I Always Promised I’d Start Again on Monday

Monday was always going to be the fresh start.

And every Sunday night came with a plan:

• “Tomorrow I’ll be good.”
• “This time I really mean it.”
• “No more emotional eating.”

And by Wednesday, or sometimes by lunch on Monday, I had already broken my diet. The guilt would roll in, followed by those old familiar thoughts:

“Oh well, I’ve messed up again.”

“I’ll start again next week.”

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The Monday Trap

This cycle is so common, and so painful.

Because when we’re constantly starting over, it can feel like we, the person, are the problem and we can’t look at ‘the problem’ with any objectivity.

But we are not the problem.

The problem is the pressure.

The all-or-nothing mindset.

That little bit of sticky shame that sneaks in every time we think we’ve messed up again.

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What If We Didn’t Need to Start Over?

What if we didn’t need a new plan?

What if we didn’t need to be perfect every Monday?

(Or the first day of the month? Or the first day of the New Year?)

What if healing looked like picking up gently from where we are right now – without the punishing and grandiose promises, without the torturous restrictions, and without the guilt that we seem so happy to bathe ourselves in?

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Small Steps, Right Now

We don’t have to wait for a Monday to be kind and gentle with ourselves.

We don’t need to be “perfect” to be making progress.

We can take a breath, check in with ourselves, and start again in the next moment – not the next week.

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Because healing doesn’t happen on the pages of our New Diets, the ones that we spent so much energy coming up with in the first place.

We like to try to turn our bodies into some kind of Project, a version of ourselves who doesn’t have feelings. A Self who doesn’t have a life, a Self who doesn’t need to have any real autonomy, choice or freedom because we are so robotic. (Or we’d have to be a robot to stick with that diet.)

That version of us doesn’t exist, it was never realistic to begin with. And what a relief really. Let’s all take a deep sigh of relief.

Real freedom and choice can be had right now, in this moment. Take a step back from where you are and take a deep breath in to the bottom of your belly.

An inner sense of peace already exists inside us.

Those quiet, still moments are available to us right now with no fresh start required.