“The body is a delicate instrument, and responds readily to the thoughts by which it is impressed.”
~ James Allen
If one of your constant struggles is creating and maintaining a healthy body weight, you’re not alone. In this very moment, millions of people all over the world are feeling tired, frustrated, and imprisoned by the condition of their bodies.
Most of these people are unhappy because they can’t help but consume too much, but there are also millions of people who eat too little. Roughly 3 to 4 percent of the population suffers from an eating disorder based on deprivation.
My own body has been too fat as well as too thin, and what I’ve learned is that the root cause of both problems is the same thing. It’s not a physical problem as much as it is a mental and spiritual one, and just like any problem we experience in life, it doesn’t do much good to try and solve it in the external world without first delving deep into the inner catalysts that caused the disharmony in the first place. Our outer world is always a reflection of our inner world – it’s just a mirror that reflects back what we think, feel and focus upon.
Therefore when we abuse ourselves with food (or lack of), what we are really doing is physically expressing thoughts about ourselves out into the external world. These thoughts sometimes sound something like this:
I hate myself.
I’m worthless.
I’ll never amount to anything.
I suck.
I’m a horrible person.
Everyone hates me.
I’m too old / fat / dumb / ugly.
My life has no purpose.
All of these thoughts are just variations of the same thought:
“I’m not worthy”.
These thoughts of unworthiness are common and deep-seated. They cause a distressing surge of painful emotion in our bodies, which we try anything to escape from. We eat, drink, drug, work, shop, or gamble ourselves into overdrive, all in hopes of numbing the pain of unworthiness.
But numbing pain does not make it go away… in fact it often makes our lives worse, as layer upon layer of emotional debris begins to clutter and clog the full expression of the Soul.
[The Soul, by the way, is the reality of who you are; it’s your true essence. It’s the timeless, creative, loving energy that yearns to express itself through your body and personality.]
The Soul expresses itself best through a vibrant body, which is one of the reasons we crave physical strength and health. Achieving a healthy weight is not really about looking like a model, it’s about cultivating a harmonious instrument for the creative expression of the Soul.
Therefore the only way to achieve a truly healthy body is to remove the disharmonious thoughts of unworthiness that cloak our true self. It’s a process of re-programming the mind, and learning how to feel emotions fully without burying them through bad habits.
When you heal your inner world, your outer world has no choice but to change. As you make changes to you habitual way of thinking, you’ll adopt healthy new eating and lifestyle habits with ease and grace.
…speaking of which, time to hit the gym today and take care of myself more. I used to hike on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On occasion run 3 miles on Wednesdays and then play sports on weekends. I still play sports on weekends but I’ve completed stopped doing the hiking and running during the week and have also increased my consumption of junk food. All this due to poor time management.
That all stops today as I work a daily work-out into my routine 🙂