Freedom from guilt

Guilt is one of our most destructive self-sabotage techniques. We feel so guilty we go into a denial of reality. We deceive ourselves that we’ve ‘been good’, we haven’t done a thing to deserve it, but those damned scales say we haven’t lost weight, we’ve put it on.

When we don’t lose weight we can become angry with ourselves, our parents, bodyOptimise, nature, God, anybody! Or we become passive and defeated and don’t have the energy to make the effort any more. Or we pretend we don’t care anyway, it’s all a big joke.

Whichever way, we give strong, hidden messages to people who could help us through this to ‘back off’. We stop following the Food Optimising advice, we don’t bother to count Syns properly, we don’t bother to exercise, and we have a long list of excuses as to why it isn’t our fault, although deep down we really believe it is.

No-one can sustain this misery indefinitely. But there is a way to break the cycle – and that is to forgive yourself.

No normal healthy person enjoys suffering. Instead of criticising yourself for deciding not to suffer any longer, congratulate yourself on being normal and healthy. When you make a mistake, when you’re not as perfect as you’d hoped, instead of telling yourself that you’ve ruined everything, that you’ve ‘blown it’, say to yourself ‘How fascinating! I wonder what chain of events led me to stop counting my Syns?’ (or whatever your heinous crime has been). If you can work on understanding that, you can give yourself advance warning and protect yourself better in the future.

Begin the healing process that is so deserved and so necessary by forgiving yourself. It wasn’t your fault. You did all this to yourself outside your awareness. You didn’t know this was what you were doing.

You can now stop blaming yourself for past failures. Let your sense of humour work its magic. Take yourself more lightly and the task in hand more seriously. Let the success come. Allow yourself to imagine, to revel in the pure, unadulterated joy or achievement and the ecstasy of success.

Tomorrow is a new day: let it be the start of your new life without guilt and pain.