When somebody asks me, “how do I quit dieting, feel comfortable with my body and embrace my perceived flaws?”, they are essentially asking me, “how do I love myself?”
Our culture teaches us: “happiness can be achieved via ‘x’, ‘y’, or ‘z’ goals”. But if this is true, why are we so miserable?
Consider you live two lives. One is the ego life. One is the soul life.
We live most of our lives in our ego. Chasing the desires and dreams of the ego. I will feel happier thinner. I will feel comfortable if I accept my body. I will feel content when I make more money. I will feel fulfilled when I own a Chanel bag. Truthfully, the ego is never satisfied. It will always want more and more.
The ego is not only composed of feelings we consider negative, but positive feelings too. However, the emotions we view as positive (neutrality, acceptance, pride), can only sustain us for so long before they burn out. Because feelings are not permanent. You know this to be true, as best exemplified in the adage, “this too shall pass”. We can’t feel crappy (or happy) forever can we?
If we are living in the plane of the ego, we will never find permanent comfort with anything (our bodies, our income, our relationships).
So then back to the question, how do I quit dieting?
Let’s explore how it’s not achieved. It’s not achieved by replacing Negative Feelings with Positive Feelings.
Negative Feeling: I hate my body so I will diet.
Replace with:
Positive Feeling: I love my body so I will not diet.
Do you see how these both originate from the ego? They are not strong enough to sustain you. How long can we maintain the Positive Feeling for? Is it strong enough to withstand external forces? When we view toned, tanned bodies on TikTok? When our mothers tell us we’d find a husband if we just lost a few pounds? When clothing stores don’t offer our size? We are constantly buried by the power of external forces and that Positive Feeling becomes extinguished. We pick ourselves up and we build. We suffer another blow. We get back up again. We suffer another blow. We get back up again. But we are getting tired. Because we are loving ourselves from a source which is impermanent.
Consider the love from a parent to their child versus the love you feel for your body on a ‘good’ day. One love is unconditional, one love is not. The love of the Positive Feeling eventually runs out. It originates from the ego mind. The love a mother lavishes on her child is boundless, it transcends and persists regardless of external or internal circumstances. It is not of the mind, it comes from the heart.
Our Positive Feelings not only contend with external forces but also internal forces which may be even more powerful. They will belittle, demean, humiliate, taunt, and tease us. Only we know how to tear ourselves down. The ego chooses the weapons to destroy us.
The ego is used to being in charge, it has been in charge for so long. You have almost forgotten any other way.
So then how do we quit dieting and accept our bodies? We need to tap into another source. There is another source inside you (think back to the parent/child love). It’s not part of the negative/positive ego, it is much deeper and stronger. It is impermanent, boundless and infinite. And it will melt the internal and external forces into oblivion. Because you will realise that these voices are not real. What is real, what is true, is deep inside you. You wrap yourself in love.
This force is your soul. Only when we live on our soul plane, can we begin to feel contentment and comfort with who we are. Because we truly love who we are. Sure external/internal voices may bump us around a bit every now and then, but because we know the truth, we are mostly undisturbed.
Because this is the truth. You are kind and good and true. Everybody has this light inside of them. Many of us have spent so long living as our ego selves, that we have forgotten our true selves. But your true self has not forgotten you. It is waiting for you, it will always be there, waiting for you to listen.
And once you tap into the true you, the real you, you will become unstoppable. You are love and goodness and compassion. Hence you will feel comfortable losing or gaining weight, because you are not attached to anything.
How to tap into your soul? I’ll delve into this next time. But a quick tip: the best way to deal with the ego is to love it. It will melt in love, it can’t survive in love. More on this later but you’re on your way.
❤️
Ps if you’re reading this thinking… umm get f*cked 😂 . That’s your ego talking. Your ego will not like hearing this at all. It’s become used to running the show for years, decades, and now it can sense a shift, a new voice, a tiny ember within you says, keep going.
I love you.