Oh, I'm Just SOOO Complex!

Meet Wild Child and The Dictator. They both live in me, and both of them are very good at what they do. The Dictator is extremely talented at telling me what I need to do in order to reach my weight loss goals and also very good at telling me what a failure I am when I have a weak moment and lose control. The Dictator not only harasses me about weight loss but also about all the shoulds and must-bes and impossible standards I have floating around in my head as ideal states of being. With her hair pulled painfully back into a tight bun under her military hat and her little whip cracking ferociously, she's scary and powerful.

Wild Child is extremely timid, dressed in her bark and moss, with her dark hair a wild halo around her head. She might appear to be compliant and docile, but oh, she is so stubborn when she's backed into a corner. Put enough pressure on her and she'll literally grow in size, hissing like a cat and baring sharp teeth, threatening total annihilation to the enemy.

Up until now, The Dictator and Wild Child have been locked in a constant battle for survival, each against the other. The more The Dictator imposes strict diet regimens and goals, the quicker Wild Child whips out irresistible food cravings.

Martha Beck, in The Four Day Win, took my nebulous theory about what is going on inside my head and turned it into a vivid visual. The Dictator is my mind, the computer, trying to grant me my wish of effortless weight loss without the use of harsh diets and dangerous "miracle" pills and potions. The Dictator is logical and educated, if not entirely rational about her approach. She threatens and bullies and dictates in order to get me to comply with eating less and moving more. She's just doing what is natural for her to do, which is to pursue my desires, and she'll boss me into being thin if it's the last thing she does.

Wild Child is my body, the creature. Where The Dictator is the predator, Wild Child is the prey, and she reacts to the harsh orders from The Dictator by defending herself and her existence with every trick she knows how. In her view, The Dictator is ordering her to commit suicide, and the survival instinct is simply too strong. Her job is to keep me healthy, and if The Dictator is going to starve her, she will react by going into famine mode: eat as much as possible and store fat.

When Beck had me visualize Wild Child and The Dictator as two-inch beings on the palms of my hands, it was an ah-ha! moment of incredible clarity. There they were, those two warring factions in my self, suddenly so defined and crisp. But how to get them to stop fighting and work together toward the common goal of reaching a healthy weight?

Enter The Watcher.