I have been in scholars since October, joined to lose 45 pounds, have lost 20 so far. I have always been engaged with the work, and have been frustrated by what I viewed as my lack of success, my thoughts: “I should already be at my goal weight, it’s been 8 months.Other people are doing so much better than I am, maybe I’m the one that this doesn’t work for. If that’s true, my goodness, what must be wrong with me?”
I had such massive goals and wanted to do it all right NOW, and didn’t listen to your advice about doing one goal at a time.
A few weeks ago, in one of the live coach calls, when listening to someone else’s story, it really clicked for me. I had recognized my pattern of doing well for a few days (honestly never really longer than that, maybe 5 days at most) and then feeling a bad emotion and reverting to my old patterns, then being so angry and upset that I had blown it, so I would buffer. At first it was for weeks, both with food and TV and facebook and really everything to disengage. As the months progressed, this buffering time kept decreasing. Then this month, listening to the call I just realized how absurd it was that I expected complete perfection from myself in every single area, and when that didn’t happen, I’d give up on it all and just buffer. Cause that makes sense 🙂
This entire month has felt so different to me, and I’ve seen such good results (I’ve been able to completely follow protocol for 30 days, which is such a victory for me). I finally put my finger on why everything has changed so much and it’s because I haven’t disengaged the entire month at all, there have been moments of freak out, but every time I’ve been able to be the “watcher” simultaneously. I’ve understood the concepts for so long, but now I really GET what Brooke’s been talking about and what having your own back means.
I’d also like to note that even at first when I would have weeks of buffering, I have been very diligent about doing the scholars work. It has always been helpful, but again, I kept questioning what was wrong with me that I couldn’t get the result. I’m so glad that I’ve developed this resilience, because I certainly thought it would be faster than eight months, but this is exactly the way it is supposed to be for me.
The funniest part is that now that I feel like I am really living the concepts instead of understanding them, my brain keeps telling me: “oh you’re not going to keep this up. There’s no way. It’s all bad from here.” I am able to manage those thoughts and actually find it so amusing because I’m doing things I never thought were possible, and my brain finds a way to tell me it’s bad, so my brain will always do that regardless, and understanding that is freeing.
As I said, I have 25 pounds left. My next goal is to write a book. I’ve been really relieved to that the constant chatter of thoughts about food have ceased, and now there’s a lot of extra time and energy that I want to pour into that. However, having not heeded the advice the first time about completely finishing weight loss, I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I find that I’m bored because my buffers like TV, social media, and eating took up so much time.
Here’s my model on moving forward with writing:
C: 25 pounds to goal weight
T: If I try to write a book, I’ll blow it all again and lose progress, like I did before.
F: scared
A: don’t write
R: I don’t write a book
C: 25 pounds to goal weight
T: I have learned so much, I always have my own back, and as long as I manage my mind, I can do anything I want.
F: calm
A: wrtite
R: I write a book and lose weight
Do you recommend I reach my goal weight before I start?