It has been a long and very interesting year, and the quest is not over yer. As I have worked on and rewritten the book on this Journey, I have 5 things I discovered along the way that I would like to share.
1. When you go on a journey make sure and pack a flashlight, things will pop out of the dark and surprise you:
I had no idea when I started out that my real addiction was not food and spending, it was planning the diets and budgets. Going to the store and buying all the ingredients for cabbage soup or Atkins, and buying budget journals. The lack of structure that came with freedom gave me incredible anxiety. I never expected freedom to be terrifying. It took weeks and constant awareness to force myself to not go back on a diet or budget plan.
2.When you stop planning you stop obsessing:
I was sure that the minute I stopped dieting I would gain 100's of pound, not true! As a matter of fact once I settled in, I was able to put the scale away and live happily and comfortably in my clothes. I could focus on hunger and portions without counting....anything. People I never noticed suddenly appeared at my table and conversation and laughter became the focus instead of food!!! AHA!
3. Fasting can be done one hour at a time:
As God and I became better acquainted I learned to check in with Him more frequently. He taught me that I can focus on Him when I am tempted to eat or spend. I am learning to make choices as they appear by remembering who I am, I am free and I get to choose. Will I follow the lead of the Holy Spirit or my old desires (who by the way would love to get me back under their control) I have learned to fast from eating and spending on hour at a time, there are no rules to how a person fasts, and its not a competition. It's just between me and Him.
4. I don't want to be a flea:
How we are raised and what we learn is so deeply embedded in our thinking that we are not even aware of its effects on our daily choices. Much of our lives are lived on auto-pilot. I had watched the utube video of trained fleas and was blown away by the reality of our subconscious mind. I decided then and there to live on purpose. This year started with the realization that "it" wasn't working, If I wanted different results I needed to do things differently. It's not so easy.
Here is the link to the flea video if you are curious/
https://youtu.be/GlpjA-QgmQM
5. God is full of surprises:
When you choose to seek God, He shows up in a big way. In all my searching for answers I had looked in every book but His. I mean I knew verses, read my Bible and prayed, but I didn't really "search" for answers there to my daily habits and problems. Once I did, I realized that I had it all backwards.
Over the next 9 months God began to help my understand what it meant to Abide in Him, Walk with the Spirit and that His burden really is light. He was just waiting for me to stop (self-helping) and turn to Him.
Hope
http://www.stopspeating.com/stop-speating-the-book.html
http://www.stopspeating.com/
http://lovemybible.com
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