I owe the title of this blog to Skye. She said it first in her comment on yesterday’s blog. Making a choice is a power move. I love this and the strength inherent in its simple truth.
When I think of the worst times of compulsive overeating and binging, I remember feeling completely out of control and helpless to stop. I know that, at the heart of things, it was my choice to pick up food and shove it into my mouth, but it didn’t feel like it. The disease seemed much more powerful.
The times that I successfully avoided over eating required conscious choice too, and those were the power moves. At least, they were the moves when I felt powerful, versus overpowered by the compulsion.
I’m coming up on a year from when I made the decision to pursue weight loss surgery. That decision came after a couple of years of doing nothing proactive to help my health. Again, somewhere along the way I chose to do nothing. This all leads me to believe that there are passive choices and active choices.
I prefer the active. Those are the ones that feel like they restore positive power to me and get or keep me moving in the right direction. Passive acts, letting things roll over me while I live in an unhealthy state of mind, body and spirit, suck away power and light.
Today, I lived within the power of my ability to make positive choices. I chose to plan my meals and then chose to consume them as planned. I chose to change into a bathing suit and work out in the pool after work. I chose to eat a healthy snack instead of something that would fill me with empty calories of no real nutritional value.
We have a great corporate coach at work. She says that every single day we can make a conscious choice about our attitude and approach to our lives. She suggest we make that choice before our feet hit the floor. Somedays, it’s hard to reach for the great attitude, particularly if you’re in the midst of challenging times on any level. On those days, even if we aren’t feeling it, I think it’s acceptable to “fake it until we make it”. We can act as if the day is going to shine like a perfectly cut, polished diamond. We can make that choice.
Making a choice is a power move. Thanks for that, Skye!
Tonight I feel pretty damn powerful.
Weighty Matters 
When my kids were little, I remember trying to present them with choices so they would have the power to choose. It was a bit of a balancing act when they were very small because sometimes choice is too overwhelming. But even now as they are going into or in the middle of their teenage years, and they ask what choice they should make, I try to respect their opinions and ideas even when I don’t agree. My mother has a terrible time when faced by choices because when she was a child and her mother would present her with a choice, she had to choose what her mother wanted with no indication of what that was. It makes me wonder how the ability to feel confident in our choices and empowered by making a choice comes from how our choices were respected as children. Are we rebelling against having our choices made for us? Are we unable to discern a good choice because we were never taught decision-making or never given boundaries? I may well be overanalyzing (psychology background!) but food is the earliest place where we can make choices. It’s practically impossible to make a child eat something they don’t want to eat.
You’re welcome, Mary. I got the concept and the basic saying from my therapist. Action is power. A choice is an action. Choice is power(ful) rather than passive and helpless (one of my default states and a place of difficulty for me). Even to say “I choose to do nothing today” is more powerful than to do nothing by default, without making an active choice.
I’m glad you liked what I said and found it useful. Now I feel like I’m putting something back into the world! And balancing out all the inspiration I get from you.