Waiting for......magic?

This morning as I was making the bed, a phrase flashed through my mind: " Waiting for something to happen is not the same as making it happen". I know that what seems profound to one person is pretty ho-hum to another, and my mother would have looked at me with a smirk and claimed 'Columbus!' indicating that I had said something pretty obvious, but perhaps if I explain...
Since I have been fighting the weight issue for a long time now, and at times have been pretty successful, only to fall off the wagon and have to start over again, I have tried for years to understand what happens to me when eating right, or in this case, sanely, is easy. Saying no to what is not good for me is not a struggle, not a wrenching, and certainly not a deprivation. It is just saying no, not now, not this time, I don't really care for any right now, perhaps another time. Those times seemed to descend on me by magic. And sometimes they lasted for really extended periods of time--a year, sometimes two. So as if by magic, the weight fell off and I was happy and people were complimentary and approving, and I thought it would be forever, because it was so easy.... and then the day came when the magic fell away, the old curse seemed to descend once more. The eat anything-eat seconds-eat what- makes-you-feel-not-so-good-but-tastes-wonderful-going-down curse. The eat-without- thinking, let alone thinking- about- consequences curse.
The problem was that there was no rhyme or reason that I could see for the magic shield to have come to protect me, and again no reason for it to have departed. Perhaps if I spent years on the psychiatrist's couch, I might be able to fathom the reason, and then again, perhaps not. But in the meantime the pounds pack on and the health gains disappear as if by magic as well.
I guess what I am trying to say is that I realized today that waiting for magic to happen is a fool's game and that the real magic is making a decision to do something and stick with it. It's not necessarily going to be easy. And maybe saying no to the cake or the cookie or the ice cream is going to wrench the hell out of you, but the magic is that when you do it you get to give yourself a pat on the back, an internal message of "good girl", a pep talk that healthier is better, a walking taller, a hope that those old "skinny jeans" that you may have hidden from yourself in the back of the closet will someday fit again, even if they are out of style, or no longer appropriate to your age or station in life.
So, making a decision will be the magic that we learn to make. The smooth card trick is making it seem easy when it's not, the rabbit that we pull out of the hat is the good health that makes itself known in the new lab results we get, or the new numbers on the scale, or the fact that the hill that is at the end of our walk now goes unnoticed rather than a huffing and puffing exercise. So to my wonderful cohorts at Project Transformation, our Magic Castle is not on a hill in Hollywood, but rather right off the freeway at Lindero Canyon in Westlake Village. And it is populated by master magicians of all disciplines, card tricksters at nutrition, rabbit producers in the gym, and teachers of strategic thinking in all the other departments. Making it happen is better than waiting for it to happen. Waiting may be easier, but making it is so creative, so proactive, that it has the power to make magicians of us as well.