Spiritual Lessons We Can Learn From Weight: Part 1

So many people want to lose weight, and yet there are so many frustrated and unsuccessful dieters. While it’s pretty standard to approach weight loss with low calorie eating, intense exercise, or restrictive and specific diets, these methods ultimately fail for the majority of people. For some of us, it’s helpful to look to other dimensions when it comes to weight retention and loss. And the spiritual dimension is a great place to explore. Join Marc David, Founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating in this new video from IPEtv as he discusses a fascinating spiritual lesson that we can learn from weight – humility. This may be a missing link in your weight loss equation, and it can certainly help you see weight in a whole new light!

Today’s Topic: Spiritual Lessons We Can Learn from Weight

Here’s the reality that everyone knows:

We live in a world where weight, body fat, extra pounds, gaining it, and losing it are all a very big deal.

Our collective concern around weight is one of the biggest conundrums that impact the human heart and mind. The amount of pain and suffering that occurs around this topic can easily be described as profound. Clearly what we’re doing when it comes to weight loss doesn’t work.

I don’t take this topic lightly at all, and for that reason I think it’s important that we all do our best to shed more light on this subject.

And shining the light of skillful consciousness means we look to other dimensions to help find pieces of the weight loss, weight gain puzzle that may be of importance.

In my 30+ years of research, clinical experience, inquiry, curiosity, and deep care around this topic, I’m often led to a particular and unexpected place:

Spirituality

Please forgive me if you don’t like that word or if it doesn’t apply to you. If you’re an atheist, then substitute the term “character growth and development.” If you come from a faith and Bible-based approach, then substitute the term “how God is asking me to grow.”

And if you’re cool with the term spirituality, here’s what I mean:

There’s a dimension that goes beyond what the eye can see. There’s a hidden architecture to the universe. There are unseen forces that move us and guide us that we tend to know very little about. And the great saints, sages, prophets, religious and spiritual leaders throughout history have all pretty much agreed that when we set our sights towards the realm of the spiritual or sacred – our vision begins to open up.

With all this in mind, I’d like to share with you 1 important spiritual lesson that we can learn from weight.

And when I say weight, I’m talking about the challenges we face in trying to lose it, the challenges we face in not weighing the number that we want, of dealing with the prejudices and judgments of others, and the challenge of dealing with our own harsh commentary about the body we been given.

Here’s one of the bottom line spiritual lessons we can learn from weight:

Humility

Humility is simply the state of being humble. It’s a place where we have to let go of our ego and surrender to what is. It’s a place where we stop fighting and give ourselves over to a higher power. When we step into humility we understand that we don’t control everything and in fact we don’t control very much. Life is way bigger than we are. Humility means we realize that life does not have to conform to our demands. Quite the opposite; we need to let life teach us.

None of us want to weigh way more than we want to weigh. There’s no fun or glory in it. I’ve met so many people over the years who go to incredible lengths and unbelievable effort to shed pounds – only to gain it back, or be unsuccessful in the first place. The result is frustration, upset, feeling like I’m living in the wrong body, and overall – it’s a pretty big ego burn. The world is prejudiced against fat. So many people judge extra weight as the result of weak character and laziness. Of course, we want to put our best self out into the world, which for many of us also means our best body. Excess weight can teach us humility, plain and simple. I’m calling this a spiritual trait. I’m calling this a higher trait. It goes far beyond the ego. Humility isn’t easy. And somehow, for many people, the wisdom of life is always finding interesting ways to ask us to be more humble.

Extra weight is exactly that for a lot of people. It doesn’t mean that’s the only thing going on for someone with extra weight, it doesn’t mean that there are not metabolic and food issues going on, it simply means that there is a spiritual lesson to be learned as well.

For many people, humility is a final frontier

I’ve had many clients over the years who did everything under the sun to lose weight and couldn’t. They had every test, every supplement, every drug, did every exercise, and left no expense unpaid to get the result they wanted. For them, being humble was the final frontier. For some of us, extra weight is one of the few things that will actually get our attention. Life has a fascinating way of teaching us in ways that we least expect.

So if you or someone you know has had some intense battles with weight, spend some time exploring humility. What would that even mean for you? What would it look like to be more humble around who you are and what you want your body to be? Are there more important things in life that you need to be attending to right now than a bunch of body fat? Are there other places you’ve neglected? Are there people who need your love and attention and haven’t fully gotten it because you’ve been so focused on the scale?

Pray, meditate, converse with wise people, and check in with yourself in a deep way.

Sometimes, learning the spiritual lessons before us is the very thing that finally places us along the road to personal and metabolic success. I hope this was helpful, my friends.

In the comments below, please let us know your thoughts. We love hearing from you and we read and respond to every comment!