Daryl Wood's Blog

Years ago when I thought I had a lot of life figured out or at least I had a sense of what an empowered pathway would look like, I created a program called Loving Ourselves Weight Loss. It centered on the significance of really loving ourselves enough to want to nourish and nurture our bodies. I worked with a few clients in a promotional stage and then decided it wasn’t a good fit with what I was doing in my career.

Recently, I remembered something I said “You are the most powerful when the cookie is still in your hand.” Once you take a bite, you break the ‘spell’, ease the urgency, numb the feelings, interrupt any thoughts going on. And if those thoughts might make you see more clearly or with mindful awareness, you lose momentum when you act on the impulse.

And this is not just about a cookie. It’s about everything we do habitually or by reaction to life. I see it when I reach for my phone to check messages, or pull up a game of solitaire or look in the fridge one more time, or any number of things I do to answer the call to avoid feelings. And I have a lot of feelings I want to avoid.

I’m busy with property work and visitors and returning neighbours and upgrades and opportunities and all the things that we come up against every day in every way in our regular, ordinary and sometimes extraordinary lives. And while some of these are big decisions and some are pretty insignificant there are none that are catastrophic. None that require deep, thoughtful examination. And yet I notice that I ‘reach for the cookie’, something to distract myself when I see the weeds squeezing through the patio stones or the pile of brush I want to burn or the kitchen floor that needs washing. It seems strange that these tasks would invoke some kind of feeling that I am pushing back against. I wondered what that was. These are not huge jobs. These are things that could have been done in the time it takes for me to write this blog. So what’s up with that?

I’d rather ‘reach for a cookie’ literally and figuratively than slow down and look at the feelings behind my resistance. And that’s because the resistance comes from having to do everything on my own. Yes, I have amazing friends and neighbours and yes I hire a great handyman who will do any job I ask. But most of the jobs are mine to do. Well, they used to be mine and Doug’s. We did stuff together or did things alongside each other and did things in support of each other. I often shook my head when he would remove all the chairs and table from the kitchen to wash the floor. Now I come up with the easiest way possible to get it over with.

Now I am making all the decisions and doing all the stuff that was once shared. And now, no one knows or cares whether I do these little jobs. No one is inspecting my property (or at least they aren’t saying anything out loud). It’s up to me to do the things I think need to be done or that I want to get done.

So reaching for the cookie is a way to avoid remembering that I am alone now, that Doug won’t be picking up after me or with me. Now it’s up to me and since I absolutely love this place as much as I did when he was here and maybe even more now for the sanctuary it gives me, I will do the things that need to be done. I may procrastinate but I know the why behind my delays.