Have you had trouble with eating, food, body image, fretting about when, how, what, if you should eat?
I used to think something was deeply wrong with me.
Even if I didn’t overeat, graze eat, binge eat, panic-eat….I was obsessively thinking about how to avoid food and suppress my cravings and make sure I did NOT eat.
I hated being out of control, and I hated being in control.
Life just wasn’t easy with food.
(Really, it wasn’t easy with my thinking).
Years ago, I began sharing more about what I was like, what happened, and how my identity changed from “f*#&d up around food” to peaceful with food.
While I had done a lot of mind and feelings work of all kinds: therapy, est, context trainings, course in miracles, group therapy, Overeaters Anonymous….when I did The School for The Work with Byron Katie, something clicked for me about all I had ever been doing when it came to food and eating and the long, powerful journey it felt like I had been on with this impulse to either eat food or think about eating food.
It suddenly struck me one day that I had believed there wasn’t enough for me and I wasn’t safe with my own experience and emotions, and often my reaction was violence against myself in the form of self-defeating and self-critical thoughts.
I realized the urge to eat or avoid eating both came from a deep place of “something’s not right”.
Let’s just say, I had a suspicious relationship with reality and life. It looked unpredictable.
I thought of myself as unpredictable–and that this was a shame.
Over the years, investigating all the dynamics involved with eating food, I started sharing in these kinds of notes. I started talking on youtube (!) and I taught courses to guide people through this wild journey with compulsive behavior and uncover peace within.
People have told me what I share applies to all addictive thinking (not just food) and I get it.
It’s pretty true.
The process of becoming peaceful within starts with looking at the disturbance, but it doesn’t really matter what the disturbance actually is or how it looks when acted out.
Some of us feel a disturbance, and our habitual thinking moves to reach for food, or avoid it and start obsessing about it.
There’s almost always a flavor of negativity or fear about ourselves and who we are being, how we’re showing up, what we’re “doing”.
I happen to have years of experience in my own journey, and working with others, to end the battle with eating…..
…..but humans do nutty behavior with just about anything.
My study of this for several decades has given me some insight on my own recovery, and how others change from compulsive behaviors as well, whether it’s alcohol, drugs, shopping or eating.
This work of addressing something that looks like addiction is really about ending the addiction to thinking.
Yes, I said “addiction” to thinking.
What do I mean by that? Why would someone be addicted to thinking, of all things?
I mean how we trap ourselves in compulsive mental loops, trying ultimately to solve a problem, or to get away from our feelings…to numb ourselves, to distract ourselves, to escape the moment as quickly as possible.
I know not everyone expresses this with eating woes.
When you feel like you have to DO something (eat, drink, smoke, check your emails, stay on facebook, game, over-exercise, read, fix yourself)….
….are you afraid of what would happen if you didn’t take action?
What’s the worst that could happen if you hold still?
NOOOOOOOOO!!!!
(LOL).
Some of you might remember me telling my first meditation retreat story.
When I first went on a meditation retreat I thought I was being tortured by 1000 tiny ants hammering on my head and inside my skin.
I woke up every night at 2:30 or 3:00 am.
I was on a wooded wild mountaintop, with distant views of the Pacific ocean very far away (the same retreat center I’ll be teaching at in one month!–more about that later).
At night, there were no lights, and lemme tell you, not one view. Pitch dark.
I was sharing a room with a whole line-up of women all on cots, all sleeping. I would disturb them if I turned on any lights.
I realized I could only sneak out to the foyer, get a cup of tea in the wee hours, and stand there.
I was trapped!!! It was sheer torture!!!
I joke around, but we all know what was really disturbing me was not the silence, the stillness, or the lack of entertainment.
It was me facing my own inner life of thought.
My thoughts, my feelings, my awareness of the world.
It wasn’t exactly….good.
Who would you be without your beliefs about the dangers of life, or the dangers of this world, or the dangers of eating food, or the dangers of not eating food?
Who would you be without your escape behavior?
Who would you be if you took a very deep breath, and paused, and noticed your body and your environment without attacking it, or defending against it?
You might say: I don’t know who I’d be!
But not knowing feels somehow much better than KNOWING you are totally in danger, or that you’re a bad person (and so are others) or that this world is threatening.
So even though I don’t have all the answers, that’s for sure, I do notice something remarkable.
It’s OK to not know.
Right now, I’m entirely safe and quiet and peaceful, even while I’m typing these words.
You probably are too, if you’re reading this note.
Who might you be without the belief you’re in danger, or in trouble, or something’s wrong with you, or you’re very small and unworthy and the best way out of that troubling experience is to “do” something, grab something, eat something (whatever your thing is)?
I keep discovering that who I’d be is Not Acting Violent anymore with my eating, or anything else.
I question my thoughts, and everything else falls into place with balance.
“You cannot be nonviolent if there is any part of yourself that you are in opposition to. You are not truly serving if there is any part of yourself to which you will not extend compassion. Your love will always be conditional as long as you are excluding any part of yourself from it. Suffering cannot be healed through self-hate. Only through compassionate acceptance can suffering be healed. If we accept, if we open ourselves, life will transform us.” ~ Cheri Huber in There Is Nothing Wrong With You
Whatever your addictive thing is, even if it’s telling your troubling story about the world, you can slowly and gently unravel the knots that bind you.
Question your thinking, change your actions (eating, or anything).
You really can.
So I’m offering a very special Eating Peace Experience course for those who struggle with eating, food, weight, obsession about food….starting in only a few weeks on Sunday, August 3rd. It will run until November 9th.
Why is it extra special?
Because it’s on Sundays. I never usually offer courses on Sundays….but in looking at my schedule and all the events happening, it was the very best time. It may never happen again on Sundays.
If weekends work best for you, and you want to look at your relationship with food without violence, self-hatred, control, willpower or anger….this is the place to do it.
We meet from 10:30am-Noon Pacific Time/ 1:30pm-3pm Eastern Time/ 7:30pm-9pm Central European Time.
And here’s the deal: everyone enrolled in Eating Peace Experience will also get to join the EPIC eating peace inquiry circle and drop in to do The Work with the group twice a week (or listen to recordings) when you can.
This is an immersive high-touch program because we’re looking at altering our identification with eating as a soother to fear, with eating as a response to compulsive thinking.
We’re digging down into the depth to look at our urges to be violent, to put up shields, to grab and feel our survival is threatened.
But it’s only the survival of our thinking.
I loved everything I learned in Grace’s Eating Peace class. I continue to learn from the deceptively simple tools and jewels. More and more I discover the Life Beyond the Suffering around food. And If I forget, there’s always another chance to remember. Like each time I choose to eat. I’m choosing peace more and more often. Thanks, Grace! ~ Oregon, US
Grace is like the fairy godmother who is objectively and lovingly looking at what’s going on in behavior, thoughts and feelings. The content of the class felt comprehensive and well thought out. I would certainly recommend the course. Thank you. ~ Toronto, CA
Eating Peace Experience is a program I put my heart and soul into and continue to create and re-create with some key underlying principles at the foundation.
We work with behavior design, specifically co-created for you so that it’s safe for your unique situation. We question thoughts that keep us from feeling free with eating and food.
This program combines The Work of Byron Katie and self-inquiry with other angles to healing emotional eating. We address parts of ourselves, using Internal Family Systems work, we draw from many of the prominent and wise addiction theorists who have helped shape treatments for people who are suffering.
We are held up by thought leaders and spiritual teachers you’ve probably already explored and learned from.
We mostly look to ourselves, to find our own inner wisdom already present.
If you’d like to read more about it, visit this page HERE.
REPEATERS: Have you taken Eating Peace Experience before and ready for a tune-up, or to take yourself to the next chapter of your journey? Please hit reply and ask for the repeater code for $500 discount.
Much love,
Grace
P.S. Mount Madonna Retreat is exactly one month away. Reports are that it’s been a wonderful summer at the center and I can’t wait to be back in this beautiful setting to do The Work with you. Vincent Santos will be leading gentle yoga before breakfast and after dinner each day exclusively for our retreat participants, and we’ll be diving into The Work together all day long. Ready for a getaway? Join us here.