Patience

Patience is a bitter plant, but it has a sweet fruit.  - German proverb

Waiting is one of the worst things to ask of a compulsive overeater.  If I don't see results immediately, I get discouraged.  In the days when I found one obsession with another, I dieted compulsively and jumped on the scale compulsively.  I could put up with any discomfort, any deprivation -- for varying lengths of time -- as long as I did not have to suffer a 'plateau'; to diet and lose no weight was intolerable.  Clearly, when something is intolerable, it is abandoned -- and so went every reducing scheme I ever tried.  Thank God I am not hear to diet and lose weight.

For today, I am in OA to turn my life around -- and I'm willing to wait.

As usual, the For Today reading is useful.  I am learning to have patience with myself, over and over.  It is so hard not to be rewarded for every little step I take with improved health, a more pleasing physique, a quieter more content spirit, and a less depressed mind.  But that is not how it works. 

I built up these defence mechanisms little by little over decades.  It is not realistic to think I can undo the damage or turn to more positive methods overnight.  Realistic thinking is not really my forte despite my considerable intellectual gifts.  When it comes to assessing my own being, I tend to be wildly optimistic (unrealistically so) or desperately pessimistic (again, unfairly so).  I practice, then, to be patient with myself and my progress.  One little slip isn't going to kill me.  One abstinent day doesn't fix everything.  But it doesn't hurt.

Blessed be.