“I’ve got it. I’ve got it. I’ve got it. I don’t got it,” says a character in the Albert Brooks film, High Anxiety, dropping the trunk to the ground, then repeating the comical sequence. Just when I think I have a handle on how to work my lifestyle successfully, I drop the giant trunk to a symphony of, “I don’t got it.” Today was one of those days. I stayed within my normal array of foods, but felt a lack of control, a sense of urgency to eat considerably more, a desire to relieve a discomfort that my old psyche believed food could alleviate. Physically distressed by a minor surgical procedure, I circled around the discomfort searching for any alternative. Food came to the rescue like an emergency vehicle ringing its sirens, racing to my aid and expecting to save me from demise.
Although food comforts me with immediate gratification and distraction, it fuels the fire rather than douses the flames. Food battles the hurt, aims to distract the pain, but eventually causes greater emotional distress. By observing my behavior post-excessive eating, I notice the pain still exists with additional emotions awaiting their turn to be felt. My disappointment, anxiety, and bloatedness, additional ailments, plague me, while still in search of physical and now, mental relief. The ruckus from eating one’s discomfort snowballs into a morphed mess. Even with the knowledge, experience, and recognition of these steps in play while they occur, I drop the trunk anyway, waylaying into the turmoil I know well and have often overcome. “I got it. I got it. I got it. I don’t got it.”
Part of the process is to dust yourself off and rally after damage is done, rather than finishing off an ice cream sundae. Stopping the cycle in its tracks with awareness is true victory. Imperative to recognize one’s imperfection, repeal the past, and move along formidably, is to note the lessons for future action. Phone a friend, ask the audience, give yourself a 50:50 chance, or leave well enough alone by walking away with past success; find new ground to begin again immediately. No one needs to push limits when a minute later a new choice may be made. Instead learn from mistakes and make new decisions setting present and future victory into motion. Sometimes you got it, sometimes you don’t. Today, “I got it. I got it. I got it. I don’t got it.” The journey continues with “I got it” until “I don’t got it” again.