mcsblues
Sat, Jun-12-04, 21:18
This is the first chapter of a book Anthony Colpo refers to in his latest newsletter, "The Yoga of Eating". (I can steal it because he got one of the other stories from me :) ) Now the title might sound intimidatingly 'new age', but certainly this chapter is not.
One of the joys of low carbing is discovering what your body really wants - and once you have some knowledge of that, this way of life becomes not about denial or willpower but acceptance and enjoyment of the foods that make us feel so good - which is also what the book is telling us.
Cheers,
Malcolm
"Many people despair at the prospect of improving their eating habits, because they think they just don't have enough willpower.
Not enough willpower. How else to explain destructive dietary habits even in full knowledge of the consequences? How else to explain pigging out all day after a week of disciplined eating? How else to explain snacking on donuts after having made an earnest, well-motivated pledge to give up donuts? It appears that willpower has failed, allowing a momentary compulsion to betray us.
Our society's appeal to willpower goes far beyond diet, of course. Often we seem to think that without willpower, we'd lounge around doing nothing all day, except to fulfill our nearest needs and pleasures. "What would you do tomorrow," I ask people, "if all of a sudden you lost all your willpower?" Most people imagine sleeping in, missing work, eating a big breakfast, and after that, a vague never-ending spiral of indulgence, indolence, and apathy.
Reliance on willpower reveals a profound distrust of one's self. We seem to think that what we really want to do must be bad, indulgent; therefore we must exercise willpower to enforce better behavior. Life becomes a constant regimen of "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts." But maybe this distrust is misplaced. Let's think about it more carefully: What if you really did lose your willpower tomorrow? Yes, maybe you would sleep in-but is that laziness, or a genuine need for rest? Maybe you would miss work-but couldn't that mean your work is not your soul's true work, and no longer do you force yourself to do it? You might stay in bed until ten, even until twelve, but eventually the bed would become uncomfortable. You might sit around doing nothing for a while, eating chocolate bon-bons and watching television, but eventually you'd become restless. Without work and chores to do, escapism loses its appeal. Maybe you'd feel free to catch up on neglected areas of your life. Maybe you would spend all day with your child, or a friend, or in nature. Maybe you would take up a creative project you'd never had time and energy to do. Maybe this creative project would turn into a new career, a job that you are excited to wake up to. Maybe, just maybe, life without willpower would be more creative, more abundant, more productive, and more dynamic than the life of shoulds and shouldn'ts.
The proper function of willpower and self-discipline is to extend wisdom and insight into times of imperfect clarity; to remember and apply the messages of one's inner voice. For example, if you are engaged in joyful work, when distractions come you may need to remind yourself of what you really want to be doing. Or maybe you need to remind yourself of the happiness of quiet time with family when the titillations of consumer culture beckon. In marriage, if you can remember the lightness and ease of not maintaining lies and secrets, then sexual infidelity loses its allure. And in eating, as we will see, discipline comes naturally when we integrate into present awareness the full experience of food. True discipline is really just self-remembering; no forcing or fighting is necessary.
When used in this way-to remember oneself, to come back into alignment-willpower is natural and energizing, whereas when we are fighting ourselves, it is an ordeal. Often we use "self-discipline" to tell our inner voice to shut up, preferring to trust in the rational mind and its received beliefs. This is unfortunate: What if our inner appetites and urges are telling us something important? I think of the engineering student, disciplining himself to study his equations when really he wants to play his guitar, because he "knows" music is not practical. If he has enough willpower, his musical talent will remain buried for a lifetime, but he will never be a very good engineer, or a happy one.
How much freer and happier we would feel, and how much more powerful we would be, if only we stopped struggling against the grain of our natural gifts and inclinations, stopped trying to be what we are not, and instead used willpower to stay true to an exciting and joyful life purpose.
Often we try to use willpower to improve ourselves: our diet, our bad habits, our selfishness, our temper. The fact is that any effort at self-improvement or change-including dietary change-relying mainly on willpower is destined to fail. If you resolve, "I will make myself do it," then you are fighting yourself. It means you are divided, that on some level you do not want to do it. Sooner or later, in a moment of weakness perhaps, or in a moment of self-forgetting, your true desires will express themselves as actions. The engineer's attention will wander, he will procrastinate, he will sabotage himself in a million little ways. The dieter will snack, cheat, make excuses, start again tomorrow. In a divided self, willpower is a puny thing.
The yogic approach to eating and diet is to bring oneself into wholeness, to illuminate and repair the self-division, to stop fighting oneself. Yoga, after all, means "union."
And even if you had an iron will, what a shame it would be for eating to become a regimen of self-denial! So many diets are defined by what you cannot eat. Who would not find the words "Yoga of Eating" intimidating? They seem to suggest a kind of discipline, purity, or austerity. It is significant that the very word "diet" in our culture has come to mean a diet of restriction-usually to lose weight. And so you may think that the Yoga of Eating is yet another chore, an incursion of self-denial into one of life's great pleasures.
Not so! Given the futility of coercive willpower, the Yoga of Eating offers an alternative: to align joyful, nurturing eating with the authentic needs of body and soul. To bring into alignment, into union, what you need and what you crave, what your body wants and what you actually eat. And, to integrate your diet with other life directions and your role in the world.
Healthy eating is not a matter of clamping down on unruly appetites. It is not a matter of the rational mind using its sophisticated nutritional knowledge to overrule a stupid body which craves foods that are bad for it. Second-guessing and ignoring the body is what has gotten us into this mess in the first place, and we will not get out of it by imposing on the body yet another set of dietary principles, no matter how new-and-improved they may be.
Whereas willpower implies pitting mind against body, in the Yoga of Eating we develop greater sensitivity to the body, greater sensitivity and trust. We stop seeing the body and its appetites as the enemy, but instead listen to the messages encoded in cravings, appetites, and tastes. As we develop trust in these messages, we discover subtler levels of sensitivity and greater unity of mind and body. The Yoga of Eating does not sacrifice pleasure; on the contrary it uncovers unimagined dimensions of it.
The Yoga of Eating requires courage. To abandon the habits of distrust, restriction, and denial; to emerge from the shadow of willpower and trust that the body is a friend that speaks truth; and to enact that truth even if it contradicts received beliefs about what is good and bad for you-this is no small step, but truly a leap of faith.
Chapter 1 from The Yoga of Eating"
http://www.yogaofeating.com/chapter1.html
One of the joys of low carbing is discovering what your body really wants - and once you have some knowledge of that, this way of life becomes not about denial or willpower but acceptance and enjoyment of the foods that make us feel so good - which is also what the book is telling us.
Cheers,
Malcolm
"Many people despair at the prospect of improving their eating habits, because they think they just don't have enough willpower.
Not enough willpower. How else to explain destructive dietary habits even in full knowledge of the consequences? How else to explain pigging out all day after a week of disciplined eating? How else to explain snacking on donuts after having made an earnest, well-motivated pledge to give up donuts? It appears that willpower has failed, allowing a momentary compulsion to betray us.
Our society's appeal to willpower goes far beyond diet, of course. Often we seem to think that without willpower, we'd lounge around doing nothing all day, except to fulfill our nearest needs and pleasures. "What would you do tomorrow," I ask people, "if all of a sudden you lost all your willpower?" Most people imagine sleeping in, missing work, eating a big breakfast, and after that, a vague never-ending spiral of indulgence, indolence, and apathy.
Reliance on willpower reveals a profound distrust of one's self. We seem to think that what we really want to do must be bad, indulgent; therefore we must exercise willpower to enforce better behavior. Life becomes a constant regimen of "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts." But maybe this distrust is misplaced. Let's think about it more carefully: What if you really did lose your willpower tomorrow? Yes, maybe you would sleep in-but is that laziness, or a genuine need for rest? Maybe you would miss work-but couldn't that mean your work is not your soul's true work, and no longer do you force yourself to do it? You might stay in bed until ten, even until twelve, but eventually the bed would become uncomfortable. You might sit around doing nothing for a while, eating chocolate bon-bons and watching television, but eventually you'd become restless. Without work and chores to do, escapism loses its appeal. Maybe you'd feel free to catch up on neglected areas of your life. Maybe you would spend all day with your child, or a friend, or in nature. Maybe you would take up a creative project you'd never had time and energy to do. Maybe this creative project would turn into a new career, a job that you are excited to wake up to. Maybe, just maybe, life without willpower would be more creative, more abundant, more productive, and more dynamic than the life of shoulds and shouldn'ts.
The proper function of willpower and self-discipline is to extend wisdom and insight into times of imperfect clarity; to remember and apply the messages of one's inner voice. For example, if you are engaged in joyful work, when distractions come you may need to remind yourself of what you really want to be doing. Or maybe you need to remind yourself of the happiness of quiet time with family when the titillations of consumer culture beckon. In marriage, if you can remember the lightness and ease of not maintaining lies and secrets, then sexual infidelity loses its allure. And in eating, as we will see, discipline comes naturally when we integrate into present awareness the full experience of food. True discipline is really just self-remembering; no forcing or fighting is necessary.
When used in this way-to remember oneself, to come back into alignment-willpower is natural and energizing, whereas when we are fighting ourselves, it is an ordeal. Often we use "self-discipline" to tell our inner voice to shut up, preferring to trust in the rational mind and its received beliefs. This is unfortunate: What if our inner appetites and urges are telling us something important? I think of the engineering student, disciplining himself to study his equations when really he wants to play his guitar, because he "knows" music is not practical. If he has enough willpower, his musical talent will remain buried for a lifetime, but he will never be a very good engineer, or a happy one.
How much freer and happier we would feel, and how much more powerful we would be, if only we stopped struggling against the grain of our natural gifts and inclinations, stopped trying to be what we are not, and instead used willpower to stay true to an exciting and joyful life purpose.
Often we try to use willpower to improve ourselves: our diet, our bad habits, our selfishness, our temper. The fact is that any effort at self-improvement or change-including dietary change-relying mainly on willpower is destined to fail. If you resolve, "I will make myself do it," then you are fighting yourself. It means you are divided, that on some level you do not want to do it. Sooner or later, in a moment of weakness perhaps, or in a moment of self-forgetting, your true desires will express themselves as actions. The engineer's attention will wander, he will procrastinate, he will sabotage himself in a million little ways. The dieter will snack, cheat, make excuses, start again tomorrow. In a divided self, willpower is a puny thing.
The yogic approach to eating and diet is to bring oneself into wholeness, to illuminate and repair the self-division, to stop fighting oneself. Yoga, after all, means "union."
And even if you had an iron will, what a shame it would be for eating to become a regimen of self-denial! So many diets are defined by what you cannot eat. Who would not find the words "Yoga of Eating" intimidating? They seem to suggest a kind of discipline, purity, or austerity. It is significant that the very word "diet" in our culture has come to mean a diet of restriction-usually to lose weight. And so you may think that the Yoga of Eating is yet another chore, an incursion of self-denial into one of life's great pleasures.
Not so! Given the futility of coercive willpower, the Yoga of Eating offers an alternative: to align joyful, nurturing eating with the authentic needs of body and soul. To bring into alignment, into union, what you need and what you crave, what your body wants and what you actually eat. And, to integrate your diet with other life directions and your role in the world.
Healthy eating is not a matter of clamping down on unruly appetites. It is not a matter of the rational mind using its sophisticated nutritional knowledge to overrule a stupid body which craves foods that are bad for it. Second-guessing and ignoring the body is what has gotten us into this mess in the first place, and we will not get out of it by imposing on the body yet another set of dietary principles, no matter how new-and-improved they may be.
Whereas willpower implies pitting mind against body, in the Yoga of Eating we develop greater sensitivity to the body, greater sensitivity and trust. We stop seeing the body and its appetites as the enemy, but instead listen to the messages encoded in cravings, appetites, and tastes. As we develop trust in these messages, we discover subtler levels of sensitivity and greater unity of mind and body. The Yoga of Eating does not sacrifice pleasure; on the contrary it uncovers unimagined dimensions of it.
The Yoga of Eating requires courage. To abandon the habits of distrust, restriction, and denial; to emerge from the shadow of willpower and trust that the body is a friend that speaks truth; and to enact that truth even if it contradicts received beliefs about what is good and bad for you-this is no small step, but truly a leap of faith.
Chapter 1 from The Yoga of Eating"
http://www.yogaofeating.com/chapter1.html