The Biggest Winner

Some of you might be watching "The Biggest Loser" - a TV show that has overweight people compete with the help of professional trainers to lose the most body weight over a certain number of weeks. Sure, this show has many commercial moments like all shows have but the basic message is a spiritual one: create a supportive environment with the help of professional guidance to get your life back in order.

Everyone wants to be fit, good-looking and have a healthy diet, yet some people can accomplish this feat while others apparently can't. Well, we all can accomplish whatever we set our mind out to do but sometimes we have to disentangle our many psychological conflicts first, and sometimes we unfortunately have to work really hard to get what we want.

Destructive eating patterns, limited energy for exercises, debilitating illnesses, other addictive struggles, etc., may all indicate that we want to find subconscious ways to escape from our current or past reality. Well we can't. Use the challenge at hand to change your life for the better. The bigger the hole is you have fallen into, the bigger your motivation to climb out could be. Often we have to be reminded by our soul siblings of the slumbering giant within.

Listen to the pain of the contestants at the show and it becomes clear that pretty much everyone has unresolved conflicts in their lives that they tried to compensate for with overeating. The coaches are trained fitness instructors with good insights into psychology as well. The program consists of teaching the contestants how to eat better, how to exercise hard, and how to build trust. Sometimes they encourage the contestants to dig up the pain of the past and face it. The coaches also constantly remind them what really matters to them. Often it is the love of their own children or their spouses, their health or a reminder of some previous accomplishments that makes them sign up for this gruesome multi-week drill.

When you think about this group exercise to lose weight you find that it is really not that different from the AA meetings. Eating, alcohol, sex, shopping, gambling, video games, workaholics; all compulsive outlets are essentially a subconscious message you are sending to yourself that you have homework to do. Everyone can climb out of it but it is hard work and you need to constantly remind you why you are willing to pay the price, just as you have to be willing to face the buried pain of the past.

Victims of compulsive behaviors often blame their missing will-power, but this isn't a very useful perspective. You can build your will-power to make 33 repetitions of a grueling drill rather than 30 as the mad coach screams at you, but you can't simply use it to turn your life around starting January 1, 2014. If it was that simple, why didn't you do it before? To change compulsive behavior you essentially have to rewire your entire preferences set in your brain. As you turn your life around, you put a much higher reward on life-affirming activities while at the same time you step out of the shadow of your previous dark influence. Start many different projects on January 2014, but don't overdo it either. Rome wasn't build in a day. Most importantly, surround yourself with loving people who help you in your endeavor. Don't be afraid of hard work and never mind the monsters that are hiding under your bed. You can do it - you are the biggest winner!