I’ve been tossing this thought around in my brain for weeks, months now.
I never thought about it before I started therapy for emotional eating. My therapist has brought this up with me many on many different occasions. She is no means pushing it on me but believe me when I say she knows from experience that it works. She says, “I really just think that all that’s missing for you is the belief in a higher power.”
She says that once you turn your eating disorder over to this “higher power” you will find the strength to change, to finally change once and for all.
I just can’t wrap my head around this. I’m trying. I really am. I’m researching. I’m reading. I’m soul searching. Because of my background, I just can’t understand how I “just” turn my lifelong struggle with weight over to something that I may or may not believe exists and it will magically give me the willpower to become thin.
I know this higher power business is a big part of the 12 step program found in Overeater’s Anonymous, which I just am not a fan of . I could on, but I digress.
I wasn’t raised in a religious or spiritual home what so ever. It was a foreign territory growing up. It just didn’t exist.
As I got older, I prayed, I was spiritual (or what I would consider spiritual) within myself, but I find it a very personal journey.
I guess I’m not spiritual enough because I don’t get this whole higher power stuff.
I’m not getting it because my school of thought is this:
In the past when I lost weight, if I made the choice to work out, ignore the icing, and measure my food, that was MY strength and determination. Nobody else’s.
Well, I have read that people with food addictions or any addictions all have this ego/control issue that they can do it all by themselves. Obviously, that’s not working out all that great for us! Now, is it?
The higher power people would then ask you, “So where did that strength come from then?”
The higher power school of thought is that the higher power is providing you with the strength once you are able to surrender yourself and admit you can’t do it alone.
Is either one wrong or right?
Honestly, I have no idea. No freakin’ clue.
I do believe things in life happen for a reason. People we meet, challenges we go through are all hidden blessings that bring us down the path in life right where we are supposed to be. I’ve had those moments where I’ve just known I’m exactly where I was supposed to be. By who? By whomever is that “higher power.” There are things that cannot be explained or rationalized. You just have to believe it. But, I can’t seem to relate this to my weight loss.
My therapist said maybe it’s because I don’t have faith that it will work for weight loss yet. Maybe.
I think for me it’s because I see weight loss as work. As concrete results. Not something, I can just close my eyes and turn over. It’s personal work and dedication that can’t be done by anyone else but me. How can a higher power really intervene with that?
She said that you typically need to hit rock bottom to find your higher power. God help because I’ve already hit rock bottom way too many times. I wouldn’t have started therapy if I hadn’t! If that has to happen again, then I might as well give up now because the thought of that is just too discouraging.
This has really been heavy on my mind. I want to know what you think. Does a higher power have to exist in order to have success with weight loss. I’m talking about life-long success, not just losing weight for your next vacation. Not the skinny little bimbo trying to lose 5 lbs for Summer.
You have to have something BIG driving you to do this forever. Driving you to change your entire life style that you’ve latched on to since childhood. Something bigger than a vacation, a wedding, a pair of jeans. I get that. So, must you surrender yourself to finding a Higher Power to successfully lose weight? Well, what do you think?
“You never have to do anything. Don’t know what to do? Do nothing. I wait. And that has been a big lesson: to be willing, to be still with myself, and trust myself and my higher power to help me make the right decision.”
~Oprah Winfrey~
Hi! I’m Aimee with 2 E’s. I'm a confidence coach that empowers women to love themselves by breaking down body image issues, so that they can lose the emotional weight and gain the confidence to look and feel irresistible...at any size.
I too had a hard time with the whole God thing. I had never been into organized religion or any of that stuff. I started reading the big book and it said you do not need to believe in anything more then the group.. here are a group of people whose actions got them relief. I thought about it and it hit me. I have given up an addiction before for a power greater then my self. I gave up smoking. For years I wanted to but it was not big thing and I would get into a situation and I would start up again. I met my husband on a dating site while I was not smoking. I had put occasional smokerin my profile. We met right before New Years Eve. While on our first date he asked about the smoking. I said I was planning to quit for good on New Years Eve. And I did. He let me know that he was glad because he just could not see himself with a smoker. His dad died of lung cancer. Well our relationship progressed fast and I was so in love. I got into a car accident that summer and the person that hit me lit up a cigrette and I asked if I could have one. I didn’t tell my then boy friend at the time. But He heard me said it to someone else a few weeks later. He was so upset. He told me that I would have to let him know if I thought it was going to happen again because if it was we would have to break up. I finally knew what was at stake. A wonderful life with a man I was in love with or cigarettes that I really did need or want in my life but I wasn’t reason enough to stop. I later found out that because of that one cigarette he delayed is asking me to marry him for a month because he wanted to make sure I was serious about never smoking again. Any power greater then your self will do when you walk in. Nature. Love. Energy. The Group. You will develop the rest in your higher powers time.
Good Luck!