And excerpt from the book Full Lives by Lindsey Hall.Susan Kano
The best analogy I've found for the leap of faith into spontaneous eating is from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In that movie, Indiana and his father search for the Cup of Christ, the Holy Grail, which is said to bring eternal life to anyone who drinks from it. Through a lifetime of research, Mr Jones Sr has learned how to find the Holy Grail and that in doing so he will face "three devices of lethal cunning" otherwise known as booby traps. In the Chronicles of St Anselm, he found clues to getting through the traps. The third clue says "The Path of God: Only in the leap from the lion's head will he prove his worth."
When Indiana reaches this third and final challenge, he stands next to a carving of a lion's head, at the edge of a canyon, miles deep and plenty wide enough to rule out an exceptionally broad jump. There seems to be no way to get to the other side of the canyon, where a cave, carved out of a sheer wall of rock, holds the Holy Grail. Indiana remembers the clue, "Only in the leap from the lion's head, will he prove his worth," and we hear his father, who was left behind with a mortal wound, saying "You must believe, boy, you must believe." Indiana has to believe that if he "leaps" or steps off the edge of the lion's side of the canyon, he will somehow, by the grace of God, not fall to his death, but rather will be allowed to reach the Holy Grail. We see him standing there, looking down, and it's pretty obvious that he's thinking, "Damn it! My father would expect something like this! I'd have to be out of my mind..." But he realizes that he has little choice. If he doesn't try, his father will die and he too will be killed. So he squeezes his eyes shut and he painfully, slowly forces himself to step off the edge, more or less expecting to fall, but hoping and desperately trying to believe that a miracle will save him and lead to the Holy Grail.
If you saw the movie, you know that when Indiana managed to find the faith and courage to step out into thin air, a narrow bridge miraculously appeared underfoot and he very carefully, very slowly, inched across to reach the other side and the Holy Grail. The analogy is clear. As long as you stand on the lion's side of the canyon, you live with chronic dieting, binge eating, or another problem with food. On the other side of the canyon is God's gift to us all: spontaneous, effortless eating and natural weight control. But the only way to get across the canyon is to step into what looks like thin air. There doesn't appear to be anything there to support you. It doesn't feel like you're going to make it across. All you have is scientific studies which indicate that your body is designed to regulate your weight, if only you would let it do its job unopposed.
