The Power of Letting Go

When I let go, I experience loss. When I experience loss, I will eventually need to grieve. This happens for me even when there is a net gain. I still need to let go and then grieve.

Weight loss is still a loss. Sure it’s a happy one. It is a net win. And, there are still losses that need to be grieved before weight loss starts, during weight changes, and while in maintainance.

Before

Body fat is insulation. Body fat is energy storage. Body fat is protection. If I am avoiding grief, body fat becomes a great place to hide. Food becomes a great place to hide. Scrolling, videos, screen time all become great places to hide. I need a great quantity of each, an unhealthy quantity, to insulate myself from loss and grief.

When I voluntarily surrender, I don’t need those things as much. As I allow myself to feel grief, I also allow myself to feel peace.

During Weight Change

I am missing out. I can reframe how I’m thinking about it later. (Yes, I know, “I chose to” instead of “I have to”.) But right, right now … I’m missing out, and I’m frustrated about it. And I’m going to feel my feelings, dang it!

And my body is changing. And some of my support group is not as supportive as I thought they would be. And I’m trying out new things, but I don’t know what will work and what will fail. And I’m finally doing what I want for my body and my health, so I don’t want to complain, but this is really tough emotionally.

And then, I realize that ignoring these many little losses is making me heavy. At first, I feel guilty greiving such things. But then I feel lighter and like I can continue moving forward.

Maintainance

Maybe I still see myself as fat. That was part of my identity. There was certainty in that world. This is a world that is new to me. This world is unpredictable at times – good, but unpredictable still. As odd as it is, sometimes I long to go back to predictability.

Maybe I had already made a plan to binge once I got to this point. Perhaps my secret goal was to get to a certain weight so that I could eat “whatever I want”.

Or Maybe, I am dealing with normal, everyday losses, and some big life-changing ones too.

I need to grieve the identity change, the predictability, the binge plan, the normal life losses, the big life changes. I need to let go. As I let go, I open my hands to recieve.

Something to Hold on To

It is so much easier to let go, when I have something I can hold on to. Even if it is just a hope of things to come, that is enough. Or at least, it is enough for the first step. As I see the principles working, I can let go of more, and recieve more of what I hoped for.

Questions for You

I ask questions because I hope that, by pondering them, you will find answers that work for you in your life:

• How do you know what to let go of and what to hold on to?
• When something is too heavy for you, is there a part of it that you can lay down, even if it’s just for a little while?
• What are you ready to lose?
• What are you not ready to lose?
• Who can you go to when you are grieving, who will just let you grieve?
• Do you feel guilty grieving?
• Do you find yourself saying, “It’s not that big of a deal?”
• What would it be like if you validated the feeling of loss?
• What blessings do you see from letting go?