The Welcome at the Restart

Every time I hear the Mumford & Sons tune Roll Away Your Stone it either gives me goose bumps or makes me want to learn how to play the banjo.  It's the goose bumps' reaction that I'll focus on in this blog.  Unless you know how to play the banjo – then we might need to talk.

The line that is most poignant to me is this:

It's not the long walk home that will change this heart but the welcome I receive with the restart.

In our work in Weight Management, we develop profound and lasting relationships with our patients – they become family.  We laugh and cry together, and we have the same love/hate dynamics that any (functional?) family has.  And, woven into our story is the ebb and flow of weight loss success and failure.

Sometimes our patients leave us without a reason why; sometimes they graduate from our programs with tremendous success.  Sometimes they won't respond to us because they feel like they've failed or that we have failed.

And, sometimes, they come back. (I'm starting to get those goose bumps.)

Imagine…a second chance. Or even a tenth chance – and each time you return, you feel welcomed.  Even if you weigh more than you did when you started.

As we build relationships with other humans, if we are to be effective coaches or clinicians, we must always dust off the welcome' mat each and every time a patient returns.

I guess that's what grace is.  In Weight Management, we have more than enough stories of grace abounding. So what is it that your restart looks like? And what do you need to change your heart or change your life?