One of most common complaints Mike Dooley, author of Infinite Possibilities: The Art of Living Your Dreams, hears from people about their bodies is their weight. Although there is always a spiritual issue that would precede weight becoming a challenge, its existence is often first seen physically in the guise of overeating or under-eating. And sometimes by tackling the eating challenge, inroads can be made to dealing with the deeper issue — if in fact it doesn’t automatically resolve itself once the ideal weight is reached. Just because there is a deeper spiritual cause to weight gain or loss doesn’t mean that it is so profound and complex that a few quick fixes to your perspectives and physical routines can’t often resolve it.
Let me offer some thoughts that may complement whatever else you’re currently doing to deal with any weight challenge you might be facing — some things to supplement, not replace, all the conventional wisdom on weight issues that’s already available.
1. Relax! In the grand scheme of things, your problem is quite simple. After all, you’re not faced with trying to grow a new limb or adding five inches to your height; you just need to adjust your weight! So many people face their weight problem as if it were the most difficult and complex challenge in the world . . . and then it becomes the most difficult and complex challenge in the world — really difficult, virtually impossible to handle — primarily because they’ve come to view it that way. So the first point is to chill out and realize that, with the proper perspective, the challenge you face is, in truth, a very small one.
2. Don’t make or believe in excuses. Overeating or undereating is not “natural”; just that realization alone should ring bells in your head. Thinking otherwise creates acceptance and complacency, countering natural tendencies that would otherwise ease you toward balance. This perspective reminds you that your body is inclined to be an ideal weight, that you’ve been pushing it against the grain with your recent eating habits; and you’ll realize that once you begin listening to it, its innate balancing mechanisms will be allowed to work for you, enhancing your own efforts as you strive toward your goal. Covering up unnatural eating habits with clichés, such as “It’s just the way I am” or “I come from large people,” minimizes your challenge, skirts your responsibilities to self, and, far more damaging, installs beliefs that sabotage your attempts to lose weight.
In the past, I would often work hours and hours into a starving hunger, several times a day and almost every day of the week, just not wanting to be bothered or interrupted by my need for food. I used to even think this was a badge of honor, something to be proud of, but what nonsense, especially when I was already underweight! When I started to finally get my head around how unnatural and unhealthy it was to let myself go hungry, that my work and social life were suffering because of it, my old attitudes became more embarrassing than empowering. The same, of course, is true for those who overeat.
Now, you obviously have reasons (sometimes reasons you hide from yourself for this kind of physical imbalance), so you should also explore and work with your beliefs, perhaps with guidance, to find or replace these root causes. By working backwards from the outer symptom toward the inner dilemma, accepting that overeating or under-eating is not natural, you can start making inroads toward changing your behavior and understanding your beliefs so that you can ultimately stop playing the weight game and move on to new frontiers.
3. Realize that your body is not you! Your body is your creation. Separate yourself from the definitions you’ve painted for it, because it has an awareness and needs all its own. It needs you, it relies on you, and it exists solely to serve you. Your physical body depends on you for its very existence and deserves the utmost care. This line of thinking can also help you separate your emotions from food. For instance, if you were feeling particularly sad one day or depressed or angry, you wouldn’t go over to your beloved cat or dog and triple its food, would you? Would you make him or her starve for a day? So why do that to your body? Remember to combine logic with love when you consider your behavior, emotions, and decisions. Then listen in and trust. Think about your behavior, get logical for a moment (however overrated it may be), get rational, get spiritual, and begin to apply some divine, loving intelligence to your situation.
4. Notice everything you say and do about your weight to avoid reinforcing any negative programming. Avoid saying things like “I’m helpless,” “It’s no use,” “I have a slow (or high) metabolism,” “It’s hereditary,” “It’s my thyroid,” “It’s difficult,” or something a friend of mine used to say: “All I have to do is look at food and I gain weight!” Those thoughts will strive to become things, your body will react, your metabolism will slow, and you’ll be far worse off than you were.Fortunately, it doesn’t matter if these things were once true; from now on they’re not, and you must cease giving them their power. Even if you are now one hundred pounds overweight, never again utter the words “I am overweight,” because this statement will only continue to perpetuate the manifestation. Your body is perfect and supremely capable of achieving its perfect weight; it’s just that until now you’ve unknowingly misprogrammed it, and you’ve got about one hundred additional thoughts clinging to you for life. Drop the thoughts and the weight will drop too.
5. Model your behavior after your dream self. Splurge, indulge, and treat yourself to the occasional delicacies you crave as if you were already at your ideal weight. These acts of faith, or acting as if, powerfully tell you and the Universe that there’s a new game being played. They demonstrate a confidence that you are in control, and they create that feeling of having already succeeded. As your dream self, enjoy a slice of chocolate cake after dinner, not the whole cake! Not even two slices, because if you really were your dream self, even two slices would be too much and unnatural! It goes both ways: by modeling your behavior in such ways, you create thoughts that will serve you in the direction of change you wish to experience.
Begin deliberately saying things as if you were at your dream weight. Go ahead and say things that don’t even make sense on a physical level, like “Thank God I’m so thin!” This isn’t a lie; it’s the truth. Spiritually, there does indeed exist another you who is at the perfect weight, and you summon it forward into your physical reality when you make statements that recognize it. By saying you’re overweight or underweight or by making jokes about your body or your condition, you project these comments into your future and thus your reality. You must immediately begin thinking, speaking, and acting in line with your dreamed-of weight. Go ahead and obsess over the new wonderful you; eat, sleep, and breathe it, and that’s what will be projected into your future. Forget where you are and where you’ve been, and live in the reality of your new dreamed of image.
6. Focus less on your weight and more on living a well-rounded life. (No pun intended.) This is also advice I give people who seem to be consumed with either finding a new romantic partner or manifesting abundance. They want what they want so greatly that it’s blinded them to the rest of their life, who they already are, and all they already have — to the point that the rest of their life begins to suffer. Pretty much no matter what your weight is, you still have a life NOW! And your life deserves attention. Don’t put off the fun stuff, the challenging stuff, or anything else because you aren’t yet pleased by your weight. On the contrary, keeping your life balanced will be one of your greatest assets when it comes to affecting weight change; through achieving balance, your weight loss may well even happen automatically.
7. Eat less. Conversely, if you want to gain weight, eat more. Yes, it’s simplistic but wildly overlooked! I apologize to those who readily understand that both overeating and under-eating are the first symptoms of a deeper issue, and I address this to those who still find the physical element of their weight gain or loss an isolated mystery. As I’ve already stated, the deeper issue is usually the ideal starting point for affecting meaningful change, yet the second-best place to begin is controlling food intake. It’s rather amazing that today there is actually diet pet food — as if the amount of food your beloved pet eats is of paramount importance, or as if the fact that Baxter is overweight has some mysterious root cause that requires a very special blend of modified processed foods to be remedied. There is no overweight pet on the planet that cannot eventually, and usually relatively quickly, be reduced to its ideal weight by simply feeding it less. And the same is true for people wishing to lose weight.
8. Exercise! I won’t even elaborate, except to point out that in this regard you most certainly do not have to go crazy, join a gym, or run marathons. The slightest effort in this regard, done under a doctor’s supervision, will pay huge dividends in keeping your body healthy and in balance.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mike Dooley, an international tax accountant turned entrepreneur turned writer for “the Universe,” and now one of the teachers for the bestselling DVD and book The Secret, has found his calling. Mike lives in Orlando, Florida, where he runs TUT’s Adventurer’s Club™ for the adventure of life. He also travels internationally, speaking to thousands on life, dreams, and happiness. He is the author of Infinite Possibilities: The Art of Living Your Dreams (Copyright © 2009 by Mike Dooley), Visit www.tut.com to sign up for new, daily Notes from the Universe and join the club!
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