Recipes

What are you hungry for?

I’ve spent most of my life on some diet or another. Research tells us that diets work for a short time. And then you tend to gain the weight back plus some more.

If you’ve dieted most of your life as I have, you know this.

Depth psychologist Carl Jung said, “What you resist, persists”. Have you heard that one?

Resistance is the opposite of resolution.

Resolution is the re-solving of your question. Resistance is to withstand, in opposition.

But how can we be expected to successfully withstand in opposition to something that we are biologically programmed to need?

Studies show that withholding sleep from someone is a form of torture. Withholding food is also inhumane.

So how do we lose weight?

 

Let’s examine what we mean.

Well, is it the physical weight you want to shed? Possibly.

Retreat – ask yourself, why?

You may find that the physical weight is protection, assuagement, or comfort.

Again, the question is why?

Why do you need that relief, solace, or security? Where is it lacking in your life? How else can you fill that need?

The question I ask my daughters, and myself, isn’t “What do you want to eat?” Or “What do you want for dinner?”

The question is, “What would you care to enjoy?” Or, “What would nourish you most right now?”

Sometimes what would nourish them most is soothing music, sometimes it’s an extra long hug.

Sometimes when I ask myself that question the answer is a brisk walk, stretching, resting on the couch for twenty minutes with my eyes closed, or tearing paper.

So is the weight you want to drop physical, or spiritual? Is it emotional? Is it mental? Could shedding those other types of weights help you yield the physical weight?

Maybe it’s an inside job.

 

 

Here is part of your retreat exercise today – ask yourself, what would nourish you most right now? What would you care to enjoy?

For a while, the answer may still be food as we have gotten used to using food as a quick resolution to that question.

Dig deeper – what does the food represent?

Do you crave something rich like chocolate? Maybe you want luxury in your life.

Something sweet like cake? Do you need sweetness in your life?

Do you prefer the frosting? That’s the extra on top.

Do you like crunchy things? Does the sensory noise and action of eating that block out uncomfortable sounds, conversations, or thoughts?

Something salty? Maybe you need more flavor in your life.

Or maybe you eat until you are uncomfortably full because feeling uncomfortably full is “better” than feeling what you really feel. It’s a distraction from a truth you are avoiding.

A quote attributed to Hippocrates, ancient Greek physician, says “Let food be they medicine”. Perhaps you use food, as I did and still sometimes do, to heal spiritual aches and emotional pains that are inevitable in life.

 

I don’t know. These

Instead of resisting the true questions – what satisfies me? What do I love? How can I relieve, soothe, or delight myself right now? – return to them.

Those are very big questions to ask.

 

 

Do you have a journal yet?

No?

Don’t let that delay you! Get started with whatever is nearby.

Grab a pen and the nearest scrap of paper – perhaps that is an old magazine, a receipt, your child’s algebra homework, an envelope, or a bill – and ask and answer the questions.

 

 

What would I care to enjoy right now?

What would nourish me most right now?

 

 

Right now is the most important part of this question. You don’t have to worry about dinner tonight or that potluck brunch scheduled for Sunday morning. right now – whenever you are reading this – what would satisfy you?

My stomach is already grumbling as I write this. I don’t want to stop writing to make breakfast.

 

So I’m going to heat some water and watch the sunrise over Goat Mountain. The front of the mountain is a dusty plum pulled straight from the tree in the pre-dawn. Scant clouds frost the top of the mountain. The sun’s reflection mottles them lilac and salmon, a faded blue jeans sky, distant light the pale yellow of lemon curd.

 

That will be brief. After all, sunrises are brief. Watching the sunrise is what will satisfy me.

I may try to paint it quickly, in watercolor, in one of my “throw-away” notebooks, to keep that good feeling with me, let it fill me and nourish me.

I’ll return.