Trying less hard

Have you tried real hard to lose weight? To break up with your food? You may have been trying real hard to be normal, to stick to a diet, to count calories, find hunger and fullness, or to lift weights. Like scores of other frustrated dieters, you might be tired of trying real hard.

Let's think creatively. Open up our minds and test our beliefs. Maybe, just maybe, trying real hard is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Have you ever seen the movie "28 Days" starring Sandra Bullock? It's about a woman named Gwen who has a problem. She enters a drug and alcohol rehab rather than go to jail. At first she denies her addiction. Then she tries real hard to avoid her pills and alcohol. But it feels impossible. Indeed, it is impossible. Her substance overpowers her.

While in rehab, she's required to participate in an unusual therapy. She and the other patients are encouraged to lift a horse's leg with the goal of inspecting the hoof. Sounds easy, right?

I don't know anything about horses, but it sure looks from the movie like when those rehab patients try to force that leg off the ground, the horse resists. It digs its foot further in the ground in stubborn rebellion.

Gwen is unable to force cooperation from the horse. It won't budge. Gwen slowly learns about locus of control. She begins to discern which forces in life she has control over and which she doesn't. She learns that to get what she wants from the horse, she needs to exert control only where she truly has control. This requires inner confidence, wisdom, intuition, patience, and a little nudge--in short, all the traits that set apart the winners in the pursuit of normal eating. When it comes to complex problems, trying real hard gets you nowhere.

How can you get your metaphorical horse to cooperate? Borrowing from the lesson of the horse and the wildly successful twelve-step programs, here are some thoughts to meditate on today. They will help you find your own way. They will help you recover from your relationship with food. They'll help you learn normal eating. They'll help you gain control over other areas of your life as well.

1. Learn the serenity prayer, and really work it. If you don't like the religious context, then by all means, alter it. Here is the prayer: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

2. Contemplate the value of intuition. Our country as a culture tends to undervalue this component of wisdom. Yet to negotiate all the intricate forces in the world around us requires something as complex as intuition. These forces are just too numerous and intertwined to always be able to handle as discrete components. Intuition can be so powerful. Be sure it's informed intuition, not uninformed intuition.

3. Discern who and what has control over you, and consider what kinds of subtle, yet powerful influence you may, indeed have. To do so may require shedding some faulty beliefs about how things "ought to be."

4. Identify your goal. This sounds easy, but it's hard work. Is your goal to prove a point? This goal often leads us away from our true heart's desires. See if you can get at the real goal, and fix your sights on it. Perhaps your real goal is to be self-contented. Consider that weight loss may not be synonymous with self-contentment. Tease apart your goals from people-pleasing. Separate them from the world's goals, or your perceptions of the world's goals for you. Set out to think entirely for yourself.

There's nothing like a picture to paint a thousand words. If you like movies, you might like to rent the movie "28 Days." At the end, watch Gwen figure out how to get what she wants from that horse.