Pain as Motivator
This week’s theme explores the power of action as part of our healing journey. Today we look at pain as a motivator. We get poked, nudged, prodded into changing our ways…often to no avail. When we’ve ignored all the other signals long enough, then it turns into pain (emotional or otherwise). And then it’s: how bad does the pain have to get before we take some action to change?
For me, I’ve been wanting to bring my body to a health weight for a couple of years now. I’ve “tried everything” and I’ve come to the realization that regardless of what I “try”, it requires me to change my relationship with me and food.
For instance, I know that if I eat anything after 7 or 7:30 pm, the numbers on the scale will go up. If I only get 6 hours of sleep, the numbers on the scale will go up. If I “nibble” on food throughout the day (especially emotionally), the numbers on the scale will go up.
It took feeling the pain of the numbers continually going up, feeling the pain of not being able to where my favorite clothes, feeling the pain of my uncomfortable, bloated body, to motivate me to change my ways.
I’m currently using yet another app to help me with my “healthy weight” quest…this time though I’m not relying on IT to lose the weight for me, I changed my mindset and am using it as an accountability buddy, to help ME drop the excess weight. Now when I go into the kitchen at night and feel the urge to “grab a bite” of something, I remind myself of how I want to feel when I look at the scale tomorrow morning, or how I want to feel in my clothes, or how I want to feel moving around in my body.
My challenge becomes not to beat myself up about it when the number goes up, and it will at times for a variety of reasons. So I review my previous day’s intake, assess it, and make any necessary changes for today. Since Dec 27, 2024, I’m down 8.4 lbs…slow and steady, baby.
How about you? What’s something that has to get to the pain level before you’re motivated to change?
BTW…Here’s the before…the front and back view of today’s puzzle piece and the pretty ceramic box that holds all my numbers from which I randomly choose each day’s puzzle piece number:
Peace & Blessings,
Maureen
The Mandala Lady
Creating Mandalas 🔆 Awakening Inner Harmony
ABOUT THE 2025 Mandalas of the Day
Throughout the year, I’ll be building one large (48”x48”) Tibetan-styled Mandala one piece at a time…one puzzle piece at a time, that is. The mandala design and the reversed puzzle side were printed on artist-quality watercolor paper. The forward facing puzzle side was printed on a 48”x48” wood panel.
Each day, at random, I’ll be painting in watercolors one of the 365 watercolor puzzle pieces, that by the end of the year will become Archangel Mandala #4. Read more about the Archangel Series. The word/message for each piece will be inspired by Melody Beattie’s book “52 Weeks of Conscious Contact”.
Ultimately, the message of this mandala is about how we are all uniquely part of the one.
Mandala of the Day 