Transforming from a chronic dieter with your self-esteem totally entangled in your body image to a person at peace with your mind, body and spirit is a complex and confusing journey. This is Part Four of a Four Part Series that goes beyond the 4 guidelines of intuitive eating to give you some insight into the actual transformational process. You can read Part One ~ Diets Don’t Work, Part Two ~ Leave the Past Behind and Part Three ~ Limbo here.
Phase Four ~ Transformation
Follow the Yellow Brick Road
You have stepped off the diet road to nowhere and after wandering around in the unfamiliar wilderness for a while you have now begun your journey on your new pathway. In this Phase you see things in a whole new light, you have a new vision for the future and you are no longer afraid.
It’s All About You
Your priorities have changed and you now live mindfully in the present. You know exactly want you want and there is no subconscious objection to the realisation of that dream. Your self sabotage has ended.
You have the tools to constantly renew yourself and get back into balance if you are thrown off course. You honour your mind, your body and your spirit with daily practices of self care. You have found better ways to experience the benefits that overeating used to give you (comfort, safety, relief, sensory pleasure etc.). You give yourself unconditional love.
A Clear Intention
“Your day to day choices are fuelled by a desire to be true to your new identity ~ simply being the best ‘you’.”
You now know exactly what you want ~ you want to be naturally slender, fit and healthy AND happy, peaceful and comfortable in your own skin. You now believe that this is possible for you. Your day to day choices are fuelled by a desire to be true to your new identity ~ simply being the best ‘you’.
Those Voices in Your Head
… have stopped.
Same Behaviours – Different Reasons
You go to the gym because you love feeling strong when you lift, you love feeling your heart pump and the oxygen coursing through your veins when you walk/run, and you love the private time that you get to switch off from the world. You enjoy other activities like yoga, swimming, cycling and martial arts for their own sake. You enjoy the experience while you are doing it and see it as an act of self care.
You eat healthy, whole, unprocessed food because it makes you feel alive and present in your body. You know how crappy food makes you feel and it has lost its magic. You now eat well because that’s who you are. Even if all food had exactly the same number of calories you would still choose a chicken salad over a greasy burger because of how it made you feel afterwards. You eat no-sugar chocolate because the real stuff is far too sweet.
The Only Rules are the Ones You Make Yourself
You can do a fruit detox, you can skip breakfast, you can eat chicken breast and you can train for a marathon without switching on deprivation brain. You are in charge of all your choices and are honest about your true intentions. Sometimes this new path leads you exactly where the old diet road to nowhere promised to take you but it is a gentler, slower, prettier route. Sometimes the new path takes you somewhere completely different – but this time, YOU get to decide.
There Is No Destination
This is a journey with the path stretching out before you so that you cannot see an ending. You are happier than you have ever been because at long last, right here, right now, feels complete. You have come home because you have come back to yourself.
Life is not what you see, but what you’ve projected.
It’s not what you’ve felt, but what you’ve decided.
It’s not what you’ve experienced, but how you’ve remembered it.
It’s not what you’ve forged, but what you’ve allowed.
And it’s not who’s appeared, but who you’ve summoned.
And this should serve you well, beloved, until you find, what you already have.
♥ PS: I cried when I was writing this because I realised that I am mostly there.
→ photo : RedWillow /Lisa