Which came first?

Which came first? The psychological issues or the obesity?

IF we remove the resultant, the problem still remains. I was likely driven to obesity through not being able to deal with life, anxieties, and all that other shit. So no wonder I struggle, I need to learn to deal rationally to an irrational situation.

Powerless over food does not mean helplessness. I have a choice. Eat or not eat toxic foods. Once I start, I have little realistic choice beyond eat until I can stop. It is not compulsion that drives me but my mind, the obsession.

But I do not need to start. That is the choice. But then I must learn to deal with the psychological problem, what ever that is that is driving me to the food or that I am using food to escape, avoid, or defer from.

Writing / talking is one solution for understanding / determining that problem / issue / situation that is bothering me. After determining it, then, I need a solution. Keeping in mind Stoic principles: it is not the situation, but my thinking that causes the problem; within who's control is it: life is what it is; Zeno's rules, etc. Now what is the rational response to an irrational situation? Not to eat anymore.
  

Processes of change

One of the processes of change is the space to express one's self, where it might be heard, or has that potential at least. It is part of dramatic relief and/or one of those other 9 or ten processes.

But there is a piece missing, that is a clear understanding of what change will look like, or what part of us is to actually change. This may take the form of a new self image, or a goal or concept. A new self image can be developed through effort to understand others and myself.

It is impossible for me to willingly change until I know what I want to change into, or at least what characteristics need to be changed to match god's will, or more precisely, my view of god's will. After we stop practicing our bad characteristics, (steps 5&6), some of us have space to practice some good ones.

Some of us have mental blocks in our leaky carbon based minds, resistance to some things, or extreme willingness to do other things. Our minds have been trained that way. I see defects in products, bad actors on the roads, things that could be better. Tetris effect. I see what I have been trained to look for. Trained by my father, by my education, my 40 years of work, and by life. Now I must learn to compartmentalize my life to see gratitude, beauty, compassion, joy, optimums, fortitude, wisdom, justice, and all those positive attitudes and allow those negative characteristics, critical observation, failures, risky behaviors and the like to sit unused during my social times.

Nature promises us biological parents, not good parents, or even present parents, just biological parents. My father tried to motivate by moving the goal posts, carrot but no taste. And criticism and ridicule, and condemnation, and comparison where I always came up short. That was his issues, and had to leave. Such was life. I see those characteristics in myself, and have tried to not practice them. The new self must employ better treatment of others.

Enough already. All I really need do is breath, smile and enjoy what life has to offer. Dao.

Deprivation vs Willingness

It was quite common for me to feel deprived when offered sweet tasting poisons when I was on a diet, and in the early days of the program. Today I understand that there are many poisons; manufactured edible products, sugar, wheat, chocolate, some dairy products. From these I now abstain.  From many other food products, I must practice moderation, and moderation is not an OA term, but it is reality.

The big change is in the spirit, the willingness to follow a food program for today. It is a daily reset. Just for today. The daily reset allows me to live without a feeling of deprivation. This is helped along with the realization that food companies produce addicting edible products, which are not good for us, low grade poisons, but are just addicting to increase sales. Poison is in the doseage, but the addictive characteristic of the food makes it poison. Just look at the stats of the US, 35% of the population obese.

It is in the cleaning and clarifying of the beliefs that recovery came to me.

The contra is also true; those who want to lose weight, but are unwilling to give sugar, chocolate, flour; their bodys way, obeying the laws of the universe, always has its way. There is a solution when we recognise the body is subservient to the spirit, and the mind a servant of the body, contrary to popular opinion. The spirit here, is the knowledge/faith - beliefs - values - habit - conditioned - unconscious part of the physical brain.  

There is a effect, known as Pygmalion Effect, in which leader of a group of people can influence the production by his attitude. We can learn to induce this effect in ourselves, for our own benefit, by influencing our own attitudes, values, beliefs and opinions. This is one of the many things that OA can provide.

Keep coming back. Breath, smile and enjoy what life has to offer.

Who Cares?

What is the ultimate requirement of recovery?

1. a belief that we can recover
2. a belief that life is worth recovering
3. a belief in a power outside of ourselves, at least knowing what we believe
4. a belief that following a food program is part of recovery 
5. the willingness to follow a reasonable food program
6. a suitable food program 

How much we clean up the past and relationships, how much we change and learn is all irrelevant to our food issue recovery, in my opinion. We can hid in meetings also, but, the science is clear to me:

In my case, unmanageable life, insane parental expectations and matching self driven expectations, produced uncontrollable stressors contributed to the first stress refeeding with carbohydrates, which resulted in conditioned overeating, an unconscious physiological response. This resulted in a desire to eat when faced with any stressors and the availability of food, and that turned into obsession. Nothing to do with compulsion. So why would I say I am a compulsive overeater?

We know that high insulin from eating carbohydrates blocks leptin signaling, blocks satiation and satiety signaling. That is the physiological fact as one of the roots of this issue. Obsession is the unconscious mind trying to "solve the problem as it always has". It is changing that method of solution that is at the heart of the problem. We can do this by changing our belief system, and giving our brain something else to obsess about.

Today, in the meeting, I saw four strong unyielding personalities in action. Perseverance, yes but stubborn holding on, not so good, but we all need to change but to what?

But who cares and what do I know. Breath, smile, and enjoy what life has to offer. Dao.

Any opinions?

God 2.0

My concept of god/ no god has changed again. It has become real but non-traditional. Traditional gods are still unreal concepts to me.

If a god existed, the identity would have created all matter and all forces that exist. Although we know that there is nothing that created it, the forces still exist. It is the sum of the forces that could be considered to be god, we cannot see them, yet we know they exist. It is the forces that makes matter solid. That allows one to knock on a table and be able to say that my god is as real as this table.

Zeon 2. states: the unity of all; all gods, all substances, all virtues, all mankind, into a Cosmopolis.

Is this what he meant?  We are all part of god? What about our thoughs?

This concept is definitely a power outside of myself that is real, and I can beleive in, for I know it is real. It is incapable of doing anything but what the forces have always done. Of course, the law that describe the forces all apply. Grass still grows, cows still make milk, bacteria convert that to cheese, wool still grows and provides us warmth. OK, stoics enough.

God is still powerless to act, except as it always has and will, through natural occurrences. So what is prayer, other than self expression. But one of the 10 processes of change is self expression. Is that what it is all about? The continual change of self to fit the world. Insulin still blocks leptin signaling, and I need to compensate for that with low carb; I need to keep busy as well to avoid the obsession. Is recovery that simple and exhausting?

For recovery we need a food plan, a god, and the willingness to follow god's will, which should include the food plan and a balanced life. But god wills or permits anything.

But what do I know? Breath, smile, and enjoy what life has to offer. Dao.  Comments, ideas, anyone?

Expectations

Expectations are something we place on ourselves, although many of us try to live up to our understanding of the expectations of others. It may be our understanding that is out to lunch, or will be presented as such if/when problems arise in business. No one else will take responsibility for our actions, even when we are given wrong directions it seems. Oh well, that is life.

All situations can be divided into three groups of responsibility, mine, others, and god, for the lack of another name. It is only that which is in my control, namely my judgements, opinions and some violations that I have control over. I have influence over others, but without "control" am I responsible. In the real world, other people seem to think so, but they have their own part to play.  Responsibility without control, OK. In the real world, we have responsibility without absolute control. That seems unjust, and is unjust, but it is what we are forced into due to social contract.

When we were few people, big spaces, and less mechanization, it may have been reasonable, but now with people everywhere, crowded, congested space is it reasonable? Is this why the social contract is breaking down? Is this why the concept of social contract is so foreign to many? Mind you, anyone coming from the third world needs to learn about the concept of social contract. It need to talked about with respect to traffic a bit more.

Expectations that other will drive in a legal manner is reasonable, I think, but the reality is that they do not, and as such, I must drive defensively, and watch out for idiots and learn to deal with aggressives, bumper sitters, road slugs, and all those others. Of course, they must know what legal and respectful driving is. But the world has about 17% sociopaths and psychopaths, a 17 percent saints, so 2/3 of the world are between these outlying groups. Such is modern life.

There are too those that will not accept any responsibility, even when it is clearly theirs by our social contract and totally within their control. Integrity is one of those items, which is under constant erosion. Integrity has costs; relative to less integrity. But loss of integrity also cost to us, so there needs to a cost benefit analysis both ways, cost and benefits with high integrity, and with low integrity. consider also the time frame of each cost and benefit.

Enough already. What do I know? The minimum action required for a good life is to breath, smile and enjoy what life has to offer.    

Necessities

The necessities of recovery are, a suitable food program, a belief in a "god" to lever motivation and confidence off, that same confidence and motivation, a knowledge of "gods will" and the ability to bring our will into line with "gods"

Now as a nontheist, I recognise that "god" is just a handle for whatever we believe. Some force of physics created matter, and this universe, and what ever that is is my "god". This makes "god" real. We study the real world to understand and create rules that describe small aspects of the physical world. I can say I have been trying to understand "god's ways" all my life, but never considered engineering to be "god's ways", but using the term for the sum of all, all matter, all processes, all biology, makes us part of god, but we have free thought, as long as we go along with god's will for us. But this is what Zeno said.

Without evil and destruction there would be no insurance industry, without sickness there would be no medicine, (except statins). We need these thing to struggle against, (as a Bridge over the River Kawi), we need work. The new evil is obesity in it many forms and causes.

When we have a god that we know is right, that is know beyond just believe, we can easily have confidence and commitment to do the right thing, which we can term god's will. It is easy to do what we believe is right. That is one of the essential concepts behind the steps.

Once we have a god in place, we need to come to know his will, and bring our will into line with his. We need to sort his responsibility and as " shoemaker, stick to our own last". Epictetus defines our responsibility, our opinions, accents, judgements, desires, violations, impulses, aversions, and our mental faculties in general. Likely we can include choices, our intentions, violations, speech, and livelihood, effort, mindfulness, concentration, possible knowledge. These are ours, all else is up to others or god.

But what do I know. Breath, smile, and enjoy what life has to offer. Dao.