C6 - Sunday, February 27, 1983 - North Shore News the growing edge by Hayden Stewart | Freelance Counsellor Hayden Stewart may he reached at 201-0242 for appointments for individual family or group counselling To each his wisdom One bit of self-advice may be appropriate and valuable for Mary. Butithe very same advice could be inapprop- mate and dangerous for John. It depends on who they are and where they are in their journey of evolving. Ram Dass, in his “Grist for the Mill” tells of a thoughtful searcher who was told by his guru that he was to fast for THINKING SLIM By JEAN NIDETCH “When do we eat? I'm starving!” “I'm just dying for that piece of pecan fudge!” “Losing weight is such torture, for me.” “This diet is killing me!” How often have we used phrases like these to describe the normal cravings associated with losing weight? Exaggeration and hyperbole are not unusual in our everyday conversation, espectatly conversation about weight control. We use them to create an effect, to elicit sympathy, to express a sense of humor. Yet how self-defeating such over- loaded language can be for the weight loser. Just what do we mean when we describe our feel- ings in such dramatic terms”? STURFED PROUT *Vahd Sunday Valid Munda) SPRING SPECIALS (to March SI BEORN'S PLATTER A DELECTABLE COMBINA LION OF /BROCHE TLE OF BEEE AND CORNISH HEN ALL SERVED WITH RICE AND VEGETABLES 18.95 fortwo’ Uhursday cvcaings onty botentammenat 4) Coupon may notte uscd SHIRE’S SALAIT) A COLORFUL COLLECTION FROM THE GARDEN AND SEA A SHRIMP 1 OUTE HOBBITS SPECIAL DRESSING, ws 3 9S* Paaday lange hh canaly FREE GIFT CERTIFICATES Thats oyhe' Tf your tall is over BOO OO for two at dinner well give you a free BLO OO pitt ccatitm ate and Woyour tallhas over SIO OO tot twee at buns th we ll ypive vou a free $Y OO gibt cortifn ate Goward von ae wt vinit nt the botetat Bewse Kestaue ans OPEN T DAIS © LUNCH © BRUNG HM ® DENNER strc the © agyban. Su Reservations 987 -3388 That following a food plan will literally result in our death? Quite the contrary! If we did not believe that keeping our weight within norma! limits would improve our well-being, we wouldn't have set that goal for our- selves in the first place. Yet we persist in enlarging and maximizing the ordinary frustrations we encounter along the way by the language we use to refer to them. Why? Could it be because, by giving these negative feetings “targer than life” proportions, we give ourselves “permission” to lose control? After all, if sticking to our food plan is “killing” us, who could blame us for failing to do it? By giving our negative feel- ings emphasis, importance and power, we absolve our- selves from blame. and pave 19845 PIL AE WITH THI apres Beaters fourteen days. After a week “he retumed to his guru and told him he had gone seven days without food. The guru said, “Good. You have only seven more days of fasting.” A lhitue later, a penniless, trred and hungry traveller approached the guru and said, “Good master. I have been without sustenance for 7 days.” It would be un- thinkable (says Ram Dass) for the guru to Say to him, as he had to his. disciple, “Good. You have only seven more days of fasting.” One person I know might do very well ta say to himself, “I am terribly un- organized. I'm lazy. I never do things when | should. | procrastinate day after day. Because I am so shiftless and indecisive 1 feel like I’m always away behind. | want fo learn how to put an end to my procrastinating.” But, his neighbor, a different sort, in many ways, might say to himself, “I feel so utterly driven. I have a full schedule and am quite uptight about getting everything done, to perfection. There are too few hours in the day. Always I am trying so hard to ac- complish more and more. | suppose what I need is to learn how to do a good day's work, without being shackled to the task of doing a lot more than that. What I really need to learn is how to procrastinate, how to bring about a tapering off of my dmving necessity to achieve perfection. | need to develop the art of saying “thus far - and no farther!" John - the wisdom of your higher Self is for you and for no other. And Mary. “Not any light shall shine upon thy road for other eyes.” Some of us are being told One thing and = some. another. And, in one way or another, all of us are being told to give attention to the wisdom that is appropriately our own. Some of us need the values there are for us in fasting (or whatever) while others of us need to be receptive to the sustenance that ts offered to us. We are unique. guage while watching weight the way for failure. The same linguistic game is at work, although more subtly, even when we speak of “losing” weight, of “reducing.” “Lasing” is not something we Americans are in the habit of viewing favorably; we are inculcated from childhood with the will to “win.” Likewise, “reduc- ing” has the connotation of becoming diminished, insig- nificant, unimportant. Gaining has a much more favorable nng. Of course, we cannot rewrite the entire language to accommodate our partic- ular situation. But we can keep our language more accurate. We should not deny our Joe Stonehouse Your Quuiroplan Business!! feelings, but neither should them with we exaggerate inflated descriptions. 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