You know how it is – you weigh 170lbs and you want to weigh 145.
Or you give in to your cravings and you want to eat only when you’re hungry.
At The Life Coach School, where I teach and mentor new coaches, we call this space in between where you are and where you want to be The River of Misery. It’s the discomfort you have to go through in order to move from the reality you are living into the reality you want to create for yourself.
Read my client, Amelia’s description of how she moved through her River of Misery to become a woman who no longer desires sugar. It’s inspiring reading because it demonstrates the value of coaching, which is so different from traditional approaches to weight loss, where guidelines are imposed on you, and you do your best to apply them without any internal change, so you have no choice but to remain in the River of Misery for your entire weight loss journey, which is rarely permanent. In coaching we move together through the River of Misery until you become, first internally, the You that thinks, feels, and eats what you need to eat in order to reach your goal size. Read on for Amelia’s eloquent depiction of her journey:
“Here is what I noticed about giving up sugar and this new concept of the river of misery…
On the “sugar side” of the riverbank I am very familiar and think that I have all this freedom and pleasure because I eat sugar whenever I want. Although I feel miserable because I don’t feel well physically and am obsessed with sugar and food.
And when I’m on the “sugar side” I look across to the “no sugar” side and figure I will probably feel better in some ways but that it will feel restrictive, boring, and miserable. However, I know it’s what I want for my health. So it’s kind of hard to make the swim when I have mixed emotions about getting to the other side.
Diving in head first, not knowing when I’ll get to the other side, and if I’ll even want to be there was too scary. So I took the one day at a time approach which was like this – today I’ll put my toes in, the next day I decided to get in up to my knees, the next day I decided to get in up to my waist, only focusing on the present and never looking at how far I had ahead of me, or how easy it would be to go back.
And now I’m here – I don’t eat sugar. I love this side of the riverbank because I actually feel so much more free, more in control, more options, and so many more things to focus on besides food and sugar. Now THIS is living!!! It’s so much better than I imagined it would be.
Now that I am here it is so easy. But the hardest days were the first few days because when you are only in up to your toes it’s easy to say “well I’m only in up to my toes, I’ll just go back And stay here one more day and then I’ll start my swim tomorrow.” The farther you get into the river of misery you start to realize that you’re closer to the other side so you should just swim forward rather than turning around.
And I have lost 2 pounds in 2 weeks and haven’t really changed anything else. And I was out of town for a week in a super stimulating, fun, and stressful environment and didn’t need food to help with emotions. Freedom!!!”
If you’re considering coaching with me, I wanted to let you know that my rates will double on Feb 1. Please click the CONTACT link on my home page to schedule a consultation with me this week if you’d like to lock in at my existing rate.