Weight Loss is a Spiritual Goal

Wanting to lose weight isn’t selfish. It isn’t petty, inconsequential, or silly. It’s a challenging process of change that actually leads to the conscious contact we are hungry for.

The cycle of making and breaking promises to ourselves about our food behavior comes from unconscious antagonism against ourselves. We’re baffled, we feel like we’re eating against our own will, and we feel completely out of control of our own behavior.  

Healing this relationship requires that we bring so much awareness to what we are thinking, feeling, and doing – to and about ourselves – we run the risk of interpreting this pursuit as selfish and self-centered. Isn’t spirituality supposed to be thinking less about ourselves and more about others? Aren’t we supposed to get out of our heads and our bodies, the ego and the flesh that has so often failed us? Isn’t selflessness the goal?

If selflessness means kindness, compassion, trustworthiness, love, and drawing from a full well to give to others - then indeed it is. But selflessness - ironically? - requires a full, meaningful, and conscious relationship with ourselves.

This is why: We can’t give anything to others that we have not cultivated in ourselves. If we can’t stand to know ourselves intimately, then we will be giving an inauthentic version of ourselves to others. If we are not willing to heal the parts of us that are the most baffling, frustrating, and confounding, then we won’t be able to see them in others – the parts that cause very real and continued suffering. 

It’s possible to act our way to selflessness (fake it til you make it), but if we have a poor relationship with ourselves, we are frustratingly limited. I’ve been there - On the outside I’m putting out my hand, making the phones calls and taking the commitments, while on the inside I’m self-conscious and filled with resentment. My helpfulness is militant, and my kindness conditional. It’s a deeply uncomfortable place to be.

Our Higher Power starts with us. When we remove overeating, we are confronted with the parts of us that need attentive healing. We befriend and pay attention to ourselves. When the most intimate and happy partnership we have is with ourselves, our capacity to love and help others becomes infinite. And infinite capacity to love is the definition of spiritual fitness.