What is it that you really want when you are trying to lose weight? In a scientific sense the number on the scale is simply a measure of your gravitational pull. Not very exciting or emotionally activating when you think of it that way. So what lies beneath the desire for thinness?
It's the feeling that you want thinness to give you. Perhaps it's a feeling of contentment or peace, or maybe joy or satisfaction. Maybe you just want to feel good enough for the first time in your life. Whatever it is, I can promise you that the fantasy that it will be found at a certain weight is just that, a fantasy.
As Geneen Roth points out in Appetites, "…we get thin, not because it feels good to be light, not because we enjoy eating particular foods, but to prevent ourselves from drowning in the thirty-year-old pain of being fat and dumb and unwanted. Then, since being thin does not change the image or make the pain go away, we gain back the weight so that we can pretend that when we lose it again, we will be happy."
When you let your heart speak to its true desire, what comes to mind?
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