There seems to be this belief that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Well, maybe it is for people who get hungry in the morning, but it’s not for me! I have spent the last ten years eating breakfast just because I thought I was supposed to. It’s so nice to just throw that whole idea out, and eat when my body actually wants food.

I decided to search the web to see if I could find any support for skipping breakfast.

I found this on a UK website called Weight Loss Resources. “Skipping breakfast can mean your body will start to crave something sweet and you'll end up snacking on unhealthy foods.” I have skipped breakfast almost every day for over two months now. Not once did I start craving sweets or end up snacking on “unhealthy” food. In fact, it’s pretty rare for me to snack at all. I find that I’m usually just not hungry between meals. Incidentally, I wasn’t much of a snacker during my normal eating childhood, either.

A website called Revolution Health had this quote, “A great deal of research shows that those people who eat breakfast are more likely to weigh less than those people who skip breakfast.” Really? Obviously I wasn’t part of any of those studies! I didn’t start gaining weight until I started eating breakfast. I’m not saying that eating breakfast caused me to gain weight. I started gaining weight because I fell into the diet cycle, and I stopped listening to my body’s natural cues. One of those cues was that I am not usually hungry in the morning.

Most of the stuff I read seemed to be written under the assumption that everyone is hungry for breakfast. I agree that skipping breakfast if you are hungry is a bad idea. But what if someone isn’t hungry? Should she eat breakfast anyway? I only found one website that addressed this issue. Dr. Kendall from Colorado State University recommended the following, “Food that early doesn't set well with you, or you're not hungry in the morning? Start with something light, such as a glass of milk or fruit juice and lightly buttered toast or a small piece of fruit such as a banana.” Basically, don’t listen to your body because it’s obviously wrong. Eat whether or not you are hungry.

The answer is no. Apparently there isn’t any support online for skipping breakfast, so I will have to say it here.

There is nothing wrong with skipping breakfast. In fact, it is a good idea to skip breakfast if you aren’t hungry.

There. I said it. I don’t care if every so-called “expert” disagrees with me.