I bowled on the weekend.
Oh, yes I did.
I very rarely go bowling. I find it kind of boring, and I want more bang for my buck you know? If I’m going to be physically active I want to burn more than 88 calories an hour. Plus it gives me a blister on my fourth finger which annoys me.
At any rate, in this particular game of bowling, I scored 202 points, which probably ranks as as my best bowling score. Ever. But that’s not the important part, because, as I may have already said, I don’t really care about bowling per se.
The important part? That score marks a shift in my patterns.
I bowled 6 strikes in that game. 4 of them in a row.
Please allow me to say that again, so I might glory in my achievement.
4 strikes in a row!
My typical pattern: at the moment when I could win, I send it back.
I muff my line. I stumble. I lose my focus. I pull back. I ‘forget’ that I know.
This Saturday, I kept what the universe gave me. I stayed in the flow. I did not send it back.
I know very little about bowling techniques. This Saturday, I tried a new (to me) technique: I kept myself focused on the centre pin. I thought about the idea of looking where I wanted to go. I tried to think only of the pin. When the ball was coming off my hands I kept looking at the pin, gave no thought to the ball at all. Be the pin. And by God, it worked. And then, with the pressure of having the first strike, I sent another one down the lane. With the pressure of the second strike on me, I still sent a third strike down the lane. With the mounting pressure of the third I sent the fourth and final one down the lane. And then, the game was over.
A small thing in the great grand scheme of thing indeed. But a big example of how I do, can, and am rewriting patterns.
Because in that nano second before letting go of the ball, I could see the between of two possibilities. Two choices available to me. To succeed, however unlikely or to not succeed. To be honest, I felt pulled not to succeed. Like a gravitational pull. Break the streak. Go to the mean. Get back to realistic expectations. And this time, I chose to succeed. No wavering, buckling or folding. I found the zone and stayed in it.
Yay me!
But with that success, now, I see a lack of flow in my attempts to lose weight. I see a stuck. I see a story of the mean, the average, the typical.
You might say, I am not having the same success losing weight.
I lost 11.8 pounds. I’ve put 7.7 of those pounds back on.
I got into a small zone (losing about .5 a week) why did I retreat from success?
Same reasons as not get 4 strikes in a row I guess. The typical story: people gain weight. They stay heavy. They lose it with tremendous effort. They gain it back again, plus some. It’s unlikely that anyone can lose 65 lbs and keep it off. The transformation stories require Jillian Michaels yelling at you, the pressure of a television camera and celebrity endorsements, the grim reaper motivation of a critical illness. The pain and pleasure of a before and after picture. The story sucks me into its gravitational pull.
My story isn’t written yet and I find myself fearful of telling anything new. Just tell the typical story and that’s safer.
So, by using the bowling game as an example, I need to keep trying different techniques until I find one that gets me into the flow of losing weight. And then I need the courage to stay in that flow.
Is staying in the flow an oxymoron? Staying = static. Flow = dynamic. Perhaps I mean going with the flow.
If my previous experiences tell me anything, I probably already have the answer, but it will take looking off to the side and flapping around in the dark a little bit.
The answer often (always?) comes to me like a shade plant that can’t flourish or bloom in full sun. And you almost can’t look directly at it lest it vanish altogether.
How like a violet.
Other wanderers said...