change and non-attachment
For almost four weeks I’ve been posting my daily eating habits and measurements on this blog, thinking that might make a difference in sticking to a raw food diet and motivating me to exercise or go to jujitsu class. After an unexpected visit from my girlfriend and totally going off my menu, I reflected over the last four weeks and reached the conclusion that this just isn’t working.
Public exposure of my eating and exercise habits hasn’t made a significant difference towards improving either of them, and although I’ve made progress towards my major stated goals for the year, it’s not because I told you about them here or else where. I’ve made progress on them because I decided I really want to achieve them and then I started doing what was necessary to reach those goals. It wasn’t about who might think I’m a slacker, or external pressure, but about making a choice and then acting in accordance with it.
Thinking about things objectively, I’ve noticed my response to food and certain other habits is to do well for a few days, then to ‘fall off the wagon’, as the saying goes. And let’s be honest for a moment - if we were talking about drugs or alcohol instead of food, you’d be calling me an addict, because it’s classical addiction behavior.
Admitting this to myself, the first thing I thought about was the emotional charge surrounding it. So I was trying to figure out the best way to remove the built up emotional charge surrounding, well, anything, I think back to the time I spend on the mat, and how sensei is always telling us not to assign a value to things, which I realize is another way of saying the same thing as the Buddhist concept of non-attachment. When you don’t attach to things, events, or people, it allows you to see them and experience them without injecting your own judgments into the situation, and also allows you to let things come and go as they will without regret or sorrow.
That I see myself going through cycles of starting to change, then giving in to desire, then feeling guilty about giving in, then getting angry at myself for giving in and feeling guilty tells me that I am a long way away from non-attaching to the issue of food. When I can say after a day where I follow the change that I’m one step closer, and when I can say after a day where I don’t follow the change that I’ll do better tomorrow and let it go without the emotional content, then I will have achieved non-attachment to my eating habits.
I don’t know how long it will take to achieve this - I may never achieve it in this lifetime. I will try anyway.
March 20th, 2008 at 8:34 am
You’re describing what most of us go through. I just read the book “French Women Don’t Get Fat” which, despite being addressed to women, offers wisdom useful to everyone. Basically the book gives the reader permission to enjoy food thus the book itself is an enjoyable one. The message is one we now rarely hear in diet-world and it is cast in a different, more palatable way. The emphasis is on balance, portion control, avoidance of the artificial, development and refinement of the senses, diversity of foods, eating seasonally–eating what’s in season, ritualistic preparation and eating (in Le Petite Prince, the fox explains to the little prince, “Il faut de rites”–We all need rituals.”) The difference between the French and the American seems to be that Americans focus on what’s bad to eat (what’s bad for us)and the French focus on what’s good to eat (what’s good for us). A subtle but significant difference in attitude.