So I was traveling recently and had a couple hour layover in the Charlotte, NC airport. Usually I do two things when I’m in an airport with time to spend waiting for a plane: eat some kind of Mexican food (it’s the usually the most reliably healthy option- you can’t go too wrong with black beans, salsa and fresh guacamole) and thumb through a bunch of magazines.
Sure, I’d like to say I’m the kind of a person who only reads magazines of taste and substance- but you wouldn’t likely completely buy that now, would you? For good reason- it wouldn’t be exactly true. Before I get around to the likes of “Harpers” and “The Economist”, I’ve first gotten my fill of Sports Illustrated, Maxim and Rolling Stone.
Well, I must have gotten caught up on A-Rod’s latest blood test results, the 8 must-do exercises for rock hard abs, and a review of Bob Dylan’s new album, because I found myself reading an interesting article in “Newsweek” (or was it “The Atlantic Monthly”- don’t remember) about the “glass ceiling” in American corporations. It was talking about how in spite of Barack Obama’s election to office, many minorities and women still perceive that there is a visceral glass ceiling in their companies that typically doesn’t allow them to rise above middle management positions.
It really got me thinking about the weight loss struggle that so many of us go through, and how in many ways we bump into a “glass ceiling” as well- only this one is entirely of our own creation. We usually know it too, but we still can’t figure out how to break through it. We keep bumping our heads on this imaginary ceiling.
It’s like we keep getting snagged- like when you’re walking through a doorway and your shirt or jacket pocket gets snagged on the door handle (don’t you hate that?) and you get unpleasantly jerked back. Only when it comes to weight loss, we get jerked back to the place where we began- and it leaves us feeling very frustrated and stuck.
So how can we break through that glass ceiling once and for all? How can we shatter it to tiny, miniscule, meaningless pieces- and even get to the point where we realize it was in our minds the whole time? In other words, how can we break through out own barriers to finally have the results and happiness we desire?
What I’d like you to contemplate for a moment is that the way you’re going to break through this glass ceiling is by finding the “Hero Within”. Not exactly the answer you were expecting? Let me explain.
There was a great mythologist named Joseph Campbell who studied literally thousands and thousands of myths and great stories from all over the world. Campbell said that all of these stories were always about a heroic character who was fighting for truth or justice, or to find her passion and true purpose in life.
Campbell’s greatest contribution, though, was the realization that the tales of all of these great hero’s were ultimately just metaphors- metaphors for your life and mine. He said that each of us is the hero on our own journey- a journey (and often a struggle) each of us is on to find our truth, our passion and to create what we really, really want in life.
Here’s always the catch though: in order for the hero- meaning you or I- to have the life we deeply desire, we inevitably come upon a threshold- a “glass ceiling” if you will. Campbell calls this “The Threshold of Adventure” and in order to really claim the life we want, we have to get across it.
This can be tricky, though, because in order to get across it we have to change. To at least some extent, we have to leave behind what is comfortable and familiar. Think about this a bit. What is comfortable and familiar is exactly what has gotten us to exactly where we are today. It’s not what is going to get us the new result we want.
Campbell says that when every hero gets to his or her threshold of adventure it’s always scary, because what lies on the other side is the unknown. The hero almost always experiences the desire to retreat, quit and seek comfort in what is more comfortable and familiar.
Think about this in terms of your struggle to lose weight and keep it off. How many times have you tried to make changes, but you keep bumping into that same glass ceiling over and over again? Maybe you do great for 3 or 4 weeks, but then you get stressed at work, lose your focus and go right back to your uncontrollable night snacking. Maybe you do great for a few months, lose 15 or 20 pounds, but then for some inexplicable reason you just start sabotaging your success and find yourself back at square one. You hit that darn glass ceiling again!
In many ways, I think of the weight loss struggle as a classic Hero’s Journey scenario (and it’s one of the main ideas that PEERtrainer co-founder Jackie Wicks and I built our 12 week Mind Coaching and Training program around). There is something you deeply, deeply want. I know this, because you wouldn’t be reading this article if it wasn’t true. Maybe you want your health back, or a sexy body and to start dating again; maybe you just want to feel ‘normal’ again and not constantly plagued by the fear that you’ll binge and eat all night. Maybe you want to go home for the holidays and not be anxious about what your parents and sister are thinking.
Whatever it is, you wouldn’t be reading this if there wasn’t some major change you really wanted to make in terms of your body and health. And yet, you keep bumping into that threshold.
So how does the hero finally get across this threshold? In a word: Courage. It requires the courage to change. It requires the courage to fully commit to ourselves and our highest good; to commit to breaking out of this little jail cell we created. It requires the courage to face our fears, “slay our dragons” and fight for what we want! Your issues with food are the “battle” you must fight as the hero on your own journey.
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