Are you writing a new chapter, or a new book?

[cryss 96]

When I finally made the decision to make the big leap on this journey, I knew my choices had ramifications that rippled like Water from pebbles tossed into a pond, reaching far into every aspect of my life from my relationship with food, to my relationship with people, with society, with vocational pursuits, with finances, and everything few and far between.

Personal Reinvention requires not a full, working understanding of such things before engaging the processes, but it does require a willingness to both trust the process and a determination to never look back.

Having had to come up with the cash to engage this process, I had a tangible connection to the power and flow of the process river. We feel its current from economic to physical and socio-psychological flows, to the flocculation of fears and happiness/ excitement that flake off like dust from the trail; neither fully embraced due to the shifting road ahead as the surgery date nears, yet all felt like the current of a strong river capable of carrying me down to new lands. I'll have time to dial in my emotions downstream, but for now I just let them come up, become acknowledged, and then release them.

As I sop up as much information as I can from books and blogs, I see a wide range of stories that are for the most part positive, but I do see a disheartening amount of stories from individuals who are making things a lot tougher on themselves in the long run by allowing social pressure to dictate how they both walk, and embrace, this new flow.

A few days ago, the day before my Endoscopy, I spoke to my doctor (who will be performing my sleeve in just a few weeks) about my frustrations and fears. I mentioned how interesting it was to me that so many who undergo WLS are willing to keep the doors creaked open to old doorways, when they should rightfully be welded shut. My doctor told me of a study regarding WLS patients who “plateau” or even gain significant weight over the years. The one common denominator? They were willing to have one or more of those things we are instructed not to. “I only have one beer, on occasion”. “I only have a diet pop once in a while”. “I only have a cupcake on a birthday”.

This was the single most common denominator in 100% of the cases in the study.

Are these things evil and a hard core “no no”? It depends on who you ask. Just like there are physicians who smoke cigarettes, it doesn’t mean that if the rare medical professional says you can have booze on occasion, that is ok or healthy to do so. I am sure there are a few who do get away with it, much like how George Burns lived longer than most with smoking as a part of his life/persona. Then again, he WAS God

We are making a major modification here with WLS. The physical modifications are only a small part of it. The rest are psychological/ behavioral. Cutting meat from our bodies are only part of it, and only a tool that can be as successful as the one using it.

The tool is in your hands. Why not find a way to perfect its use via a path of Mastery?

I ask myself that question with every post of “when can I drink alcohol again?”

We need to decide (or RE-decide) if we are writing a new chapter in our lives, or write a whole new book.

Pick up your proverbial pens, and write the book of your lifetime, one that will be read and quoted in your golden years. Will that tell the tale of a success, or a failure? Will the protagonist be seen as someone who cut corners or kept doors creaked open so that they could feel the familiar companionship of their past failures? Or will it be a story of someone who has truly ascended into a new, re-branded, reinvented being?

Edited June 16, 2014 by cryss