Welcome back!

Jakey

Today we’re looking at another slant on the Law of Cause and Effect.   In our last blog, I explained that you, your mind thinking, is Cause.  It causes what it thinks.  Since you are cause, whatever you cause is effect.

Each of my posts in December is going to be about the key factors intrinsic in my being able to enjoy the holidays without kvetching about food or weight gain, and how I got to this place….finally! If you’ll notice, there’s a category called “Christmas” on the right where you can read them all.  Enjoy!

My dream is that on New Year’s Eve, because you follow this blog and you tell your overweight friends to read it too, we’ll all be better prepared to move into 2010  with a basket full of right ideas to help us think differently about this overweight phantasmagoria.

Key Ideas about Cause and Effect:

Cause has the properties of cause.  It causes things.  That is it’s nature.

Effect has the properties of effect.  It cannot cause things.  It’s nature is to be effect.

So what?  What does this have to do with my not gaining weight over the holidays…. or any time I eat food, for that matter?

Girlfriends, food is effect.  Food has the properties of effect.  It cannot cause things.  It’s nature is to be effect. It cannot make you fat.  It cannot cause allergic reactions. It cannot create constipation.  It doesn’t have the ability to cause anything, because it is effect…..dead effect.

So what?  What does this have to do with my not gaining weight over the holidays?  Here’s the secret: YOU are causing fat, allergy and constipation by thinking that food (effect) has the ability to cause! It’s you and your thinking that is causing it!  OMG! True dat!

Hence, the title of today’s blog post:  Freedom from Effect.  You are operating under the umbrella of error when you think food makes you fat.  It’s  your thinking that food makes you fat that actually makes you fat, and not the food itself.  Food, effect, can cause nothing because it is not cause.  Your mind thinking is cause and the only cause there is. You don’t have to go get the lap band to quit this!!!

You know, I love sharing these truths with you.  I want your holidays (and eventually your entire life) to be as carefree and enjoyable as my life is and not be afraid of food.  It’s my strong hope that you’ll tell your overweight girlfriends about this blog so they can enjoy freedom from food too.

Holiday hugs,

Pat

Happy, happy, happy

My brother called me last night after spending a few hours with my son Thad and Amy and Baby H. He commented that he had never in his life encountered such a well-balanced, loving and happy child. I know he has cranky moments like other kids. I mean, he must. I have never encountered one with him.  When I get to hold him and play with him, he’s always all smiles.

Happiness is our norm, and I think Hieronymous has, for the most part, never been torn away from his norm.  He is unilaterally loved and accepted and this allows him to stay inside what is normal.  Thad and Amy, you’re doing a superb job.

Those of you, my regular readers, would you like to return to your norm? We women have this tendency toward negative self-talk about our bodies.  Somehow, somewhere, someway we grew up with the concept that a) our bodies are who we are; b) other people have a right or a duty to make judgmental  comments about our body and c) we adopted the whole food/exercise idea as the way to handle our sinful selves. I’d like to address these things one at a time, because only in changing them will our bodies change, if we want out body to change.

a) Our bodies are who we are.  Inside your body lives the “I” of  you.  It’s invisible, changeless, perfect and good.  It is, in fact, goodness and perfection itself. Inside you is your Mind.  Your mind is the “I” of you - invisible, changeless, perfect and good.  The goodness who you are is 100% changeless.  Your goodness will never be deleted nor will it disappear.  You and I have added stuff to that goodness and perfection called “the negative thoughts I think about my Self.” We have believed those who’s input is less than generous, and we continued the diatribe long after their mouths clapped shut and they walked away.

It is our right, our duty, and our privilege to change the negative thinking we do about ourselves.  This work is done mentally because we are mental beings - invisible, powerful, changeless. So what’s the story behind overweight bodies?  We have thought them into existence. We have used our minds unduly, and our body, the faithful report card of our minds activities, has created a picture in the shape/size of our bodies to let us know we (our minds) aren’t thinking good thoughts.  We are not the body we have created, just like the robber isn’t the bank job he pulls. Our “norm” is to think good thoughts and remain comfortable, like little Hiero.

b) Other people have a right or duty to make comments about our body. You and I are here on this earth to learn the what, how, why, when and who about us individually and about life in general. Our circumstances - in particular, our bodies - are learning tools for this task.  Other people in our lives are ancillary lessons for us. They and their nasty ass words are a perfectly adjusted opportunity for us to do one of two things.

1.  Consider what is said to see if there is any truth in it.  If so, applaud your Self.

2. After consideration, if you find no truth in the words of another, cast it aside like pet poop.

Remember this:  the words of another can only have an effect on you with your permission.

c) We adopted the whole food/exercise idea as the way to handle our supposedly sinful selves. Because we are mental beings, we ought to have been taught from the get-go to use our mental tools.  The world at large doesn’t even know we’re mental, let alone that we have mental tools! The food we eat and the exercise we employ are effect. Effect has nothing in it that acts like cause. It is our minds thinking and coming to conclusions that are the cause part of us.  An effect cannot do that.  The reason that dieting and exercising seem to work is that the girl doing the dieting and exercising thinks that they work. Invisibly, she is using the power of her mind.  She thinks if she takes food away, she will lose weight, and she might do that temporarily, but if she doesn’t change the way she does the negative self-talk thing, the weight will return.  Oprah, bless her good, good heart, is a prime example of this.  And so am I.  And so are you.

I went kind of long today, but I think all those words bear saying. The old saw “Change your stinking thinking” has a lot of truth in it. I hope that my words today help you to see what you’ve been doing so that now you can change your thinking.  My book can help you do this work, and in particular will all the incredible questions in the two workbooks.

Love you.  Mean it.

Pat

“I was brought up to believe that how I saw myself was more important than how others saw me.”

~ Anwar el-Sadat

If  you are compulsed or addicted to attending to your appearance solely as a means of self-acceptance, please consider Anwar el-Sadat’s message.

I believe you cannot spend your entire life focused only on your appearance.  At some point, somehow, someway, you’ve got to go inside of yourself and figure out just who you are that’s making that appearance.  Judging by the appearance alone is effect-based thinking.  Judging from inside is Cause-based thinking.

You choose.

And then if you want to learn how to do Cause-based thinking, you connect with me.

Love,

Pat