The Answers Are Inside the Mind

For as long as I can remember, I always believed that whenever you have a situation with which you need to deal, the answers can be found inside of you and not from others. In one of the lyrics that are contained in the “Let Life Happen” CD, the words are “the answers are inside the mind, they’re really not so hard to find”. I have since learned that the first part of that lyric is still correct but the second part is a totally different matter. Let me explain.

“Finally I found the answer to something that I have sought to change for virtually a lifetime and I knew where that answer was all along.“Barbara Jacoby

For many years, I weighed the exact same amount of pounds that I did when I was 18 years old and a senior in high school. I wanted to lose weight. I tried just about every diet in the book and even when I successfully would lose some pounds, I always managed to gain back that weight.  I have read about “set points” and metabolism and the need for exercise and counting calories and counting carbohydrates and fat and the not eating after 6 p.m. and the need to drink more water, etc. until I am blue in the face. And I tried all of the variations and still end up in the same place.

Then I went to my collection of books that all indicate that everything that is occurring within you physically is mentally manifested. That made sense to me so I decided to get to the bottom of this issue with this unwanted fat. Everywhere I looked, I found the same thing – that the fat is being retained as a means of protecting me. But from what am I seeking protection?

Over the years, I went back to all of the hard times and addressed each one of them, one at a time. I reviewed how I felt about each individual issue, discovered what I had learned, forgave anyone to whom I may have directed responsibility and released it. I truly believed that I had covered every possible issue, situation, wrong, whatever and I still hadn’t gained any ground. Then out of the clear blue sky, something really hit me.

Whenever I was discussing my weight with anyone, I always said that I had been thin until I was 7 years old when I had my tonsils removed. I have believed all of these years that the tonsils must have been the cause of my not having a big appetite as I remember my parents forcing me to eat when I had no desire to do so or didn’t like what we were having. And then I had to go to the hospital to have those tonsils removed.

I finally went back to that time and the only thing that I remember of that surgery was that I woke up in the middle of the night in a very dark room with my throat feeling like it was on fire. I knew that I had a button that I could push to call the nurse but I was so scared that I could barely move and never did find that button. The other thing that I remember is that I was told that I could have all of the ice cream that I wanted when I had those tonsils out.

Ah, ha! What did I learn from that experience! It was the ice cream that was the only thing that could soothe my pain and that I was alone and scared when I was in the dark hospital room and I would do anything to protect myself from going to that darkness again.

I had continued all of those years to protect myself by soothing myself with comfort food whenever I start to get stressed. After my three cancer surgeries including my double mastectomy, I managed to find my way out of not staying over in the hospital for even one night, thanks to the kindness and understanding of my cosmetic surgeon.

That was the trigger. There should have been nothing that was scary about it but that was my feeling. But my willingness to examine why I felt fear is what has finally allowed me to discover from inside what I was protecting and I brought forth some very successful changes in my eating habits as a result. Finally I found the answer to something that I have sought to change for virtually a lifetime and I knew where that answer was all along.