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When eating or not eating both seem like bad options….

An interesting dilemma comes alive with ending compulsive behavior sometimes (frequently) for people:
If I eat the thing…I’ll suffer.
If I don’t eat the thing…I’ll suffer.
If I eat the thing, I’ll criticize and berate and be very cruel to myself. Again.
If I eat the thing, I’ll gain weight. I’ll force myself to purge by harsh exercise or starvation or vomiting.
If I eat the thing, I’ll be guilty.
If I do NOT eat the thing, I also won’t have fun.
I’ll be stranded out here in emptiness, silence, or a turmoil of emotions without anywhere for them to go.
I’ll get more obsessed, I’ll go crazy.
I’ll attack other people, I won’t be able to shut my mouth, my anger will leak out or slam out involuntarily.
I’ll feel so restricted and starved.
Wow. It’s a No Win situation.
But what if you questioned the idea that all your choices (whittled down to two here) are full of SUFFERING?
What if not eating–when you’re overcome by the compulsive urge to eat when not hungry–was actually kind, and a relief?
When hungry, eating is a relief. A meal with other people is sharing, connection and can be enormously nourishing and kind.
When not hungry, eating is a burden (even if it seems to relieve emotional disruption).
The great question, in any given moment that appears to have a compulsive activity as an option:
What would kindness do?
How would kindness eat right now?
What would a peaceful voice have to say about this moment, and your options?
When is Not Eating an act of kindness?
When is Eating an act of kindness?
You are more clear on this than you suspect. You know how to be kind.
Kindness is what you ultimately gravitate most towards.
Peace and quiet. The canvas that holds all thought.
Saying “no” to eating might be kinder than you think. Same with saying “yes”.
Question the thought “either choice will lead to suffering”.
Is that really true? What if it wasn’t?

Much love,

Grace

 

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questioning the voice in the head that says you’re doing it wrong

I remember when my thoughts always told me; “you are losing the ‘eating-right’ game”, “you don’t have what it takes to have the best body”, “resign yourself to a mediocre life and presentation”, “you are pure greed”(especially after a big binge-eating episode).
Wow.
Something so wrong with me.
I tried so hard to regroup, figure it out.
I went to Beyond Dieting group, 12 steps, est, Context Training, transactional analysis group therapy, A Course In Miracles for a year-long study group, People House 9 month emotional health training program, in-patient 6 weeks in Porter Memorial Hospital Denver, self-defense training, assertiveness training, freudian therapy 3 times a week (costing my parents thousands), joining the gym, tracking food, eliminating all “binge foods”.
Many of these have wonderful, supportive features.
I was trying something that could heal my compulsion, pain, suffering constantly.
Money, time, effort, research, energy spent to find the “right” answer. The thing that would work to eliminate this horrible problem called “binge eating”.
So much depression and angst.
The thing about researching and looking for answers is that it is seeking information outside oneself, hunting it down, high alert for something that might ticker-tape by without me knowing it.
You know the childhood game Hide-N-Seek, when you have the role of Seeker?
I have to grab, get, hunt, find. ASAP!!
What I did not know was how narrowly focused I was on eliminating “binge-eating”.
I missed anything except what might be occurring OUTSIDE of myself.
What I was, was the One who was missing something.
Obviously.
The Answer was Out There.
Obviously.
Find the missing answer, the gem, and solve this problem of binge-eating.
Right?
What if we inquired instead and sat with our answers, even if we’re not sure we actually have any viable answers?
“I am not getting it right”.
Is that true?
YES.
Can you absolutely know that this is true?
Hmmm. Seems like it.
But can I know that if I am not getting this eating thing right, it means peace is not possible here, with me?
Does it mean that left to my own devices, I’m doomed?
Who am I without this story?
Who are you without your thoughts about getting this eating thing wrong?
Who are you without your thoughts about getting this eating thing wrong?
Two people have asked recently whether they could still join Eating Peace Experience that started last week and runs until March 18th. The answer is you could probably jump in and catch up with Module One until November 4th when we’ll really be rolling along into Module Two.
You are welcome to join HERE. Best. Group. Ever. I am loving the people participating. We are changing our minds through awareness, understanding the process of thinking and how it fuels stress, or peace.
Eating Peace is literally eating–taking in and becoming one with–peace. It is feeling peaceful about eating. To end the war is miraculous, and joyful. We are all connected.
Much love,
Grace
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Do you eat because you’re bored?

In the Eating Peace Experience, I share three troubling perspectives about life that appear to trigger compulsive patterns.
I know that sounds crazy simplistic.
Just three?
When we’ve done this compulsive thing over and over for years, and it seems random, chaotic, upsetting, emotional.
It seems complicated!
But how helpful it can be to direct our attention to these points where we get thrown off balance by our thinking and our uncomfortable feelings and notice how we’re disturbed so often by the same things.
These three areas are quite large, big umbrellas of “thought” that show up and cause havoc in behavior when we don’t understand, when we’re upset.
What makes us eat (when it’s not hunger):
  • Feeling fear, feeling threatened (life is too much)
  • Feeling powerless (victimized, small, despairing, resigned)
  • Feeling bored and empty (life is not enough)
Powerless. Afraid. Empty.
I’ve heard a lot of people sharing lately about feeling stuck at home, not having a normal routine, being in the same four walls all day.
Bored.
The third concept above.
Usually when we’re bored, we have fleeting images of what would be more entertaining.
NOT this moment.
This moment is not good enough, fun enough, full enough.
Let’s eat something interesting. That’s at least more pleasant.
What if we studied what was happening in this boring moment…..where entertainment, contact with people, busy-ness, or pleasure appears to be more appealing?
How curious we might become with the mind as it talks away about how boring everything is.
Noticing something is here besides empty space and empty moment.
Could it be more satisfying than we *think*?
This moment is so boring and empty....let's eat something
This moment is so boring and empty….let’s eat something
The Eating Peace Experience is all about using The Work of Byron Katie, a powerful inquiry process, to identify and question our deep-seated beliefs about food, taking in this substance called food, body weight, thin, fat, troubling feelings, soothing, pleasure, urgency, grabbing.
We’re working with the way the mind tends to over-think and over-whelm our experience of life with dread, emptiness, anxiety or wanting.
Being in Eating Peace, we study compulsion and we also study peace.
We’re peace students.
We’ve already probably been peace students–or peace hunters–for a long time, and wondered how the heck to find it?!
Can you imagine being so interested in the compulsive urge that we see what it really is? No special medicine required?
The only requirement for joining Eating Peace is the desire to understand our repetitive impulses for arguing, defending against, debating with the present moment (or really, our thoughts about the present moment).
Especially when it involves food.
Wow, when I think of my old relationship with food, it was brutal.
Never peaceful, ever.
The way I related to the world and food was so fearful, worrisome and contentious.
I felt so disappointed. I tried so many things to find peace.
Eating Peace is a program for people with off-balance thinking, feeling, eating patterns….like the kind I once had.
We’re exploring how our our beliefs about feelings, eating, bodies and other people throws us out of balance and into the past or future. Into fear and neediness.
Our great question for the five months ahead, that we all explore together:
Who are we without our stories about eating, food, having a body, relating, taking in, absorbing, digesting the experience of life?
Love to have you join us, if the timing is right.
We’re learning to love what is.
Register for Eating Peace Experience HERE.
Much love,
Grace
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Eating Peace Webinar: Five Belief Blunders Even Smart Therapists Make

Eating Peace. It seems so hard to find.

We’ve heard about changing our mindset and ending our bad habits, including our troubling “thinking” habits. We’ve read the books about transforming negative behavior, or quitting an addiction. We’ve studied the compulsion problem…sometimes for years.

And yet, something persists that keeps us overeating, binge-eating, under-eating, starting another diet, gaining weight, losing weight, trying harder, redoubling our efforts at sticking to a plan, graze eating, eating when bored, eating carrots to try not to eat ice cream. We’ve been told weighing and measuring every bite is the best idea since we can’t be trusted. We’ve thought we should just accept ourselves as fat (there’s a difference between acceptance and resignation though).

We’ve noticed the imbalance and lack of peace. And what hurts most of all, is the self-hatred and self-criticism. Shouldn’t we know better, by now?

Perhaps we have great knowledge of compulsive eating and the dynamics of how it’s created, but it seems even knowledge and learning isn’t the ultimate answer. We really just want peace.

Good news. Eating Peace is possible for anyone.

I know this because I’ve worked with both myself, and the many people who discover, through self-inquiry, an unshakable peace they couldn’t see before.

Why couldn’t we see it? Because of all the beliefs, mental activity, and uncomfortable feelings and impulses coursing through our systems.

It really helps to know what thoughts and stories to question that drive off-balance eating.

Often, people seek eating peace with a very unpleasant feeling of despair, rage, disappointment or worry. They often say “I don’t know what I’m thinking or believing that makes me eat! It feels like I’m a walking zombie gobbling everything in sight, in a trance, under a spell–and I can’t stop trying to stop myself, and keep eating at the same time!”

It’s all so confusing.

And then….to add more fuel to the fire: the pandemic.

Isolation, a fridge that’s just over there a few steps away, deep worry about the future.

So I’m offering a complimentary webinar, before I begin the Eating Peace Experience immersion program this year, where I’ll share five belief blunders–I think of them as spells because that’s what it actually feels like for so many.

We’re under the spell of our stressful, troubled thinking. Our eating reflects it. Stressful thinking, stressful eating. Compulsive worrying, compulsive eating.

We can question the beliefs that drive the eating, and un-learn our habits.

What I find over and over is when we identify and question the false or mistaken beliefs about ourselves and about eating, food, body and emotions, our thinking actually shifts. When our thinking shifts, so does our behavior. It naturally becomes more balanced and sane. Our weight becomes more balanced.

Change happens from the inside out, not the outside in. No diet, control, or will is needed. No special gym training, counting or weighing and measuring meals, or special program of eating. We become free.

Join me in learning five belief blunders to eating peace. It’s my joy to share this with anyone who is attracted to this work. It has changed my entire life. I used to be haunted with thoughts of food, eating, perfectionism, angst, anxiety and worries about rejection. I used to feel very separate. That is no longer the case. It’s been a wonderful process, and it continues every day. There is no more binge-eating, binge-thinking, or binge-worrying about food.

At the end of the webinar, I’ll stay for a live Q&A where you can ask me anything about eating, freedom, peace and ending any and all eating struggles.

Please register and choose the day you will be attending this 90 minute workshop:
*Tuesday, October 6th, 2020 11am PT/ 2pm ET/ 8pm Europe
*Weds, October 7th, 2020 10:30am PT/ 1:30pm ET/ 7:30pm Europe
*Thurs, October 8th, 2020 11:00am PT/ 2pm ET/ 8pm Europe

Sign up for the free webinar HERE.

Much love, Grace

P.S. This webinar is offered before beginning the immersion program, and can assist in helping answer your questions if you have them (I’ll answer at the very end).

Learn more about the full program Eating Peace Experience HERE.

Much love,
Grace

 

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When we feel like a victim of our own eating behavior….and can’t get out of it. The Work.

I’ve often been stunned by the level of cruelty in my own mind towards myself, especially in my former history of eating and body attack.
When I was in graduate school long ago, I learned of a classic description of psychological personality pain called the “drama triangle”.
In this triangle, put very simplistically, there are three positions:
Victim
Persecutor
Rescuer
The victim feels like Poor Me, I can’t do it right, I’m a piece of s&*t.
The persecutor says “you are the worst person in the world, I will fight, hurt and punish you until the day you die” (and other very mean thoughts and attitudes).
The rescuer comes in and tries to help saying “Awww, you’re OK, really you are. This will all pass, just hang on. Be positive. Everything’ll be fine. Want something nice to eat?”
Sometimes, we’re in this triangle with actual people: parents and children, friend groups with some friends fighting or rescuing other friends, the relationship between partners taking on roles of victim, rescuer, or persecutor.
We can switch these roles within our own psyches in an instant, in order to stay safe (we think), depending on the situation.
If we feel compulsive or addictive, like in eating off balance as I did, we’ll use these three unhealthy unbalanced voices to try to assert change or find some kind of relief.
Trouble is, you stay in a very tormented story where no one is the hero and no one ever succeeds or feels peaceful.
And oh my, when we feel like we’re a victim of our own behavior, with food or otherwise, we feel DOOMED.
My greatest enemy?
Me!
Yikes, how do I get rid of her, if she’s me?
If you’ve felt like a victim of yourself, I hope this commentary helps.
When I go on youtube live, I never know where we’ll end up or what will happen….or how long I’ll speak.
But one thing that’s lovely to notice now in life: I am not a victim of my behavior in how I speak on youtube (rambling as it may be, LOL).
There’s not a “big mistake” (or maybe there is, but it’s not so dramatic or forever).
I hope it serves.
I love your questions about healing off-balance eating, thinking and feeling.
When we find freedom from the torture of unnecessary suffering around food and eating or body hatred, we can find our minds and hearts have the capacity for great love.

Much love,

Grace

P.S. For Eating Peace work, the next event is Eating Peace Experience which is an immersion group starting Monday, October 5th. Learn more HERE.

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The dis-ease of pandemic thinking, pandemic eating…and how to stop

For decades (centuries?) humans have wondered and studied the answer to the question: where does eating stress begin and how do we stop it?
Pan-Demic means literally “pan” which is all-world, every-thing, every-where, across-all-things. “Demic” or dem means people.
All People. Everywhere.
Affected by a disease.
Several weeks ago, I received a list of research done during this pandemic around those suffering from disordered eating, and how much off-balance eating behaviors have spiked. In some, 70% worse than usual. For some, a return of old behavior with eating.
Although pandemic means a disease affecting human bodies in the physical world, it seems thoughts, too, can feel dis-eased and all-encompassing. Thoughts about sickness, isolation, worry, weight, self, the future. They become overwhelming.
Compulsion is especially like that.
It feels like we’ve been enchanted like in a fairy tale, or taken over like a zombie. Like we have no choice but to do our eating thing.
Must eat it. Now. Can’t stop. Chew, chew, chew, gobble. Hunt for next item. Get it while you can. Pretty soon we need to deal with this damage, but for now hurry and eat.
 
The mind is running wildly, careening around like a terrified animal almost, when on a binge.
Graze eating without being able to stop getting up and getting more, with pauses in between, is like a constant underlying anxiety running.
Then, the same mind full of frantic thoughts also starts to attack you.
Why did you just eat that? Can’t you remember the diet? What’s wrong with you, you stupid idiot?
 
The stream of thinking that feels so global and pandemic doesn’t care what the target of its commentary is….it is frantic, furious, terrified, angry, frustrated, stuck and it thinks frantic, furious, terrified, angry, frustrated, stuck thoughts.
More and more and more of them.
Eventually for this eating episode, you’re exhausted and you quit eating and fall into bed, or do your purging behaviors, and vow to yourself to quit this for the thousandth time.
So what is going on with this chaotic eating?
Something seems dreadfully wrong.
But what if what you were doing was trying to make something right?
 
What if a binge episode, or overeating, graze eating, moody eating, lonely eating was you trying to feel better, or prevent feeling worse?
As Byron Katie says; the alcohol, the drug, the ice cream, the buying spree are doing their job.
If we looked with compassion at this job the mind insists on giving these behaviors or substances, we simply see a misdirected, frightened mindset.
The pair of glasses we have on is dark, scratched, distorted, dis-eased. It’s pandemic. It feels like it becomes everything!
We perceive a pandemic–the mind is producing thoughts that all have the color of worry, fret, self-criticism, desperation, hunger, danger.
So what’s going on if my thinking is so freaked out?
Let’s just notice.
I’m out of touch with my body’s fullness or emptiness. Something else seems more important. Who cares about food being fuel!
I’m thinking something happening is a critical matter, and it’s disturbing as hell.
The thing is, the minute I say “this is not good” as I gaze upon the weight of my body, or those other people who might be looking at me, or my emotions, or the dangers of being alive….
….I naturally want to get back to “this IS good”.
Eating feels good. For a few bites at least. So I eat.
Of course, sooooo disappointing when the joy of the first bites fade so quickly.
Byron Katie suggests to see what you were thinking before you thought about eating off-balance, and investigate it, question it.
Could it be simply “I don’t like it! It’s scary!” is the thought before any eating (or compulsion) happens?
Even beginning to wonder about this can lead to fascinating awareness.
“I don’t like it! Urgent! Urgent!
“I have to do something about the thing I don’t like!”
Is it true?
Are you sure?
How do you react when you believe you don’t like it, and you have to do something about this thing you don’t like?
Are you sure you’re clear about what you do and do not like?
(I sure wasn’t–it seemed the food was good, but not really what I wanted. There just wasn’t any peace. I thought I loved to eat, but I also hated it).
Who would you be WITHOUT the belief you don’t like something, and you need to do something about the thing you don’t like?
WHAT?!!
Not do anything about it?
But.
Don’t I have to watch what I eat, follow the diet plan, worry, forecast the future, regret the past, weigh myself to check to see if I’m doing it right or wrong, suffer, use willpower, make myself conform?
I don’t have to do anything?
Hmmm. What an amazing idea. Just notice.
Turning the thought around: I’m OK with it (the thing I thought I hated). 
Could this be just as true?
Am I breathing? Am I still alive? Did I survive it?
Yes.
Turning the thought around again: I don’t like my thinking. Or, only my thinking doesn’t like “it” (anything we’re directing negative attention to). 
The inner me, the center of myself, the “I”, the witness, the life force I’m a part of, the mysterious, God, source….it is already OK with everything. Not against any feeling, person, incident, place, experience.
Mental energy can feel pandemic, encompassing all of what we are, fueling our behavior.
But it is not All of Us. It is not constant (even if it’s appeared very repetitive). It is not everything we are.
There is something here, without thought, beyond thought.
As Van Morrison says “let’s go into the mystery”. 
There, we are beyond compulsion, restriction, over-consumption, worrying, frantic eating, right vs wrong.
Touching base with that….we are free right now.
If you’re interested in the spiritual, spirited, mysterious journey of eating and learning to hold the experience as a messenger instead of an enemy, then we’re starting on Wednesdays this coming week.
June 24-August 12, 2020 9am-10:30am Pacific Time.
Read more about the Eating Peace Basics course and sign up here.
Let’s access the pan-demic of peace and turn our compulsions around.
If you want to calmly, gently, lovingly relax into peace with eating, food and body weight, it all begins in the mind and heart.
Not against it, but open to it. Welcoming it. In favor of it. Allowing it. Approving of it.
“If you act from fear, there’s no way you can receive love, because you’re trapped in a thought about what you have to do for love….but once you question your thoughts, you discover that you don’t have to do anything for love. It was all an innocent misunderstanding.” ~ Byron Katie in I Need Your Love, Is That True?
How do we stop stress eating? Question our thinking. Open to rest, instead of fear. Notice the peace here, now.
It may not be as “hard” as you think.
Much love,
Grace
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Two stories to question to solidly begin the healing journey to eating peace

Often when people come to do The Work on eating issues or weight troubles, they say they aren’t sure what they’re thinking or believing….so it’s too hard to do The Work.
The first step in doing The Work of Byron Katie, after all, is identifying what you’re thinking, so that you can question it.
They have some wisdom in this noticing.
It seems like all there is, is a swirl of emotion, agony, failure and guilt for having this weird off-balance wild eating thing that goes on.
There’s planning on how to control it (diets) and enduring self-hatred, anger, even rage, and despair.
The feelings are so big, even just in thinking or telling the story of eating, weight gain, weight loss, struggles with certain foods….it can feel like a nightmare.
What the heck is going on here?
Well…it seems complicated. 
So many experts have multitudes of philosophies about what’s necessary to heal this predicament of over-eating or under-eating or terrorizing ourselves with food or our belief that we have imperfect bodies.
I’ve noticed two stories, that really relate to this statement that people make over and over; “I don’t know what I’m thinking, I just feel terrible”. (I don’t know what I’m thinking, I just know I want to eat, eat, eat….and then I feel horrible about myself). 
Here’s what these stories are.
See if you ever think they’re true, or not:
1) This eating/compulsion issue is not a problem in the mind, it’s about food, eating and the body and getting these ‘right’. 
 
2) This eating/compulsion issue is about problems with difficult emotions; if I didn’t react so big, I wouldn’t eat.
 
The thing about these two stories is they have some truth in them…but the mind starts problem-solving and drawing conclusions on how to work with these stories in stressful ways, that require diets, control, willpower, and lots of planning and forecasting.
I don’t know about you, but the last thing I needed when it came to eating was more planning, controlling, dieting, manipulating and managing food and eating or my feelings or trying to make my feelings smaller.
What I desperately wanted and had a vision for, was to feel like I did when I was a little kid: carefree about eating.
I know, I know.
Some of you can’t remember ever feeling carefree about food and eating. But when you were born, I think you were born with all the raw material needed for balance with food.
But no wonder we feel so bad, and we’re not even sure what we’re thinking and believing!
It’s a tangle in there!
The first story, that this problem resides within the body and within eating behavior or food itself and not the mind….well, that’s maybe partially accurate.
But what happens with the awareness of this story?
The mind stamps the culprit as “guilty”!
The blame lies in the behavior, the food, the body.
So let’s punish, control, structure and give rules for what’s Allowed and Not Allowed to the human so they know how to behave. We’ll fix this problem!
That can work if the rules are followed. Sort of.
Except. The rules aren’t followed sometimes (or maybe a lot of the time).
Plus, what if you want to live freely without dictatorship?
What if want to learn how to naturally reside in peace and kindness with food, eating and the body?
What if you want the attitude you carry to be genuinely joyful and guilt-free when it comes to eating….and wake up to a new way of life in relation to having a body (one that needs to eat in order to live)?
What I learned about my own crazed eating was that it was in my mind that things went crazy first.
I began to think very stressful thoughts about acceptance, rejection, perfection, anger, right bodies, wrong bodies, weight, trauma, worry, control and fear.
I began to observe other peoples’ terror of fatness, and scare myself with the same belief.
I didn’t realize that if I questioned my entire paradigm around dangerous foods, “bad” eating behavior, urges and cravings, and the need for the best body ever….I might have settled down and stopped feeling so frantic about food.
If I had been able to know that my trouble was in my perspective about eating, my interpretation with what I saw, I would have focused much more on my mind than on the scale or the latest diet. Or the next binge.
The second story also has an element of truth, but is again a bit tricky.
2) This eating/compulsion issue is about problems with difficult emotions; if I didn’t react so big, I wouldn’t eat.
 
Well, sure.

 

Big emotions of depression, fear, irritation, sadness or loneliness often feel like they need soothing.

 

If your mind and thoughts are like mine, then you’ll notice when big feelings come it seems dangerous.

 

We have to shut those things down, we think.

 

What better way to do this, than to eat or do some other kind of addictive or compulsive activity?

 

Eat. Big emergency feeling is over.
 
We’ve all heard of the term “emotional eating”. If you’ve done it before, you feel upset, and after a little while (or immediately), the idea of eating sweet, soothing, salty or tasty things sounds fantastic.

 

So the mind then concludes that if only we could get at what made you so emotional and understand it, or make it so these emotions don’t erupt in the first place….then you’ll stop eating because of emotions.

 

Again, the underlying premise of this story is emotions are the thing to blame, the guilty party.

 

So let’s shove them down, eliminate them.

 

We’re back to willpower, management, control, restricting feelings, holding back, forcing, following the rules.

 

Kinda like diets, only towards “feelings” instead.

 

Of course we don’t know what we’re really thinking, we just feel confused and terrible.

 

And keep on eating.

 

For me, this healing work when it comes to eating is about identifying beliefs that are the very foundations we stand on and believe about life…and questioning them.

 

Good news: It’s not as difficult to identify the thoughts and beliefs as you think.

 

The first step is to look at this war-torn land of destructive behavior about eating, food, body and weight and don’t try to DO something immediately, which is what we’ve always done.

 

Instead, let’s ask “I wonder what I must be thinking and believing that would be the trigger for this behavior?”

 

Even this answer may not be as complicated as you think.

 

Does this mean to never structure your food or plan on what you’ll be eating tomorrow?

 

No. Some people really need this as a deeply supportive way to help them stop freaking out about food right now.

 

In the upcoming Eating Peace Basics Live Zoom Course, we’ll be talking about thoughts, feelings and the food itself.

 

Each week, I will share one story (we’ll start with the first two I’ve shared here today) and work with the beliefs that support all these particular stories of agony with eating.

 

This work is about healing eating issues from the inside out.

 

There is no magic pill. But there may be far more magic than you realize…if magic is greater lightness, joy and peace when it comes to eating.

 

Some struggle for so long with eating, they think it’s impossible to end their battle.

 

I believe that for anyone willing to look at thought systems and to question them, it’s possible to change the way you live with food.

 

Eating Peace Basics 101 Online Live Course will run June 24th – August 12th with live Wednesday calls (all recorded) from 9am-10:30am Pacific Time (or start time of Noon ET or 6pm Europe).
In this course I’ll share 8 key foundational stories–one every week–that are key to investigating so we can dissolve the eating wars we’ve been fighting.
To identify our thinking inside these common stories, and then question the beliefs running for us, makes peace possible.
It has for me. I eat whatever and whenever I want without fear, and my weight seems to stay the same, for many years now.
I once ate like I was taken over by an evil force, or a zombie, with huge desperate binges, forced vomiting, torturous exercising by running for miles, and self-hatred.
This no longer occurs to me.
It’s my joy to facilitate freedom from that kind of inner pain with you or anyone suffering from eating wars.
Read more about the Eating Peace Basics course here.
To hear me share more about these first two stories that are helpful to question in the overall healing journey with eating, watch below.

Much love,
Grace
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A key turning point in my healing journey of eating peace

Eating Peace Basics 101 Online Live Course will run June 24th – August 12th with live Wednesday calls (all recorded) from 9am-10:30am Pacific Time (which is Noon ET or 6pm Europe).
In this course I’ll share 8 key foundational stories–one every week–that are key to investigating so we can dissolve the eating wars we’ve been fighting.
To identify our thinking inside these common stories, and then question the beliefs running for us, is such a huge relief. Read more about the course here.
Also it feels important and worth mentioning that I’m offering an online retreat starting tomorrow at 4:30pm PT to question the beliefs that cause suffering. We’ll be unraveling our painful thinking using The Work of Byron Katie from June 2-7.
While this retreat is not specifically for eating issues, this work is one of the most valuable tools I use to dissolve compulsive behavior.
If you’ve been here awhile reading Eating Peace notes, you know this already. The Work is the way out of the mind and into our freedom with food, with bodies, with everything.
I’ll be sharing the facilitation of this retreat in The Work with the dear and skilled Tom Compton. To read the schedule and options visit here. If you attend only mornings or only evenings, we welcome you for half-time IF you have some experience with The Work.
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Someone asked me recently to share one of my turning points in healing my crazed eating.
There are several key moments when something shifted from that moment forward (all unplanned, but powerful parts of my journey) and these turning points all are related to stories I discovered were false.
Eight of these stories are actually ones I am including in Eating Peace Basics 101.
But one of these stories is a break-down of my beliefs about being honest about what was happening on the inside of me.
It was about how I perceived connection with other people: dangerous, risky, frightened of their rejection, frightened of their judgment.
I didn’t want to be abandoned or rejected, and I did everything to make sure to prevent those things from happening.
Trouble is, I constantly rejected and abandoned myself, and in my focus on avoiding these experiences, the dark cloud of them all floated around me all the time.
I ate, purged, I starved myself, I freaked out about eating and focused on food incessantly.
Here’s what happened. It wasn’t pretty. But reality was much friendlier–a thousand times friendlier–than my thoughts about it:

If you feel isolated the way I did, you may find connection in Online Retreat with me and Tom C, or the Eating Peace Basics course coming up. I’d be honored to have you in either one. It’s my heart’s joy to share the peace with others and it keeps me on my own journey of waking up to What Is.
Much love,
Grace
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I shouldn’t eat that….how to find the place beyond painful set-ups about food

I’ve heard from a remarkable number of people in this time of the virus.

At home, strange schedule, near the fridge or the pantry.

Eating. Eating some more.

You are not alone if this is your experience. And, there is a way to heal and end that impulse.

I’m working on a quick free workshop online for those of us with consuming issues. It will be for people in the private facebook group HERE.

The facebook group is free, and a place where we kindly share around how to relax from the root cause–beliefs in the mind–about food, eating, emotions and body image.

I think of the whole world of THOUGHT about eating, body image, exercising, over-examining diet, constant return to eating off-balance….like a religion or a university of eating that’s gone completely off the rails with false stories and beliefs.

Yikes. Lots of rules and regulations, stress, requirements, impossible goals and expectations. You can’t seem to graduate successfully either.

One Bible of Beliefs about food and eating is The Book of Shoulds and Shouldn’ts.

We should do this, and not do that. Eat this, not that. Eat this way, not that way. Eat at this time, not that time. Look this way, not that way.

All while maintaining sanity. So in other words, we even believe we should think certain ways, and feel certain ways.

It’s exhausting, and very difficult to maintain the rigor needed to keep all the “shoulds” together.

The way I found freedom from constant obsessing and failing with food, was to question the “shoulds” that I had since I was a pre-teen.

One of the key ways to work with a “should” that’s screaming in your head, is to first, pause and relax just a moment. Take a deep breath right now. I love how taking in air is incredibly relaxing and regulates the nervous system.

Then, instead of gathering energy or making plans with how you are going to make sure you’re successful at the should or shouldn’t rules about eating….instead…wonder WHY you have the rule?

For example, the simple thought “I shouldn’t eat that”.

Instead of aggressively making plans for how you’re not going to eat it….let’s study the belief and see if it’s true.

Why not?

WHY should you not eat that particular thing?

Our answers often boil down to this one: because I need to lose weight. 

But there’s also this one: because I’m not hungry.

To wonder with compassion about why you have a thought about eating when not hungry, or why it is so incredibly important to get thin, is really interesting.

Are you absolutely sure you are not hungry? Are you absolutely sure you need to lose weight?

There may be a hunger (that isn’t necessarily about your stomach) you’re not allowing yourself to notice, and an ideal you’re trying to achieve that is not possible to achieve peacefully.

It’s a whole world of investigation that’s entirely worth the trip, watching a combative and relentless false belief-system have it’s way with you, so that you’re entirely ruled by it and stuck and miserably unhappy, instead of open and curious.

And that belief system ruins the joy of food, too.

Well, it certainly did for me. I couldn’t eat one bite without my mind saying “you did that wrong” or “good job, you get a gold star “. 

It was like having a vicious authority constantly watching.

Well, it was.

Today, let’s question the simple and common thought “I shouldn’t eat that”. You can think of a specific food.

To question this thought doesn’t mean you’re going to eat it day and night and grow obese or get sick and die.

To question this thought is to open the mind to wondering instead of the rigid, tight and condemning lists of rules formed to succeed.

See what happens. See what kind of softness might possibly appear if you don’t have a “should” or “shouldn’t” running, and instead….you’re free to choose.

And, if you’d like to participate in an online workshop I’ll give for no charge (date coming soon) we can address some of this together, especially in this odd time where many of us are in the kitchen more than ever, wishing we were not there. (Join facebook group here).

Much love,

Grace

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The suffering of “I won’t have enough”

In these strange times when a lot is happening in the world in extra intense ways, you may notice that thoughts you’ve had that feel stressful (or OK, terrifying) are even bigger and more pronounced.

I’ve been working with people all week doing The Work who report that some situation or relationship they previously had found insight on…..is BACK.

Kinda like those horror movies.

Ugh.

Arguing too much, feeling too much, eating too much, spending too much, worrying too much. Seeing images of a difficult or catastrophic or torturous future.

An excruciating belief can be this little ditty (a ditty is a little song, by the way…a little song or song snippet that keeps repeating in your head that you can’t stop hearing, can’t stop singing).

Maybe it feels like a full symphony orchestral piece. With strings, horns and percussion sections.

I won’t have enough.

To hold this belief, I notice I need to have experienced not-enough-ness, heard about other people not having enough, been terrified of Not Enough in the past.

I need to believe in this thing called Not Enough and that it means something terrible.

Like suffering, rejection, abandonment, pain, or death.

Who are we when we believe there isn’t enough, or won’t be later?

Freaking out. Worried. Planning incessantly. Busy. Sitting in our quiet little homes in silence, imagining a torturous future.

So who would we be without our story?

Much love,

Grace