Chocolate or Vanilla?

Today, I'm finally starting to understand what choosing can mean for my life. It all started back at the Forum when there was an exercise in making a choice, or rather a perceived choice.

I'm rewriting the exercise a bit so that it makes even more sense to me. So here goes:

You're sitting in an ice cream parlor and someone hands you a bowl of chocolate ice cream. Everyone else around you has something different, so you'd like to choose that instead...but the parlor is out of everything else except chocolate. The choice is to accept what you got (the chocolate ice cream) or be busy ogling what everyone else has.

The perceived choice is that I can have someone else's ice cream...but I can't. I only get what's right in front of me. Furthermore, if I put my energy into not wanting the chocolate, it doesn't disappear or transform into vanilla...it just sits there. Simply stated, what you got...is what you got.

This week I've been confronted with choosing what I got. This has manifested itself in what I originally thought was my weight. The drama that I was going through was that losing weight is difficult for me even though I'm doing all the right things (eating healthy and exercising daily) and that there's some "cosmic unfairness" to the whole thing since other people have an easy time with this without putting in so much effort.

So my choice was my weight...or so I thought. However, whenever I'd choose [remember: this is what I got] my weight of 144lbs (15 of which I'd like to lose) I'd find myself in major upset, crying, and feeling really bad for myself. It definitely didn't spring me into action or make me feel good.

I started to look at what it is that I'm resisting. I asked, "what's right in front of me that I'm ignoring, pushing away, or feeling victimized by." What I saw was my food diary. I had pushed it away because I made measuring my food into this obsessive activity that I felt was unhealthy. Now, what I was obsessive over was *not* using it. So I was spending lots of time crying and defending why I shouldn't go that route even though I know that it works well for me.

Later this morning I decided to choose my food diary. Then I got the "ah ha!" moment. After choosing it, all that worry, upset, and effort went away. I didn't start crying thinking about entering in my food for the day or the number on the scale. I was spending so much effort on resisting my food diary that using it seems super simple now...10 minutes tops to enter in food and not thinking about it is so much better than being in an upset for a good hour+ per day.

The struggle and the effort has really disappeared...it's like I didn't know it was there anyway. In choosing my resistance I lost the drama and gained freedom.

Another part of what I chose was what I viewed as "obsessiveness." I had this whole thing about not wanting to feel that way. So I chose that along with the food diary since the two are linked, and now instead of feeling obsessed, I just feel in control of what I'm doing to my body.

Only in resistance does something stick around. So, take a good look at the chocolate and choose.