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!

Suffering by Choice

Many addicts reported that they beat their addiction by praying to their Higher Selves to intervene. Good, if that worked for them, but I still think we can aim higher than that because in this case the 'conscious I' still feels small compared to that Force that intervenes.

When Jesus was tempted to turn stone into bread, defy gravity or rule all kingdoms of the earth. At this moment there was turmoil in Him, because He was power hungry like so many of us. Yet, He decided not to follow through despite His temptation. It was the 'conscious I' who made this choice and not a Higher Power.

A spiritual path is a continuous flow of decisions, and some of them are painful. Suffering is part of the healing process as we all know. The good news, you don't need help from a Higher Power, instead it is dawning on you that You Are the Higher Power. Dare I say it, it is dawning on You that You become God's equal.

Why to Eat Cake when you are Dieting?

Will-power is a strange concept. Why do some people succeed in keeping their New Year's Resolutions while others fail until they stop bothering altogether. Succeeding in getting what you want is simple if you are close enough to your goal, but seemingly impossible if you still have some psychological baggage to throw over-board. I remember once a woman saying when she heard the expression sexual addiction for the first time, "Why doesn't he just keep his zipper locked up?" Well, that is as helpful as saying, "Why do you eat cake when you are on a diet?" Fighting an addiction or dealing with a pernicious habit is a psychological journey in which many things in the person's life will have to be adjusted. Let me give you a real life example.

A woman working in the financial industry had been overweight to start with, but unfortunately, was steadily gaining weight as the years went by. It never bothered her since her husband apparently didn't mind and she had the money to hide her weight behind tailor-made designer clothes. But then one day her sister went on a crash diet, coupled with an extreme work-out plan and everyone was stunned at her transformation. Given that our financial  analyst had always been the "successful one" within her family, she wanted to do the same. She had already succeeded in shedding 50 pounds when she suddenly realized that in all meetings and professional encounters she had her arms and legs crossed. No matter how much she tried, her arms and legs always moved on auto-pilot when she met somebody. Her husband happened to be a psychologist and explained to her that before the diet her weight had psychologically protected her against criticism. Without it, her vulnerability makes her feel naked, especially in front of her aggressive male colleagues. After that insight  she changed gears and focused on her self-confidence instead. After years of training and reprogramming her arms and legs started opening up, and as her defensive demeanor disappeared so did her pounds.

Addictive behaviours and pernicious habits have a psychological message for us that something needs to be adjusted. If you try to overcome them with will-power you are likely to run into a wall sooner or later. But as you tackle the underlying psychological problems it gets much easier. Eventually you reach a stage when you give the wall a little push and it crumbles. A spiritual path is exactly like that only you are a little further along in your personal development. Every obstacle you face, every step you miss has a message for you. You just no longer get upset when things don't work out for you, just because you have seen over and over that a little personal re-positioning immediately propels you to a much higher spiritual plane. Enjoy your travels and enjoy the cake!

There is no Alternative

What exactly is a spiritual path? I sometimes wonder if your spiritual journey starts in earnest when you start noticing the messages that you are sending to yourself. Accidents, people you care about behaving in an irritable way, addictions that develop; these are all indications that a change has to take place. If you realize that there is really no alternative you are already feeling better because, well, it's kind of an easy choice. The is no alternative! Every promotion comes with more responsibilities attached, so accelerate your spiritual development by cutting out the stuff you need to drop.