Mind Wars

For the last little while, I have been struggling. I started out the year with full intentions to put my health and my weight loss goals as the one and only goal I wanted to achieve this year. Many times in previous years, I would give myself a mountain of stuff to work on, and weight would fall to the bottom of the list. For the life of me I couldn't figure out why. I managed to keep at it for about 2 weeks in January, then I went into a limbo and returned to my old patterns, albeit still without any soda.

Over the last weekend, which in B.C. was the Family Day weekend, I found myself in the depression hole again. I think it began because I went to the dentist for the first time in a long time and received some troubling news. Even though I hadn't been to the dentist in four years (which felt more like maybe two years), I didn't have any cavities, but I do have a broken tooth at the back of my mouth. The dentist recommended a gold crown, as it was likely because of my tooth grinding habit. I enquired about whether or not my insurance covered it, and was told only 50% would be covered. Then I asked how much it would be, and was told the total cost was about $1300, so I would have to pay half of that out of pocket. I felt very despondent at that news, as I can't afford to pay $700 for a dental thing.

This sparked a depression and I immediately felt the need to find some food to eat. I went to Pizza Hut, ordered a pizza, went to the Dollarama nearby, bought 6 chocolate bars, went into the Save On Foods and bought my usual vanilla soy milk, then picked up the pizza and went home.

I used to believe that food would make me feel better, which was why I must have reached for it whenever my mood went down. However, I have just realized that was not the case.

For the last 7 months or so, I've been meeting with another person every Wednesday as a support group, to try to support each other in our weight loss goals. Recently, I've opened the group up to the rest of my meet-up group, and have managed to find another recruit to this process. Together, we work through our progress for the week and we are sticking to the Dr. Phil's Weight Loss Solution book as our plan. I tend to really dwell on the right thinking and healing feelings keys a lot.

Last night during one of these meetings, I had a major bing moment. I was reflecting on the desire to buy a bunch of junk food. One of the people in the group (the person I've been meeting with for the whole 7 months) asked me if I bought the food because I thought it would make me feel better. I thought about it some more and realized that I wasn't reaching for the food to make me feel better at all. In fact, I reached for it because I knew it would make me feel worse later on. Apparently, I wanted myself to feel even worse than how I already felt.

This is actually pretty huge for me to realize. The rationalization I had always believed was that this junk food would make me feel better; but now I realize that is not the situation at all. I kept talking and letting my mind sort out my issue, and came up with an analogy to describe what goes on in my mind.

It's like there is this battle in my mind between the negative voice and the positive voice. Every once in awhile, the positive voice starts to believe it can win the war, but the negative side of me is vastly more powerful, has way more soldiers, weapons, etc., and tends to smack that positive side down.

Somehow equating the duality of my mind into a war has given me a little bit of perspective on the situation. If I can translate it further into a pop cultural reference to help me even further, it's like the Rebels versus The Empire in Star Wars. The good guys, a.k.a. the Rebel Alliance, is my positive voice; The Empire represents my negative voice. It's always in power. Every once in awhile, the Rebels win a battle, but sadly the war continues and most of the time the Empire Strikes Back.

This analogy is actually helping me quite a bit. If I can find a way to be more supportive of the Rebels in their battle against The Empire, perhaps I can finally win the war.

I definitely know where the Empire comes from. It comes from every bully I had as a kid who told me I'm ugly, I'm a loser, I'm not worth anything. That was definitely what I was feeling on Saturday. I felt so utterly defeated that I even considered suicide, wondering if anyone would even care if I died. That negative side of me, that Dark Side of the Force, is very good at manipulating my mind into believing those things as being true. I have to start seeing it as an "old Jedi mind trick", and begin fighting back. Hell, if Luke Skywalker could do it, so can I, right?

The trick is to come up with a new mantra to stop the Empire's manipulative words. Mantras help me out greatly. It is why I have been successful at giving up soda. That mantra was: A soda will not make me feel better; it actually makes me feel worse. I want one even more powerful that that to tackle that negative voice in my mind.

I wonder if a simple "May the Force Be With Me" might even do the trick. It has to be powerful and has to deliver a blow to the Empire. Perhaps I need to review everything Master Yoda said to Luke in his training to overcome the power of the dark side. Maybe there's a line in there that would do the trick for me.

I'm going to spend some time thinking about this mantra I need, but at the same time, I want to progress in my weight loss journey. So... I am going to try to stick to the diet and exercise plan as best as I can for the remainder of this month, keeping my mind fully alert to any negative voice The Empire might be sending to me. Last night, after the meeting, while watching Arrow, I hopped on my exercise bike and did it for just over 30 minutes. I also ate far less than I have been this past month, healthier too.

As always, I am very open to suggestions for a mantra that might work well for me. Star Wars is what I have settled on because it feels more true to my situation, but a general good versus evil Superhero comment might also work.

Anyways, I should wind up this blog entry now. I've still got a ways to go, but every time I come up with a breakthrough like this, it feels like The Death Star has just been exploded. The War may continue, but at least for now the battle was won.