Should Life’s Biggest Decisions Be Made Quietly?

Source: Gregg McBride

I have memories of being overweight dating back to when I was in the first grade. My parents weren’t pleased and took me to a doctor, who put me on a very strict diet. Even though I tried to follow it, I learned that “cheating” on my food plan was a way to subtly rebel against my parents’ constant abuse. This led to them locking food in cabinets, telling people I had a disease—which seemed to leave them feeling less embarrassed, and my continuing to gain more and more weight as I grew older.

Finally, in college, I was still very large, although no longer living at home. Even as my parents’ abuse continued from afar, I also abused myself through overeating. I carried a lot of mental weight that expressed itself in physical weight—to the point that I was topping the scales at over 450 pounds.

Despite feeling worthless and like I didn’t matter, I did try to lose weight. Or at least I talked about losing weight—to virtually anyone who would listen. I thought that if people knew I was at least attempting to take off the excess pounds, they might not judge me so harshly. This fear of judgment was borne in my own mind, in which I judged myself severely.

As a theatre minor, I had to take a requisite dance class. I was terrified that this would only accentuate how different my obese body was from others'. Lucky for me, my instructor’s method was more about self-expressive movement than it was synchronized performance. My teacher encouraged us to let movement evolve from inside ourselves. Part of her curriculum included keeping a journal about our physicality that the teacher would review and comment on weekly.

Dutifully wanting the instructor to know that I was aware of my larger size and that I intended on conquering it, I constantly wrote in my journal about dieting—along with talking about losing weight to others in dance class. Of course, all of this talk about weight loss also came with excuses when the eating plans I’d begin on Mondays fell apart by the end of the week (or sometimes even by Monday afternoons).

As a witness to this and as a reader of my journal, my dance instructor decided to, you'll excuse the pun, weigh in. What she wrote to me in my journal is something that’s stayed with me for life because she introduced me to the art of not needing to tell everyone what my goals were.

She’d seen me endlessly start and stop diets and experience self-imposed shame when others witnessed what I thought were my shortcomings. Within the pages of my journal, she wrote about the art of stillness, of quiet, of keeping major life decisions to oneself.

Her words to me didn’t resonate right away. In fact, I was sure she was wrong. Why even bother to lose weight if I didn’t announce my oncoming success to anyone who'd listen? But after reading her thoughtful and gently communicated passages a few more times, I realized the truth of her words—that the only audience I needed to believe I could attain a goal was myself. And that unless I was willing to commit to it with my own mindfulness, shouting it out loud to the world wasn’t going to make much of a difference.

It turns out my dance instructor was right. In silence comes grace, peace, and the potential for an inward journey that speaks volumes—without ever making a sound. And quiet decisions and inner commitments certainly aided me in my journey to a happier and healthier existence.

These are beautiful life lessons I carry with me and use to this day. And now? I share them with you. In quiet, there is strength and power. In stillness, great things are achieved. Even in this age of sharing everything on social media, we don’t have to be our own public relations spokesperson. Other people will notice our wins. But let’s not let others’ reactions be the reason we embark on paths toward the great things we deserve.