“My imperfections and failures are as much a blessing from God as my successes and my talents, and I lay them both at his feet. — Mahatma Gandhi

An immense part of the struggle with attempting to control over-eating is the guilt, shame and disappointment we feel when we don’t succeed. We are very, very quick to criticize and ridicule ourselves when we don’t behave as planned. Those feelings of guilt and shame hurt our spirit and affect our ability to make better choices moving forward, thus the vicious cycle begins. After all, we know we didn’t become over weight by splurging at one meal or for one day or even for one week. It was repetitive behavior over time and it adds up. It’s now up to us to figure out how to break that cycle.——I think the answer lies in a type of surrender as Gandhi alludes to in the above quote. Trading our guilt, shame, embarrassment and disappointment in for acceptance and feedback. Allowing ourselves the chance to feel that we ARE ok, even if we did eat more than we wanted to at a dinner out last night or ate a Graham’s chocolate egg the size of our head! Those things happen! It doesn’t mean there is something “wrong” with us or that we are weak or need to feel ashamed. It just means we need to dig a little deeper and figure out a way to chose a different outcome next time. We can do this by using our past experiences as feedback not failure. Whatever obstacle you are facing in your life right now is exactly the challenge you are meant to have at this point in time. I don’t like it any more than you do, but rather than fight it, let’s take comfort in the fact that we are on a mission to learn a lesson from where we are right now. Let’s use our energy to dig in and manage our situation the best we know how at this moment and let the negative self talk go by the wayside.——Have a Happy Easter!! While hunting for eggs, take some time to hunt for all the things in your current experience that you can be grateful for this weekend–the abundance will surprise you!!!! All is well 🙂