Eating, food, weight, bingeing, hunger.
Trouble.
Why does it happen? What’s going on?
I’m going to talk about one puzzle piece critical for eating peace that you can use every day over the next couple of weeks.
These are elements or energies that have come together to dissolve angst around food and eating for me, and for many people I’ve worked with.
I’m starting with the most important, at least for me.
Power.
Everyone who has ever binge-eaten or starved themselves or pushed themselves to exercise when they didn’t like it or want to…anyone who has forced, used discipline, used restraint, or pushed themselves, is using a certain energy of “power” to “make” something happen.
The thing you may also have noticed, is it never lasts. It takes so much control.
Or, your urge to binge or eat something is greater than the urge to NOT eat it.
So you wind up feeling powerless rather than powerful when you use control. At least I always did.
Feeling powerless is pretty disheartening. Sometimes, it’s so awful, you’d do anything not to feel it.
What do you feel powerless over in your life, besides food and eating?
It can be like opening a can of worms. But really, it’s only looking. You don’t have to do anything with it, except look.
One area I really notice (still do from time to time) is other people’s criticism of me.
When did this first ever happen?
My family, of course. Mom. Dad. Grandpa. Grandma. Sisters.
When someone appeared critical…what did you feel? What were you thinking?
How did you react when you heard those words of criticism?
For so many people with food and eating issues, someone they really wanted to be close to, like their mom, said something about their body, their appearance, their eating…..and it hurt.
Or….your mom or dad may not have ever said anything to you directly at all (that’s how it was in my family) but instead you heard your mom criticizing herself! Or dad criticizing! Or grandpa!
How I reacted when I heard that people could make mistakes, do it wrong, be condemned, be criticized was….
….terrified.
I’ll do whatever it takes to NOT get criticized!
Other people have the opposite reaction….they might fight, argue, lash out, or hurt the people who they perceive as critical of them (kinda like that effort-to-control type energy).
But the end result is the same.
Fear, sadness, great discouragement, separation, and a feeling of powerlessness, maybe even literal low energy, like your battery is run down.
Who would you be without the belief that someone else’s judgment is intolerable, or means something bad, or means you aren’t good enough?
Who would you be if you didn’t think that person’s words had so much power, if they weren’t TRUE?
I would feel like I’m no longer in the electric chair, full of jolts of anxiety.
I would feel spacious, looking over there at that upset person, or that critical person with the red face, or hearing those mean words “being fat is ugly” or “people who eat a lot are pigs” or “eating vegetables makes me good, and if I don’t, I’m bad.”
I would be free to start from here, right now.
I would notice I feel the cut of criticism going into me, and then out the other side. I would stay connected to that person, because I can’t help it, I am connected anyway.
If you turn the thoughts around about hearing criticism, or judgment….and you allowed it to be there, let it happen, like rain and wind blowing in a storm….what would that be like? How would you behave, how would you feel, what would you do, or say?
I wouldn’t brace against the words, or the eyes looking at me….I accept this, I am safe, it is OK to hear this, it doesn’t mean it is true, I am good enough, I am powerful, I am loveable.
When I was looking at how powerless I felt so long ago when it came to overeating and undereating and the whole cycle, I began to find out clearly where I felt powerless, and inquire. It didn’t matter if it had nothing to do with food (it pretty much never does).
Where do you feel you were powerless, or still feel powerless and frightened? What scares you about other people especially, and what they are thinking or saying when they are critical?
How would you feel, right now in this moment, if you were incredibly, beautifully, lovingly powerful?
Here’s a love-power image for you: Picture a big, wide, glowing rope of light hooked to the bottoms of your two feet. These glowing ropes are golden in color. They are the width and length of your feet.
Picture those beams or ropes of light going into the earth, one foot deep, then two feet, then six feet, then on and on, into the core of the center of the earth. They are holding you like Wonder Woman to the earth, solidly, connected, rooted.
Who would you be if you lived this turnaround that you are safely tethered to the earth with the ability to move about, play, walk, speak up, love….even if people look at you and criticize you and judge you (including yourself)?
“The only different between the life you are living and the life you want to live is the feeling of being appreciated, loved and accepted. Unconditionally.” ~ Cheri Huber
You can give this to yourself. I know it seems like you can’t or won’t sometimes, when you hear that critical voice within.
But you can. You have the power.
Much love, Grace