How did your week go?
Well...I cheated. I totally fell off the wagon.
I hope that you find this encouraging.
I'm a firm believer in the way we talk to ourselves. Our words matter. Whether we are speaking them to others or talking to ourselves.
Maybe...and I could be wrong about this, but I don't think I am...it would be more helpful to be honest about what has happened with your day.
When I think of my off-plan days as "cheating", I suppose I'm right--in that I have cheated myself. But I think, in the past, when I've said I cheated it means something different. It means I've done something sneaky and underhanded. That the food called to me and I just couldn't do anything else. Cheating gives the power to the food and strips the power from me. Did I really cheat? Hmmm... Sometimes I believed that I did, but read on.
I often hear others saying they've "fallen off the wagon." What does that even mean?
Here's the picture it conjures up for me. When I was a teen, I went to a summer camp that had a hay ride in the dark. One of the things the driver would do on purpose was hit huge bumps that would make us all bounce all over the place. As a group of teens, we'd all scream and squeal and hold onto each other in hopes that no one would fall over the side. No one ever did. And it sure was fun.
"Falling off the wagon" sort of implies that I was on a bumpy ride, holding on for dear life and the wagon knocked me off. I'm a victim to the wagon.
But choosing to eat off plan is not the wagon's "fault"--the wagon has no power.
I am an adult. I make decisions as an adult. The wagon doesn't knock me off, I chose to get off. Right? And that's nothing to be ashamed of or beat myself up over. I made a choice. I have the right to make whatever choice I want to make. That doesn't mean all my choices are good ones though.
But when I accept that it is my choice, then it also empowers me to think differently. It empowers me to SEE the choice in front of me and to be more deliberate about making it.
Perhaps this is a better picture:
There are two plates on the table--one has handfuls of goldfish crackers on it (or chocolate cake or the scraps of my kid's PB&J--you name it) and the other has all of my dreams. I get to choose one plate. (Hmmm...that makes those goldfish crackers seem a pretty lousy choice, right?) And I can only choose one plate, because at this time in my life those two plates oppose each other. The goldfish crackers, small and insignificant as they are, keep me from my goals and dreams. Can you tell I'm speaking from my own very personal experience? I wish I could say I didn't choose the goldfish crackers in that moment. But I did. And then, I realized how foolish that choice was.
When we see our moment by moment decisions as our choice then, even when we make a foolish choice, we know that we also have the power to make more choices--to boldly step back onto that proverbial wagon.
So, it is always my choice to go off plan. But there's no reason to beat myself up for that. I made the choice. Thankfully, it isn't my LAST choice. I get to make lots more choices. And I can now choose to do what I REALLY want--to get healthy, to run with my kids, to wear that cute outfit, to get those high boots up over my calves, to live like a healthy person, to prevent myself from being diabetic or having heart disease, to be FREE to be the woman I was created by God to be.
I don't want to get to the end of my choice and see the words "Big Mistake"--but, even if I do--there are a million more opportunities to make a better choice.
How did your week go?
Great--I made a million choices, one at a time. And I chose my dreams!
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