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