August Week 4: Forgiving Yourself For Struggling

This is our last week exploring our path of Loving Ourselves Down the Scale and I would like to invite you to do something radical: Forgive yourself for struggling with weight and, if you can, forgive the struggle.

Now, I know that you might be thinking: why would I forgive myself? After all, if I were stronger, had more will power, and wasn’t so addictive and weak, I wouldn’t be having this issue with weight and struggling. I don’t need to be forgiving of myself; I need to be tougher on myself. If I forgive myself, then things will get worse and all hell will break loose.

Actually, the opposite is true. Let’s take a minute to explore why, in order to truly move forward and release weight long term and, more importantly, heal this part of your life, you must forgive yourself.

WHY SHOULD I FORGIVE ME?

Self Anger Keeps You Stuck In The Past. There is nothing like regret over gaining weight or blaming ourselves for being stupid or weak to keep us stuck in the past, and full of anger and guilt and shame.  When we focus on the past, we keep our mind from being in the now. Stressing over the past keeps you from learning in the now and moving forwards towards mastery.

Intense Feelings Make Us Want To Eat Often. The first thing that happens when we feel negative emotions is we have the powerful desire to eat, which adds to the problem. Releasing weight isn’t a willpower contest, it is a learning process. Expect mistakes and back slides, even big ones, and look for the lesson instead of a snack to distract yourself.

Your Negative Opinion of Yourself Keeps You From Moving Forward. By continuing to see yourself as weak and undisciplined, you become habituated to that opinion. Our subconscious mind focuses on what it believes to be true, so until you begin to re-see yourself as someone moving towards weight mastery, you will always see yourself as a struggler and therefore continue to reinforce that reality for yourself.

4 STEPS TO FORGIVING YOURSELF FOR STRUGGLING

1. Notice the Emotion and Breathe into it—Next time you feel the anger, shame, guilt, or struggle around your weight, take a deep breath and get present. Just feel the feeling and label it lightly. “oh there is that feeling of ____ around my weight or my compulsion to eat too much”
2. Acknowledge the feeling and don’t try to push it away. Rather, give it some warmth and compassion and also notice how your feeling keeps you from forgiveness, “I understand my feeling of guilt towards my struggling with my weight but I also see that this guilt keeps me from truly forgiving myself and moving on.”
3. Let go of the punishment, and accept  and embrace the opportunity. Gently guide your mind from the past and the negative to the now and the positive. “Even though my struggle with weight has brought me pain, it has allowed me to have to learn lessons that will open doors of understanding myself and learning to care for myself as I move into the future. I forgive myself for having struggled and now embrace the opportunity it gives me to be good to myself today and into the future.”
4. Create a Forgiveness Mantra: Our journey to weight mastery is ever evolving and there will always be challenges!  But by embracing a focus on mastery instead of the misery of struggle,  we move our mind and our emotions forward and begin to change the way we see ourselves.  We go from an unforgivable struggler to an honorable master who is moving forward on a learning journey that is building your self-love and self esteem.
   
   Creating a mantra to use when the negative feelings come up reminds you that the feeling started with a thought and like all thoughts you can let it go and choose to focus on another, more powerful one. “I forgive myself for my struggle of the past and am moving forwards towards mastery every day.”

Have a great and compassionate week forgiving yourself. I hope that you have enjoyed loving yourself down the scale this month.