Have you ever noticed that in order to make positive change, sometimes you have to mess everything up first?
Maybe it’s just me, but if I want to really organize a room to make it function better, I have to pull everything out and make a huge mess in order to be able to decide what to keep, what to toss, what’s important, what’s trash, and only then can I put things together in a more functional form.
It takes time and willingness to be in the mess for a while, but if you never go through it, you end up staying stuck.
Sometimes we must drag ourselves through the muck of life, confront things we would have preferred to keep hidden, and feel really uncomfortable for a while if we want to actually work through problems so that we can get to the other side with more perspective and intention and hopefully something better than what we had to pull apart to get to the new thing.
I promise, I’m about to tie this metaphor back into nutrition.
Many of us don’t eat the way we think we should.
It’s not that we’re clueless about what would constitute a healthy eating pattern, it’s just that we don’t want to deal with what it would take to do anything about being stuck. For example, if we try a new recipe, it might literally mess up our kitchen, but also, what if we don’t like it? What if our kids hate it? What if it takes longer than we expected and then dinner is late and then we don’t get to bed on time and then we’re tired the whole rest of the week and on and on. And I mean, that’s just one recipe – how could we ever consider changing our overall habits? We’d have to plan, and who has time for planning. It might cost more money, and money is always tight. We might feel annoyed or hate the changes we feel we have to make. We might even have to confront our emotions if we’ve been using food to cope with stress or boredom or loneliness. And who knows when we will see any benefits?
It sounds like a mess!
What if we consider that there might be such a thing as a good mess?
A mess that, though it feels frustrating and uncomfortable in the moment, allows for the possibility of something better on the other side.
I tend to believe that if you make a change and it doesn’t feel good, and feeling good was your goal, you might want to rethink the goal or the way in which you are implementing your intention.
However…
often new things just feel uncomfortable for a while. And I think both things can be true.
No, change should not make you miserable, but making changes you want might cause instability, discomfort, even anxiety at first while you are working through the mess of the change – the unexpected obstacles, the learning curve, the disruption to other parts of your life as you try to allow a new habit to settle in. I know we want there to be just ONE THING we can do to solve all our issues, or we’d prefer to just shuffle a few things around. However, if we avoid everything awkward, inconvenient, and MESSY, we run the risk of ending up exactly where we began.
Okay, there are definitely some messes we don’t want to find ourselves in – car crashes, jail sentences, homes that could be featured on Hoarders.
Beyond the extreme examples, it may not always be easy to discern between good messes and not-so-good messes, and if you just don’t know if you are on the right track, it might be helpful to get some support. But I think we should consider that some amount of messiness may be a prerequisite for change.
The good news is that new things DO get easier over time. We know this from experience, though in the face of uncertainty and potential chaos, we often forget. So let this message be your gentle reminder.
On that note, I’m going to leave you with the food inspiration for this email, the ultimate in culinary messes – the SLOPPY JOE.
(my husband, Joe, wants me to clarify that I am not referring to him)
Sloppy Joes are a classic comforting and savory food.
They may be messy, but they sure are good, supporting today’s thesis.
I have a vegetarian version that you can find as a quick reel on Instagram.
I also have a longer-form video on YouTube featuring my husband expressing his thoughts on having a sloppy sandwich bear his name.
| And if you feel like you’re going through the mess of sorting out your dietary habits, please, don’t hesitate to reach out to me for support. That is what I do. |
