“I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost… I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place.
But, it isn’t my fault.
It still takes me a long time to get out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in. It’s a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault. I get out immediately.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

I walk down another street.”

― Portia Nelson, There’s a Hole in My Sidewalk: The Romance of Self-Discovery

Pause for a moment. What does this bring up for you? What do you keep doing over and over again?

For me, it was dieting. For six years of my life, I did one diet after the other. Constantly gaining and losing the same 15 lbs. It was horrible. I tried so hard to keep my body at a weight much lower than where she needed to be.

While I felt so glued to dieting as “the only way” to maintain a weight I thought I needed, I also SO desperately wanted to just forget about calories. To have more fun. To NOT care.

I used to say: “I JUST want to feel normal.” Can anyone who has been stuck in dieting before relate?

Intuitive Eating allows you to change. It allows you to walk down another street. It allows you to say: “this hasn’t been working for me. I am going to do something DIFFERENT and still feel good in my body.” (Or, perhaps in your case, start feeling good in your body).

The biggest part of WHY I eat intuitively is because it allows me to feel good in my skin AND honor my body cues. I no longer feel the need to research whether or not what I am eating is “okay.” Rather, I trust my own body’s cues. Do you know how much freedom is in that? How much freedom is in grabbing the whole milk yogurt off the shelf because my body is feeling pulled toward it?

How much freedom is in not doubting myself and my every move? Intuitive eating helps you to build trust with yourself. Which is a building block of a positive, healthy relationship. Isn’t it time you began to nurture the relationship you have with yourself?

If you’re reading this, you have a choice. You can either fall right back into the same hole (what you’ve always done before) or you can reach out. Get accountability. Ask for support. You can walk down a different street.

It’s up to you to decide.

WHY did I diet for so long?

Dieting was my safety. It allowed me to ignore everything else going on in the world and just focus in on what my body (my world) was doing. How much weight it wanted to lose or gain each day. What number the scale would say. What mood I’d get to be in that day – not because of anything other than my diet. It was an “escape” for me.

The biggest bummer of dieting for so many years? I skimmed right past SO many things that were going on in my life that I was too distracted to see. Maybe you can relate? I went through this in high school and college.

Let me show you some of the things that dieting blinded me from:

• I had a deep need for a spiritual relationship with God – I didn’t realize this
• I couldn’t see that I only tried to control my body because there were other BIG things going on in my life that I couldn’t control
• My true desire was to know where I belonged. To feel supported. Carried. Not alone. Dieting caused me to have the mentality that I had to do it all alone; to take care of myself (or so I thought I was) and not ask for any support
• Dieting blocked me from having the mental space to find OTHER hobbies, joys, and healthy places to put my attention; it took up ALL of my attention
• It truly blocked me from seeing that deserved SIMPLE HUMAN respect from all relationships (friends, romantic, etc.). Instead, I based my value on if my body was “good enough” and therefore if I was “good enough”

I couldn’t see these things until much later. This kept me STUCK in dieting, in an effort to try and control my life. I felt like I couldn’t get out of it. Had I heard the poem above, I would have really struggled walking down a new street on my own. I had to allow my journey time, and I had to get support.

Since eating intuitively, I can see these things. I have a relationship with God that brings me true joy. I know that I can’t control certain areas of my life, and I’ve learned to be okay with that instead of fighting it or ignoring it. I feel a huge sense of belonging with my friends, husband, family, and all of my darling little cousins.

I know that I deserve respect, and I live my life in a way that brings me respect these days. I have FOUND my true joys. I have accepted and begun to embrace all parts of myself that I used to ignore. I LOVE blogging, staying inside for long periods of time and allowing my creativity to go wild, sitting in coffee shops, having meaningful conversations with friends, getting to be there for someone I love, relating to other women, HEARING from other women, and sharing my story and listening to others.

Can you relate to my story or pieces of it?

What street have you walked down too many darn times? What is the street that you are SICK of walking down? Share it with me in the comments. This blog is a safe space to be vulnerable. If you’d prefer to email it to me, you can do that too: paige@paigeschmidt.com.