This quote has found it’s way into our film recently:

Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

I think this is really important, the notion of faith, as it pertains to overcoming most challenges in life. It seems to be very related to addiction recovery, whether the addiction is alcohol, drugs, or food. As the first step in a 12-step program is to declare powerlessness over our problem, and then the 2nd step is to “believe in a power greater than ourselves.”

I think many people have a problem with this idea of faith, if they aren’t religious, because they feel like it really must mean having faith in a god. This is where many people who try a 12-step program have a hard time.

Often however, when we are faced with a challenge in life, that we’re not quite confident we can overcome, the notion that we can put faith in something, some idea, some plan, or some one, is incredibly powerful. It’s because of the self-doubt we have within our own minds, that we cannot really get past, in order to succeed. So as we begin a challenging journey, having someone, or some higher power to give us the confidence that we will succeed, is often very important…it helps us to forage ahead even when we don’t know if it’s the right way. We must have faith that it is.

In some cases, it’s having faith in a trainer or friend, that they know what they are doing (because maybe they’ve done it), and so we can have the “blind faith” that can often be necessary for us to leave our doubts behind and just go for something. There are times with blind faith can lead us in the wrong direction, but nevertheless, it allows us to do things we might not do, if we were only to use our own prior experience and logic.

This quote from Dr. Marin Luther King Jr. is very true. We must often believe in something that we are unsure of, in order to reach new levels of understanding. If we are afraid of unknown territories in life, and allow our negative thoughts to keep us in a comfortable place, we often never get to climb that mountain, overcome that obstacle, because we quit before we begin.

So this whole notion, applies not only to losing weight, but anything you can imagine.