How Fear Makes Us Fat
By Kristin Wnuk on March 23, 2009
The work I do with “fear” centers around how fear gets in the way of us being true to ourselves, showing up in the world as who we really are—without all of the social masks we wear, and doing what we aspire to do in our lives. Fear is a roadblock or an obstacle because it is our nature to want to stay emotionally safe. We don’t want to feel uncomfortable or risk looking foolish or worry about failing or feel guilty about our excuses. So we just keep doing what we have always done—often making choices that are leading us farther and farther down a road we know in our gut we don’t want to continue on.
With all of the information available to us through the news, magazines, internet, “diet” books, and various other resources, most of us know what to do—eat less and increase our activity. Yet, we continue to get fatter and fatter. I’ve been there. I have had my ups and downs with weight—gaining and losing the same 15 pounds over and over again. I gained 50, 65 and 85 pounds respectively with my three children—and then had to work really hard to get it off. I began to ask myself some serious questions—“Why do I keep doing this yo-yo thing? I’m a smart gal; I know what to do…so why don’t I do it?” I am sure different people have different reasons, but I believe it all comes down to FEAR. You might think—Uh, I am afraid to lose weight? I don’t think so! Well, it’s usually not quite that obvious.
For me, it took some serious internal exploration because I always saw myself as a pretty fearless person. I’ve been skydiving. I talked my husband into selling our house and starting over in a new state based on a book about great places to raise a family. And I saw myself as someone who was open to trying new things….Me? Yo-yo dieting because of FEAR? No, I’m fearless…Yes, it was fear! You see I have always been the kind of person who put everyone else before me. It made me a great mother, a great wife, a great friend, a great employee—it also made me overweight.
Every time I got caught up in the “busy-ness” of my life, fear kept me from being true to myself and taking care of myself the way my intuition told me to. Somehow taking care of me would take time away from others. If I wasn’t there for others, they might stop needing me. If they stop needing me, I won’t have a purpose. If I don’t have a purpose, I don’t have worth (in my mind). Not feeling worthy was SCARY! Ah, there’s the fear! There it is.
Maybe your story is similar to mine. Maybe you are afraid of letting your family or culture down if you don’t eat at family dinners. Maybe you are afraid of the attention you will get if you are thinner. Maybe you are afraid that you will somehow have to give up who you are if you change. All I know is it is worth exposing. Accepting that you have fear may make you feel weak. That’s just a perception. Understanding and facing your fear is not weakness, it is empowering! And it can provide the keys to being happy, healthy, trim, and fit!