In the work I do with people addicted to sugar and flour, we
have a phrase to describe any time we’re so off our plan it feels hopeless: we’re
“in the ditch.”
This path of freedom from addiction has rumble strips to let
me know when I’m off course. If I do not heed those warnings, I end up in
oncoming traffic or in the ditch. If I
listen to the slight rumbles of discontent daily, I can then make a small
adjustment to come more safely into the middle of this broad highway. Those adjustments usually mean tightening up the
habits that keep me safe, such as meditating, journaling, talking to others,
offering my attention and love to people, etc.
Some days, this work of noticing and adjusting feels like a
burden. Why do I have to keep moving forward, growing, reaching out in order to
maintain neutrality around all the foods that I cannot moderate successfully?
It doesn’t feel fair.
Anyone who has moved through an addiction knows the humbling truth that we’re always just a foot away from the ditch. What most who are in the ditch don’t realize, though, is that we are also always just a foot away from the lane of recovery. I just can’t get there by myself.
Self-pity, a go-to state of mine that never ends well, can
blind me to the small moments of delight that keep me aligned with a life of no
sugar and no flour. The tonic for
self-pity, I’ve learned, is wonder. What
can I find astonishing today? To seek wonder requires a level
of attention to the external world, and a level of attentiveness to my internal
guidance. When I’m really listening, I hear the invitation to walk down a
different block on my way to the little free libraries that pepper this
neighborhood. Sure enough, I find exactly the book I didn’t know I needed.
Diane Ackerman writes “Wonder is the heaviest element in the
periodic table of the heart. Even a tiny piece of it can stop time.” Stopping time is essential during a spiral
into negativity that fuels more eating, shopping, isolating, etc. I may not be able to reverse the momentum
immediately and head straight to delight, but if I can stop the negative momentum
by experiencing a tiny bit of wonder, I have a chance to avoid the ditch. Assistance comes through beauty, conversation,
or a small distracting chore—enough to help me not give into the old neural
pathway that tells me this time it will be different—I could eat/drink/buy just
one. Wonder fills in the hole I used to put my addictive habits and substances.
Help me seek to be amazed by the person across from me and by my own responses to the
natural and urban world.
