Deepak Chopra has a great post about the spiritual Catch-22 in our lives, and how it relates to addictions and compulsions. More importantly, he also provides a very interesting nugget (see emphasis below) that suggests one possible way out:

The basic question is how to escape the paradox that resisting fear (or evil or neurosis) only makes it stronger, while giving in results in the same thing. …

If one looks closely, what [addictions and compulsions] have in common is that they deprive us of choice. They are built-in habits that have worn a groove in the psyche. When we aren’t under their influence, they seem not even to be part of our real selves. So how can choice be restored? That is the real question, not whether to give in or resist. Normally, our first reaction is to say to ourselves, “Uh oh, here comes that impulse I hate. Am I going to give in again or resist this time?” But by the time a compulsive thought has arisen, the moment of choice is past.

The power to choose can only be restored when you aren’t under the sway of cravings and compulsions, neuroses and dark fears. In a reflective state one asks, “How can I get my choices back?” The classic answer was stated most simply by the poet Rumi: “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

See the full post for more, and check out this if you like Rumi’s quote.

Chopra doesn’t suggest that this is an easy path. But it seems to me that it’s related to the “finding the keys” anecdote that Wayne Dyer talks about in The Power of Intention (a man looks for his keys under a street light rather than where he lost them because “that’s where the light is”).

Spending a disproportionate energy on “weight loss” may prove difficult if weight is the symptom rather than the problem. But spending that energy on the right problem may resolve the weight as a side-effect.

For me, following the Abe Lincoln philosophy (”when I do good, I feel good”) has been my attempt at doing what Rumi suggests. What I really, really want is to feel good and find peace of mind. And so far, I’ve been doing a fairly good job working on my barriers to this.

For example, I’m not doing a hard core OA “no sugar, no white flour, ever” kind of diet. But I’m kidding myself if I don’t realize that poor diet choices have a negative impact on my ability to avoid cravings. And like Nicole, I too have really, really struggled with the “It’s not fairrrrrrrrrr that everyone else can eat that and stay thinnnnnnnnnnnn” thoughts.

But I have no ability to make life fair. Working on removing these kinds of thoughts is something I can do. And I seem to be making progress. More often than not, I’m not jealous of people who are eating crap (and seeming to get away with it). I don’t know how I’ve done it, but I’m currently in a great state of mind where I care more about health (speaking of which, go check out Oprah about heart disease and women).

So when I saw a colleague (who had bypass surgery in the past several months) eating potato chips at lunch today, I didn’t feel envious. I felt bad. And not that I think he’s a weak person; I think that we’ve been brainwashed into being ashamed about where we are with our weight…it’s the only visible compulsion (for the most part). So sue us for wanting to get a little joy in life, and if we’ve only figured out how to do that with food and the establishment (doctors, our families, the media) tells us that we gotta go spartan to fix it, we’re in trouble from the start.

Maybe this isn’t you, but it is me. We have to look for the problem where it is, not where the light is.