When will it click for me?

I saw this question asked on Reddit awhile back, and I felt compelled to post about it.

You may be asking yourself:

How many times do I have to stuff my body full of sugar until I FINALLY want to stop?

How many times do I have to obsess over the day’s meal until I’m fed up?

How much longer do I have to wait to start living my life?

Why has it clicked for other people, but not for me?

Maybe you’ve heard people say that unless you want something bad enough, unless you’re TRULY fed up, you won’t make a change.

Maybe you feel like rock-bottom hasn’t come for you yet, so you must settle for the way things are until the day comes.

Are you accepting the status quo, hoping that one day you’ll stumble upon that “A-HA!” moment that will make everything from there-on out easier? Do you believe that maybe you just don’t hate yourself ENOUGH yet?

I used to feel this way, too. My epiphany was always lurking somewhere in the future, rendering all current efforts useless.

I used to think:

When I’m in college, I’ll mature and feel differently.

When I’m done with my senior thesis, I can really take the time to evaluate my life. Things will fall into place.

When I’m in France, I can learn the art-de-vivre, and I will know how to savor food.

When I start working full-time, I’ll see that I can’t keep doing this to myself.

Eventually I got tired of waiting for some mythical day to come and rescue me from my own self-loathing. I put down my shovel, and tried to create my own epiphany.

Stop Binge Eating: Rock Bottom is Where You Refuse to Keep Digging.

If you’re anything like me, you probably have a tireless faculty for self-sabotage. There isn’t any moment “real” enough that would convince you to get your shit together. In fact, if such a moment existed, you would probably just beat yourself up about it, believing if you only tried harder, if you only hated yourself a little more, you’d make it out of this predicament.

Self-hatred is your shovel, and fear is your motivation.

These emotions don’t magically disappear when you feel horrible enough; you just have to make the conscious decision to stop acting on them.

Many people who say they’re recovered make it seem as if one day, after a long series of trial and error and heart ache and indigestion, things just “clicked” for them. As if by magic, they perceived the error of their ways and changed course.

This is no-doubt true for some people, but I would imagine it doesn’t ring true for most.

For most people, the desire to change doesn’t occur in a single moment in time. It does not fall from the heavens, or strike like a muse. It is the accumulation of many steps forward and backward. It is a daily refusal to fall through the cracks of doubt.

Perhaps I’m guilty of making it seem like one day life just made sense, and I knew from there exactly what to do differently. This is untrue. Despite offering you all tips and tricks, I still have days where I can’t take my own advice. Yesterday, for example, I restricted despite being hungry, and wound up gorging myself on Nutella and Runts.

The difference is that I no longer use this “slip-up” as negative energy. I learn from it, using it to propel myself forward and UP OUT OF THE HOLE, rather than further down the tunnel of soil. Slip-ups become new tools, new ways of understanding yourself.

Use them to climb instead of burrow.

Every day, you must refuse to stop digging,

It’s OK if you mess up. This DOESN’T mean you’re broken or that you’re not trying hard enough. It doesn’t mean you’re a hopeless cause, or that you’re fundamentally different from everyone else.

A mistake simply means you’re a human blessed with the remarkable capacity to adapt and respond.

Today can be the day you waited for.

Put down your shovel, and begin your ascent.