I’m hitting up against the point where I need to realize that there’s more to life than food. But I can’t think of anything that will cheer me up that doesn’t cost money. Deeper meaning in life, maybe? Aaaagh… I’m so down. Food is the only thing I live for. Pathetic. :’(
This is my third year doing a 7 day fast, I started when my brother was dying of cancer. If he essentially starved to death, I can handle a few days without food. But now that’s all farther away. How do I keep going? This is the best time for it, I’m mentally and physically prepared, and it’s quite easy. But I’m also so much less motivated. If I can’t do it now, then I don’t think I ever will again. It has to be now. I AM going to do it. But thinking ahead to the weekend and not knowing what I’m going to do with myself is so depressing. I am behind on work, and I have elementary kids to take care of, etc - nothing exactly mood-boosting like food would be.
I originally was motivated for cancer prevention for myself and prayer for my siblings with cancer. But that’s all done and long gone. My brother passed away and my cancer survivor sister was murdered right after. I still have some inflammation problems and cancer fears, so I am still doing it for the health benefit at least, and it really is a piece of cake for me at this point. I just have almost no will power whatsoever, nothing to motivate me except a little scrap of stubbornness.
I did a 12 day fast for prayer also when I had a bad patch in my life, around day 6 I got sad and started to break. You need to go outside for a walk and legitimately talk to yourself and pump yourself up to keep fighting the good fight. As soon as you sleep and wake up you’ll be so happy you kept going.
Well for starters you need to know what you are struggling with if you hope to overcome it. I could be 100% wrong (I don’t even know you) but it sounds like what you are really struggling with is that pesky inner voice that we all have, self doubt. That’s the one that sets us up for failure, makes up give up, and stop us from even trying again.
The noise that comes from that inner voice is actually meaningless. I mean the message is pretty good because it picks the exact words that are the most effective but you can start taking it apart by seeing it for what it is; plain old, ugly, and boring, self doubt.
Ignore the message, step out of that moment it is trying to put you in and take a cold clinically look at it saying “oh, this is nothing more than self doubt”. That’s all it takes to start depowering it.
Will you fail in your goal? Maybe, maybe not, but you should make that a separate issue from your self doubt. I used to suffer from self doubt when I was a younger man until I started internalizing how irrational it was. I went from that paralyzing fear, to actually just getting annoyed when I felt it, to pretty much getting rid of it.