{This post has been inspired by @maceytomlin, a stunning and brilliant friend of mine who recently wrote Mastering the Art of Self-Respect, an article that beautifully tackles the importance of self-love and how that can begin to dramatically alter your life and emotional intelligence. Part of her article, which refers to self-talk, reminded me of something I'd been wanting to write about for awhile. And so it begins...}

I Was 40lbs Overweight For Four Years

For most of my life I had the luxury of consuming a lot of food that comprises what some call S.A.D, or the Standard American Diet, and the consequences of consuming a diet laden with processed foods, bread, sugar, soda, and fast food were minimal to non-existent.

However, as happens to many, the compounding effects of the abuse to my digestive system and immune system finally showed up around age 18, and top of all that I went from being a fairly active teen to getting a desk job and being almost totally sedentary. What that meant at the time was that I suffered severe drops and fluctuations in my energy levels, and began gaining weight, though it was gradual gain over the course of a couple years. I ended up about 40 pounds heavier (than I am now, and than I was at the time) at the heaviest point I reached, and I was not only physically extremely uncomfortable, but nothing fit me right, shopping was a nightmare, and my self-esteem was in the crapper.

I did what most people do. I went to friends and the internet, researching health and wellness and trying varying cleanses and diet plans. Many of the things I tried worked for many people, and in retrospect, a lot of those things (though not all) could have worked for me, but what I ultimately figured out was that my inability to discipline myself to make good choices was coming primarily from my psychology, not really from the chemical addictions to bad foods.

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The Power Of the Human Will

As it goes so often, I discover something about the inner workings of my mind or emotions and sure enough I find that I'm not alone and mountains of literature have already been written on the subject. So many of you who are familiar with human psychology won't find this article to be saying something all that extraordinary. Some of you have figured this out about yourselves already, and used it to hack into your bad habits and break out of them, creating new and healthy habits.

The human will, our free will, which so tenaciously wants to do whatever it wants at all times, is so fierce and so strong, that it will usually find a way to fight against restraints it perceives are put on it-- and that includes the restraints we ourselves try to put on it.

Here's what I mean, and this is where I can throw credit to @maceytomlin for inspiring me to finally write this:

How we talk to ourselves absolutely matters, and many of us are constantly talking like firm authoritarians to ourselves.

The greatest hinderance that was constantly stopping me from progressing was my own free will, in the form of what my husband often likes to call "my Inner Fuck You". It was bucking hard against my own self-talk, and my own self-talk was not respecting the power of my own will.

It might sound too easy, but I experienced a major breakthrough in my ability to alter my health habits when I simply changed the way I thought inwardly, the way I talked to myself. I stopped letting there be a split between my boundless, fierce will, which wanted to do all the old bad habits, and the part of me that was trying to verbally beat that into submission.

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How To Quit Being At War With Yourself

It's actually very simple, I'm happy to say. The results do not happen overnight, but I promise if you make this switch, and you let your will have its power, and talk to yourself differently, you'll actually notice your impulses and desires changing, and improving.

The Warden's Words

Here's how I was talking to myself about my bad habits:
"You can't have that."
"You have to be good, you have to exercise."
"You have to stop eating that, you're not allowed to eat that stuff."
"STOP doing that, it's not good for you."

See how I was giving myself orders? There was effectively a split, one of me that wanted to do all the bad things, and the me that knew I could be doing better, which was ordering me around.

The key is to let the Warden dissolve into silence, and let your free will take back ownership of your actions; to instead acknowledge that you have the power already in your own free will to choose both healthy AND unhealthy.

The Words of The Will

"I can have whatever I want, including that brownie... I just CHOOSE not to today."
"I can be lazy today if I want, but I'm strong enough to get off my ass today, too."
"I can have any kind of life I want, and I want the life where I feel like a badass."
"I do whatever I want, and I am choosing to do the smart thing today, even though I don't have to."

When I switched my thinking and self-talk to the latter, I started to notice something changing. I started to notice it getting easier to make better choices. It was gradual, but the change was lasting. I changed my entire relationship to food, and exercise, and progressively altered my lifestyle so much that it was eventually nothing like the old lifestyle I had. There was no struggle to keep weight off or be "good", because who I was in relation to my health had totally changed.

I lost the 40 pounds I had gained, packed on muscle, acquired strength I'd never before had as well as consistent energy levels, and loved my own body (even naked, yes). I have been at this level now for four years.

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How Simple It Really Is

It almost seems too easy, I know, but when you've spent years becoming your own authoritarian warden in your mind, your powerful and ferocious free will needs a LOT of room to breathe, and a LOT of verbal acknowledgement and reassurance that it is indeed in control and always has been.

I tend towards thinking that a lot of us ended up with the Warden in our minds as the residual voice coming from barking authoritarians we may have had around us growing up -- teachers, parents, government, church leaders, etc.

Part of taking back your own power is relinquishing the part of you that wants to be a control freak and make your bad habits go away instantaneously. Habit-change is still a process. You didn't develop bad habits overnight, and they don't typically drop overnight.

If unhealthy habits have any chance of dropping quickly, it will only be once you give the power back to yourself, and remember that you are--and have always been-in control of your choices.