The Only Skill You Need: Forgiveness

Originally posted October 28, 2011

Are you one of those people who reads a blog about eating healthy and think, "That's easy for you, but for me in my real life that's just not practical?" Because I am. And I write a blog about better health. I hope that doesn't make me lose credibility in your eyes, but the truth is, this doesn't come naturally. I'm not someone who has always hated desserts anyway and wanted to be health (like my sister). No, I love me a big old chocolate bar. Every day if I could. Every meal if I could for that matter. French fries and other deep fried goodness? Why yes, please pass it my way. I love the taste of these foods. I also love eating out. It's so easy. I don't enjoy cooking all that much most of the time. I do enjoy baking desserts and then consuming them. I hate cleaning up after kitchen adventures. I admit to being an emotional eater. I eat when I'm bored too. No, eating a whole foods diet that is mainly homemade was never something I saw myself doing.

Sometimes when I read blogs with people and families who have given up processed food I'm a little down on myself. Why can't I be better?  The truth is I love the way I feel when I'm eating well all the time. I hate the way I feel when I eat processed food. Which is motivating, but then there are days like every day since I got pregnant. Days where you say I-just-need-to-eat-and-it-needs-to-be-fast-and-tasty-freezer-section-here-I-come. Days where you simply don't care. Days where you don't have time to care. Then I read those blogs and I think well all you perfect people leave me alone. Normal people are like me, not you.

But here is what I've learned: Forgiveness is key. Now I've written about this before, but the longer I strive to be healthy, live well, and eat good things the more I believe that the only skill we really need to master in order to move forward is the skill of forgiveness. As usual, let's paint a picture:

So you've decided you want to eat better. You're giving up processed foods. You feel a big difference and you love it. But then you have a bad day and decide that what you need is a day of eating junk. And you go for it. There are a few different things that could happen at this point:

1. You feel horrible that night and beat yourself up about it.
2. You feel fine, but the guilt of eating junk all day is killing you. How could you be so stupid and weak?
3. You feel fine and decide that eating healthy is over rated. Maybe you keep eating horrible for a few weeks and then it catches up with you, but the guilt is too strong. If you couldn't do it right the first time what makes you think you could ever eat a healthy diet?

There are maybe other consequences, but let's just go with this for now, you get the idea right? What I am submitting to you is that all of these things are a recipe for failure. Instead in any of these situations what we need to learn to do is observe how we feel. Realize that we aren't happy when we eat poorly, overeat, or otherwise derail out health. Then we forgive ourselves and move on. Forgive and start fresh. If you can't forgive you can't move on and the truth is, you will never be able to live a healthier lifestyle.

Everyone makes mistakes. I know I do. Dwelling on them or feeling like we can't move on because we've screwed up our "perfect" record is not healthy. It does nothing for us. In fact, perhaps it is time to change the thinking all together. You didn't screw up because you weren't healthy today, no, there are no screw ups. Rather, tomorrow you aren't going to eat junk because you like it better. Beating ourselves up does nothing but hold us back.

So to all those of you who, like me, may never have a perfectly "healthy" diet please know that's okay. What we do most of the time is so much more important than the occasional McDonald's hamburger. Let go of the idea that you've been "bad," and learn to move on to a new day.

Watching what I say

I read the other day (a common phrase with me) that what we say about others reflects on us. So if you tell a friend that someone you know is selfish and petty your friend will unconsciously attach those qualities to you. I found that to be rather interesting. I have mentioned before that I am trying to stop being so judgmental, here is just one more good reason to actually implement that goal.

As I have been striving to cut myself a little slack what I am finding is that I am much more willing to cut others slack as well. It is still much easier to be more generous towards others than towards myself, but I'm making progress, and that is worth something.

So I am going to try to watch what I say. I suppose if I say only nice things about everyone than others will think only nice things of me whether they are true or not.

Update on Day 13: My baby is sick again which is frustrating. This time with the stomach flu. I abhor the stomach flu worse than anything. I am terrified of getting it. So, I am washing my hands a lot and hoping that my healthy diet has boosted my immune system enough that I can simply be the caring, concerned mother and not the mother who is laying in bed sick along side her baby.


Other than that things are going well. I got to start Tamari today (which is basically soy sauce) and have been in heaven. I cannot even begin to tell you how marvelous the flavor is. I appreciate flavor so much more than I used to. I am even learning to savor my food, which has never been a strong point for me, I usually just inhale.


My headaches are all but gone. The pain in my legs is gone except for when I spend an entire day up on them, then they ache slightly in the evening, but nothing like before. My back pain also only flares up when I do things like dishes, play the piano, or walk a lot, but even that pain is minor compared to what I'm used to. My energy level is incredibly high. My feet only hurt in the morning, and my mood has been much lighter. I am happy to report that I feel great and am excited to continue eating better.


One area that needs improvement for me: breakfast. I struggle with eating a decent breakfast, but in order to rev up your metabolism eating a good healthy breakfast is so important, so my goal for the coming weeks is to eat a decent breakfast.

When I look at you. . .

I used to be a rather judgmental person. I loved people watching for the sake of pointing out all of the flaws in others. This is something I am truly ashamed of today. And though I cannot say that I no longer judge at all, I have been getting a lot better at not jumping to conclusions.

Perhaps one reason is that I shutter to think someone would judge me by just looking at me. Especially with my recent weight gain. I have been trying to establish myself as a person. Someone who is more than the number on the scale. I get nervous about others judging me based on my appearance. I truly believe that someday this won't bother me. Someday, when I am comfortable in my own skin, it won't bother me one bit what others think when they look at me. But as of today, it still makes me squirm.

But here's another reason. I think I've touched on this briefly before, but it has really hit home to me recently and is something I would like to explore further. I believe that most of time we pass judgement because we are afraid. I know it sounds kind of cheesy, but hear me out.

Before I was ever pregnant I was rather harsh on pregnant women. I would see a woman in her final trimester without her make-up on looking thoroughly miserable, and I knew she was just a lazy fake. Surely it could never be that bad. I looked at women who gained extra weight during and after pregnancy as lazy as well. I knew I would never have that problem. Ha. Naive.

Since that time I have become both of those things, but I learned a valuable lesson. The reason I was so hasty to judge those women was because I was terrified I would indeed end up like them. And I did. And truth be told, it's not so bad.

You can apply this to most areas of judging. There is a stigma against divorced people. Why? Because we don't want to be there ourselves. When someone is severely overweight we tend to assume that they are lazy. When someone has depression we often think that it is their own fault. We don't want to see that perhaps (almost always) there are legitimate, innocent reasons for these things to happen. We assume that bad things don't happen to good people (even though we know better).

If I look at someone in a situation that I am afraid to face I distance myself from that by demonizing the person. Perhaps "demonize" is a harsh word, but if you think about it it's not so far off. I have always feared being a "fat" person. I never, ever wanted to be overweight. So in my mind I assumed that all people who were overweight deserved it. They did or didn't do certain things and so they got fat. They were lazy. Somewhere along the line they were "bad" and thus they gained weight. I am not a "bad" person and therefore I will never gain weight.

Ah, how my eyes have been opened since that time. Now, let me just say this is a bit of an over exaggeration and most of this was done on a subconscious level at that, but you get the idea.

The reason I feel this is important to address here is that we need to not be so harsh on others. First of all, we have no idea what that person has had to face and what has led them to whatever fate. Second of all, I think if we truly pay attention, when we are passing harsh judgement we are showing an area where we feel vulnerable. Perhaps there is something in our life that we need to address or that we at least should acknowledge is a fear that we have. Maybe then we will see people in a different light.

Since I have made this discovery about myself I have been able to stop judging harshly (or at least, I'm close). It is amazing how much more you appreciate those around you and love others when you are no longer concerned with making them into bad guys. I feel that in turn that makes me a more likable person that others are less quick to judge.

Now let's sing Kumbaya.