Uncategorized Archives ⋆ Page 3 of 4 ⋆ Eating Peace

May 30, 2018May 30, 2018

Fixed links to secret facebook group and new Eating Peace eBook with Seven Day Practice Guide

Well that was goofy and confusing.

This past weekend’s Eating Peace note had whacky dead ends and non-working links.

(Sometimes the way we feel when it comes to eating, right?)

First of all, you are not crazy if you couldn’t find the facebook group for eating peace. It’s secret and not find-able.

For some of you, there was ALSO trouble accessing the newest version of Eating Peace eBook with a Seven Day peaceful-thinking practice.

To access these gifts, please follow the steps below.

I love your feedback and investigating this powerful journey of finding permanent peace with eating, body image, food….and our experience of life overall no matter what’s ever happened to cause us suffering or pain.

Download the Eating Peace: Seven Thoughts to Question, Seven Days to Practice ebook by heading HERE. You’ll enter your email (you won’t be double-subscribed so don’t worry) and receive it in your Inbox.

Second, if you’d like to join the secret facebook group Eating Peace for conversation and healing in eating (and often sharing that I only do there) then you’ll need to send me a quick email by hitting “reply” to this message. Just say something like “YES! sign me up for the eating peace facebook group”. I’ll send you a personal invitation from the group to join via email.

When I was bulimic or anorexic, I was filled with shame and couldn’t imagine writing or sharing about it anywhere unless I was kept very anonymous to the outside world. If facebook had existed at the time, I would only have joined if it was a secret group like this one, so I hope this serves those of you wanting to explore your relationship with eating.

Sharing and community changed my life. It was a key factor in altering the roots of my eating troubles. Because I know how life-savingly valuable finding community support is, I’m making it available to anyone who wants it, for free.

I hope either the ebook, or the facebook discussion, or both will serve you, if you’re drawn. I hope you may find the peace and end of the battling or compulsion you so deserve and want.

I know it’s possible to dissolve eating wars and no longer live in fear of weird, off-balance eating. If it’s possible for me, it’s possible for you.

We can find the working “links” to peace so eating is no longer a mine field, but a joyful pleasure every day.

Much love,

Grace

May 27, 2018

Ugly Is In The Mind, Not In The Body

So many of us see ourselves in a mirror, glass, or window reflection and we immediately think “ugly!”

It’s like there’s an exceptionally mean, critical, even bitter voice or perspective within that’s so speedy quick….we don’t even consider questioning it.

It’s simply filled with rejection, immediately.

That voice believes it’s going to motivate you to change RIGHT NOW, with punishment and control.

The mind begins to solve the “problem” it sees of ugliness, and use the words “I have to….”

I have to lose weight, I have to eat differently, I have to go on a diet, I have to push my body, I have to look good, I have to be thin, I have to succeed (etc, etc).

But who would you be without the story, or without believing the thought “I have to….” do anything?

You may WANT to, you may choose to, it may be fun, joyful and an experience full of self-care and kindness, but NOT a “have to”.

It would be patient and kind to notice what you are drawn to and what feels right, here in this moment now, with the image of your body.

A turnaround to this “have to” thought is the statement “I do NOT have to”.

Could this be just as true, or truer, to have a happy life?

If you had a loving, powerful, supportive friend wouldn’t you rather sit with them instead of the nasty, vicious, mean friend who’s sure about what “perfect” should look like (and it’s not you)?

And of course, another important turnaround in The Work for this concept of having to is “my thinking has to”.

I have to lose this weighed thinking, I have to think differently, I have to go on a thinking diet, I have to push my thinking, I have to think good, I have to have thinner thinking, I have to succeed in not believing my thinking.

I notice when I question my thinking of UGLY or REJECT or NO….

….and feel this body from the inside out instead of holding judgment from the outside in….

….I experience gratitude. I feel the nature of this present moment now as BEAUTIFUL, ACCEPTABLE, and YES.

How do you think it’s more likely to take care of yourself, or actually make changes that support yourself physically: with mean have-to dictator thinking, or joyful I-don’t-know open thinking?

Much love,

Grace

May 19, 2018May 19, 2018

Know less, have no future, eat in peace

Eating Peace: So many of us want a food plan.

Someone tell me what to eat! I can’t do it all by myself, I screw it up by myself, I freak out by myself.

But are you sure you have no capacity to find natural balance with eating?

One thing I’m very glad of when it comes to food and eating is that I never doubted that there was some natural capacity within myself to eat like a normal human being.

We’re all born that way, in fact. We want to eat when we’re hungry. We want to stop when full. We’re in tune with a flow that makes sense; filling and emptying over and over.

To diet or make a food plan or have a huge list of rules and regulations moves you away from living in the present moment….and into the mind and living in the future. Your focus becomes on what you’ll be eating later, what weight you’ll be in x months, or the craving you’ll need to control today.

Often, this attention on the future is so weighted with what you need to do, eat, or measure that it’s very difficult to remain present with physical sensations, eating, taste, fullness, hunger right here, right now.

In my old relationship with food, my practice was to ignore natural hunger, mistrust fullness, worry about hunger and/or fullness in the future, panic about either one, and be entirely suspicious of food.

When I quit trying to apply management to eating, but allow everything about eating to happen with a Don’t Know mind….

….things got much, much easier.

Much love,

Grace

April 14, 2018April 14, 2018

Someone needs to tell you what, when and how to eat….is that true?

There’s a basic thought you may not have questioned for many years: someone needs to tell me what to eat, and when.

This arises out of deep self-doubt about what, when, and how we’re eating.

I had this thought regularly when I binge-ate and when I starved and categorized foods into “good” or “bad” foods.

But it was a stressful thought. It kept things on edge. Never trusting what I chose or trusting I was able to stop when full, eat when hungry.

Trouble is, when I felt doubt about knowing how to eat, I dismissed my own sense of hunger or fullness. I completely ignored by own body sensors, my own feeling about what and when to eat.

Who would you be without this very stressful story that you don’t know when or how to eat?

I found, far more confident.

Able to be anywhere, with anyone, at any level of hunger, without getting scared or judging myself.

Without this belief that you don’t know how to do it right, you can become your own very kind caretaker, and very wise caretaker.

Much love, Grace

February 10, 2018February 10, 2018

Do You Think You Need To Change Your Thinking?

We all know there’s something going on with this mind, and it’s not always helpful, it seems.

We have thoughts about our own thinking:

I should change my thoughts
I need to fix my mind
I have to eliminate my negative thoughts
I need to stop thinking completely
This thinking is horrible, bad, wrong, idiotic
I need to destroy my “ego”

But this big thought of needing to change thought itself, so I can stop being driven crazy or eating the wrong way….

….is another war against reality.

Are you sure it’s true, you need to fix your mind?

Hmmm. Yes. Seems true.

Can you absolutely know it’s true?

No. If I was in charge, I would have changed by now, but something’s going on here that is beyond “me”….and this mind appears to “think”.

How do you react when you believe you should change your mind, your thoughts, that you should battle with them?

I flip flop between aggression towards thinking, and despair about thinking. I feel very discouraged. I run around the world trying to find out where I can crush my thoughts, fix them, or switch them. Who can help?

I chant positive affirmations.

Sigh. It’s a lot of work.

Who would you be without your story of needing to fix your mind?

Woah. What?

No thought of fixing this?

A strange predicament.

But interesting. And then, perhaps….very freeing.

January 13, 2018January 13, 2018

Identify, Question and Un-Create Your Thinking If You Want Eating Peace

When we experience compulsive behavior or obsessive or addictive activity, it’s usually not so pretty. However you want to call it, you know what I’m talking about–when you feel like you go into a trance of craving and consuming.

We feel swirling discomfort, intense emotions, swarming feelings.

Often the feelings stand out. Not the thoughts.

It’s like the thoughts become so distant, you can hardly remember what they were. They went by at the speed of lightening.

The primary thing we notice is FEELING.

When we’re full of feelings…especially conflicted ones…oh boy watch out.

We act pretty crazy.

I started eating as soon as I had the chance, and stuffed in food without caring what it felt like in my body. All I wanted was to eat, and eat. I had a panicked or angry feeling often, or a depressed feeling, and eating seemed to be the best way to express it.

It seemed like there was no thought at all. Almost like my mind was taken over by some kind of hungry ghost, or a zombie.

The thing is…when we slow down enough to wonder what we ARE thinking…it’s not completely vacant.

I began to find thoughts that were very stressful that happened first. Thoughts that scared, angered, frustrated and saddened me.

Many of us have heard of the idea of the “order of creation” in human behavior (I first heard about it used in Education Research looking at children’s learning abilities and behavior).

It looks like this: THINK – FEEL – ACT – HAVE

We usually see best the LAST point: What we have. Our results can’t be denied. We’re heavy, sick, unhealthy, hopeless, small, shrunken, unhappy.

We can also see how we act for the most part: eating, purging, over-exercising, under-exercising, stuffing, grazing, hunting for food, fixated on pleasure so that we’re out buying food.

We definitely can feel our suffering. We’re conflicted and confused. We sometimes have strong clear feelings about our life depending on the situation, but we often feel push-pull and love-hate towards many things including food and eating and our bodies, and full of both despair and hope. It’s all over the place!

And the thinking? Like I said, I wouldn’t even know consciously what was bugging me by the time I was eating. It was voided out by the compulsion.

The thing that helped most in my entire life to become more clear about this order of creation?

Admitting, identifying, clarifying what I was really thinking about situations in my life that caused troubled feelings.

Because then, I could question these thoughts.

When I questioned these thoughts, my feelings changed all on their own.

Here in my video today, I share about the way this process often went for me and how I replaced my original thoughts with thoughts about eating, and how much suffering that created (and I couldn’t seem to get out of it until I investigated more closely).

Much love,

Grace

November 27, 2017

I hated my thighs. If I can question a body part and find freedom, so can you.

Eating Peace Annual Retreat is getting full. Seattle, January 11-15, 2018. We begin Thursday evening 7:00 pm, ending Monday January 15th at 11:30 am. Room still available onsite if you’d like to rent a room at the private retreat house–reply to me if you’re interested. Nearby AirBnB also available (personal friends of Grace).

To read more about it and register, visit here. An incredibly powerful way to begin your year, with a direct experience of eating peace, and questioning the thoughts that keep us off-balance with food.

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It’s not exactly brand new information or surprising news that experiencing trauma towards the body–from mild disrespect, to major violence–can result in weight change for some people.

Sometimes the body becomes heavier as a sort of armor against the world, sometimes thinner as a way of becoming invisible.

Today, because I’ve worked with a whole lot of people lately who’ve had very violent thoughts about their own bodies, I offer an exercise you can do to consider what beliefs might be running behind the surface of your body-criticism.

First, think of a body part (or perhaps it’s your whole body your weight) that you don’t like. I noticed, by the way, that even when I felt my very fattest and heaviest, I didn’t judge my feet or hands, my shoulders, my skin, my physical strength, my hair, my joints, my endurance.

Good to notice you don’t absolutely hate everything about your body.

Once you identify the shape or body part you dislike so much, you can study it with a more open mind….or at least a more willing mind.

Think of it like you’re gathering information, you’re uncovering some hidden files you may not have thought to identify before this.

You’re a very good sleuth, or detective, of this body, or body part, and what you think it means about you (or anyone) who has a body part that looks this way.

Watch the video, and then consider the questions I’ve written up in the free download, to help you study your painful beliefs about what having this body means for you (I made this worksheet, since I didn’t include all the questions inside the video).

Download the worksheet HERE.

Let me know what you find! Any questions or comments under the video I will read and answer. Or if you prefer to be more private, write me at grace@workwithgrace.com.

Much love, Grace

November 13, 2017November 13, 2017

I’m at a huge banquet feast. Why is this a problem?

Oh my, that happened quickly. We’re starting the 5 month Eating Peace Process program this very week. The first two live 90 minute inquiry calls are today Tuesday 11/14 at 4 pm PT and/or Thursday 11/16 at 8 am PT. Our last telecalls are April 24 and 26. When you sign up for Eating Peace Process, you’re sent off to watch the recorded learning presentations, and do the exercises involved. There’s room for only a few more.

In today’s video, I share an exercise similar to one inside the Eating Peace Process: studying how we’re feeling at a huge holiday gathering, surrounded by people and food, and feeling uncomfortable about the food.

As someone who once was tortured by eating issues of every kind, I love working with people who suffer around eating. It doesn’t matter if you’ve practically killed yourself with food, eating, or exercising (like I did, running many miles a day at early hours of the morning or stuffing myself to beyond-full with food) or if you’ve felt upset about wanting to lose ten pounds–your suffering is yours. It hurts. It’s upsetting and painful, and something you’d like to understand, or “get over”.

I tried so many things….programs, diets, plans, structures. Studying my own off-balance experience with eating was the only thing that really helped. I had to find my own awareness of what was true, or not true, for me.

It wasn’t true that I needed to control my every mouthful. It was true for me that I needed to look at my intense cravings, fears and anger about life and other people.

But let’s keep it simple today.

Have you had worries about the holiday season coming upon us? Is where you live filled with food, parties, drink, consumption, getting, hunting, acquiring, gathering?

If you’ve had this experience of discomfort around people gathering for holidays or parties, including food….then you can do the following exercise today:

Imagine you’re standing in front of a huge smorgasbord of food. The tables are laden with everything you’ve ever most loved to eat, from your childhood dishes, to the sweetest tastes you’ve ever enjoyed. Every kind of food is on that table you can imagine, from sweet, to savory, to spicy, to rich and buttery.

How do you judge the foods? What can it bring you or give you, if you eat it? What will you have, if you consume it? What will it help you forget, or lose focus of, if you take it in?

What else is going on, that you find difficult emotionally? What’s missing from this moment?

What do you find both most wonderful, and most horrendous, about this moment with the table before you filled with all that food, and whatever else is happening around this festivity?

Identifying these stressful beliefs can be profound, because to give words to the feelings running within that are so uncomfortable brings awareness.

I see things like “Wow….I’m believing there is no pleasure at this event except for food. The people are boring or they make me nervous. I don’t fit in. I have to pretend I’m interested. I’m not good enough.”

Once identified, the thoughts are very, very interesting to take through inquiry.

It’s so important to see what it is that makes you feel the craving, or anxiety, or worry, or sadness in the first place.

It’s not easy to see it…but when you do, there’s something you can do with the awareness: Question It.

Who would I be without my story that the only thing fun at this event, is the food?

October 26, 2017October 26, 2017

We eat as a result of what we think and feel. Here’s how to reverse engineer eating battles, and change our thinking.

Eating at night used to be a difficult, embattled, frequent experience for me.

It’s not uncommon….I’ve heard and worked with many others who have the same experience.

Evening is “down” time.

Night time is “free” time.

“Empty” time.

This was the time when I wasn’t working, or studying, or training physically, or self-improving (at least, I wanted NOT to be doing these things).

I also didn’t have to be out there in the world in contact with people.

I could have my own space to do as I wished.

The thing is, when I finally said “OK, it’s free time, so let’s do something fun!” my mind would go through the rounds of what “fun” is and hesitate or eliminate them because of guilt.

“You should clean out the garage, or at least get started. You should start on the taxes. You should do the dishes. You should do something productive. You should watch an educational video.”

I had free time, but the mind would start thinking about all the things I should be doing.

What I really wanted was some escape from the relentless task-master mind that couldn’t give me more than a five minute break from being highly productive, completing things, handling projects, and “doing, doing, doing”.

I still have this tendency to “do” quite a lot. (But it’s more restful than it once was).

What do you think happens when someone is yelling at you to do all the unfinished projects you haven’t completed yet?

If you’re like me (which you probably are if you’re interested in eating peace) then your first thought is often to get away from that dictator yelling at you to accomplish stuff! Even if the dictator is YOU! Especially if it’s you!

What a great way to rebel fiercely, gobble sweetness and comfort, find solace, get comfortable, throw it all to the wind: EAT!!!

It was almost like I had a rebel voice inside that would say “Screw it, I’ll do whatever I want…where’s the food!?”

Eating at night turned out to override the dictator mind, but it didn’t last.

And then, it got worse.

That same mind that was trying to be rebellious and gain distraction or comfort by eating, turned into a raging nasty mean one by saying “You did it again. What’s wrong with you? You’re such a loser. You’re selfish, piggish and greedy to eat so much and not be able to stop. Why should you even bother living?”

It’s like a split personality, that mind. Encouraging you to eat, then criticizing you for eating. Completely insane!

What I didn’t know at the time, was that my eating was a by-product, or a direct result, of my thinking.

I thought confused, mean, attacking thoughts. I thought desperate, victimized, I-need-comfort thoughts. I thought of myself as a victim. (I was. Of my own thoughts). I thought food was my best friend, and then my worst enemy. I feared being too fat. I hated my body.

And these were just the thoughts related to food and eating!

I also had thoughts I believed that felt the same about family, neighbors, teachers, friends, siblings.

To be honest….the stressful, uncomfortable, troubling thoughts about family and people close to me in my world since childhood actually came first….before all the thoughts about food and eating and bodies. Or maybe some were simultaneously born, who knows, but one thing I do see is the following pattern:

Think – Feel – Act – Have

I thought something, I felt the consequences or response to that thought, I acted on the feeling, and the results were what I had.

It’s very speedy quick.

Today, I wanted to share more about the flow and pattern of Think – Feel – Act – Have and how I experienced it with off-balance eating.

The most important thing I found?

I couldn’t eat uncomfortably without feeling and thinking uncomfortably first!

Eating off-balance always followed feeling off-balance, which always followed thinking off-balance.

It’s great news in the end….because you can identify your thoughts, and then question them using The Work of Byron Katie. The power of inquiry is stunning.

It literally leads to slowing down the mind, which slows down the eating. At least that’s been my experience, and many others who want to learn to heal their eating from the inside out.

If you’d like to learn more about the way thoughts lead to eating, and how to understand the cycle, then please come join me for an upcoming webinar I do only once a year: Seven Stressful Thoughts That Keep People Struggling With Eating…And How To Dissolve Them.

This is a very rich, thorough masterclass-style webinar, where we meet once for this training. It will be 90 minutes (and maybe a little more depending on Q & A). I’ll offer it at the following three times, and you’ll be able to pick one, and join me, if you register.

Saturday, November 4th 7:30 am
Tuesday, November 7th 4:00 pm
Thursday, November 9th 8:00 am

I can’t wait to teach this class again (I always update and tweak it from previous times I’ve taught it). I’m so looking forward to sharing this path to eating peace with you.

Register for Eating Peace Webinar: Seven Stressful Thoughts to Question That Keep Eating a Battlefield and How To Turn Them Around To Declare Eating Peace HERE.

Much love,

Grace