Aron Ralston, a young climber, had the heart of an adventurer. He loved to challenge nature and prevail, but one time he almost failed. His first mistake was that he went hiking alone through a remote canyon in Utah without telling anyone where he was going. Despite his training and expertise, he somehow slipped and his arm became pinned under a huge boulder. He was stuck, waylaid, caught by a force that he could not overcome.
After six days of being stuck, Aron cut off his arm to save his life. You may wonder how a person could find the courage to do something so radical. What inner strength did he draw upon? Perhaps we can learn something from his story that will help us gain the inner strength we all need so we can overcome the temptation to eat things we know will harm our health and diet plans.
Have you ever felt as if you were stuck underneath something that was too big for you to move? Does it sometimes feel like fate has waylaid you and no one is around to help? Aron was in just such a predicament. He had made a bad choice to go on this journey alone, and though he was strong, capable, and well-trained, his poor judgment had gotten him into trouble.
He struggled for five days trying to free himself, but to no avail. He had run out of food and water. He prayed. He etched his name in the rocks. He recorded a goodbye message to his family and loved ones. He was in anguish and pain, both physical and emotional, because he knew that his bad choices would cause much grief to others. Aron was dying and he knew it.
Have you ever felt like you were dying inside? The consequences of past choices can back us into a corner and trap us inside a body that is sick, tired, and overweight. Sometimes these wrong choices catch up to us and we cannot free ourselves. We need help.
Aron’s mother earnestly prayed for her son who had been missing for five long days. She prayed that God would help him find the strength to survive until the rescue team arrived. No matter how desperate and alone and trapped we may feel, there are those who love us and never give up on us, although we may give up on ourselves. They’re cheering for us, perhaps praying for us, hoping we will prevail.
We are all endowed with the will to survive. It’s just that sometimes it becomes weakened by the pollution around us, and especially by the pollution within our bodies. When I was using drugs and overweight and sick, I had almost lost my will to live. It happens all the time. People can become so sick and tired that they want to give up. That’s why Aron’s story is so inspiring.
Aron felt a new surge of the will to live. He didn’t give up. He realized there was actually another way that he could free his arm. Several days before he had tried to cut through the bone with his pocket knife, but the knife was too dull. But, as he looked again at his trapped arm, he thought he could probably free himself if he could break the bones first. Aron positioned himself so he could apply the necessary force to break his arm bones. It was the only way out.
Like Aron, we must ask if it is better to continue on a pathway that has us trapped as if pinned under a boulder, or are we willing to cut off old habits that keep us sick, overweight, and tired.
How desperately do you want to be free?
Aron described how he managed to break both of his arm bones using his weight to torque the bones, then how he cut through the flesh, the muscles, the arteries, the tendons, and finally, the most painful cut of all: he sliced off the nerve. Hot searing pain flashed all the way up his body. He pressed in, made a few more cuts, then suddenly fell back against the rock behind him. He was free!
Aron described this as the happiest moment of his life. “Is he serious?” I was thinking. “The guy just cut off his right arm, he’s bleeding, he’s in pain, yet he reports that it was the happiest moment of his life? Why?”
“I felt like I was reborn,” Aron exclaimed. “It was the greatest feeling. To be given the chance to get out. To live again.”
The story goes on until you can hardly believe the strength of will he was able to draw upon. After all this he still had to use ropes to rappel down the rocks, hike for hours in the hot sun, struggle all day not to pass out from blood loss and weakness, push beyond every human limitation until eventually he reached help. Hearing this story is enough to take your breath away and leave you wondering, “How could he do that?”
Most of us aren’t climbing around in remote canyons, but we live on our own edge—trying to resist the next bagel, chocolate chip cookie, or Starbucks double mocha. We wonder within ourselves if we have what it takes to overcome and to finally regain our health, lose weight, and feel good again. We’re stuck in old habit patterns and ways of thinking that limit us. We’ve become addicted to certain foods, or substances, or ways of doing things that keep us from the freedom we seek. It’s as if we were pinned under a huge boulder. It can be difficult to break these patterns because they are so much a part of us that they seem like our very life. I’ve even read about diabetics who told their doctors they would rather lose their limbs than give up sugar. Incredible.
Yet there is something in the human spirit that pulls us toward life. Fortunately, we do not have to cut off our right arms, as Aron did, to get free. It only seems like it sometimes. And there are tools that will help us. There are people who care, there are books and resources that will set us on the pathway to renewed health and abundant energy.
Doesn’t a healthy, trim body sound like something worth fighting for? Because it is within the human will to do what Aron did, to fight and not give up, to live and not die, we can tackle the daily temptations that hold us back from being all that we can be. The next time it gets rough and you feel like giving up, think of the heart of the mountaineer who refused to die. Think of your loved ones cheering you on, think of yourself as trim and strong and healthy, then stand with mighty determination and shout, “Yes, I can break free!”