I once heard someone say that we chase emotions rather than results. We don’t so much want the thing we are seeking; it’s the way that thing makes us feel that drives our behaviour. By this logic, I didn’t simply desire to get my doctoral degree. Rather, I spent eight long years sacrificing and sweating because at the end of the day I wanted to feel a particular way.
As I reflect on that difficult academic decade and what motivated it, I can say truthfully that I was pushed on by some dark emotions; feelings of shame and a quest for worthiness. I have often felt washed over by inadequacies, feelings of being “lesser than”, and a double portion of guilt. This is due to a host of things: past transgressions, regrets, trauma, and of course the nagging food struggles which have dominated my life since childhood.
Although I am now far lighter than I was at my highest weight, I still often feel like a “dry drunk”. This is a (decidedly harsh) term for someone who might be technically sober, but nonetheless remains subject to the mental demons that brought about the alcohol problem to start with. We suspect that such a person’s sobriety is destined to die on the vine if those demons cannot be exorcised. When it comes to food, I often feel like I’m only one foot from the ditch.
But back to the fancy degree. What if instead of expending a third of my adult life and countless mental calories on pursuing that Ph.D., I simply chose to feel adequate? What if I spend a fraction of that energy learning to accept myself? This is a major theme of the fat acceptance movement. I mean, if you statistically have only a 1/200 chance of losing all of your excess weight and keeping it off, maybe rather than torturing yourself with endless self-loathing, diets, weight-cycling, and such, maybe it would be wiser to get off of the proverbial diet treadmill altogether.
I can tell you that I have tried many times to feel like enough and it was never enough. But I have found something else that works better.
Consider that we do not actually want to lose weight so much as we want the feeling we believe we will have when the weight is gone. The trouble is that this promise of sunnier emotions is mostly destined to be broken. Don’t get me wrong; you will feel better somewhat if you achieve a healthy weight range. You will likely experience relief in its various forms. Yet that ultimate desire- an abiding feeling of worthiness- cannot be had straightforwardly by altering your outward appearance or health markers.
So then what is the solution?
I contend that the clearest path forward is somewhat paradoxical: you must give up any hope in your own worthiness. Surrender the desire to be justified by your own behaviours and accomplishments. Abandon external validation.
This is not the same as choosing to believe that you are worthy or enough. I no longer choose to echo the world’s mantras “you are worthy” and “you are perfect” and even “you are God”, which are patently false. We are decidedly not worthy according to the Scriptures. There is no one who does good, not even one (Romans 3:12). We will never feel worthy if that feeling is dependent on our performance or perfection. And yes, this is a paradox. It isn’t intuitive. How can we find mental relief by believing that we are un-worthy?
I believe (and the Scriptures teach) that instead of basing your value on fickle and fallible human performance or illusory notions of perfection, you would be better served by relying on three things:
Rely on your identity and birthright as a son or daughter of God.
The bible declares that if you are a Christian, then you have been given the Spirit of God to live inside you. That means you are royalty! And if you walk by God’s Spirit, the Spirit himself attests that you are both His child and heir (Romans 8:12-17). Your value is determined by what has been paid for you (Jesus himself says in Luke 12:17 that you are valuable; that you are worth “more than many sparrows”) and because of your adoption into God’s family. There is nothing you can do to be “worthy” of this because this divine birth certificate is issued by grace through faith. This is a much more stable source of ultimate security because no one can take it away from you, even on a “bad day”.
Rely on your weaknesses which make room for the power of Christ.
So to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me. That is why, for the sake of Christ, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Corinthians 12:7b-10
Paul makes the point that we ought to not only admit our weaknesses, but actually boast about them. If you could make every change to your life, every correction, and display perfection with every virtue, then where does Christ live? What if, in order for him to make his power known in you, God went out of his way to allow for a particular weakness in your life? What if your struggle with obesity was pre-ordained?
A wise brother once said, “lead with your limp”. What he meant was that if you boast in your weaknesses you actually open many doors; both for God to work through that limp and for others to be drawn to Christ through your Christ-like humility.
Rely on the fact that the One who allows you to suffer is also the One who will lift you up in the end
The Bible says that Jesus was made perfect through suffering (Hebrews 2) in order that he might “bring many sons to glory”. In other words, Jesus was subjected to a bunch of rotten things that come from being a flesh-and-blood human so that he could “taste death” for all of us. Because of this, he has destroyed the evil one who has the power of death and along with it, our fear of death. Philippians 2 says that because of this, Christ was exalted to the highest place. We too will be lifted up if we do not give up!
There you have it: three things for us to rely on to ground our thinking about ourselves. Our emotions are actually a natural extension of our thoughts. So if our thoughts are wonky, our emotions will be askew and we will not find the security and peace that we desire.
And a better, more stable, and more truthful basis for our emotions in the end will produce more effective motivations for healthy and righteous behaviours, whether we are working through poor nutritional habits, compulsive eating, or some other set of choices that has hurt our lives. When we focus on belief in our own goodness, we will always fall short. Belief in the goodness of God and his rich love for us, however, will never let us down.
It is truly good news that if we pry our eyes off our own shaky, imperfect selves and glue them to the perfection and loving-kindness of our Creator, we will suffer less emotional torment and enjoy a hope that cannot spoil or fade. The irony is that these renewed beliefs alone have the power to drive the original changes we wanted to make anyway.
But not so that we can say we are enough.