For the food addict, feelings that
can and should be processed in the mind are often displaced onto the body ,
where they cannot be processed and therefore remain stored within your
flesh. The only way to remove the weight of unprocessed feelings is to allow
yourself to actually feel them. Once again, childhood patterns are the issue. Someone else’ s love and understanding—and for a child, that someone else
is the parent—provides a container for our feelings. Later in life, if such a
container were absent in childhood, the overeater tends to seek through
excessive eating the containment that food cannot give. Parental love is meant to be a model for divine love. When parental love
holds us safe, we more easily transfer as adults to a sense that we are safe in
the arms of the divine. If you didn’ t feel that you could safely take your
feelings to your parent figure, it’ s doubtful you feel now that you can give
all your feelings to God. Feelings that are not acknowledged cannot be fully felt. How can you
fully feel something that you fail to name? I feel sad, I feel embarrassed, I
feel overwhelmed, I feel humiliated, I feel angry , I feel afraid, I feel
rejected, I feel left out, I feel betrayed, I feel wr onged, I feel insulted, I feelhopeless, I feel anxious, I feel frustrated, I feel guilty , I feel lonely  … too
often translate into: I feel hungry . Darn right you’re hungry , but not for food. Having bypassed even a
conscious recognition of your pain, you went straight for a way to assuage
it. You’re looking to an external source to provide an experience that can
only be found internally . You can’ t get rid of your pain without admitting to
yourself that it’ s there. Emotions need to be felt the way that food needs to be chewed; emotions
need to be digested within our psyche the way food is digested in our
stomach. The compulsive eater often gor ges on food as a way to avoid
feeling feelings, but then treats food the same way he or she treated the
emotion—moving too quickly , failing to chew , and failing to properly
digest it. Once your feelings are felt, they can be acknowledged, looked at, learned
from, and surrendered to Divine Mind. But instead of acknowledging and
feeling  your feelings, you’ve learned to discount them before they can even
rise up fully formed. Y ou suppress what you’re too afraid to feel, having
little or no trust in the wisdom of your emotions. Y ou don’ t know your
emotions have  any wisdom—how could you, given that no one honored
them when you were a child? But they do; they are part of the genius of the
human psyche. Emotions, even painful ones, are here to tell you something. They are
messages to be tended to. Y et how can you tend to something you don’ t
know is there? Emotions must be acknowledged and felt; or else they
cannot be learned from, grown from, or processed. Life might have taught you that emotions are dangerous. Perhaps as a
child, you were told things such as, “Don’ t you cry or I’ll give you
something to cry about!”—an emotionally tyrannical message that certainly
would have taught you to suppress your feelings at all costs. Perhaps your
emotions were ignored, minimized, or even laughed at by parents who had
other things and other children to think about. What matters is that, for
whatever reason, you learned at a very young age to neither honor nor even
really feel your own feelings. In an earlier lesson, we explored the ef fects of trauma. If you experienced
severe, even violent, trauma, you learned to automatically numb yourself so
as not to feel the next blow . It was a brilliant coping mechanism on the partof your subconscious mind, to freeze so quickly that when the blow came,
you would already be numb. The problem, however , is that such a coping mechanism was only
intended for emer gency purposes; it was manufactured to save you from
imminent danger , not to take you through life. It was not meant to
fundamentally alter your system of emotional responses, and yet that is
what occurred. At a very young age you were exposed to what your psyche perceived as
danger , and now your subconscious mind does not make a distinction
between dangerous threat and tolerable stress. It doesn’ t know what to let in
and what to guard against, so it guards against everything,  just in case. Central to the holistic healing of your weight issue is that you develop a
new skill set with which to deal with unpleasant emotions. An emotion
swept under the rug is not an emotion that goes away; it’ s simply an
emotion that is put somewhere other than where it should be put. It
becomes inert rather than dynamic ener gy, stored within you rather than
being released. As noted previously , ener gy cannot be uncreated. And emotions are
powerful forms of ener gy. If you’re too frightened to feel a feeling, its
energy still has to go somewhere. Actually , an emotion is not dangerous
until it’s disowned, for that’ s when it commonly gets projected onto others
and/or compressed into your own flesh. That only produces more feelings—
shame, humiliation, embarrassment, and failure—resulting in an endless
barrage of twisted reasons telling you why you might as well just give up
and eat more. Defending against being overwhelmed by your emotions, you actually
create emotions that are overwhelming. Y ou begin by trying to keep your
emotions at bay , eat them, go numb instead of feeling them—and in so
doing, create a situation that causes you an endless run of painful emotions. By trying to escape your feelings, you create a whole slew of them that will
arrive full force once you realize what you’ve done. The only feelings you
really need to fear are those you ignore. In Greek mythology , Poseidon is god of the sea. If he tells the waves to
calm down, then the waves calm down. In the New T estament, Jesus
walked onto the water and stopped the storm. Both are metaphysical
descriptions of the ef fects of Divine Mind on the storms of the inner self.Spirit is the master , not the slave, of the inner sea. Y our task, therefore, is to
give your feelings to God, that you might be lifted above the storms of your
subconscious mind. The storms are raging for one reason only: your inner
self will not be ignored. Your thinking that you alone can control the overwhelming force of
unprocessed feelings is like a small child thinking he or she can stand on
the beach and make the waves stop. Y ou might grit your teeth and make it
through the morning; you might white-knuckle it and make it through
lunchtime; you might even somehow be able to make it till 10 P.M. But at
some point, the now angry wave of “I will be fed”—“How dare you say
‘No’ to me? How dare you say ‘No’? !”—will catch you by the ankles and
drag you to the kitchen or whatever place you keep your stash. And the
craving, once more, will win. Your craving for food is an emotional temper tantrum, as a part of you
that feels unheard is demanding to be heard and will be heard. Y ou have two
choices: you can feel your emotion, or you can listen to the cruel command
to do something to temporarily assuage the pain of not feeling it. Clearly ,
feeling the emotion would be a more functional choice. If you have no template for honoring feelings, processing them, bearing
witness to them, surrendering them, and watching them miraculously
transform, then they can appear in your life as frightening ener gy ruling you
instead of being ruled by you. It’ s time to end your emotional slavery by
building your spiritual mastery . Spiritual mastery does not emer ge from self-will but from surrender of
self-will. Once you’ve felt a feeling and surrendered it, you are not simply
left with it, as if you’re dangling from an emotional clif f and about to fall
into an abyss from which you can never escape. When you give a painful
emotion to Divine Mind, you give it to a power that can take it from you by
changing the thoughts that produced it. Any feelings you surrender for divine transformation will be
transformed, and anything you cling to will not be transformed. Surrendering your feelings involves feeling them first, yes, but then it
involves giving them up. It’s actually ironic that you should be afraid of feeling your feelings; as
an overeater , what you have created for yourself and have had to endure are
some of the most painful emotions there are. The horrible feelings of failurethat are endemic to the chronic overeater make your tolerance for pain
already higher than you think. The pain you’re trying to avoid is nothing
compared to the pain you’ve already lived through. The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung said: “All neurosis is a substitute for
legitimate suf fering.” Any pathological tendency—overeating included—
represents the twisted ener gies of unprocessed pain. The pathology is not
ended by suppressing your pain, but by feeling the legitimate suf fering it is
seeking to express. Spiritual healing is a process. First you feel the feeling; then you feel
whatever pain might legitimately arise from it; then you pray to learn
whatever lesson the pain can teach you; then you seek to for give; and, at
last, the grace of God is given you. Y ou emer ge from the experience no
longer suf fering, and having grown as a human being. When you are more
attuned to growing spiritually , you need not grow so much physically . The
energy is released and let out, no longer pushed into your flesh. You’re afraid of feelings the way you’re afraid of food: you’re afraid that
once you start, you may never stop. But the truth is, feelings are only out of
control when they’re not handed over for divine resolution. Given to Divine
Mind, they’re lifted to divine right order—where they will be appropriately
felt and then appropriately dissolved. So too shall it be with food appetites,
for they are mere reflections of your turmoil or peace. The fact that a feeling is painful is not necessarily a reason to avoid it. Perhaps you did something to sabotage yourself in a relationship; unless
you feel the remorse, how will you recognize your self-destructive pattern? Perhaps your spouse left you; your sadness is understandable given that you
were married for 30 years. Perhaps your child is seriously ill; your grief and
fear are simply signs that you are human. These feelings, when handled appropriately , become stations on the way
to grace. Y es, you will emer ge as someone who has grown and will no
longer self-sabotage, but first you had to feel the pain. Yes, you will emer ge
from your divorce strong and free to love again, but first you had to feel the
pain. Yes, you will become the warrior parent who takes char ge of your
child’ s healing, but first you had to feel the pain. Our suf fering does not make us weak; only our avoidance of suf fering
makes us weak. And that avoidance—the avoidance of legitimate suf fering—is unfortunately bolstered by the cultural attitudes of a society obsessed
with cheap and easy happiness. Several years ago, one of my daughter ’s teenage friends—a golden boy
of extraordinary beauty , talent, intelligence, and kindness—shot and killed
himself with his father ’s hunting rifle. There were so many aspects of the
situation rife with horror (including his having been one more statistic
involving the connection between teenage use of antidepressants and
suicide). As a mother , I felt, as did all the parents in my daughter ’s circle of
friends, a deep concern for my child’ s pain. I remember telling my shattered, darling girl, her face streaming with
tears, that there are some times in life when the worst thing that could
possibly happen does happen. I told her that Robbie’ s death was a full-tilt
catastrophe, and nothing I could say would change that. That Robbie was
alive forever in the arms of God, but that didn’ t make this human tragedy
any less horrible. That every tear she felt like crying was a tear she had to
cry, and she would know when she had cried enough when she didn’ t have
any more tears left. I remember seeing a look of relief on my daughter ’s face when I told her
this; she needed desperately to be given permission to feel her feelings and
not suppress them. Indeed, I cried with her . The last thing I ever would have
wanted to do is delegitimize or circumvent her grief. I remember saying at a grief support group I led years ago for people
who had lost their loved ones, “Hey , guys, remember . This is a grief support
group, not a grief denial  group.” Grief is a way that our emotional
ecosystem, imbued with the same genius as every other aspect of nature,
processes an otherwise too shocking emotional reality . The fact that you ar e sad doesn’ t inher ently mean that something’ s wrong. It simply means that you ar e sad. It simply means that you are human. Regardless of what your feeling is, it simply is. There is no reason to run to food—or to anything else, for that matter—to
escape your feelings. Y our feelings are not your enemy but your friend. They always have something to teach you—even the tough ones. Sadness
handled gracefully will transform into peace, but only if you allow yourself
to feel it first. That is the core message of every great religious and spiritual
system in the world: that the story isn’ t over until the happy part.My daughter would get to the point of peaceful acceptance of Robbie’ s
death, and even joy at realizing she would one day see him again. But none
of that could have come about in a real and authentic way had she not first
allowed herself to feel the incredible grief of his untimely death. Another feeling the overeater commonly seeks to avoid is the simple
stress of living in the modern world. From running a household to running a
company , the stress of our modern existence has people running for
whatever form of anesthetization they can find. I eat because I feel
overwhelmed. The feeling of overwhelm is a natural consequence of failing
to recognize a divine hand holding all things together . If you feel you must control everything by yourself—if you don’ t feel
you can ask for God’ s help with the details—then no wonder you feel
absolutely overwhelmed. Y ou can’ t exactly hold up the stars in the sky , but
obviously something  does. So couldn’ t that something hold and harmonize
the circumstances of your life? In fact, the entire universe is held safely in God’ s hands. Planets revolve
around the sun, stars stay in the sky , cells divide, and embryos turn into
babies. Embryos don’ t exclaim, “I’m overwhelmed! I don’ t know how I’m
going to do this! I don’ t know how to cell-divide!” The embryo doesn’ t
have  to know . An order bigger than the embryo moves it forward as part of
nature’ s blueprint. Any situation placed in divine hands is lifted to divine right order . If
looking at the stars in a starry sky doesn’ t overwhelm you, then neither
should your own circumstances. They are put together , held together , and
corrected when need be by the same loving force. But unless  you feel how overwhelmed you are—unless you can say ,
“Wow, I’m feeling overwhelmed right now … I feel like this whole thing
could fall apart if I even closed my eyes for a second”—then you’re not in a
position to surrender it. Pray for the following miracle:
Dear God,  
Please take this situation. I place it in Y our hands. Please handle all the details,  
heal my mind of err or, and r eveal to me what Y ou would have me do. Amen
You need not carry the weight of the world either on your spirit or on
your body . You can “lighten up,” because the spirit is with you. Give over
your burdens, and journey lightly through the world. Every emotion, every situation, every relationship, and every issue can be
safely given to Divine Mind for upliftment. The purpose of this lesson is to
move your mind from its habit of suppressing your emotions—whatever
they are—to the comfort and peace of surrendering them to God. Reflection and Prayer
For this lesson, you need a God Box. It might be a box you make, a box you buy , or a box you previously used
for some other purpose. But as with other tools used in this course, this box
should be beautiful. It is something that will be put on the altar and given to
God. It is a container within which a miraculous process will occur . Now take a piece of paper and write down these sentences:
“Give Me your pain, and I will take it fr om you.”
— G OD
“Place all of this in My hands.”
— G OD
“Seek to for give, and you will have peace.”
— G OD
“You ar e My perfect cr eation. Nothing you  
have ever done or thought, and nothing anyone  
else has done or thought, changes that fact.”
— G OD
“Give Me your err ors, and I will corr ect them for you.”— G OD
“You ar e deeply loved. Nothing you  
do can change My love for you.”
— G OD
Add to these sentences any scriptural or inspirational quotes that appeal
to you, including any ideas of your own, and put them in your God Box. Your job is to continually review your emotions, admit them, feel them,
write them down, and give them to Divine Mind. Use your journal pages to
specifically describe and explore an emotion, and then simply write: “Dear
God, I surrender this feeling to Y ou.” Then go to your altar , and for every
emotion you surrender , open your God Box and blindly pick out a saying. It
will tell you what you need to hear . Now you’re ready to meditate. Y ou have surrendered your feelings, and
your mind will now be imbued with wisdom. This will bring you peace. Honoring your feelings on a regular basis, you will build the attitudinal
strength to carry you when an emotional storm arises in your subconscious
sea. Before you walk into the kitchen, you will name your emotion, even if
you have to scream it. Before you drive to the hambur ger stand, you will
say, “God, please help me,” even if at that moment you don’ t believe there
is a God. Before you drown in the deep and toxic waters of your craving,
you will feel your feelings and surrender them to God, even if you do so
with but a mustard seed of faith. Your God Box will help you. It will provide answers. And in time, you
will heal. Dear God,  
I give to Y ou my anguish and my sorr ow. I feel so overwhelmed, dear God,  
by my life and my compulsion. Take fr om me my craving, dear God,  
for I cannot fight it and I feel so weak. Show me how to feel my feelings  
and to surr ender them to Y ou. Restor e my spirit  and give me str ength. Thank Y ou, God. Amen
OceanofPDF .comLESSON 14
ALLOW THE PAIN
This lesson refers to the emotional detoxification process that
accompanies serious weight loss. At a certain point in your journey , feelings
that have been denied, repressed, and/or impacted within you begin rising
up in order to be released. In the last lesson, we discussed how feelings are not good or bad; they
simply are. But that doesn’ t mean they’re not painful. It’ s one thing to know
that suf fering is an inevitable part of the human journey , but it’ s another
thing altogether to learn how to cope with it. With any spiritual journey—and the journey to conscious weight loss is a
spiritual journey—things often seem to get worse before they get better . Love’ s light is being shone on many places heretofore not visible to your
conscious mind, revealing toxic feelings that were there already but cleverly
hidden. It’s all right if this part of your journey is not pleasant. Part of your
repatterning is learning to be with unpleasantness in a healthy way . The
mature and sober person knows that on some days things simply feel rotten,
and that is okay . You are learning to move through distress by simply being
with it, without the need to overeat or to act out in any other way . How could it not be unpleasant, having to refeel feelings that you’ve
been eating for years? Now having to confront them, deal with them, and
ultimately accept them feels like a fever within your soul. But a spiritual fever , like a physical fever , actually has a productive
function: it burns up disease. Think of your pain as a feverish burning up of
fear. As you heal physically , extreme fever can lead to delirium. And as you
heal spiritually , your fever can lead to delirium as well—a quiet delirium of
the soul. But this too shall pass.This lesson concerns itself with human despair and the consistency of the
body’ s cells. Man has looked beneath the surface of the skin for centuries,
probing the internal workings of the human body . During the last century ,
science has developed the ability to view even the tiniest cells that make up
our physical tissue. Y et science has not yet discovered an explanation for
how emotional change produces physical change, and it is particularly blind
to the malleability of fat. In fact, there are many levels of understanding—even of our physical
selves—that science has not yet penetrated. An electron microscope reveals
the entire picture of our cellular system, but within the cells themselves,
there are storehouses of information not yet understood. For instance, there are tears and then there are tears. Some varieties are
toxic to the body , while others are healing. The distinction between the two
is not just an emotional dif ference but a physical one as well. Even
materially , there are aspects to tears—including functions that af fect the
workings of the brain—that have not yet been scientifically identified. Sometimes it’ s only through crying tears that need to be shed that we
dissolve the unhappiness that caused them. That is why suppr essing
unhappiness doesn’ t tend to end it. How many times have we said that
someone “needs a good cry .” Indeed. T oxicity is often released through the
tear ducts as part of the body’ s natural genius at flushing itself out. Casual
use of antidepressants is unwise for just this reason—feeling the full extent
of your sadness is sometimes the only way to heal it. In the absence of the
feeling, you miss out on the healing. The body does not make distinctions
among physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual stresses. It is
equipped with the natural intelligence to address them all. You are mistaken if you think that you can fundamentally and
permanently change bodily symptoms by physical means alone. Problems
must leave thr ough the same door they came in. If mistaken thoughts have
created a problem, then righting those thoughts is essential to healing it. And if toxic feelings created a problem, they can only leave through a detox
process by which they come up again in order to be released.Excess fat is not just inert cellular tissue. It is a repository of twisted,
distorted thoughts and feelings that didn’ t have anywhere else to go. If you
remove the fat tissue but do not remove its psychic cause, then the fat might
go but the causal imprint remains. And the imprint, in time, will attract
more substance with which to materially express itself. It’s not enough to just “lose your weight.” Y ou must lose the emotional
weight that lurks behind it. This you have already begun to do. Remember
that your food compulsion is a way to cope with painful feelings. As you
begin to heal from those feelings—removing their “imprint” from your
consciousness—they are necessarily refelt on their way out. Problems that seem to have nothing to do with your weight issues might
rise up, and in particularly challenging forms. Y ou might doubt yourself in
ways you have not done before, or have not done for a very long time. But
this part of your process is not a bad period; it is actually a good one, for it
is necessary . There is no spiritual rehabilitation without this kind of
detoxification. When any pain, dif ficulty , frustration, or challenge emer ges, try to see it,
honor it, bear witness to it, and receive it as part of your healing. The
situation carries within it important information for you. It is not just
randomly happening at this time. It presents the opportunity to examine
critically important issues in your life. Looking at your pain, feeling the
feelings, learning whatever lessons are being brought up for review—these
are ultimately the only ways to get the pain to burn away . The universe will never leave you alone at such a time as this. Angels are
all around you, as they gather without fail whenever a soul is seeking its
wholeness. This is absolutely not the time to isolate; rather , despite
whatever resistance you feel, allow yourself to join with at least one other
human being who might possibly be able to help you. Y ou will learn the
serious value of sacred friendship and/or professional counseling. Perhaps you will attend support groups, or spontaneously create a small
community of like-minded souls all taking this journey together . Books
might fall of f the shelf in front of you, and even strangers might have
something profound, wise, and relevant to say . Connecting more deeply
with others, you will connect more deeply to your own feelings. And even
sadness will be more bearable. Some days are sad, yet sad days pass. Spiritual mastery involves building the mental, emotional, and behavioralhabits to carry you through such times without an explosion of
dysfunctional behavior . Sometimes we just need to make space for sadness. Y ou do not need an
excuse for why you feel sad; you do not need to “fix” it; and, most
important, you do not need to run from it. What you need is to let it come
up and simply be with it. Your task with this lesson is to make space in your life, just as you make
space in your heart, for any sadness you need to honor . Perhaps take a walk
each evening, or a stroll on the beach each morning. Allow yourself to
grieve. You will learn in time to be with the void, addressing it with a bubble
bath rather than a sandwich, and with prayer time rather than a candy bar . Your task is to inhabit the emptiness, breathe through it, learn its lessons,
and hear the message it conveys. There is no hole for you to try to fill with
food or anything else; there is only the primal void within every human
being when we feel we cannot find God. Great literature, particularly tales of true tragedy , can be cathartic; it
gives a voice to your own buried, free-floating sadness, and provides a
conduit for its dissolution. When you read Anna Kar enina  in college, really ,
what did you know? But now , after you’ve known a few V ronskys of your
own, you read the book with a new understanding: your pain is given
meaning there, immortalized in a character living precisely your own
heartbreak. And in Anna’ s response to her despair , you get to see the stark
reality that confronts you now: you can self-destruct, or you can rise up in
glory . You did not become an unwise eater for no reason. If you choose to
honestly confront the emotions involved in both causing and healing your
compulsive patterns, you will experience a dark night of the soul. But a dark
night of the soul is ultimately a good thing, for it both precedes and
prepares your spirit for rebirth. The darkness is simply the revisiting of old
feelings, in the absence of which true healing cannot occur . It’s important to
remember that this darkness is temporary , and leads ultimately to the light
beyond it. This time must simply be endured. But it is also to be honored for the
opportunity it gives you to burn through feelings that have come up at last,
and only now can truly leave. They are not being suppressed this time; theyare being led to the door . They have been embedded in your flesh, and will
now be cast out of your personal universe. The tears you cry now will lead
ultimately to rejoicing, as the day will come when you feel the lightness—
both physically and spiritually—of a brand-new day . There are poems, films, and novels—and nonfiction books as well—that
give meaning to the experience of deep sorrow . Choose three that speak to
you; perhaps something you’ve already experienced, or a book or movie
that you know about but have not yet read or viewed. Place them on your
altar and commit yourself to reading or viewing them. In honoring them,
you honor your own tears in a way that releases rather than suppresses
them. Such is the value of art. Reflection and Prayer
Relax, close your eyes, and pray for comfort. Give to Divine Mind your despair , your sadness, your hopelessness, your
regret, your embarrassment, your pain, your grief, your fear , and your
burdens. Do not rush through this darkness. Allow yourself to enter into it
in order to move through it. And in time the light will come. Dear God,  
Protect me as I walk thr ough dark hallways of my mind. Release me fr om the bondage that would hold me back. I give to Y ou my hopelessness,  
please give to me some hope. Reveal to me the light of truth,  
that my darkness shall disappear . Each day , send love to guide my heart  
and heal my thoughts. Heal me for Y our sake,  
and not for mine alone. Show me how to laugh again  
after so long being sad. AmenOceanofPDF .comLESSON 15
EXIT THE ALONE ZONE
Overeating is not a food issue, but a relationship issue. Your weight has been, on some level, a statement of your unavailability . Feeling separate from others, you built a wall; then, having built a wall, you
felt more separate from others. Separation became a theme, not only
regarding your body but in other aspects of your life as well. A wall went
up around you physically and ener getically as you learned to dissociate
from others in ways both lar ge and small. At times you might say an unreasonable “No” to opportunities for human
connection; at other times, an overly enthusiastic or needy “Y es” separates
you just as much as a “No” would. Y ou’ve been thrown of f track inwardly
and outwardly . You must address the issue of your unavailability , or you
will not stay on track even if you do get your weight down. The ener getic wall that surrounds you is not visible to the physical eye. It
consists of behavioral patterns of which you are probably well aware—and
if you aren’ t, then the people who know you best can surely help you
identify them. There is no point in even trying to lose your weight until you
have come to the place in your life where you actually want  to be closer to
people. Until that happens, the subconscious ur ge to build a wall will
override any diet you try . As previously noted, something and/or someone led you to build that
wall to begin with. And according to your subconscious mind, you still
need protection from that person or event. The subconscious deals in no-
time; the fact that the event is long past and the person is long gone
represents a rational assessment that means little to the subconscious mind. Only a miraculous healing, nothing short of the hand of God, is powerful
enough to override your primal impulse to protect yourself. That impulse is
created by millions of years of evolution; at its core, it represents notdysfunction but the genius of the biological system. The point is that in you,
the system was short-circuited and needs to be reset. Y ou are protecting
yourself against things that would not hurt you, and failing to protect
yourself against things that could. This lesson focuses on your relationship to other people, as your
compulsion is housed in a frozen place you could call your “alone zone.”
Reaching across whatever wall still divides you from others is essential to
your healing, as it helps reverse a dysfunctional pattern by establishing a
new one. A lar ge gun in your fear -mind’ s arsenal, something that keeps you
trapped in the pattern of overeating, is your tendency to isolate. For in
isolation you feel permission to self-destruct. There is no one there to say ,
“Don’ t do it”; you are free to indulge the deepest craving with no scolding
even from yourself, drowned out as a scolding would be by the shrieking
and false delights of your compulsion. Once you are alone with the
compulsion, you have no power to resist it. And that is why being alone
with it is dangerous. Y ou will begin to see that being alone with your
compulsion is as dangerous as being alone with a madman, which in a way
it is. The compulsion within you is madness, and the only antidote to its
power is the achievement of your deepest sanity . Your problem with weight is calling you to the highest expression of your
true self, and your true self is deeply in love with humanity . Each of us
carries the tendency to separate ourselves from others. There is such a thing
as splendid solitude, but isolation is not it. Isolating is a defense against
relationship; and for the overeater , it’s the way to avoid dealing with others
so that you can have your secret, dark, and sordid relationship with food all
by yourself. Food will not pressure you. Food will accept you. Food will
understand you. Food will make you feel better . Heroin reads from the same
handbook, by the way . Secret eating holds a goody bag of insanities, from grazing for anything
you can find—hot fudge on this cracker might be good!—to standing in
front of the fridge and stuf fing yourself in the middle of the night. The dark
castle of secret eating needs a lock on it, followed by complete demolition. Author Katherine W oodward Thomas once told me a liberating story
about exiting the alone zone. She suf fered from food addiction for yearswhen she was young, and at one point found that her toughest problem was
night eating. No matter how much willpower Katherine was able to exert during the
day, there was something about the nighttime hours that made her unable to
rise above her craving. So she had an idea: she started telling people from
her Overeaters Anonymous group that there was a new nighttime-eating
hotline, and she gave out its number . Of course the number was hers! Katherine then spent night after night helping other people  endure the
difficulty of remaining abstinent at night, and in time interrupted the pattern
of her own nighttime food hell. What occurs in such a situation is not an insignificant thing. Reaching out
to other people carries divine power , whether recognized as such or not. Divine power isn’ t metaphorical but literal, actually releasing calming
chemicals in your brain. Study after study proves this. And Spirit does more
than calm you; it heals you. It reverses entrenched patterns. It is nothing
short of miraculous. In my own life, I had an experience several years ago that, while not
related to food, still demonstrates the power of exiting the isolation of your
own suf fering. I had once flown on an airplane that lost an engine over the Pacific
Ocean, and from that experience I developed a fear of takeof fs. It made no
rational sense given that the engine on the plane hadn’ t quit upon takeof f,
but my fear was what it was. Once a plane made its way above the clouds, I
was fine. But until then, I was terrified. I prayed for help, and then one day as I waited for takeof f, I found myself
sitting next to a little boy who looked to be about seven or eight years old. He was sitting in his seat very straight and still, and I noticed that he
seemed to be fighting back tears. I looked at him and asked gently , “Are you alone, honey?” He nodded,
looking straight ahead, his bottom lip trembling. “Are you scared?” I asked. Again, he nodded. “Would you like me to hold your hand?” I whispered into his ear . Again,
he nodded. At that point I went into full Mommy mode, gently talking to him as
though I were reading him a nighttime story . Slowly , my voice lilting, I
began to explain to him the process of takeof fs. “The pilot is turning on theengines now … that was the noise we just heard. … Now he’ s increasing
the speed while we move down the runway … and at the right moment,
when the pilot knows it is absolutely safe, the flaps on the wings will move
—see them moving out there?—and that will create a lift and take the
airplane into the sky! … The pilot is a really nice man, and he is totally in
charge and knows exactly what to do to get us to fly and keep us all safe! See? W e’re above the clouds now! Isn’ t that beautiful?”
Phew . He seemed relieved—and he wasn’ t the only one. One might have thought I was an angel sent to comfort that little boy , but
clearly he was an angel sent to comfort me. My fear of takeof fs ended that
day. My pattern of anxiety was completely interrupted. In the midst of my
fear, I had reached out in love; then my fear was gone. In both Katherine’ s case and mine, the miracle had manifested as a result
of connecting compassionately with another person, extending if even for a
moment beyond our own painful dramas to be of service to someone else. Reaching out to other people is an integral part of your healing process,
just as isolating is part of your disease. Isolating is a habit you formed long
ago, and it has become a breeding ground for your compulsion. The fear -
based mind needs only one moment to lure you into its lair , the secret place
where no one else can enter . And at that point, you and food are of f to the
races. The purpose of this lesson is to begin dismantling this pattern of
isolation, reaching across the wall that separates you from others, and
establishing a pattern of connection in the places where your heart has gone
numb. This repatterning is your path to freedom. You might be thinking that you have wonderful relationships with other
people, and perhaps you do. Isolating, however , is a break in what might
otherwise be a marvelous constellation of human relationships. Y ou must
develop the habit, at the moment when you isolate, to reach out for
someone else. Connecting to another , you can stare down the doorman at
the entrance to your alone zone. The connection that saves you in such a moment could be an of fer to help
someone else, or simply an expression of your own vulnerability . It might
be, “I know you’re working two shifts on Saturday; would you like me to
babysit your son?” Or it might be, “I’m having a hard time today . I just
want to talk.”You may already be an extremely helpful person. Others would most
probably look at you and call you anything but unloving. Disconnection is
not just disconnection from the needs of others, but from your own needs as
well. It is not overt unkindness, but merely disengagement. And in any
moment of disconnection from love, you are prey to the pernicious delusion
that you are hungry when in fact you are not. Given that it takes only one moment to undo the value of months of right
eating—starting you on a downward slide toward bingeing that can
completely wreak havoc on both your psyche and your body—it is
imperative that you see connecting more deeply with others as an ongoing
necessity . Healing is a mind-set; it is a spiritual process whereby you leave
behind an old way of being and fundamentally embrace a new relationship
to life. In order to exit the alone zone, you must enter the connection zone. You must make your love, and also your needs, known to others. Now make a list in your journal pages of various things you could do to
increase your connection to other people. Sometimes it’ s an activity , while
other times it’ s simply a shift in attitude that lets others get closer to you. Two things occurred in my own life that helped me make such shifts. One
was something that happened when I met a spiritual teacher from India
several years ago. She had known me for maybe 15 minutes when she said
simply , “Rigid and distant isn’ t working.”
Her comment riveted me. This woman, who had never even met me
before, had just given me the key to open the door I had locked against
others. In seeking to defend myself, I had denied myself love. It didn’ t
matter what the reason was for my disengagement—that I had begun to feel
overwhelmed by the needs of others, or be hurt by their behavior , or had a
need to retreat into a space of my own. What mattered is the personality
characteristic I had developed as a defense against being hurt. And what you defend against, you create. By trying to defend against
being hurt by others, I was guaranteeing that I would  be, for my rigid and
distant behavior aroused criticism that hurt. Simply seeing this freed me to
change. The second example of something that melted a wall existing between
myself and others was a comment once made by my daughter . She said
something about how I acted a little coolly when people came up to have
their books signed after my lectures. Nervously , I said to her , “Oh my God!I’m not polite? Am I not polite?” She responded, “No, Mommy , you’re
polite. But you’re always the same. Y ou’re gracious, but you’re not really
that personal. Y ou’re nice to people, but you don’ t let anybody in.”
I thought deeply about what my daughter had said. I realized how much
love I kept out of my life by keeping a certain professional wall up. That
didn’ t mean I should refrain from having healthy boundaries, but it did
mean that there was more love available to me than I was allowing myself
to experience. And in any moment when we deny love, we trigger the
original trauma that led us to isolate to begin with. Developing a deeper connection to others is not something you can just
check of f your to-do list. Y ou can’ t just get it over with. It is not a medicine
you take and then just put back into the drawer once the sickness has
passed. This issue—like everything about this course—involves a lifelong
journey that once begun, never ends. It is a journey not simply into food
recovery , but into a more light-filled life. It is a journey into the heart of
love, toward others and toward yourself. Any day devoted to love is a day when your craziness can’ t enter . It can
knock at the door , but it can’ t come in. When you connect authentically
with another person, the spell of your compulsion is broken. Just as a
person in subzero temperatures knows better than to fall asleep, so it is
incumbent upon you to be always on guard against the dangers of the Big
Alone. Daily , in your journal pages, note where you let others in that day and
where you kept them out. Explore the places in your personality and in your
lifestyle where you keep more space between yourself and others than you
need to, where distance is not so much a healthy distance as an unhealthy
one. Increased distance from others will lead to increased connection to
food, as you run to the relationship that in a stressful moment feels like the
one you can always count on. In truth, you are in spiritual connection with people whether you turn
away from them or not, because relationships occur on the level of the
mind. Mystically , you are one with all living things. Y ou cannot for get
others and still remember who you are. The simple act of connecting with other people will begin to break the
chain that binds you. In any moment when you feel the void approaching,when you find yourself wanting to be alone so you can digest your poison
—make a call, turn your car around, send an e-mail, make a move. When you are grasping for starchy food like it is crack cocaine, do
anything—the slightest thing—to connect with another person in a loving
way. For in every righteous move you make toward others, you are making
a move toward the experience of your own true self. One instant at a time, one new response pattern at a time, one righteous
human interaction at a time, you will lock the door of the ugly castle behind
you, never to enter there again. And from the vantage point of where you go
next—the clear outdoors where no obsessions rankle you—you will
remember your hell with such gratitude for having been delivered from it. And you will have a deep-seated desire to spend the rest of your life,
whenever called, to help others make the same escape you did. In time, the
psychic castle that housed your hell will be demolished and never house
anyone again. A recovering suf ferer can recognize a suf ferer, and a recovering suf ferer
intent on healing makes sure no suf ferer in his or her path remains unloved. It’s often just a knowing smile, a simple silent blessing, but it is a love that
is sent from heaven to heal you both. Reflection and Prayer
Close your eyes and relax into a holy space. Ask Divine Mind to reveal the issues in your relationship that you need
to address. Images will appear to you … relationship patterns where you
could be more vulnerable or more helpful … places in your personality
where you keep others at bay . Ask to be shown how you appear to others, and how you can more fully
express who you truly are. In this sacred space within your mind, you will
be transformed from someone who avoids love to someone who embraces it
… receives it … and is so filled up by it that nothing else is needed to make
you feel full. Dear God,  
Please melt the walls  
that separate me fr om others,imprisoning me within myself. Please heal my wounded places  
and fr ee my heart to love. Help me connect to others  
that I might isolate no mor e. 
I know , dear God,  
that when I am alone, I fear;  
and when I fear , I self-destruct. What I suffer now  
and have suffer ed befor e, 
dear God,  
may I suffer no mor e. 
Amen
OceanofPDF .comLESSON 16
DISCIPLINE AND DISCIPLESHIP
You might be experiencing the “sunset ef fect” of an old self now , as the
sun seems to be brightest in the moments just before it sets. The old self
does not go quietly . She insists that you cannot live without her , she is your
true self, and your entire world would fall apart were she not in char ge. She
does not sing merrily , “I’ll see you around,” as she wafts graciously out of
the room. Rather , she most likely has hysterical fits in an ef fort to convince
you that you cannot and will not ever be rid of her , so why try . “Oh yeah?” she shrieks raucously . “You think you’re going to break free,
become healthy around food, lose weight, and just start over? W ell, you’re
insane to think so! It will never work! I am your comfort; I am your
strength; I am your power!” And then, of course, the only thing you can do
is give in. Keep eating. Don’ t exercise. What’ s the point? And on and on. …
Her intensity , however , is but a cover for her frailty . In fact, she is so frail
that she is fading away . Just as the W icked W itch of the W est in The W izard
of Oz  simply melted when Dorothy threw water on her , this mutant and
predatory fragment of yourself is now dissolving into the nothingness out of
which she emer ged. As a nonreality , she cannot survive the waters of truth. As you embrace the vision of who you truly are, the false and illusionary
being who has posed as you for all these years begins to disappear . You have entered deeply into the process of your awakening, and in
many ways you might find it as overwhelming as you feared it would be. The wild and out-of-control emotions that you’ve struggled so long to
contain—creating, in so doing, your wild and out-of-control physical
appetites—have all been stirred up. Your detoxification process, both emotional and physical, is in full swing
now. You may even be experiencing some chemical withdrawal as you let
go of certain foods.As an overeater , you’ve addressed the wildness of your emotional nature
with what is ironically a very disciplined approach to life: You will go eat
now. You have been disciplined, but disciplined by fear . What might have
seemed to you or others like a complete lack of discipline on your part has
actually been a strict adherence to an internal, dictatorial authority . The
problem is that that internal authority is the voice of fear and compulsion
instead of the voice of your true self. As your mind realigns with its true self, your body will realign with its
true self. Being a divine creation, you know exactly what to do and how to
be—on every level of your existence. Y our bodily appetites are
programmed naturally to follow the instructions of a divine intelligence. Your overeating, however , has been like a hacker that has reprogrammed
your computer . What we’re doing now is programming it back. This reprogramming cannot be accomplished overnight. One aspect of
your personality that has been damaged by your addictive tendencies is the
ability to tolerate discomfort. When it comes to a compulsive ur ge to eat,
you need it when you need it. Results must occur immediately . And now
you are likely to exercise the same lack of impulse control and impose the
same intolerance on your weight-loss process. You want it and you want it
now, and if it doesn’ t happen by Thursday , then you might as well go back
to your old habits, because obviously this doesn’ t work. Now is a time to exercise discipline: not of your appetites, but of your
thoughts. Y ou know a lot about the discipline of fear; now it’ s time to learn
about the discipline of love. Love is merciful, gentle, understanding,
patient, for giving, and kind. So you must be toward yourself as you go
through this process. No one needs to remind you of the many ef forts you’ve made to lose
weight in your past. It’ s not as though you haven’ t tried. Y et the same
violence toward self that was displayed in the moment when you overate
was then displayed when you fell of f the wagon. You’re not good. Y ou’re a
failur e. You’re weak. I hate you. Let’ s eat. Now look at what happens when you take a loving approach to weight
loss. In a way , you’re relearning how to feed yourself like a stroke victim
might have to relearn how to speak or walk. Sometimes the smallest action
represents the biggest step forward. A minimal improvement can be an
important break from the past.It might not seem like a big deal for someone else, but for you, it’ s
extraordinary that you woke up one morning not obsessed with what you
would eat today . For you, this represents a change, a pattern interruption,
created in part by the work you’ve been doing with this course. And it
builds on the musculature that will ultimately result in a new persona, new
behavior , and new body . You deserve credit for this. Please read that last sentence again. You deserve cr edit for this. Do not
discount the significance of this change, for the slightest break in the chain
of horror makes room for the beginning of a new chain—a chain of healthy
thoughts and healthy appetites. This change, however small at first, must be
affirmed, celebrated, and built upon—which it cannot be if you discount it. You are not in the habit of celebrating yourself when it comes to how you
eat, and you owe it to yourself—and to this process—to learn to do it. Conscious weight loss does not involve hating yourself; hatred is
blasphemy , which means thinking that is contrary to the thoughts of God. That which is contrary to Divine Mind cannot possibly be your salvation, as
your salvation lies in aligning with, not working against, the divine. It is
love and only love that will heal you. The miraculous change in perception
here means going from hating how you have been, to loving the possibility
of who you can now be. You must choose the new you in order to become the new you. The issue
here is not what you are running away from, but rather what you are
running towar d. You’re not just rejecting what you don’ t want, but
proactively claiming what you do. The only way to break from your subconscious belief that eating is the
source of your comfort is by building on your faith that God is the source of
your comfort. Y our relationship with the divine is not just something to
reluctantly embrace, as in “Okay , if I have  to.” It’ s the relationship that you
most yearn for in your heart, whether you realize it or not. Y ou can’ t break
your dysfunctional habit of doing whatever the fear -mind commands except
by building on your relationship with love. Y ou must cultivate a passion for
what you really , truly want. And what you really , truly want is love. That is the meaning of discipleship, which obviously comes from the
same root as the word discipline. Your problem is not lack of discipline, but
rather misplaced  discipline. Discipleship means disciplining yourself to
serve the divine.The divine is the source of your good, just as overeating is the source of
your destruction. Serving the divine leads to healing yourself, just as
serving the fear -mind leads to hurting yourself. As you do these lessons,
false comfort will give way to true comfort, and self-destruction will give
way to self-nourishment and self-care. All of this is for one reason only: so
you can better show up for love. Isn’t it extraordinary , if you think about it, how much ener gy human
beings put into avoiding the idea that love is the answer? How many 800
numbers have you called, doctors have you seen, sur geries have you
endured, exercises have you done, seminars have you attended, fancy diets
have you tried—all of which might have cost you time and money you
scarcely had—in an ef fort to try to get a plane into the air with what
amounted to only one engine? Love costs nothing. No time. No money . No ef fort, really . Yet the fear -
mind, the mind that is your compulsion, would do anything to dissuade you
from doing the one thing it knows would make it disappear in an instant. For the fear -mind is on its own quest for self-preservation. It doesn’ t mind
your trying to lose weight, for it knows that without divine help, you will be
in its grip forever anyway . In fact, it loves to trip you up with one more diet
that it knows you won’ t be able to stick to. According to A Course in
Miracles,  the dictate of the fear -mind, when it comes to love, will always be
that you seek but do not find. Begin to give more conscious attention to how your spiritual quest fits
into your weight-loss ef forts. Expand your thinking to a more soulful
motivation for why you want to lose weight in the first place. Is it simply to
look better? There is certainly nothing wrong with that, but of itself it
doesn’ t attract spiritual support. As a bodily concern, it keeps your
consciousness bound to the level of the body and is therefore non-
miraculous. A more soulful motivation would be to make your body a container for
greater Light. When you dwell more lightly within your mind, you will
dwell more lightly within your body . On both levels, your sense of well-
being will increase. Y our life choices will improve across the board, as both
your mind and body develop more refined appetites. Y our food choices will
become more spiritual as you begin to see your body , and to feel your body ,
as part of a divine matrix of love. That is the kind of miraculous impulsethat attracts cosmic support. It aligns your desires with the lar ger drive
toward greater life that is coded into the workings of the universe. Your motivation then becomes not just about losing pounds, but about
gaining enlightenment. Not the enlightenment of someone sitting under a
tree in some far -off place in a remote part of the world, but rather the light-
filled consciousness of someone who can wake up in the morning without
the fear of an addictive lure—of being drawn against your will into the daze
of inappropriate eating, of overly processed foods that you can’ t get enough
of, and of chronic self-loathing. You are getting there. The discomfort of emotional detox doesn’ t mean
the process isn’ t working, but rather that it is. Do not let the ghosts of old
emotions taunt you or deter you. It took more than a day to build the self-
destructive mechanism that has caused you so much sorrow , and it takes
more than a day to replace it with something new . You are beginning to understand. One thought at a time, one healthier
choice at a time, one moment-spent-free-of-the-monkey-on-your -back at a
time, you are building the structure to contain the new you. And as a result,
you will know joy . This process will bring far greater results than merely
the pleasures of a lighter , healthier body . You will know the deep
satisfaction of being in char ge of your own life. The subtlest changes in your thought-forms can radically transform the
chemistry in your brain. While worldly voices might ar gue that only
behavioral change produces “real change”—while spiritual change is hardly
more than child’ s play—science itself is catching up to the most ancient
wisdom regarding the powers of spirituality . The most prestigious academic
institutions have conducted studies proving that those who are prayed for
get out of intensive care units faster , that those who attend spiritual support
groups survive longer after the diagnosis of a life-challenging illness, and
so forth. Spirituality is more than simply an adjunct to what it really  takes
to lose weight. If you are serious about wanting the power of spiritual forces to aid you
in your weight loss, to provide at the very least your “second engine” to liftyou miraculously above the forces of addiction and compulsion, then you
must meet those forces with more than casual deference. Y ou wouldn’ t
want a worldly doctor to rush through his or her appointment with you;
similarly , the Divine Physician needs you to spend a little more time at your
appointments with Him. Just as you wash your body daily , you need to purify your heart daily as
well. When you neglect to pray and meditate on a regular basis—which
means a daily basis—you leave your psychic door unlocked, and the thief
will come in. Any day consciously and willingly given to God, praying that
His guidance be with you and that you might be a conduit of love
throughout the day , is a day when you are buf fered from the otherwise
active power of your fear -mind. Your addictive impulses will be alert to the slightest for getfulness on
your part, and they will take advantage of the slightest opening (“I don’ t
have time to pray and meditate today ,” “I don’ t need to reflect deeply on my
behavior here; I know what I’m doing!” “I’m angry for a good reason; this
is not about for giveness!”) to rush back in with full-gale negative force. The purpose of this lesson is (l) to establish the importance of “Spirit-
time”—time taken every day to align your worldly self with your spiritual
self, and (2) to help you establish this time as part of your daily routine. The
most powerful aid to this is the practice of meditation. True meditation is not mere relaxation, for it involves an actual shift in
consciousness. There are many dif ferent paths: Christian, Buddhist, Jewish,
or other religious meditations; the W orkbook of A Course in Miracles;
Transcendental, V edic, or V ipassana Meditation; and more. A serious
meditation practice is one of the most powerful ways to disconnect from
your fear -mind and its fearful dictates. Too much attention to the earth plane creates undue stress on the body . Meditation frees the mind from its attachment to the body , thus freeing the
body to right itself. As you set your mind free of physical attachments for a
period of time each day , you improve your relationship to the physical
world. Some people claim they don’ t have time to meditate. But meditation
slows down time. And in slowing down time, you slow down and rebalance
your nervous system. Stress leads to frenetic ener gy, and frenetic ener gyleads to impulsive behavior . Meditation, by reducing stress, brings calm to
both your body and your mind. Meditation is like a sealant, protecting your devotional ener gy so the light
cannot slip out and the darkness cannot slip in. Emotionally , you will be
lifted higher and higher , gaining a more and more consistent sense of joy . With that, the gravitational lure of self-destructive ur ges will decrease and
ultimately cease. But meditation is more than lighting a candle and breathing deeply; it is
more than walking through the woods or speaking a beautiful intention. I’ve
heard many people say , “I do meditate. I meditate by journaling, by reading
inspirational literature, by spending quiet time alone.” All those things are
good—indeed, they’ve been recommended as a part of this course. But they
are relaxation, inspiration, and contemplation; they are not of themselves
meditation. Meditation is something deeper , something that actually
changes your brain waves. And for that you need a serious meditation
practice. There is a meditation path that will work for you, and you might even
know what it is already . Whether or not you will avail yourself of this
medicine of the gods is completely up to you. Just remember that meditation is so powerful that the fear -mind will tell
you anything to make you believe it isn’ t powerful, or it isn’ t for you, or
you just don’ t have time to do it. “I don’ t know how to meditate.” (But you
could learn.) “I tried meditation, but I couldn’ t stick with it.” (Change
“couldn’ t” to “didn’ t.”) It is your choice, of course, which voice in your
head to listen to, which voice to believe, and most important of all, which
voice to act on. If you have a meditation practice, then nothing could be more important
to transforming your relationship to food than that you do it. And if you do
not have a meditation practice but pray to be shown one, then books or
flyers that lead to one that is best for you will begin to fall at your feet. Addiction is a spiritual disease; prayer and meditation boost the spiritual
immune system. Y ou are not fighting the disease; you are simply opening
your mind to so much truth that the diseased condition cannot dwell there. Every time you embrace a truth, you dismantle a lie. Y our goal is for the
light to seep into the deepest recesses of your subconscious, erasing old
patterns and releasing your mind to new ones.Overeating is an act of hysteria, and meditation is the most powerful
antidote to hysteria. Hysteria occurs when you lose your conscious
connection with the naturally ordered universe, and in that traumatic
moment try to absorb the shock of cosmic disorder by grabbing for a bite-
size piece of comfort. Enough has been said of your separation from love;
our focus now is on your return to it. You have had moments, surely , when love has prevailed and you were
not tormented by your compulsion. Y ou have had moments when you sailed
through your kitchen and felt no insane need to eat inappropriately . The
problem is that the insanity has always returned, sometimes when you
would least expect it. V arious ef forts have given you temporary surcease
from the overwhelming compulsion to reenact your pattern, but none have
totally stopped  the pattern. Only the hand of God can do that. Thus, this entire situation is an invitation to discipleship. It’ s time to give
Him all of your time and all of your days and all of your thoughts. Y our
mind is holy , yet you must stand on that knowledge. Y ou must actively
embrace the truth in order to receive its blessing. For any moment not given
to love will be used by fear as a breeding ground for its own purposes. Choose love, so fear will no longer be able to choose you. Discipleship is a sacred marriage. Only the arms of God can truly hold
you and keep you and protect you from all harm. Once you’ve experienced
the embrace of your Divine Beloved, perhaps you will choose to commit to
Him. Y ou will promise to cleave to Him and “forsake all others.” Having
made this holy commitment, you will break of f your relationship with the
tyrant of compulsion that has masqueraded as your lover . And that is what
discipleship is: a total commitment that leaves no room for anything else. Discipleship is much, much more than a sometimes thing; it’ s an ef fort to
totally immerse yourself in the light of love. And this will do more than just
transform your eating. It will transform your entire life. Take anything that symbolizes the meditation path that calls to you—
from the phone number of a meditation teacher you have heard about but
not yet called, to the W orkbook of A Course in Miracles,  to a set of prayer
beads—and place it on your altar for consecration to the divine. Reflection and PrayerClose your eyes and relax into your sacred place. See yourself in your
inner temple, a beautiful and holy room. See yourself lying in the center of
it, on a lar ge white slab. The slab looks like cold marble—but when you lie
down, it feels like warm, soft pillows. Now see the Divine Physician standing above you with His hands over
your body . The Divine being is drawing from your body all the ener gy that
does not belong there, both physical and nonphysical. Breathe deeply into
this image and allow it to be real for you. Such imagery is no idle fantasy . Spirit is always present, not just metaphorically but literally . Now continue with an exercise from A Course in Miracles. With your
eyes closed, say slowly to yourself, “Into His presence would I enter now .”
Repeat the sentence over and over to yourself as you fall more and more
deeply into a meditative state. Allow yourself a minimum of five minutes
doing this. As you practice this exercise, you will sense its meaning more and more
as time goes by . It will help prepare you for a formal meditation practice,
and open your mind to absorb its power . Dear God,  
Thank Y ou for the things that I have seen. When on the mountaintop, I have felt such joy . Please send angels  
to lift me up  
and always hold me tenderly . Do not let insanity take hold of me,  
but enlighten me that I might be fr ee. Place my feet on a higher path  
and show me how to walk in love,  
that I might find my way . Amen
OceanofPDF .comLESSON 17
FORGIVE YOURSELF AND OTHERS
According to A Course in Miracles,  all thought creates form on some
level. If your weighty thinking does not change, then even if you lose
weight, you’ll retain an overwhelming subconscious ur ge to gain it back.
_OceanofPDF.com_A_Course_In_Weight_Loss_-_Marianne_Williamson.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        For the food addict, feelings that
can and should be processed in the mind are often displaced onto the body,
where they cannot be processed and therefore remain stored within your
flesh. The only way to remove the weight of unprocessed feelings is to allow
yourself to actually feel them. Once again, childhood patterns are the issue. Someone else’ s love and understanding—and for a child, that someone else
is the parent—provides a container for our feelings. Later in life, if such a
container were absent in childhood, the overeater tends to seek through
excessive eating the containment that food cannot give. Parental love is meant to be a model for divine love. When parental love
holds us safe, we more easily transfer as adults to a sense that we are safe in
the arms of the divine. If you didn’ t feel that you could safely take your
feelings to your parent figure, it’ s doubtful you feel now that you can give
all your feelings to God. Feelings that are not acknowledged cannot be fully felt. How can you
fully feel something that you fail to name. I feel sad, I feel embarrassed, I
feel overwhelmed, I feel humiliated, I feel angry, I feel afraid, I feel
rejected, I feel left out, I feel betrayed, I feel wr onged, I feel insulted, I feelhopeless, I feel anxious, I feel frustrated, I feel guilty, I feel lonely  … too
often translate into: I feel hungry. Darn right you’re hungry, but not for food. Having bypassed even a
conscious recognition of your pain, you went straight for a way to assuage
it. You’re looking to an external source to provide an experience that can
only be found internally. You can’ t get rid of your pain without admitting to
yourself that it’ s there. Emotions need to be felt the way that food needs to be chewed; emotions
need to be digested within our psyche the way food is digested in our
stomach. The compulsive eater often gor ges on food as a way to avoid
feeling feelings, but then treats food the same way he or she treated the
emotion—moving too quickly, failing to chew, and failing to properly
digest it. Once your feelings are felt, they can be acknowledged, looked at, learned
from, and surrendered to Divine Mind. But instead of acknowledging and
feeling  your feelings, you’ve learned to discount them before they can even
rise up fully formed. Y ou suppress what you’re too afraid to feel, having
little or no trust in the wisdom of your emotions. Y ou don’ t know your
emotions have  any wisdom—how could you, given that no one honored
them when you were a child. But they do; they are part of the genius of the
human psyche. Emotions, even painful ones, are here to tell you something. They are
messages to be tended to. Y et how can you tend to something you don’ t
know is there. Emotions must be acknowledged and felt; or else they
cannot be learned from, grown from, or processed. Life might have taught you that emotions are dangerous. Perhaps as a
child, you were told things such as, “Don’ t you cry or I’ll give you
something to cry about. ”—an emotionally tyrannical message that certainly
would have taught you to suppress your feelings at all costs. Perhaps your
emotions were ignored, minimized, or even laughed at by parents who had
other things and other children to think about. What matters is that, for
whatever reason, you learned at a very young age to neither honor nor even
really feel your own feelings. In an earlier lesson, we explored the ef fects of trauma. If you experienced
severe, even violent, trauma, you learned to automatically numb yourself so
as not to feel the next blow. It was a brilliant coping mechanism on the partof your subconscious mind, to freeze so quickly that when the blow came,
you would already be numb. The problem, however, is that such a coping mechanism was only
intended for emer gency purposes; it was manufactured to save you from
imminent danger, not to take you through life. It was not meant to
fundamentally alter your system of emotional responses, and yet that is
what occurred. At a very young age you were exposed to what your psyche perceived as
danger, and now your subconscious mind does not make a distinction
between dangerous threat and tolerable stress. It doesn’ t know what to let in
and what to guard against, so it guards against everything,  just in case. Central to the holistic healing of your weight issue is that you develop a
new skill set with which to deal with unpleasant emotions. An emotion
swept under the rug is not an emotion that goes away; it’ s simply an
emotion that is put somewhere other than where it should be put. It
becomes inert rather than dynamic ener gy, stored within you rather than
being released. As noted previously, ener gy cannot be uncreated. And emotions are
powerful forms of ener gy. If you’re too frightened to feel a feeling, its
energy still has to go somewhere. Actually, an emotion is not dangerous
until it’s disowned, for that’ s when it commonly gets projected onto others
and/or compressed into your own flesh. That only produces more feelings—
shame, humiliation, embarrassment, and failure—resulting in an endless
barrage of twisted reasons telling you why you might as well just give up
and eat more. Defending against being overwhelmed by your emotions, you actually
create emotions that are overwhelming. Y ou begin by trying to keep your
emotions at bay, eat them, go numb instead of feeling them—and in so
doing, create a situation that causes you an endless run of painful emotions. By trying to escape your feelings, you create a whole slew of them that will
arrive full force once you realize what you’ve done. The only feelings you
really need to fear are those you ignore. In Greek mythology, Poseidon is god of the sea. If he tells the waves to
calm down, then the waves calm down. In the New T estament, Jesus
walked onto the water and stopped the storm. Both are metaphysical
descriptions of the ef fects of Divine Mind on the storms of the inner self. Spirit is the master, not the slave, of the inner sea. Y our task, therefore, is to
give your feelings to God, that you might be lifted above the storms of your
subconscious mind. The storms are raging for one reason only: your inner
self will not be ignored. Your thinking that you alone can control the overwhelming force of
unprocessed feelings is like a small child thinking he or she can stand on
the beach and make the waves stop. Y ou might grit your teeth and make it
through the morning; you might white-knuckle it and make it through
lunchtime; you might even somehow be able to make it till 10 P. M. But at
some point, the now angry wave of “I will be fed”—“How dare you say
‘No’ to me. How dare you say ‘No’. ”—will catch you by the ankles and
drag you to the kitchen or whatever place you keep your stash. And the
craving, once more, will win. Your craving for food is an emotional temper tantrum, as a part of you
that feels unheard is demanding to be heard and will be heard. Y ou have two
choices: you can feel your emotion, or you can listen to the cruel command
to do something to temporarily assuage the pain of not feeling it. Clearly,
feeling the emotion would be a more functional choice. If you have no template for honoring feelings, processing them, bearing
witness to them, surrendering them, and watching them miraculously
transform, then they can appear in your life as frightening ener gy ruling you
instead of being ruled by you. It’ s time to end your emotional slavery by
building your spiritual mastery. Spiritual mastery does not emer ge from self-will but from surrender of
self-will. Once you’ve felt a feeling and surrendered it, you are not simply
left with it, as if you’re dangling from an emotional clif f and about to fall
into an abyss from which you can never escape. When you give a painful
emotion to Divine Mind, you give it to a power that can take it from you by
changing the thoughts that produced it. Any feelings you surrender for divine transformation will be
transformed, and anything you cling to will not be transformed. Surrendering your feelings involves feeling them first, yes, but then it
involves giving them up. It’s actually ironic that you should be afraid of feeling your feelings; as
an overeater, what you have created for yourself and have had to endure are
some of the most painful emotions there are. The horrible feelings of failurethat are endemic to the chronic overeater make your tolerance for pain
already higher than you think. The pain you’re trying to avoid is nothing
compared to the pain you’ve already lived through. The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung said: “All neurosis is a substitute for
legitimate suf fering. ” Any pathological tendency—overeating included—
represents the twisted ener gies of unprocessed pain. The pathology is not
ended by suppressing your pain, but by feeling the legitimate suf fering it is
seeking to express. Spiritual healing is a process. First you feel the feeling; then you feel
whatever pain might legitimately arise from it; then you pray to learn
whatever lesson the pain can teach you; then you seek to for give; and, at
last, the grace of God is given you. Y ou emer ge from the experience no
longer suf fering, and having grown as a human being. When you are more
attuned to growing spiritually, you need not grow so much physically. The
energy is released and let out, no longer pushed into your flesh. You’re afraid of feelings the way you’re afraid of food: you’re afraid that
once you start, you may never stop. But the truth is, feelings are only out of
control when they’re not handed over for divine resolution. Given to Divine
Mind, they’re lifted to divine right order—where they will be appropriately
felt and then appropriately dissolved. So too shall it be with food appetites,
for they are mere reflections of your turmoil or peace. The fact that a feeling is painful is not necessarily a reason to avoid it. Perhaps you did something to sabotage yourself in a relationship; unless
you feel the remorse, how will you recognize your self-destructive pattern. Perhaps your spouse left you; your sadness is understandable given that you
were married for 30 years. Perhaps your child is seriously ill; your grief and
fear are simply signs that you are human. These feelings, when handled appropriately, become stations on the way
to grace. Y es, you will emer ge as someone who has grown and will no
longer self-sabotage, but first you had to feel the pain. Yes, you will emer ge
from your divorce strong and free to love again, but first you had to feel the
pain. Yes, you will become the warrior parent who takes char ge of your
child’ s healing, but first you had to feel the pain. Our suf fering does not make us weak; only our avoidance of suf fering
makes us weak. And that avoidance—the avoidance of legitimate suf fering—is unfortunately bolstered by the cultural attitudes of a society obsessed
with cheap and easy happiness. Several years ago, one of my daughter ’s teenage friends—a golden boy
of extraordinary beauty, talent, intelligence, and kindness—shot and killed
himself with his father ’s hunting rifle. There were so many aspects of the
situation rife with horror (including his having been one more statistic
involving the connection between teenage use of antidepressants and
suicide). As a mother, I felt, as did all the parents in my daughter ’s circle of
friends, a deep concern for my child’ s pain. I remember telling my shattered, darling girl, her face streaming with
tears, that there are some times in life when the worst thing that could
possibly happen does happen. I told her that Robbie’ s death was a full-tilt
catastrophe, and nothing I could say would change that. That Robbie was
alive forever in the arms of God, but that didn’ t make this human tragedy
any less horrible. That every tear she felt like crying was a tear she had to
cry, and she would know when she had cried enough when she didn’ t have
any more tears left. I remember seeing a look of relief on my daughter ’s face when I told her
this; she needed desperately to be given permission to feel her feelings and
not suppress them. Indeed, I cried with her. The last thing I ever would have
wanted to do is delegitimize or circumvent her grief. I remember saying at a grief support group I led years ago for people
who had lost their loved ones, “Hey, guys, remember. This is a grief support
group, not a grief denial  group. ” Grief is a way that our emotional
ecosystem, imbued with the same genius as every other aspect of nature,
processes an otherwise too shocking emotional reality. The fact that you ar e sad doesn’ t inher ently mean that something’ s wrong. It simply means that you ar e sad. It simply means that you are human. Regardless of what your feeling is, it simply is. There is no reason to run to food—or to anything else, for that matter—to
escape your feelings. Y our feelings are not your enemy but your friend. They always have something to teach you—even the tough ones. Sadness
handled gracefully will transform into peace, but only if you allow yourself
to feel it first. That is the core message of every great religious and spiritual
system in the world: that the story isn’ t over until the happy part. My daughter would get to the point of peaceful acceptance of Robbie’ s
death, and even joy at realizing she would one day see him again. But none
of that could have come about in a real and authentic way had she not first
allowed herself to feel the incredible grief of his untimely death. Another feeling the overeater commonly seeks to avoid is the simple
stress of living in the modern world. From running a household to running a
company, the stress of our modern existence has people running for
whatever form of anesthetization they can find. I eat because I feel
overwhelmed. The feeling of overwhelm is a natural consequence of failing
to recognize a divine hand holding all things together. If you feel you must control everything by yourself—if you don’ t feel
you can ask for God’ s help with the details—then no wonder you feel
absolutely overwhelmed. Y ou can’ t exactly hold up the stars in the sky, but
obviously something  does. So couldn’ t that something hold and harmonize
the circumstances of your life. In fact, the entire universe is held safely in God’ s hands. Planets revolve
around the sun, stars stay in the sky, cells divide, and embryos turn into
babies. Embryos don’ t exclaim, “I’m overwhelmed. I don’ t know how I’m
going to do this. I don’ t know how to cell-divide. ” The embryo doesn’ t
have  to know. An order bigger than the embryo moves it forward as part of
nature’ s blueprint. Any situation placed in divine hands is lifted to divine right order. If
looking at the stars in a starry sky doesn’ t overwhelm you, then neither
should your own circumstances. They are put together, held together, and
corrected when need be by the same loving force. But unless  you feel how overwhelmed you are—unless you can say,
“Wow, I’m feeling overwhelmed right now … I feel like this whole thing
could fall apart if I even closed my eyes for a second”—then you’re not in a
position to surrender it. Pray for the following miracle:
Dear God,  
Please take this situation. I place it in Y our hands. Please handle all the details,  
heal my mind of err or, and r eveal to me what Y ou would have me do. Amen
You need not carry the weight of the world either on your spirit or on
your body. You can “lighten up,” because the spirit is with you. Give over
your burdens, and journey lightly through the world. Every emotion, every situation, every relationship, and every issue can be
safely given to Divine Mind for upliftment. The purpose of this lesson is to
move your mind from its habit of suppressing your emotions—whatever
they are—to the comfort and peace of surrendering them to God. Reflection and Prayer
For this lesson, you need a God Box. It might be a box you make, a box you buy, or a box you previously used
for some other purpose. But as with other tools used in this course, this box
should be beautiful. It is something that will be put on the altar and given to
God. It is a container within which a miraculous process will occur. Now take a piece of paper and write down these sentences:
“Give Me your pain, and I will take it fr om you. ”
— G OD
“Place all of this in My hands. ”
— G OD
“Seek to for give, and you will have peace. ”
— G OD
“You ar e My perfect cr eation. Nothing you  
have ever done or thought, and nothing anyone  
else has done or thought, changes that fact. ”
— G OD
“Give Me your err ors, and I will corr ect them for you. ”— G OD
“You ar e deeply loved. Nothing you  
do can change My love for you. ”
— G OD
Add to these sentences any scriptural or inspirational quotes that appeal
to you, including any ideas of your own, and put them in your God Box. Your job is to continually review your emotions, admit them, feel them,
write them down, and give them to Divine Mind. Use your journal pages to
specifically describe and explore an emotion, and then simply write: “Dear
God, I surrender this feeling to Y ou. ” Then go to your altar, and for every
emotion you surrender, open your God Box and blindly pick out a saying. It
will tell you what you need to hear. Now you’re ready to meditate. Y ou have surrendered your feelings, and
your mind will now be imbued with wisdom. This will bring you peace. Honoring your feelings on a regular basis, you will build the attitudinal
strength to carry you when an emotional storm arises in your subconscious
sea. Before you walk into the kitchen, you will name your emotion, even if
you have to scream it. Before you drive to the hambur ger stand, you will
say, “God, please help me,” even if at that moment you don’ t believe there
is a God. Before you drown in the deep and toxic waters of your craving,
you will feel your feelings and surrender them to God, even if you do so
with but a mustard seed of faith. Your God Box will help you. It will provide answers. And in time, you
will heal. Dear God,  
I give to Y ou my anguish and my sorr ow. I feel so overwhelmed, dear God,  
by my life and my compulsion. Take fr om me my craving, dear God,  
for I cannot fight it and I feel so weak. Show me how to feel my feelings  
and to surr ender them to Y ou. Restor e my spirit  and give me str ength. Thank Y ou, God. Amen
OceanofPDF. comLESSON 14
ALLOW THE PAIN
This lesson refers to the emotional detoxification process that
accompanies serious weight loss. At a certain point in your journey, feelings
that have been denied, repressed, and/or impacted within you begin rising
up in order to be released. In the last lesson, we discussed how feelings are not good or bad; they
simply are. But that doesn’ t mean they’re not painful. It’ s one thing to know
that suf fering is an inevitable part of the human journey, but it’ s another
thing altogether to learn how to cope with it. With any spiritual journey—and the journey to conscious weight loss is a
spiritual journey—things often seem to get worse before they get better. Love’ s light is being shone on many places heretofore not visible to your
conscious mind, revealing toxic feelings that were there already but cleverly
hidden. It’s all right if this part of your journey is not pleasant. Part of your
repatterning is learning to be with unpleasantness in a healthy way. The
mature and sober person knows that on some days things simply feel rotten,
and that is okay. You are learning to move through distress by simply being
with it, without the need to overeat or to act out in any other way. How could it not be unpleasant, having to refeel feelings that you’ve
been eating for years. Now having to confront them, deal with them, and
ultimately accept them feels like a fever within your soul. But a spiritual fever, like a physical fever, actually has a productive
function: it burns up disease. Think of your pain as a feverish burning up of
fear. As you heal physically, extreme fever can lead to delirium. And as you
heal spiritually, your fever can lead to delirium as well—a quiet delirium of
the soul. But this too shall pass. This lesson concerns itself with human despair and the consistency of the
body’ s cells. Man has looked beneath the surface of the skin for centuries,
probing the internal workings of the human body. During the last century,
science has developed the ability to view even the tiniest cells that make up
our physical tissue. Y et science has not yet discovered an explanation for
how emotional change produces physical change, and it is particularly blind
to the malleability of fat. In fact, there are many levels of understanding—even of our physical
selves—that science has not yet penetrated. An electron microscope reveals
the entire picture of our cellular system, but within the cells themselves,
there are storehouses of information not yet understood. For instance, there are tears and then there are tears. Some varieties are
toxic to the body, while others are healing. The distinction between the two
is not just an emotional dif ference but a physical one as well. Even
materially, there are aspects to tears—including functions that af fect the
workings of the brain—that have not yet been scientifically identified. Sometimes it’ s only through crying tears that need to be shed that we
dissolve the unhappiness that caused them. That is why suppr essing
unhappiness doesn’ t tend to end it. How many times have we said that
someone “needs a good cry. ” Indeed. T oxicity is often released through the
tear ducts as part of the body’ s natural genius at flushing itself out. Casual
use of antidepressants is unwise for just this reason—feeling the full extent
of your sadness is sometimes the only way to heal it. In the absence of the
feeling, you miss out on the healing. The body does not make distinctions
among physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual stresses. It is
equipped with the natural intelligence to address them all. You are mistaken if you think that you can fundamentally and
permanently change bodily symptoms by physical means alone. Problems
must leave thr ough the same door they came in. If mistaken thoughts have
created a problem, then righting those thoughts is essential to healing it. And if toxic feelings created a problem, they can only leave through a detox
process by which they come up again in order to be released. Excess fat is not just inert cellular tissue. It is a repository of twisted,
distorted thoughts and feelings that didn’ t have anywhere else to go. If you
remove the fat tissue but do not remove its psychic cause, then the fat might
go but the causal imprint remains. And the imprint, in time, will attract
more substance with which to materially express itself. It’s not enough to just “lose your weight. ” Y ou must lose the emotional
weight that lurks behind it. This you have already begun to do. Remember
that your food compulsion is a way to cope with painful feelings. As you
begin to heal from those feelings—removing their “imprint” from your
consciousness—they are necessarily refelt on their way out. Problems that seem to have nothing to do with your weight issues might
rise up, and in particularly challenging forms. Y ou might doubt yourself in
ways you have not done before, or have not done for a very long time. But
this part of your process is not a bad period; it is actually a good one, for it
is necessary. There is no spiritual rehabilitation without this kind of
detoxification. When any pain, dif ficulty, frustration, or challenge emer ges, try to see it,
honor it, bear witness to it, and receive it as part of your healing. The
situation carries within it important information for you. It is not just
randomly happening at this time. It presents the opportunity to examine
critically important issues in your life. Looking at your pain, feeling the
feelings, learning whatever lessons are being brought up for review—these
are ultimately the only ways to get the pain to burn away. The universe will never leave you alone at such a time as this. Angels are
all around you, as they gather without fail whenever a soul is seeking its
wholeness. This is absolutely not the time to isolate; rather, despite
whatever resistance you feel, allow yourself to join with at least one other
human being who might possibly be able to help you. Y ou will learn the
serious value of sacred friendship and/or professional counseling. Perhaps you will attend support groups, or spontaneously create a small
community of like-minded souls all taking this journey together. Books
might fall of f the shelf in front of you, and even strangers might have
something profound, wise, and relevant to say. Connecting more deeply
with others, you will connect more deeply to your own feelings. And even
sadness will be more bearable. Some days are sad, yet sad days pass. Spiritual mastery involves building the mental, emotional, and behavioralhabits to carry you through such times without an explosion of
dysfunctional behavior. Sometimes we just need to make space for sadness. Y ou do not need an
excuse for why you feel sad; you do not need to “fix” it; and, most
important, you do not need to run from it. What you need is to let it come
up and simply be with it. Your task with this lesson is to make space in your life, just as you make
space in your heart, for any sadness you need to honor. Perhaps take a walk
each evening, or a stroll on the beach each morning. Allow yourself to
grieve. You will learn in time to be with the void, addressing it with a bubble
bath rather than a sandwich, and with prayer time rather than a candy bar. Your task is to inhabit the emptiness, breathe through it, learn its lessons,
and hear the message it conveys. There is no hole for you to try to fill with
food or anything else; there is only the primal void within every human
being when we feel we cannot find God. Great literature, particularly tales of true tragedy, can be cathartic; it
gives a voice to your own buried, free-floating sadness, and provides a
conduit for its dissolution. When you read Anna Kar enina  in college, really,
what did you know. But now, after you’ve known a few V ronskys of your
own, you read the book with a new understanding: your pain is given
meaning there, immortalized in a character living precisely your own
heartbreak. And in Anna’ s response to her despair, you get to see the stark
reality that confronts you now: you can self-destruct, or you can rise up in
glory. You did not become an unwise eater for no reason. If you choose to
honestly confront the emotions involved in both causing and healing your
compulsive patterns, you will experience a dark night of the soul. But a dark
night of the soul is ultimately a good thing, for it both precedes and
prepares your spirit for rebirth. The darkness is simply the revisiting of old
feelings, in the absence of which true healing cannot occur. It’s important to
remember that this darkness is temporary, and leads ultimately to the light
beyond it. This time must simply be endured. But it is also to be honored for the
opportunity it gives you to burn through feelings that have come up at last,
and only now can truly leave. They are not being suppressed this time; theyare being led to the door. They have been embedded in your flesh, and will
now be cast out of your personal universe. The tears you cry now will lead
ultimately to rejoicing, as the day will come when you feel the lightness—
both physically and spiritually—of a brand-new day. There are poems, films, and novels—and nonfiction books as well—that
give meaning to the experience of deep sorrow. Choose three that speak to
you; perhaps something you’ve already experienced, or a book or movie
that you know about but have not yet read or viewed. Place them on your
altar and commit yourself to reading or viewing them. In honoring them,
you honor your own tears in a way that releases rather than suppresses
them. Such is the value of art. Reflection and Prayer
Relax, close your eyes, and pray for comfort. Give to Divine Mind your despair, your sadness, your hopelessness, your
regret, your embarrassment, your pain, your grief, your fear, and your
burdens. Do not rush through this darkness. Allow yourself to enter into it
in order to move through it. And in time the light will come. Dear God,  
Protect me as I walk thr ough dark hallways of my mind. Release me fr om the bondage that would hold me back. I give to Y ou my hopelessness,  
please give to me some hope. Reveal to me the light of truth,  
that my darkness shall disappear. Each day, send love to guide my heart  
and heal my thoughts. Heal me for Y our sake,  
and not for mine alone. Show me how to laugh again  
after so long being sad. AmenOceanofPDF. comLESSON 15
EXIT THE ALONE ZONE
Overeating is not a food issue, but a relationship issue. Your weight has been, on some level, a statement of your unavailability. Feeling separate from others, you built a wall; then, having built a wall, you
felt more separate from others. Separation became a theme, not only
regarding your body but in other aspects of your life as well. A wall went
up around you physically and ener getically as you learned to dissociate
from others in ways both lar ge and small. At times you might say an unreasonable “No” to opportunities for human
connection; at other times, an overly enthusiastic or needy “Y es” separates
you just as much as a “No” would. Y ou’ve been thrown of f track inwardly
and outwardly. You must address the issue of your unavailability, or you
will not stay on track even if you do get your weight down. The ener getic wall that surrounds you is not visible to the physical eye. It
consists of behavioral patterns of which you are probably well aware—and
if you aren’ t, then the people who know you best can surely help you
identify them. There is no point in even trying to lose your weight until you
have come to the place in your life where you actually want  to be closer to
people. Until that happens, the subconscious ur ge to build a wall will
override any diet you try. As previously noted, something and/or someone led you to build that
wall to begin with. And according to your subconscious mind, you still
need protection from that person or event. The subconscious deals in no-
time; the fact that the event is long past and the person is long gone
represents a rational assessment that means little to the subconscious mind. Only a miraculous healing, nothing short of the hand of God, is powerful
enough to override your primal impulse to protect yourself. That impulse is
created by millions of years of evolution; at its core, it represents notdysfunction but the genius of the biological system. The point is that in you,
the system was short-circuited and needs to be reset. Y ou are protecting
yourself against things that would not hurt you, and failing to protect
yourself against things that could. This lesson focuses on your relationship to other people, as your
compulsion is housed in a frozen place you could call your “alone zone. ”
Reaching across whatever wall still divides you from others is essential to
your healing, as it helps reverse a dysfunctional pattern by establishing a
new one. A lar ge gun in your fear -mind’ s arsenal, something that keeps you
trapped in the pattern of overeating, is your tendency to isolate. For in
isolation you feel permission to self-destruct. There is no one there to say,
“Don’ t do it”; you are free to indulge the deepest craving with no scolding
even from yourself, drowned out as a scolding would be by the shrieking
and false delights of your compulsion. Once you are alone with the
compulsion, you have no power to resist it. And that is why being alone
with it is dangerous. Y ou will begin to see that being alone with your
compulsion is as dangerous as being alone with a madman, which in a way
it is. The compulsion within you is madness, and the only antidote to its
power is the achievement of your deepest sanity. Your problem with weight is calling you to the highest expression of your
true self, and your true self is deeply in love with humanity. Each of us
carries the tendency to separate ourselves from others. There is such a thing
as splendid solitude, but isolation is not it. Isolating is a defense against
relationship; and for the overeater, it’s the way to avoid dealing with others
so that you can have your secret, dark, and sordid relationship with food all
by yourself. Food will not pressure you. Food will accept you. Food will
understand you. Food will make you feel better. Heroin reads from the same
handbook, by the way. Secret eating holds a goody bag of insanities, from grazing for anything
you can find—hot fudge on this cracker might be good. —to standing in
front of the fridge and stuf fing yourself in the middle of the night. The dark
castle of secret eating needs a lock on it, followed by complete demolition. Author Katherine W oodward Thomas once told me a liberating story
about exiting the alone zone. She suf fered from food addiction for yearswhen she was young, and at one point found that her toughest problem was
night eating. No matter how much willpower Katherine was able to exert during the
day, there was something about the nighttime hours that made her unable to
rise above her craving. So she had an idea: she started telling people from
her Overeaters Anonymous group that there was a new nighttime-eating
hotline, and she gave out its number. Of course the number was hers. Katherine then spent night after night helping other people  endure the
difficulty of remaining abstinent at night, and in time interrupted the pattern
of her own nighttime food hell. What occurs in such a situation is not an insignificant thing. Reaching out
to other people carries divine power, whether recognized as such or not. Divine power isn’ t metaphorical but literal, actually releasing calming
chemicals in your brain. Study after study proves this. And Spirit does more
than calm you; it heals you. It reverses entrenched patterns. It is nothing
short of miraculous. In my own life, I had an experience several years ago that, while not
related to food, still demonstrates the power of exiting the isolation of your
own suf fering. I had once flown on an airplane that lost an engine over the Pacific
Ocean, and from that experience I developed a fear of takeof fs. It made no
rational sense given that the engine on the plane hadn’ t quit upon takeof f,
but my fear was what it was. Once a plane made its way above the clouds, I
was fine. But until then, I was terrified. I prayed for help, and then one day as I waited for takeof f, I found myself
sitting next to a little boy who looked to be about seven or eight years old. He was sitting in his seat very straight and still, and I noticed that he
seemed to be fighting back tears. I looked at him and asked gently, “Are you alone, honey. ” He nodded,
looking straight ahead, his bottom lip trembling. “Are you scared. ” I asked. Again, he nodded. “Would you like me to hold your hand. ” I whispered into his ear. Again,
he nodded. At that point I went into full Mommy mode, gently talking to him as
though I were reading him a nighttime story. Slowly, my voice lilting, I
began to explain to him the process of takeof fs. “The pilot is turning on theengines now … that was the noise we just heard. … Now he’ s increasing
the speed while we move down the runway … and at the right moment,
when the pilot knows it is absolutely safe, the flaps on the wings will move
—see them moving out there. —and that will create a lift and take the
airplane into the sky. … The pilot is a really nice man, and he is totally in
charge and knows exactly what to do to get us to fly and keep us all safe. See. W e’re above the clouds now. Isn’ t that beautiful. ”
Phew. He seemed relieved—and he wasn’ t the only one. One might have thought I was an angel sent to comfort that little boy, but
clearly he was an angel sent to comfort me. My fear of takeof fs ended that
day. My pattern of anxiety was completely interrupted. In the midst of my
fear, I had reached out in love; then my fear was gone. In both Katherine’ s case and mine, the miracle had manifested as a result
of connecting compassionately with another person, extending if even for a
moment beyond our own painful dramas to be of service to someone else. Reaching out to other people is an integral part of your healing process,
just as isolating is part of your disease. Isolating is a habit you formed long
ago, and it has become a breeding ground for your compulsion. The fear -
based mind needs only one moment to lure you into its lair, the secret place
where no one else can enter. And at that point, you and food are of f to the
races. The purpose of this lesson is to begin dismantling this pattern of
isolation, reaching across the wall that separates you from others, and
establishing a pattern of connection in the places where your heart has gone
numb. This repatterning is your path to freedom. You might be thinking that you have wonderful relationships with other
people, and perhaps you do. Isolating, however, is a break in what might
otherwise be a marvelous constellation of human relationships. Y ou must
develop the habit, at the moment when you isolate, to reach out for
someone else. Connecting to another, you can stare down the doorman at
the entrance to your alone zone. The connection that saves you in such a moment could be an of fer to help
someone else, or simply an expression of your own vulnerability. It might
be, “I know you’re working two shifts on Saturday; would you like me to
babysit your son. ” Or it might be, “I’m having a hard time today. I just
want to talk. ”You may already be an extremely helpful person. Others would most
probably look at you and call you anything but unloving. Disconnection is
not just disconnection from the needs of others, but from your own needs as
well. It is not overt unkindness, but merely disengagement. And in any
moment of disconnection from love, you are prey to the pernicious delusion
that you are hungry when in fact you are not. Given that it takes only one moment to undo the value of months of right
eating—starting you on a downward slide toward bingeing that can
completely wreak havoc on both your psyche and your body—it is
imperative that you see connecting more deeply with others as an ongoing
necessity. Healing is a mind-set; it is a spiritual process whereby you leave
behind an old way of being and fundamentally embrace a new relationship
to life. In order to exit the alone zone, you must enter the connection zone. You must make your love, and also your needs, known to others. Now make a list in your journal pages of various things you could do to
increase your connection to other people. Sometimes it’ s an activity, while
other times it’ s simply a shift in attitude that lets others get closer to you. Two things occurred in my own life that helped me make such shifts. One
was something that happened when I met a spiritual teacher from India
several years ago. She had known me for maybe 15 minutes when she said
simply, “Rigid and distant isn’ t working. ”
Her comment riveted me. This woman, who had never even met me
before, had just given me the key to open the door I had locked against
others. In seeking to defend myself, I had denied myself love. It didn’ t
matter what the reason was for my disengagement—that I had begun to feel
overwhelmed by the needs of others, or be hurt by their behavior, or had a
need to retreat into a space of my own. What mattered is the personality
characteristic I had developed as a defense against being hurt. And what you defend against, you create. By trying to defend against
being hurt by others, I was guaranteeing that I would  be, for my rigid and
distant behavior aroused criticism that hurt. Simply seeing this freed me to
change. The second example of something that melted a wall existing between
myself and others was a comment once made by my daughter. She said
something about how I acted a little coolly when people came up to have
their books signed after my lectures. Nervously, I said to her, “Oh my God. I’m not polite. Am I not polite. ” She responded, “No, Mommy, you’re
polite. But you’re always the same. Y ou’re gracious, but you’re not really
that personal. Y ou’re nice to people, but you don’ t let anybody in. ”
I thought deeply about what my daughter had said. I realized how much
love I kept out of my life by keeping a certain professional wall up. That
didn’ t mean I should refrain from having healthy boundaries, but it did
mean that there was more love available to me than I was allowing myself
to experience. And in any moment when we deny love, we trigger the
original trauma that led us to isolate to begin with. Developing a deeper connection to others is not something you can just
check of f your to-do list. Y ou can’ t just get it over with. It is not a medicine
you take and then just put back into the drawer once the sickness has
passed. This issue—like everything about this course—involves a lifelong
journey that once begun, never ends. It is a journey not simply into food
recovery, but into a more light-filled life. It is a journey into the heart of
love, toward others and toward yourself. Any day devoted to love is a day when your craziness can’ t enter. It can
knock at the door, but it can’ t come in. When you connect authentically
with another person, the spell of your compulsion is broken. Just as a
person in subzero temperatures knows better than to fall asleep, so it is
incumbent upon you to be always on guard against the dangers of the Big
Alone. Daily, in your journal pages, note where you let others in that day and
where you kept them out. Explore the places in your personality and in your
lifestyle where you keep more space between yourself and others than you
need to, where distance is not so much a healthy distance as an unhealthy
one. Increased distance from others will lead to increased connection to
food, as you run to the relationship that in a stressful moment feels like the
one you can always count on. In truth, you are in spiritual connection with people whether you turn
away from them or not, because relationships occur on the level of the
mind. Mystically, you are one with all living things. Y ou cannot for get
others and still remember who you are. The simple act of connecting with other people will begin to break the
chain that binds you. In any moment when you feel the void approaching,when you find yourself wanting to be alone so you can digest your poison
—make a call, turn your car around, send an e-mail, make a move. When you are grasping for starchy food like it is crack cocaine, do
anything—the slightest thing—to connect with another person in a loving
way. For in every righteous move you make toward others, you are making
a move toward the experience of your own true self. One instant at a time, one new response pattern at a time, one righteous
human interaction at a time, you will lock the door of the ugly castle behind
you, never to enter there again. And from the vantage point of where you go
next—the clear outdoors where no obsessions rankle you—you will
remember your hell with such gratitude for having been delivered from it. And you will have a deep-seated desire to spend the rest of your life,
whenever called, to help others make the same escape you did. In time, the
psychic castle that housed your hell will be demolished and never house
anyone again. A recovering suf ferer can recognize a suf ferer, and a recovering suf ferer
intent on healing makes sure no suf ferer in his or her path remains unloved. It’s often just a knowing smile, a simple silent blessing, but it is a love that
is sent from heaven to heal you both. Reflection and Prayer
Close your eyes and relax into a holy space. Ask Divine Mind to reveal the issues in your relationship that you need
to address. Images will appear to you … relationship patterns where you
could be more vulnerable or more helpful … places in your personality
where you keep others at bay. Ask to be shown how you appear to others, and how you can more fully
express who you truly are. In this sacred space within your mind, you will
be transformed from someone who avoids love to someone who embraces it
… receives it … and is so filled up by it that nothing else is needed to make
you feel full. Dear God,  
Please melt the walls  
that separate me fr om others,imprisoning me within myself. Please heal my wounded places  
and fr ee my heart to love. Help me connect to others  
that I might isolate no mor e. I know, dear God,  
that when I am alone, I fear;  
and when I fear, I self-destruct. What I suffer now  
and have suffer ed befor e, 
dear God,  
may I suffer no mor e.
Allow yourself to actually feel them.
What is the only way to remove the weight of unprocessed feelings?
Suppressing your emotions creates even more feelings, leading to an endless cycle of self-destructive behavior.
What is the problem with trying to suppress your emotions?
Feeling and surrendering your emotions to God.
What is the key to spiritual mastery and emotional healing?
To help you learn to acknowledge and process your emotions, and ultimately, heal and transform them.
What is the purpose of the God Box exercise in this course?
It is not just about relaxation, but about actively embracing the truth and aligning with the divine.
What is the primary issue with the concept of meditation and prayer?