Using Our Brains and Our Feet

First of all, on this Veteran's Day, I want to thank all of the men and women who have served or who are currently serving our country.  Our freedom isn't free!

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Speaking of freedom, a friend of mine posted this on Facebook yesterday and it triggered a lot of memories and thoughts:  "You have brains in your head.  You have feet in your shoes.  You can steer yourself any direction you choose."  ~ Oh The Places You'll Go

This is from the great writer and philosopher, Dr. Seuss :-).  He had a remarkable gift of putting great thoughts into simple, fun verse, but sometimes profound thoughts come wrapped in simple packages.

We DO have a brain in our head and we DO have feet in our shoes; we really CAN steer ourselves in any direction we choose!  We may not believe that we have the ability to steer our lives in a different direction, but we can do just that if we decide that's what we really want to do.  So often we tend to view ourselves as hapless, helpless victims - particularly when it comes to battling our weight.

We blame our genetics, we blame our childhood, we blame our spouses or our boss.  We may feel that we're hopelessly enslaved to overeating, or we may just think that we have "big bones."  I spent a long time and expended a lot of emotional energy blaming other things (pregnancy, returning to the workforce, etc.) for my obesity, and I felt trapped.  I remember times at work when I would take a 3rd or 4th doughnut or muffin and surreptitiously eat it in the bathroom, feeling shame while at the same time excusing myself by rationalizing that I obviously had an eating disorder and couldn't help myself.  (I want to stop here and say that I recognize that there are true eating disorders that need professional intervention and I'm not for a second minimizing them here.  I didn't have a true eating disorder and just threw out that excuse at the time because I was trying to ease my own guilt.)  The truth was that it was a choice I made - every time.

That was actually GOOD news, because it meant that when I was ready to make a different choice, I was able to do that.  There came a day when, with God's help, I made the decision to get healthy.  Because I wanted that more than I wanted the food, I was able to make different choices.  I was able to use the brain God gave me and put my feet on a different path, in a new direction.  I don't want to sound like this was easy, because it certainly wasn't, but it WAS possible.  It's possible for you, too, if you make the choice to change. 

Choose wisely :-)

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I am leaving this morning for a weekend conference in Pennsylvania and will be home late Monday night.  I'll have limited access to the internet while I'm gone but will get back to blogging next week.  Have a great weekend and keep making wise choices!