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?
Five months, fourteen lessons, two live calls per month (short break at end of January). Let’s honestly investigate our eating battles.
I’ve been so incredibly, profoundly moved by the people attending the Eating Peace complimentary Webinars this past week. There’s one more webinar. Today at 8 am Pacific Time. Join me HERE for the webinar. No opt-in necessary.
It’s almost the same information and slides for the webinar, and yet….a totally different offering every time. Can’t wait to see what will happen today.
I’ll share the seven primary beliefs or “stories” I find running in people (and myself) that caused disruptive eating, and no possibility of eating peace. You can question these seven stressful beliefs along with me through the webinar.
What a learning experience for me to offer this multiple times recently.
People have had many questions! How do I do this work? Should I sign up for this Eating Peace Immersion? What’s right for me? How do I inquire and use The Work in my life for eating issues beyond this webinar?
So many good questions.
I’m getting ready to launch into a 5 month program and honestly, haven’t been clear on the depth and length of the Eating Peace Process. So I want to share about what it is, how to sign up, what to expect, how to get involved.
I also want to share with you what you can do if you do NOT sign up for the Eating Peace Process. Because of course, not everyone can, and healing is possible for anyone and everyone–you don’t actually ultimately need a program.
Freedom is….free.
So read on to find out what you can do if you really want to move past these eating wars at a root level.
For those of you interested in Eating Peace Process Immersion:
I’ve said that Eating Peace Process runs from November through January…and yet, what we’ll be doing is sharing live inquiry calls and direct coaching in this work through the end of April 2018.
What IS offered from November through January are the recorded lessons and educational presentations on this whole system of eating peace. They’ll all still be available for watching through April, so they don’t go away, it’s just that no NEW presentations appear. The amount of presentations included in the Eating Peace Process over the first 10 weeks of Eating Peace Process are plenty.
I’ve gathered information through interviewing people, watching my own process of healing happen, and applying The Work of Byron Katie to these very stressful eating experiences. Gathering this information has taken several years. Or maybe thirty, LOL.
I’ve organized, condensed, and included what I thought was necessary for understanding when it comes to eating, and our perceptions of having a body that appears to gain and lose weight, or a mind that does the same–thoughts, feelings, wars, despair, frustration.
I wanted to include everything stressful that ever crossed anyone’s mind when it comes to eating or weight or compulsive seeking. I wound up with four distinct modules, and a handful of lessons for the program within each one.
The Eating Peace Process has four modules: Mind, Feelings, Body and Living It. Inside each module are 4 or 5 lessons. These lessons are from 45 – 80 minutes each, all offered via webinar, so you watch and listen, and do the exercises, all on your own time. It’s a lot of information and communication, yes. And, I found my mind was so filled with chatter, noise, screaming, self-criticism….it could have filled volumes to address the chaos. This guided information has been powerful. You can pause the lesson anywhere, rewind, or complete the exercise suggested. You get to do them on your own time.
There are literally 14 weeks of lessons: 14 topics of importance that seem like important puzzles of the eating peace process, at least for me every one counted. Each topic addresses significant factors I found I needed to look at and investigate with my mind when it came to eating or compulsive behavior, to find freedom and peace.
I had soooooo many uncomfortable and stressful beliefs that needed to be questioned. (We all do, right?)
These are the common factors, the global viewpoints that feel painful but keep eating battles in place, like “I need to look good” or “eating brings me comfort” or “I’ll never figure this out” or “I can’t handle this situation/feeling” or “this is urgent” or “my body looking the way it does means_____”.
We have past situations that were painful when it came to eating and food. Sometimes all the way back in childhood, sometimes from last week. We have entire family systems that include beliefs passed on from previous generations, all of them leading to emotional eating disruption.
All I know is….eating almost killed me. Or so it seemed. My world was filled with thoughts about eating, food, my body and all that was wrong with the entire experience. It was despairing, and awful.
Not everyone has such a dramatic story as I did. Some people are constantly plagued by the desire to lose 20 pounds, others are binge-eating and purging, others are starving themselves for days followed by uncontrollable eating. I was hospitalized, in therapy for years, and desperate when it came to food. I couldn’t find a thing peaceful about any of it.
And then, something shifted. And then shifted again.
The most important thing about seeking eating peace is that it is possible to find it.
People think it isn’t.
The discouragement is so intense, so deep, so on-going, people think they will never find a sense of peace when it comes to food and need to stay on a diet forever.
You may be one of these people.
I thought I was one of those people.
But I KNOW peace is possible for you, for me, for anyone who suffers from out-of-control behavior with eating, food, bingeing, thinking.
It’s not exactly easy and not necessarily a quick fix–which is why we will be meeting for five months for those of you enrolling in the Eating Peace Process. It is possible to stop the insanity through questioning your mind. And yet, how interesting there are no guarantees. No promises.
Which brings me to what’s possible for those of you who can’t or won’t sign up for the program starting this next week–here’s your solution: Question Your Thinking.
Identify your thoughts, especially in the moments you start to eat. Write them down. Stop them on paper.
Answer these questions honestly, without editing yourself. Keep a journal: Why are you eating? What’s going on? What are you afraid of? What are you worried about in your life? What do you think the act of eating will provide? What will it give you? What would you have, if you had the thinner body you dream of? What are you seeking? What else do you want, besides food? What’s missing in this moment? What isn’t satisfying for you right now?
If you sat with any of these questions, and perhaps got a supportive friend to sit with you to explore your answers, then you might be shocked at what you can discover, what you become aware of, what you realize.
This is self-realization through the path of eating. (Ha ha, I know this sounds a bit mad–some people find God or Peace through the oddest means….like food).
Eating wars were really my path to self-realization.
Someone wrote to me recently who I don’t know and he asked “have you ever suffered?”
The place that came to mind, as I contemplated his interesting question, was with eating. So many incidents of eating that led to torture, sickness, self-hatred, even suicidal thinking and not wanting to be alive.
What I realize though, is my mind was filled with tortured, sick, hateful, dead thoughts. My mind was suffering, not the whole of me.
The good news?
I could question those thoughts, and turn them around. You can too.
Who would you be without your stressful stories?
If you want to join with others to investigate in-depth the compulsion to overeat, undereat, focus on the body, think about food….then join me for this winter-to-spring journey to understanding eating peace.
We begin with the first live call on November 14th, and the last live call is April 26th. You can choose Tuesdays, or Thursdays, for the live calls–and they are all recorded–so you don’t absolutely HAVE to attend live. You can attend both if you really want to. No one turned away on any call.
This program includes 14 lessons in exploring and studying eating woes and agony, and the important topics I’ve found that help heal them. You’ll be doing your work, and sharing in your process with others and with me.
To find out more and to sign up for Eating Peace Process this year, click HERE. If you have more questions and want to see what it’s like to share a presentation from me (which is similar to what’s inside the Eating Peace Process program) then come to the complimentary webinar today or listen to it later via recording (the same link will work as the recording about 30 minutes after the live session is completed today).
If you have any specific questions you’d like answered, feel free to hit reply to this email and ask me.
Thank you for joining me in such a powerful, important, deep journey to find home, peace and rest when it comes to eating, food and our bodies.
“There are sincere men and women who want to be free of suffering. I was one of those without realizing it. I tested what would happen if I didn’t respond to the thoughts of ‘I want’, ‘I need’, I shouldn’t’, ‘I should’…None of these thoughts could stand up to inquiry. You could discover this even if you tested it for just twenty-four hours with one meal…the I-know mind would say ‘this isn’t enough nourishment; I’m still hungry; I’m too weak; I’ll get sick; I’ll die.’ But when you allow each thought to be met with ‘is it true?’ life will show itself to you.” ~ Byron Katie
I often believed my thoughts that said I would die without more food, I have to eat, I shouldn’t eat this, I should eat that, I need to weigh x, I need to be thinner, I want to keep eating, I’m unable to stop, I can’t be happy unless….and on and on and on.
Who would we be without these stories?
Free. At peace. Slowly but surely….enlightening ourselves to what’s true, what’s possible. Returning to innocence when it comes to eating.
No longer hungry for what isn’t, but instead comfortable and willing to be (and maybe even loving) what is.
I’d love you to join me in Eating Peace if it’s right for you. I’ll close enrollment to the program by noon on November 14th, so we can begin our live calls and move from there.
Can’t wait to be with all of you who are drawn to this process during the winter, holiday season when people often eat even MORE than usual. Let’s see if we can eat study peace in the midst of feasting traditions…shall we?
Yes, we’ll meet the morning of Thanksgiving in the USA for our usual 8 am call. What a great day to begin with inquiry and wondering if what we’re thinking is actually true!
By definition, a process is a series of actions, steps, adjustments, movements….all working together towards an end or a direction. A procession is a collection of people moving as a part of a greater whole, towards the same destination.
There’s an awareness of “time” with a process, but also action, movement, motion, flow. Going from there, to here. Or here, to there.
I love that eating peace is a process, just like “thinking” peace.
We’re identifying our stressful thoughts, watching what happens when we believe them (including the way we eat) and wondering what it would be like to not believe those thoughts.
It can be a vast and wonderful experience, this process. It’s life unfolding before us. We’re learning all the way.
And guess what?
I just offered an Eating Peace webinar training this most recent Saturday morning….and learned something.
I had added a segment, and it turned out to be waaaay too big a bite to chew. (I love those eating metaphors).
I learned that I need to remove the extra I wanted to offer–I get so excited about supporting people to enter an eating peace process–and leave it as “plenty” or “enough”. There’s always more we can learn, you know? And we don’t have to learn it all at once.
Just like meals. We don’t have to eat it all at once.
Food will be there again for us to enjoy when the body is once again ready. No need to pack it all in now.
If you missed the too-long Saturday webinar, join me for Tuesday’s webinar at 4 pm PT OR Thursday’s at 8 am PT. I love offering this webinar live and sharing it with you. I’ll answer questions about the Eating Peace Process and share about the content of the in-depth program at the very end.
Let’s question our thinking, watch what gets adjusted naturally….notice what works, what doesn’t. We’re refining our perceptions of reality, we’re dropping our stressful thinking (which doesn’t work) by investigating it closely. We’re opening up to movement in the direction of peace without blame, violence, control, or self-hatred.
What I notice is as we question our thoughts, find our own answers, we become deep experts in our own inner world.
When you have an inner world you’re open to exploring….peace arises in the mind.
Thinking peace leads to eating peace. No other option really.
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.
Sometimes we have to improvise or make a small change in order to respond to the way reality and life is flowing.
I just did it this morning.
I made an eating peace video for you on my front porch instead of in my little kitchen inside my cottage, the way I usually do. I’m teaching a four day retreat on The Work of Byron Katie and a lovely group have come from all corners of the US and Canada to sit and question thoughts.
While the focus of this autumn retreat underway right now isn’t specifically about eating (Eating Peace Retreat is Jan 11-15), some of the folks attending can totally relate to food or weight being a problem….and they know questioning stress in their lives can help reduce the compulsion to overeat, or compulsion to over-think really, about food.
What I’m sharing today?
I’m talking about how simple it is to question your stressful thoughts about feeling uncomfortable, feeling fear, feeling powerless.
Except I know, it’s NOT that easy for us sometimes.
We feel really uncomfortable and troubled….but we don’t even know why.
And the next thing we know, we’re eating.
But it may not be as hard as you think to deal with painful and difficult emotions.
Start with only one single situation, one person who hurt you, betrayed you, frightened you. Don’t start with YOU either. We get so tempted to examine and investigate ourselves, but it doesn’t work as well if you do this (so much effort to self-improve).
I always found my discomfort rose out of reactions to other people, worry about how they felt AND about how I felt.
So start there, with someone else who’s had an impact on your life.
Now…I also mention in the video that if all you can think of is a stressful thought about eating, like “I HAVE TO EAT SOMETHING NOW!” then it’s OK to start right there, because it’s so front and center.
You can question any stressful, demanding, frightened thought.
I always use The Work of Byron Katie. The step-by-step process works so beautifully.
You can trust it. Follow the simple directions.
If improvising and making changes in your daily routine causes stress, question the thoughts you have about change.
Who would you be without your troubling story?
Much love,
Grace
P.S. Next week, I’ll be sending out word about how to register for a free webinar: Seven Beliefs to Question, Seven Turnarounds to Live–Using The Work to Return to Sanity and Eating Peace. These will meet November 4, 7 and 9th. Stay tuned. I’ll share about the Eating Peace Process program at the very end of the webinar, for those interested in joining with others to question your thinking when it comes to food, eating, the body, feelings, and life.
My grandma used to comment and shake her head and my three sisters and I if she was taking us out……
“Slow as molasses”.
She always had a twinkle in her eye, and loved going on adventures.
The other day, I thought of her as I was spending some time with a little ebook I’ve written in the past, updating and changing it and adding to it.
I wanted to bring you an exercise you can do every single day for seven days….after considering the seven tricky and common beliefs people (including me) think that tend to keep us conflicted and in the middle of eating wars, not so much eating peace.
I like easy step-by-step recipes. Not long ago, I downloaded a lovely seven days of different green smoothies, and it made trying a new smoothie each day for seven days so incredibly easy! I wanted to give you a sense of one small thing you can do each day too, to help with self-inquiry and eating issues of any kind. To download the updated Eating Peace guide, click here. (Feedback welcome).
I know following a process isn’t always easy, when it comes to the mind. The mind is so fast, and so full. But that’s what I love so much about The Work of Byron Katie.
It’s a way to focus on one specific single dilemma, conflict, or painful belief, and explore it to see if it’s really true for you….step-by-step. What a relief to follow the directions, and investigate, and find the turnarounds.
Today, I made a video for you to share about exploring the very first painful belief I share in the Eating Peace eguide: Urgency.
I used to eat super fast. When I binged, I had a constant flow of energy to get more, more, more. Hardly tasting the thing I was currently eating before grabbing for the next bite.
Even slow graze-eating all evening, I would have a restless buzzing where I couldn’t stop. Or at least, I believed I couldn’t.
Believing there was a deep imperative need to go as fast as possible (fear, anxiety, demand, forcefulness) for many years blocked me from seeing many other thoughts I had that I might have been able to question, had I slowed down for two seconds.
To keep it simple, we’re only beginning with this extremely common shout the mind sometimes screams from inside, for speed. I used to feel like it was an emergency unless I ate something, or that there was no way I could calmly and slowly chew my meal. I ate literally walking out the door sometimes, and often in my car.
What could it offer, to slow down and be willing to see what else is happening with food, with my mind, with feelings, and with my contact with reality, besides responding to an emergency?
Almost always, my emergency was about relationship, the past, the imagined future, uncomfortable feelings, or self-criticism. When I slowed down my Emergency Switch, I began to understand more what was going on inside me that my eating reflected.
We can keep it simple. Join me here to wonder about the turnaround (hint: being slow). You can start practicing it today, if you follow along with the guide!
Eating Peace Process, a very in-depth high touch program to address all aspects of life with mind and food, is coming in only one month. Stay tuned to watch for my signature free live webinars on eating peace November 4th, 7th and 9th to learn more about how to bring this practice into your daily life, and find out about the immersion program. To read more about it, visit here. If you have questions, email me at any time grace@workwithgrace.com.
Everyone has voices running in their heads, have you noticed?
Of course, you can really only hear your own. It’s there when no one else is talking or you have a quiet space of time, or you’re all alone.
It sometimes talks as if it’s another person, saying “you should go to that party, you shouldn’t wear that, you should weed your yard…you should eat something!”
So goofy. Who is that?
And when it gets mean, or steers you to something you’d really rather not do….like eat more when you’re full, or eat that thing you know makes you feel sick later….then it’s especially odd.
Do I have a companion in my head that’s not exactly friendly?
Yes, it sure seems so. Not friendly at all. Downright violent and totally destructive sometimes.
The thing is, you don’t have to listen to it.
I know that sounds so mundanely simple, you might be thinking “Doh! Why didn’t I think of that!” because you HAVE listened many times and bumped into that voice over and over, and it’s guided your actions or movements, your thoughts and emotions.
But today, despite it sounding a little too simplistic, I suggest you invite that voice in, and find out what it’s really made of, find out what it has to say, and perhaps why it’s chirping all those suggestions that don’t really serve your best interest.
AND most importantly, treat it like it’s not exactly sane. Don’t listen to it. Who’s in charge anyway? You are. The full and complete you. The one who’s listening.
Sometimes feelings are so chaotic and wild, we feel crazy as they ride through us, along with all our thoughts that caused the feelings in the first place. Feelings seem to cause distress, turmoil, upset and fatigue.
Then, we often want to eat. Whether hungry or not.
(Or smoke, drink, clean, work, gamble, etc).
Escape from the feelings! Change the channel!
But what if you’re treating these wild and moveable sensations in the body like their the enemy, or something you shouldn’t be experiencing?
Long ago, when I was first healing from truly dreadful off-balance eating, I discovered there were a few feelings on my list that I never wanted to feel. Ever.
Anger.
Fear.
Humiliation.
Aloneness or solitude I could handle. Sadness, that was OK. Anxiety was uncomfortable but not the end of the world. Excitement or nervous anticipation was partially fun. Disappointment I thought I could quickly recover from.
But deep anger, resentment, fury, rage–these I judged as horrible. Only mean people have those feelings. Bad people.
Fear was also too uncomfortable. I felt nauseated, couldn’t sleep, short of breath. I’d do anything to get away from fear! (Including eat when not hungry).
Humiliation was the worst of all. Feeling ashamed, or guilty that I did something wrong or someone disapproved of me. Ugh. It was the worst of all. Then I really wanted to hide in my house and eat sweet things, so I felt sweeter about the world. (It never worked for long term).
Something that helped immensely over time, was taking a look at feelings I disliked the most….the ones I considered ENEMIES….
….and judge them, using The Work of Byron Katie.
Is it true you’re a bad person if you experience fear, or anger, or shame?
YES.
Look at those other people over there, acting terrified, or rageful, or deeply self-effacing. Gross. So unpleasant, and unattractive.
Can you absolutely know it’s true it makes someone a BAD person if you experience these human feelings?
No. Reality includes all these feelings. It appears to be a part of the human condition.
How do you react when you believe something’s awful and bad?
I avoid it. I try to get away, stay away, and crush it within. I try not to be angry, fearful, or shameful….ever, ever, ever.
If I DO experience these feelings, I eat.
I don’t ask anyone for help (they’ll think I’m bad, too). I don’t have any other outlets. I try to control what can’t be controlled. Feelings.
It’s a ton of work. I have to stay home a lot, and not be exposed to other people.
But who would I be without this thought? Who would I be without this belief that having these uncomfortable feelings makes me BAD? (Or anyone bad)?
You can look at that other person who’s feeling big feelings you don’t like and see what you’d think of them without the belief they shouldn’t be expressing that feeling.
What would this be like?
Wow.
I’d be feeling these terrible feelings, like riding a roller coaster, and letting them run their course–even hearing their message. Honoring what they have to say. No getting over them.
Allowing the feeling to be here, and allowing me to be a human being feeling it, without judgment.
That feels like freedom.
Turning the thought around: feelings (anger, fear, humiliation) are GOOD to feel. Not bad. It’s only my thoughts about these feelings that are bad, not the feelings themselves.
When I began to live this way with my feelings, even just a little bit, guess what happened to the urge to eat? It relaxed.
It was no longer necessary to stuff in food aggressively with anger. It was no longer necessary to panic with ice cream in bed. It was no longer necessary to shamefully buy something I liked to eat, and eat too much of it in my car.
In the Eating Peace Process, we spend an entire module or segment of the program looking at how to work with feelings.
Especially the ones we resist or hate.
Who would we be without our stories about feelings?
Two live calls per week and many presentations you’ll listen to on your own, this course offers you a structure to thoroughly look at your relationship to food, eating and your body from every angle. To read more about it the Eating Peace Process please visit here.
There is nothing wrong with you, if you eat off-balance.
It’s a message from some part of yourself to another. It’s a perfect storm of thoughts, beliefs, feelings, experiences, memories, trauma….all unquestioned and believed to be true.
Welcome to self-inquiry, to overcome compulsion, eating, body image issues, upset about food.
