M5:D42 (D450) Unfinished Business…My Take

I believe it is true that most people are not successful from a mechanical standpoint.  They have failed time and again with diet and fitness programs.  They opt for the “topical ointment of behavior modification” when the situation itself is much deeper than any topical ointment can reach.  They seek answers from every single source they can find.  Unfortunately, everything sounds reasonable and logical, so they wind up starting one program, doing it for a short time and then finding another program and switching to it.  This is what is meant by “topical ointment of behavior modification” and it is a dangerously slipperly slope. 

As Carlos so aptly points out, “[t]he answer to our failures may not be in the next or latest diet or program.”  I will go even further and guarantee you that the answer to these failures is not in the next or latest diet or program.  The answer lies within ourselves.  Finding the reasons might not be easy at all.  There are “Unresolved issues” as Carlos refers to them and they are generally hidden from view.  What is hidden within these “unresolved issues”?  Is there some deep-seated pain that is causing you to lose your commitment to your goals?  Did someone’s words cause you to believe you cannot do it?  Whatever the answer, there are events in everyone’s lives that cause “unresolved issues” and the only real solution is to determine what those “unresolved issues” are, how they came about and then tackle them directly.

As Carlos points out, “very often hidden within these events is an unbearable pain that we would rather not face.”  The pain is something we probably didn’t create, but we perpetuate.  The memory of the pain lives on inside our mind and we don’t set ourselves free from it.  Sometimes it involves forgiveness.  Forgiveness is so essential because it enables us to move forward as a free person.  When we fail to forgive we simply tie ourselves to the past and become a prisoner of the even that needs forgiveness.  This is where everything gets very interesting to me.

Carlos talks alot about the “solutions” we attempt.  He talked to me about this on the phone several weeks ago and I wrote down the following in my journal:

Solutions become crutches that keep us from really solving the unresolved issues. What seems like a solution is really nothing more than a bandage that hides the wound itself from sight.

As I read Unfinished Business, this comment came back to me over and over again.  Carlos talks about how food is treated as a problem.  It reminds me of so many people who have written about their fat loss journey and about how they struggle with food.  I used to be one of those people.  I used to eat when I was stressed.  I used to eat when I had alot of planning to do.  I used to eat the wrong things.  I used to self-medicate with food.  I realized that for me, the unresolved issues had to do with things I was told as I was growing up, things I vowed never to do with my own children.  Whenever I tried anything new I was told that it “wasn’t right” for me or I would “never be able to do it” or a multitude of other things.  How do you think those things effected me as I started down the physique transformation path?  Obviously it played a huge part because I was conditioned to think that nothing I tried would ever work. 

My original solution was to immerse myself in any information I could get so that I could “learn” and then conquer the problem.  As I learned principles from Carlos, I learned that immersing myself in information was not the right thing to do.  The right thing was to hold onto the right information and discard everything else.  It is why I am creating https://www.fitnessexpose.com.  It is why I am so passionate about this blog.  It is why I am writing 2 books right now.  I have seen the light.  I have dealt with the underlying problem, the unfinished business, and now I am pursuing principles that are guaranteed to bring me success through the hard work I am putting in.

Matty’s Workout Log: