The only rule for menu #5 on the Joy Diet is that it has to scare the pants off of you.  Or involve escape of some sort from the status quo.

Any tiny step will do.  As long as it includes walking up to fear, staring it in the eyeballs and saying hello.

Why in the world would you want to do that on purpose?

To break free from “comfortable” and make your dreams come true.

If you’ve been following this blog series on The Joy Diet, you have uncovered a heart’s desire and been noodling on some creative ideas about how to reach it.   Taking a risk and putting those ideas into action often comes coupled with the fear.  It’s where the rubber meets the road and the action toward your desire requires a leap of faith.  A leap of faith that might have already been met with stall tactics, stunted by fear and stuffed down with cookies.

For some people, allowing the feeling of fear to settle in their body is the first tiny step. Allowing any feeling to settle, for that matter, could be a starting point.

Let’s use the desire to lose weight permanently as an example.  If you gained weight due to emotional eating tendencies, my guess is that the idea of not eating to immediately calm a powerful emotion (like fear) can be just as scary as jumping out of a plane with an untested parachute.

If this is the case, allowing yourself to FEEL FEAR for a few minutes without eating can change your life.

Other tiny steps could include contacting someone you admire in your desired field if you want to change careers.

If you don’t want to go to a social engagement, say no.  Even if social pressure says you should.

If you do, say yes.  Even if you’re shy.

And, by all means, attend your next high school or college reunion.

I stepped twenty years back in time to my Rhodes College days this past weekend.  I relived memories that had been suppressed, faced friends who know way too much about my past and felt every insecure emotion well up as if I were 18 again.  All without the “I’m-going-to-live-forever” invincibleness of a teenager to offset those less than stable thoughts.

Sounds painful.  Why in the world would I do this?

One of my heart’s desires is to stay connected with my dear true friends.  I am learning not to let fear get in the way of an opportunity to hug them and have in-person, soul-filling catch up time.   Facebook is wonderful, but it just isn’t the same as laughing together over old and new memories.

As an added bonus, I was able to meet the grown up version of many wonderful people who I, otherwise, might have never seen again.  I also met the grown up version of me working backwards through my story of the past twenty years.  I am so grateful for that story… insecurities and all.

Take a risk.

As my friend and mentor Michele Woodward says, “Expand your comfort zone.”

Move toward something that fills your heart.

I dare you!

Creativity.
Welcome to the fourth menu item on The Joy Diet.

This is the point where I almost stopped reading the first time through.  This was two years ago when I was a self proclaimed left brained person, in a left brained job with the creativity of dry wall.

Then I realized that this didn’t HAVE to mean artistic creation with paint or throwing clay.  This meant creating our lives, like trying a new hobby or trial-by-error problem solving.  This meant developing a practice of bending our minds like some yoginis bend their bodies.

The basic instruction is to

• Identify and write down your heart’s desire (for kicks and giggles, go ahead and do that now.)
• Conceptualize and write down as many unique and crazy ideas to move you toward your heart’s desire until you come up with at least one that’s feasible.

Some of the ideas won’t work.  Change to reach your heart’s desire can be riddled with near misses.  And messes.

Sometimes coming up with new ideas is challenging.   This is where the mental yoga comes to play.

“As Einstein said, no problem was ever solved from within the frame of thought that created the problem in the first place. Creation always involves moving beyond the limitations of your current worldview.”
– Martha Beck, The Joy Diet

One of the exercises Martha Beck taught us in her “Inner Genius Workshop” was all about opening up our right brains to creating the lives we desire.

Here’s how it goes:

1. Write down a couple of your very favorite things to do.
2. Go back to that heart’s desire that you wrote down a minute ago.
3. How can you use your very favorite things to do to reach your heart’s desire?

As an example, the favorite thing I wrote at the workshop was to snow ski.  My heart’s desire was to gain some peace and clarity around an issue that had clouded my summer.   Not being sure how cruising in the snow could help, I was willing to play along.

I began to really think about why I love to ski.  There is a thrill in doing what is counter-intuitive to maintain control and speed.  You throw yourself over your skis and down the hill.  If you play it safe and lean back into the mountain, you’ll wear out your leg muscles, lose control and fall.  By staying in the moment with every turn, gravity and the fall line become your partners.

Fascinating.

It really didn’t matter what my heart’s desire was at this point.  What if I trusted my instincts and leaned down the mountain, into fear, and rode my intuition in regards to any obstacle or desire?  Issues might still temporarily cloud up a day, but as when skiing in low visibility conditions, I can feel my way down the mountain with focus and instinct.  Even on days like this, there’s a warm fire and good book waiting at the bottom.

I love that I’m now more creative than dry wall!

Why do you love your favorite thing?

How can it help you reach your heart’s desire?

Not the “I’d sure like chocolate AND vanilla” kind of desire.  Instead, it’s your heart’s desire.  The desire that shows up when life takes you by the hand and leads you toward your destiny.

“Sounds easy enough, doesn’t it? Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it… Any sentient being knows when it wants to eat, mate, run, sleep, or fight – any sentient being, that is, except most members of the human race. We are the only beasts in creation who systematically eradicate the knowledge of our own desire.”                – Martha Beck, The Joy Diet

So get comfortable in your moment of doing Nothing (menu item #1) and open yourself up to being truthful (menu item #2).  Then search around for a pebble of desire.  Once you find one, sit with it and visualize what it would be like to meet it.  Try and feel if it’s on the path to your destiny.

To illustrate, let’s explore the number one spoken desire of my clients: 

“I want to lose weight.”

In a state of complete compassion and truth, and without judgment, visualize yourself and your life at your ideal weight.  What is it about being lighter that you would enjoy?  Would your doctor be pleased?  Are you finally happy in your own skin?  If the time consuming obsession over food and your body ended, how would you spend that time differently?

While inquisitively sitting in your vision, you might begin to see pieces of your true destiny.  You might also see some pieces that are less authentic, possibly false, but part of the story. 

The below chart is from The Joy Diet (modified slightly for this example).  Continue to hold the “I want to lose weight” desire in your mind and see which column best describes your vision now and down the road.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to lose weight to impress friends that you haven’t seen in twenty years at a class reunion.  The point is… if that’s the ONLY reason why losing weight is on your wish list, it will result in deprivation dieting, obsessing over food, inevitable overindulgence and the despair that whole downward spiral seems to bring.  

The spoken desire of “I want to lose weight” acted out as if it’s the only answer to your happiness almost always ends up with false desire after-effects. 

Here’s the good news:
There’s a bit of magic when it comes to following your true desire and losing weight.

Action upon your TRUE heart’s desires comes coupled with a desire to relax into your own body’s rhythm and to treat yourself with ultimate self care and love.  This will lead to a sense of fulfillment in your life.   It eliminates the need get full-fillment from food. 

That’s the place we call “thinner peace.”

What true desire will bring you to this place?
Next week we’ll get creative (menu item #4) about getting there.