When you’re caught in the dieting trap, the only way you’re going is backwards. Or maybe you’re going in circles, gaining weight, losing weight, maintaining it for a year, gaining weight, losing weight and maintaining it until the diet doesn’t work anymore.
And thus you start again.
Dieting keeps your life small. It keeps you standing still, wishing for a different reality, a better reality, but never changing anything to actually making that reality come true.
You try and do the same thing over and over and over again – not realizing that no matter how often you try, you’ll never get a different outcome.
So, girl, where do you think you’re going? Where do you think you’ll end up?
I remember how tiny my world used to be when I was not eating, binging, overexercising. It was all about the food, the calories, the constant numbers in my head. There was no room for love, no space for big dreams, no freedom to think, be or do anything but diet.
And when I broke out of diet prison once and for all, the world suddenly seemed so vast – and scary. My safety blanket was gone. My obsession that was keeping me from living life, from facing reality, from putting myself out there had obliterated with the last fearful thoughts of needing to be thin at all cost.
And suddenly I was standing naked in the middle of Times Square not knowing what to do with all of my feelings, all of my dreams, all of my thoughts.
It was overwhelming. It was scary and it was pretty damn amazing. My life was finally open for anything I could possibly want and I was ready for it.
I dreamed and worked and hustled and dreamed some more and worked some more and hustled some more. I wanted to change the world just as much as my world had changed. I wanted to put everything I had learned out there, so others could experience that freedom, that excitement, too.
Girl, where do you think you’re going? I was going far and I was making sure I was enjoying the heck out of every day.
Today, years after I began my new life, I yearn for being average. I want to live an average, normal life. The life that is being laughed at in the personal development space that I was thrown into when I began to podcast. I want to be a phenomenal mom, giving my son the best childhood I can. I want him to feel loved and I want us to have some fun.
I don’t need to be a nomad to be happy as traveling with a 2-year old is really no fun for me. I don’t need to call myself unconventional, being conventional is pretty damn great. I don’t want to work 70-hour weeks anymore in order to make an impact in other people’s lives as the impact I want to make in my son’s life is enough for me at this point. I don’t need to write 500 words a day as I’d rather be outside with my son playing in the snow. I don’t need to work every Sunday, every evening, every holiday anymore as I’d rather cuddle up in front of the TV watching Gilmore Girls, read a story to Johann or simply stay in my PJs all day long.
A life of “average” is pretty damn fine with me at this point.
Girl, where do you think you’re going? I am going to live a life of my wildest dreams.
Sure, I still get the occasional “pang” in my stomach when I see other coaches out there impact tens of thousands of people. I still get jealous when I hear a colleague celebrate a 100K year. I still want things to be easy for me in the business world, but that is not my path right now. My path is to focus on my small life, in my small village, with my small son; a life that is giving me everything I want and more.
Here’s the thing though: had I never stopped dieting, I would have never ever dared to venture out into the world, try out new dreams, feel new feelings, listen to the beat of my heart and arrive back in the village I loathed so much growing up.
I would’ve never begun writing, podcasting, coaching. I would’ve never gone anywhere. I would’ve never arrived back at home.
If I hadn’t stopped living for being thin, I would’ve never started the journey towards finding my inner core that I’ve been on for 5 years now.
Girl, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere.
So, where is it you’re going? Are you still running in circles? Are you wishing and dreaming – but only of having a thin body? Is your life void of any substance other than knowing how many calories are in a handful of Cashews? Where are you going? Where do you want to be going? And is dieting really the doorway to the life of your dreams?
Give yourself at least one opportunity to find out what your life would be like if you didn’t think about food 24/7. Give yourself at least a year of freedom from new crazy weight loss programs.
Give yourself the chance to break free and start the life that will actually make you go somewhere – wherever that somewhere may be for you.
