This is the softer, easier way

I don't know about you, but I have spent a majority of my life looking for the way out of this "food problem" by seeking solutions that I thought would be quicker, cheaper, less invasive or whatever appropriate word I can put on it rather than "diet". Along my journey, I have done Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, South Beach, grapefruit, cabbage, Slim Fast, AIDS candies, alphabet and myriad of other diets. I'm not knocking them .... some actually have healthy food plans. But, for me, I have found that if I don't deal with why I am picking up the food in the first place (other than hunger), I will always be on the hunt and I will always view Monday as another day that I am going on a diet.

It is precisely this reason that I am on this journey through Overeaters Anonymous. When I truly work this program, it does work. I mean, I had lost 140 pounds when I was doing everything I was supposed to be doing. When I don't work this program, I go into relapse and gain all my weight back, plus change to spare. It does take commitment on my part and a willingness to go to any length. Yesterday afternoon was a reminder of that.

I was sitting in an OA meeting. It's a relatively small meeting, which I like sometimes because the sharing tends to be a little more open and you get to know the people more. I was still on my high after having finished reading The Shack. In this particular meeting, we read the For Today selection for the day and then share on it or anything else we would like to share about. The reading focused on the idea of remaining teachable. I know God is always trying to teach me something, and that meeting time was no exception. A person shared about how they had made it through steps 1, 2 and 3 but would get stuck every time they got to step 4 and the issue of resentments came up. They shared about how they wanted some other way to get through that step instead of going through the resentments. Instead of dealing with that, they stopped going to meetings, stopped calling their sponsor, stopped being abstinent. Their entire share was how about it was horrible of their sponsor to insist they work through the resentments, but this person just wanted some other way.

I get that, I totally get that. However, the truth is, and I'm only speaking for myself, if I don't deal with the resentments and clean my side of the street, I will forever be battling these things. That was evident in what I wrote yesterday in this blog, about holding on to resentments and hurts from my mother and the person who raped me. Sure, the resentment was not as large and looming as it once was, but it stayed with me. And sometimes it affected my food, but moreso it affected my relationships - with other people, with myself and with God. I believe healing sometimes involves pain. Whoever promised there would never be pain? Certainly not God. On the other side of that pain, however, is beauty and peace. I pray for the person who shared in the meeting about not wanting to deal with resentments. But more than that, I praise God for showing me, yet again, that I would be in that same place as the other person had it not been for His grace.

So, am I on the hunt for another diet? Nope. I may use food plans that make sense for my body and my needs, but I need what I get in the rooms of OA. God brought me there and, one day at a time, He will keep me there. Whether I struggle or I have good days, or both, that is where I belong. I need to be around other people who understand the addiction to food or behaviors around food, who get that compulsion to eat that most other people don't understand. I am a great respector of that. I don't have an addiction at all to alcohol - I could take it or leave it alone forever - but I still understand that addictive feeling for those who are alcoholics. Believe it or not, walking through is always the easier, softer way - at least in my experience.