[davidsun]

Originally Posted by Shivani Devi

I am going to give an example here...it is also something I need to get off my chest...I have needed to do this for quite some time.

I have another addiction apart from oversleeping...I am a junk food addict. I am a vegan's worst nightmare. I will freely admit this...and I feel no guilt.

However, over the past year I have put on 20kg due to refined carbs and a lack of exercise...this has exacerbated the symptoms of my arthritic knees..and so, a few months ago, I made the decision to go on a Keto diet to lose some weight.

However, I made a HUGE mistake! I told my mother about my goals and aspirations looking (in vain as it turns out) for some moral support.

My psychologist wonders why I have problems making and sticking to any goals...why I have an addictive personality. It is all due to traumatic abuse.

The trauma came in the form of my parents and their insistence on "personal responsibility" and "being true to your words" and having "moral accountability" because that separates a person of "strong character" from a person of "weak character"...you know, all of those social values THEIR parents instilled in them during the 1930s and 1940's which are no longer relevant in today's society...

So, the day after I told my mother I was going on a diet, the FIRST thing she said the next day, even before "how are you?" is "have you started your diet yet?" and when I said "no, not yet" she said "why not?" and I had to make up excuses and lies which I would not have even HAD to do, had she not hounded me for an explanation...my parents raised me to be deceitful, dishonest and untrustworthy even though this was never their intention.

To pacify her, I said that I would begin my diet at the end of the week...

Later that week, she phones again.."have you started your diet yet?"

I had to tell her that I was going out to a party on the weekend and I would begin my diet on the Monday.

Next Thursday she phones me "have you started your diet?"
Me: "yes mum, I started my diet on Tuesday"
Mum: "how much weight have you lost since Tuesday? You should have lost half a kilo in two days"
Me: "I don't know, I haven't weighed myself since I started"
Mum: "well, go and weigh yourself... I'll wait.."
Me: "I'd rather weigh myself after a week to get a surprise".

Another week goes by ..mum phones .

"How's your diet going? Lost any weight yet?"

This kept up...and up...and up...until in the end, my mind totally rebelled .
"I am NOT continuing on this diet because I hate you SO much!"

So, I was able to answer my psychologists question about why it is that I have problems making and sticking to goals.

Some potentially pertinent extracts from Don Juan's teachings - to Carlos Castaneda (quoted from http://www.uazone.org/naph/ccarlos/v...ixtlan.html#17 ):

17

A WORTHY OPPONENT

You're rational, all right. And that means you believe that you know a lot about the world, but do you? Do you really? You have only seen the acts of people. Your experiences are limited only to what people have done to you or to others. You know nothing about this mysterious unknown world.

..you know that from now on you must be on the lookout. She will try to tap you on your left shoulder during a moment when you are unaware and weak.

- What should I do?

-It is meaningless to complain. What's important from this point on is the strategy of your life.

Your opponent is on your trail and for the first time in your life you cannot afford to act helter-skelter. This time you will have to learn a totally different doing, the doing of strategy. Think of it this way. If you survive the onslaughts of 'la Catalina' you will have to thank her someday for having forced you to change your doing.

- What a terrible way of putting it! What if I don't survive?

-A warrior never indulges in thoughts like that. When he has to act with his fellow men, a warrior follows the doing of strategy, and in that doing there are no victories or defeats. In that doing there are only actions.

(I asked him what the doing of strategy entailed.)

It entails that one is not at the mercy of people. At that party, for instance, you were a clown, not because it served your purposes to be a clown, but because you placed yourself at the mercy of those people. You never had any control and thus you had to run away from them.