The Tribune

By MICHELLE M MILLER

We have all heard the saying that you are what you eat. While having a balanced diet is essential, the deeper struggle for most people goes beyond food consumption.

For this reason, a more fitting statement is, “It’s not what you eat, but what’s eating you that matters most.”

This means that your body and your life as a whole are not a reflection of what you eat as much as it is a reflection of what is eating you deep within.

This is true especially for women who for the most part are conditioned by all and sundry to believe that their looks are the totality of their identity. Weight, hair and skin soon become an obsessive pursuit. What I find interesting is that, what’s eating you applies to the self-identified ‘big girl’ and ‘skinny girl’ alike.

Being more concerned about outer appearance, they invest the bulk of their attention into what they eat. Let me also clarify that literal food intake is not the sole definition of what you eat; it also includes your consumption in general terms – like the excess time and money you spend on hair and makeup; the increasing amount of funds you direct towards habits of alcoholism and gambling as well as the endless amount of hours you devote to television consumption.

What’s important here is to understand that when you fail to pay attention to your deeper issues, which are the things that are eating away at your mental and emotional state, you naturally mask it by some other means, hence the habit of overindulgence.

The problem with masking is the more you mask, the more masking you have to do in order to keep up with your own lies. The great Henry Thoreau said it well: “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”

When you allow yourself to surrender to the notion that you are only what you eat, and not also what you think, believe, accept, fear and feel, you short-change your greater identity.

In a way, you live a small version of what could be a larger life. You live chasing away the pain of what’s eating you inside and never find the space to bring forth your greater purpose.

I believe that we owe it to ourselves to tell ourselves the truth about how we feel about ourselves and who we really think we are. In my therapy sessions, I help clients to understand that they cannot fix what they are unwilling to face.

As Bob Marley said, “You can fool some people sometimes but you can’t fool all the people all the time.”

Trying to fool yourself is a big waste of time. You will not get away with it. Even if it seems like you are, it is an enormous delusion. The universe of life knows the truth of what lies within you. My advice is to find your fearlessness and divorce yourself from any feelings that you must mask your way through your life. The truth, as they say, will set you free.

More than this, when you give yourself the courtesy of the truth, you give yourself inner liberation. I call this your real ‘freedom papers’. It’s real because it is authentic.

Nothing and I mean absolutely nothing outside of you can give you freedom from yourself. Be willing to unmask your life and take an honest view of what is eating you.

The first step to inner liberation is a yearning desire to be free. Free from the pain of the past, free from the need for approval, and free of that enormous lump of anxiety of feeling not good enough.

As you consider the title of today’s topic, take some time to reevaluate the way you define yourself. Think bigger about the things you have been thinking about your life and seek some emotional support. Too often we invest our time and money into things that do not offer any emotional support. Without it, we slowly begin to disintegrate from the inside out. Be brave and seek help. You need not go it alone.

Leader to leader, make the commitment to get to the truth of what’s eating you. Make today the day that you remove the mask and begin to live a life that you can be proud of. This is the essence of living an empowered life that you love.

What do you think? Please send your comments to coaching242@yahoo.com or 429-6770.

• Michelle M Miller is a certified life coach, communication and leadership expert. Visit www.michellemmiller.com or send mail to PO Box CB-13060.