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?
The brilliant Cheri Huber, meditation teacher and author, offers a beautiful idea, summarized in her book “There is Nothing Wrong With You”:
Your self-improvement plans and projects are ego-maintenance projects.
They don’t accept this present moment here now. They argue with it. You’re this or that, and it’s mediocre, unacceptable, lacking.
What’s here now is wrong, bad, ugly, fat, grabby.
I will fix myself, and then later I’ll be right, good, attractive, thin, self-less.
The problem lies in “later”.
The mind that’s oriented to fear LOVES that later, you’ll be OK, but not today, not right now, not yet.
I’m reaching for the dangling carrot, and not getting it.
Constantly on the hunt, planning for a better future.
What a paradox to relax, now. To stop the planning, pestering, controlling, dictating in a rigid way.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with turning over a new leaf, and venturing out on a journey to health and vitality, or peace and joy. We love those things.
But the best way to receive these, to experience them?
Notice them….now.
If you really sit long enough in an uncomfortable moment, difficult feelings, hateful images, screaming inner voices, forcing, willpower, the mind freaking out and mad as a hornet….
….you may be surprised.
You may discover peace of some kind is actually possible here. And this moment is not FULLY filled with fear, dissatisfaction or powerlessness. Sure, the mind and thoughts are all riled up. But not everything, not the feeling of being alive.
In this video today, I’m calling that part that can feel peace now the self, perhaps the peaceful self, the true self…I don’t even know if I can say “true” (as if I would ever know).
This inner “I” however, this life force, doesn’t care about weight loss later on, and it also doesn’t care about compulsion in this moment, or severe cravings, or chaos or lack of knowledge.
It’s OK with not knowing, resting, relaxing, being still.
It’s been here the whole time, and it never abandons you despite your mind and your actions.
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).
We’re living our day, or just finished dinner after getting home from work, you have some unscheduled or uncommitted time….
….and here comes a thought suddenly about food.
Mmm, wouldn’t that be good to eat right now?
I know I’m not hungry, but it’s soooo yummy. Just a little bite.
When I used to have this kind of thought of eating, when not hungry, I’d think a second later “No. Don’t do that. Bad idea. Fight! It’s wrong and you know it!”
I’d take up arms against the idea of eating. This idea shouldn’t be happening, I hate this, I must fight it to the death. I must control this. Uh oh. There’s something wrong with me, obviously. I can’t stop craving. This is terrible. I need more willpower.
The only way to get through this, is to just eat.
And of course, what was my behavior?
I’d eat. I’d binge. I just fall into the wild chaos and let it take over and rule my present moment. Inside my mind I’d be screaming and battling, I’d make promises about starting tomorrow.
I might even feel a little relieved once I took the first bites of compulsive eating, because now I didn’t have to “fight” anymore or hold everything together with extreme control. I’d just eat, eat, eat.
It felt like letting the thing have me. I don’t have to be in charge anymore.
Which never had a good outcome, except exhaustion and self-hatred and the never-ending repetitive cycle of being trapped and in prison emotionally and physically.
My strategy used to be constantly that I needed to find more willpower. I needed to build my fighter energy. I needed to get more control.
But what if we question “I need to control this.”
Let’s see what happens when we question this sometimes very stressful thought…about anything in life.
Is it true I need to control my urges, control my eating, be in the diet mode of rigidity, exerting effort?
Many people answer “yes” and think it’s the only way to getting what you really want (freedom from compulsion).
How do you react when you believe you need to exert effort and control and fight your urges, in order to get to freedom?
The way I felt is I’d feel the war within, I’d feel angry. I’d argue myself right into a screaming binge. I’d feel like I was duking it out with some kind of force that was taking me over like an evil demon. I definitely believed in good vs evil.
But who would you be without the belief you have to gain more control, and this is the only way to happiness and peace?
Wow. Almost strange, right?
If there’s no fighting, doesn’t it mean I’m simply eating from one end of the city to the other without care?
No. That’s the Urge taking over everything and “winning” or conquering, but not it a way you can count on or feel peaceful or loving about.
Looking back on that time I used to regularly binge-eat, it felt like anxiety and believing my thoughts about that uncomfortable moment was the thing that “won” over or dominated the scene.
I was believing my very stressful, uncomfortable thoughts about life and my own inadequacy and the need for escape.
Who would I be without that story about needing to fight?
Turning the thought around: I do NOT have to get more willpower or control when it comes to compulsive eating. How could this be true?
I have all the will necessary (not “missing” willpower), I have the capacity to stop, to say no, to slow down, to wait. I have the capacity to feel peace. I can notice that overeating or eating when I’m not hungry isn’t satisfying truly, anyway. That’s already clear. Nothing is missing here. I can identify other thoughts I have about life, and take them through inquiry.
Turning the thought around again: “I” have all the energy and power ever needed. I don’t have to be in charge and control everything, including emotions and thoughts and other peoples’ behaviors and incidents that occur in life.
“Practice not-doing, and everything will fall into place.” ~ Tao Te Ching #3
Let’s see what happens today if we can live the turnaround to relax, instead of exert more control, or more willpower. If you could relax, you probably wouldn’t follow the order from part of your mind to binge eat. You might find you can live through disturbed feelings. You might find you’re OK.
It’s something people feel so angry about when they’re dieting, or trying not to eat certain foods.
When we feel deprived in a diet, everything gets lazer-focused on this food we “can’t” have.
If you notice you feel upset about NOT GETTING something you want….
….you might get stuck in a really difficult pattern of grabbing what you want, then avoiding what you want, then condemning yourself for what you want.
You get stuck in using violence and punishment or scarcity to control your mind, eating, and your future.
If you say “no” to something, you’ll really, really be deprived.
Let’s do The Work.
is that true that if you say “no” and you feel and attend only to your body’s signals, you’ll be deprived?
Yes! I want to taste, to enjoy, to consume! I don’t care what my body feels like!
Can you absolutely know it’s true you’ll feel deprived if you say no to eating something, drinking something, doing something?
Hmmmm. No.
How do you react when you believe you’ll experience physical or emotional pain when you say “no”?
Today I share this inquiry in the eating peace video.
Who would you be without this story of suffering?
Notice this moment, now. Today.
Happy New Moment.
What is it like, without considering the future? (Or, the past)?
In two weeks the annual Eating Peace Retreat assembles. Still room for two more to stay, both onsite if you like in our gorgeous retreat house. A beautiful time of being with food and silence and inquiry, in the community of others, and actually feeling eating peace. Jan 11-15. Join me.
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The mind is genius.
It sees through eyes, ears, smells, memories, imagination.
So much is going on in the head, in our thoughts, its quite astonishing. It’s all happening while we walk, run, buy groceries, drive somewhere, vacuum the floor, even talk with others.
And then there’s food.
Many people say that this time of year is the hardest when it comes to binge-eating, graze-eating, eating off the diet because of goodies and feasts and dinners with others.
I don’t know about you, but I had trouble with eating no matter what time of year it was. I really didn’t see any difference between December and July.
I’d get triggered, have emotional reactions (sometimes old repetitive ones), feel terror, anxiety, anger, sadness or depression….
….and cravings would arise, as my mind showed me images of what would help ease or soothe the pain. Food.
But that mind isn’t always right.
I’m sure you’ve noticed.
What if you asked your hand to keep you company, or how it recommends reacting to the situation, instead of your mind?
Because the inner mental voice, that takes everything very personally, that voice in the mind (which we’ve talked about a lot) can be screaming to eat the food.
The same mind can also consider and know where eating will go. Nowhere particularly useful–and in the long run absolutely NOT useful. You know what will happen already. You’ll have a moment of relief as you taste and feel the food in your mouth and swallowing it, and then instantly you’ll want more, or start screaming at yourself that you just screwed up.
What if there’s something other than your mind to listen to, when it comes to this whole feeling-uncomfortable-craving-eating cycle?
What if you consulted your hand, for example, about what to do in any situation with food and eating present?
There is a part of you, of all of us, that’s more expansive than the mind that’s talking about eating. Really.
You can say “no” with a craving, or emotion, running through the body. You can handle not eating.
You don’t have to believe your thoughts that say you can’t handle the tension, or the urge to eat, or the emotional triggers that appear.
If a crazy aunt was yelling at you in the corner to EAT EVERYTHING IN SIGHT (or smoke, drink, steal, work, lie) you wouldn’t automatically believe she’s got the right idea.
You can actually sit back, rest, and stop.
Nothing is required.
“When someone loves what is, she makes use of anything life happens to bring her way, because she doesn’t con herself anymore. What comes her way is always good. She sees that clearly, even though people may say otherwise.” ~ Byron Katie
For me, this doesn’t have to mean I condone or feel ecstatic about what comes my way, but I’m not fighting with it…I’m not fighting with my memories, or food, cravings, eating, people, emotions, circumstances. I’m letting all those things be there, as they are. No argument.
It means I don’t have to eat, if I’m not hungry.
It may not feel comfortable…but I’m not conning myself with my own mind that I can’t handle a situation, that my only option is to eat if I crave, that my emotions are intolerable.
I can turn those thoughts around: I can handle it, my only peaceful option is to NOT eat, my emotions are tolerable and part of the human experience.
When someone first asked me to offer a retreat in The Work specifically for people to work on eating issues, food judgments, or upsetting thoughts about their bodies….
….I’ll be honest. I thought almost immediately “No Thanks.”
The world of compulsion, addiction, zombie trance eating that I had experienced for many years was so brutal. Especially the tricky, vicious voices related to emotional eating and hatred of fatness and a glorifying of thinness.
These were tough topics. They had been so filled with suffering for me. I wanted to leave them behind, and never look back.
I was also nervous that people might not find answers, or “get” how to apply self-inquiry to their eating or weight or compulsions.
I noticed out in the world, people got angry, perfectionistic, discouraged and very opinionated about food and ways of eating (raw, protein-heavy, meat-eaters, vegan, pure, anti-this, pro-that, anti-rules, pro-rules).
Or was it me who had experienced all that conflict in my own mind?
Hmmm. The world of eating, and my body image, was a battle field for sure–whether I was succeeding or failing.
As time passed and I worked with more and more people one-to-one, exploring the world of upside-down or troubled eating, I knew it would be of service to share in lightening the agony. I knew people could come together and investigate how to reach the natural state of peace we all were born with.
My first workshop was what some might call a….big flop.
In creating the curriculum, I thought I needed at least a weekend, including Friday night. I drew from retreats that had helped me. I felt confident in imagining the exercises and ways of bringing The Work and self-inquiry into all facets of the retreat. I had done many of these exercises with people in solo sessions. I felt excited.
Then, when it got time to put it on the calendar and announce it, only a few people expressed interest. And the person who had originally asked me to create a retreat was no longer living in the area, and not wanting to travel back to Seattle only for a weekend.
This was back when I was so new at offering facilitation and guidance, my confidence was the size of a peanut.
Three people signed up for the retreat.
One of them attended by skype from Colorado. We had a spot set up for her on a little table in my living room. Another drove a distance from Oregon, and a third kind gentleman came from fairly close by in Seattle.
As I mention in today’s video, the way I structured the schedule, everyone went off at meal breaks and got their choice of foods, with instructions to eat mindfully, notice their thoughts, write them down, and then return in 90 minutes.
Although everyone felt calmer around food and eating, no one reported feeling very different with food. One person even said they ate something they usually don’t eat, and they weren’t too sure this had been a good idea.
The exercises were powerful and interesting, the inquiry was thought-provoking and offered insights….but how could the people coming to a retreat on eating peace actually experience something different in their eating?
As I pondered this over time, I read about a man who had a vibrant zen meditation practice, who also had had many overeating or compulsive eating issues in his life, who loved bringing peace into his relationship with food.
*PING*!
It was like a little bell went off.
I myself hadn’t been willing to sit with people and share what it was like to mindfully and peacefully eat–to guide people in the experience itself.
If I wasn’t willing to expose myself in a meal for all the world to see, certainly they wouldn’t be willing either.
I knew what to do. I needed to have everyone who came to retreat eat together, in a different way. It needed to be a part of the practice, the process, the experience.
So that’s how a full immersion retreat was born. Instead of me going away to be all by myself eating whatever I wanted, dang-it, I’d eat whatever I wanted in plain sight.
No need to rebel, defend, or fight for whatever it was I was eating. No need to hold judgments about whether I did it right, or wrong.
I knew this, I had felt the peace of caring kindly for my own body, and now if I wanted to share it honestly with others, it was time to actually do that, for reals.
So the next retreat was different.
The planning was different, the feeling inside myself was different, the peanut-sized confidence didn’t really matter….I felt love and willingness to flop again, if that’s what happened….but also, I trusted the inspiration.
I wanted to join with others on the same journey, who had been suffering when it came to food.
I actually felt this weird sensation of knowing I was going to offer what I always wished was available for me, so long ago, when I felt crushing desperation about how to eat normally, and like I couldn’t find out how.
Now, this Eating Peace Retreat has become four days long. And honestly, it could become longer at some point.
But for now, we gather on a Thursday night (January 11th) for this upcoming annual retreat, we meet Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm, and Monday morning (January 15th) we meet two more hours as a final session together.
I’m with you every step of the way. We eat, think, inquire, feel, explore, walk, and move together.
We identify our most painful thoughts about being in this world with food–what we’ve learned to fear or hate. You get to pick your own food, on purpose, and give yourself what you want and need.
We identify our most painful thoughts about moving, about energy and physicality or whatever’s called “exercise”–every difficult, furious or tormented thought about any of it, and take it through the inquiry process. We’ll do some moving together, without the mind running the show.
We identify our most painful thoughts about what other people think of us, what they see, what they’ve said, what we think it means about us. We identify our beliefs about hunger, fullness, and the foods we have the greatest trouble with.
All of these thoughts, we can question.
We tie in The Work of Byron Katie with all of these stressful, troubling ideas we’ve had in our minds. The Work is the most simple, beautiful, lazer-sharp way to dissolve our suffering about food, our weight, our eating.
This retreat is intentionally left small. I offer it once a year in Seattle (yes, I know I should offer it again during a little more light and a little less rain…stay tuned, this is coming).
Everyone who attends, I’ll be checking in with a month after the retreat to see how you’re doing and if your life with eating needs further support. Everyone at the retreat will leave with partners to do this work with over the phone or skype, so they can stay in touch with questioning their stressful thinking.
What I know now, is I can’t label the Eating Peace Retreat as a big flop anymore.
It’s been phenomenal.
I’m so moved, deeply touched, and in awe of what people learn about themselves through the process of being together and doing The Work on memories, beliefs and struggles they’ve never questioned before….about food, their bodies, their eating.
I am so, so amazed to find that the terrible, frightening, wild and chaotic eating I used to do actually brought me home to a bigger, brighter, more enlightened world….and that the same difficult experience brings me to serve others who want to find a way of eating peace, too.
I wanted to thank you for a wonderful retreat. It was life changing. The Work has been such an amazing tool in my life and to combine it with eating peace could not be more perfect. In my heart I feel it was the missing piece and exactly what I was hoping for when I signed up and more. I am so grateful and excited to practice eating peace in my daily life and continue to use The Work on my stressful thoughts around food and eating….Thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing your guidance, wisdom and teaching, it is such a great gift to share.
~ Participant January 2017
Eating Peace Retreat is only a month away. I’d be honored to have you, if it’s right. To register, visit here. Room for one more person in the retreat house (ask about how to reserve) and also room for one in a lovely airbnb run by friends close by is still available. Write with your questions.
And now….what if when you think about all this eating and being together, and eating mindfully in a group….it makes you want to run the other way. Fast!?
What if the REBEL comes out when you’re trying to eat peacefully? What if the very thought of slowing down, and sitting with people on an eating peace retreat….makes you want to jump out of your skin, or to strangle something?
It’s definitely how I used to feel (and still do sometimes). Watch the video today to see what happened for me around the Rebel, and how to be with it and let it be here, staying safe and clear at the same time.
Now, I know I’ve talked about the Meanie Voice in our heads many times. It’s violent, destructive, and has no issue with rattling of criticism non-stop of other people, life, the world, and YOU.
In the Eating Peace Process recently, and in three separate solo sessions with people in the past couple of weeks, I heard different versions of that voice dishing out it’s ongoing complaints about food, eating, the body.
I used to have these kinds of thoughts constantly.
you’re a loser
you’ll never get over this eating this
you’re so selfish, you can’t stop being greedy for one day
you always go unconscious when it comes to food
you never stay present and wise
you’re so unenlightened, you’re not even spiritual at all
what a mess
you should give up
Yikes.
Sometimes, that voice is so discouraging and mean, it says you don’t deserve to live. I thought it. I remember.
So this is an extremely powerful place to bring The Work into your mind.
Not once. Not twice. Daily. Regularly.
Long ago, a stranger gave me a note after I shared in a 12 step meeting. It said my negative thinking about myself was a form of Negative Grandiosity.
It made me practically gasp when I read the note. Grandiose? Me?
But. I try so hard. I’m a failure. I’m doing it wrong. I’m the worse person in the world.
Ah ha!
That’s a pretty grandiose thing to say. If you look up grandiose, it means impressively large, massive, over-the-top, containing more detail than necessary, huge, pompous.
It’s true, when it comes to that negative spew of self-hatred the inner violent voice can deliver. It’s so serious. The humor is non-existent. There’s a huge checklist of details for the crimes you’ve committed with food, or even thinking about food.
This is a good place for inquiry. Let’s do The Work.
Is it true that when it comes to food and eating you’re a loser, selfish, unenlightened, mess, hopeless?
Uh, yeah. Did you see the way I ate (remembering me at age 25 in the middle of a full-fledged raving binge)?
Can you absolutely know this is 100% the truth, this list? Really?
Deep breath. No.
Even if you say “yes”, you can keep going to the next question in The Work.
But I personally can’t really can’t find even as I consider my former gobbling self that I was pure loser and this was the Truth.
I lived through it. The mean voice didn’t “win” or dominate forever. I had gaps of peace. I slept at night. I achieved some other things, despite eating. I read books. I sought help. I studied. I had some friends. I wrote short stories and poetry. I had jobs.
Who would you be without your story of self-hatred?
Who would you be without the belief YOU are ALL THOSE terrible things? Loser, eater, binger, addict, messed up, screwed up, failure, unconscious, unloveable.
What if you couldn’t prove it? What if you didn’t think it? What if you just got here from another planet and had no reference for what a human is supposed to be doing with food? What if what you are isn’t all that? What if the way it’s been going with eating is for some simple, or important, reason….and it doesn’t mean you’re basically made out of garbage?
Who would you be without thinking the crushing mean one is right?
Ahhhhhh.
Curious.
Wondering what’s going on, then?
I notice I’d be gentle with myself. Kind. I’d rock myself like a baby and say “there, there, sweetheart” and feel the anxiety, or fear, or sadness, or anger present. I’d know all is going to be OK in the end, without the belief I’m a loser.
I wouldn’t feel like the Worst Person in the World.
Turning the thoughts around: My thinking is losing, not getting over this, selfish, greedy, unconscious, unable to be wise and present, unenlightened, not spiritual, messy, and should give up.
Woah. True. Especially when it comes to eating, me, food, my body, and the moment I’ve got such a judgmental voice running through me, that attacks me with such aggression.
My thinking appears to believe in violence as a motivator. It appears to offer war, not peace.
Turning around the thoughts again: I am NOT a loser, I’m a winner, getting over this, selfless, not greedy enough, conscious, able to be wise and present, enlightened, spiritual, clear, and still here (not giving up).
Yes. I’m dedicated to the truth. I’m willing to look at my thoughts and question them. I’m determined to get this squared away and put it to rest in my life, whatever it takes.
I’m a winner in the sense that the whole of who I am–a peaceful loving person–is the strongest part of me, not the binge-eater. I’m conscious, and willing to see that this mean voice is a bully, and not a mature human being.
I’m conscious because I’m able to see what I did was off-balance, with food. I have the power–I wasn’t born missing something. I had my eyes open while I was eating. I was there the whole time. I can bring out the part of me that believes in peace instead of violence, and hold steady with that like a great tree. I can stick up for myself, and take care of my own needs.
All I know is….that voice really never succeeded in motivating me to either A) stop eating, lose weight permanently, find peace with food, or B) take myself completely out through suicide or insanity.
It’s only a voice–an energy pattern, a habit.
Would you believe someone else who spoke like that to 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).
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.
It’s funny the way we’ll say all the time “I did it again”.
Ugh. I repeated the pattern of eating too much, eating off-balance, binge-eating, eating the foods that make me feel sick later on.
I overate at the company dinner. I stuffed myself all night at home alone and went to bed full. I ordered the same thing as my friends when we went out. I ignored my fullness when my aunt offered me seconds.
What if we studied that moment, instead of being AGAINST it?
What if instead of shame, horror, disappointment, and calling yourself names….you were kind?
Here’s how: You can ask yourself what’s going on, that would create such havoc in your eating?
“What’s bothering you, sweetheart?” you could said to yourself.
If it feels like you can’t possibly drum up such a compassionate, loving voice towards yourself, don’t worry. I never could much either when I had my compulsive tendencies with food and eating and self-criticism.
But the following exercise may offer something that heads at least in the same direction of curiosity about what’s off, when our eating is off.
Imagine you in that situation where you wind up eating every time.
(It’s OK if it’s the moment you wake up, because you think about food all day long).
Now ponder this question: What if you didn’t have food available as a thing you liked? What if food wasn’t interesting? What if food or eating wasn’t a possibility?
Don’t just say “that would be fantastic”.
This is about wondering what’s going on deep within that tends to move towards eating in a way that ultimately doesn’t really work, because you don’t know what else to do.
There’s something within that moves to food as a solution. What’s the problem? What needs to be solved?
Who would you be without eating as an action, choice, pattern, experience?
When I first really sat with this question, it frightened me. I thought if I didn’t have food and eating as a THING….I might go crazy with all the conflict I felt inside.
But who would I be without my Go To eating reaction?
A powerful question.
What’s this invitation, at a much deeper level, that eating off-balance is bringing you to see?
