Category: Trouble With Food and Eating

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I Crave It Uncontrollably!

This morning was the first teleclass on Food and Eating. I love the thought
brought to surface to question: “I crave it uncontrollably“.

The feeling of craving anything uncontrollably can be extremely painful
and desperate. Whether a substance, or a person, or money, or for
someone to be with you again who is not longer here.

I’ve thought about craving and all it means many times in my life. Even though
I don’t seem to get overwhelming urges or cravings for much in my life I still
LOVE to look at the amazing sensation called craving. Especially when
people say it’s UNCONTROLLABLE.

As I heard all the group answer the simple question “how do you react
when you believe this thought that you crave something uncontrollably?”
I noticed once again the way so many of us criticize, condemn, blame,
and attack ourselves.

I am the one who craves things uncontrollably, and it’s really terrible.
There’s something wrong with me.

Sometimes I still glimpse the feeling of craving, of wanting with a panic,
an extremely deep ache. I can imagine something like…”if only my father were
still alive” or “if only I had enough money to pay for everyone in my family” or
“if only I had more time”….and what these thoughts might be like if they
grew then it might feel like uncontrollable craving.

Because I found the Work it feels like such a relief to have spent lots of
time questioning these things of life that I wish would get satisfied, the things
I want.

One of the most amazing feelings is the feeling of being with a craving and
studying it, not acting right away. What color is it? Where does it live?
Where did it come from? What is it saying? What am I most afraid of in this
moment? What’s the worst that could happen, if I stay here and if I don’t
do anything to solve this craving?

Pema Chodron says “Most of us do not take these situations as teachings.
We automatically hate them. We run like crazy. We use all kinds of ways to escape
 — all addictions stem from this moment when we meet our edge and we just can’t
stand it. We feel we have to soften it, pad it with something, and we become
addicted to whatever it is that seems to ease the pain.”

See if you really are out of control when you have that craving that seems so big.

Who would you be without that thought that you are out of control, that something
is wrong with you, that your craving is altogether wrong, or that you shouldn’t
have it in the first place?

What if this is a moment where what is happening is that you are meeting your
edge. Maybe it has nothing to do with the thing you’re craving. See if you can sit
still for 30 seconds and see. That may be all it takes to make a discovery.

What if nothing is wrong with you, even when you had a craving?

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Grateful for Food Obsession

As so many of you know, my relationship with food was the most painful one
in my life, the earliest in my life. At least it seemed like that’s what really ailed me.

It’s the relationship that called me to know something was off with my perception
of life and the world, ultimately nothing really to do with the actual food.

Now, I’m grateful for that experience. It brought me to really understand the
concept of Surrender. I had to look at what I was believing, there was no way
out.

Some of my primary thoughts about living at that time in my twenties were:
this world is a dangerous place, people are dying right and left

  • I can be rejected by anyone, any second of the day
  • I could be hurt randomly, for no apparent reason
  • I am not good enough, courageous enough, wise enough
  • I should NEVER be angry, good people are always kind and “nice”
  • If I’m thin, I’m powerful….if I’m fat, I’m needy
  • If I don’t eat when I’m hungry, if I eat the perfect diet, I’m superior
  • There are “good” foods and there are “bad” foods
  • If I eat the bad foods, or if I am too needy, I should be ashamed
  • What I want is WRONG TERRIBLE HIDEOUS

Jeez, no wonder I was ping-ponging between depression and rage.

Identifying the most painful thoughts is step #1 of the Work. This can be really
hard to do.

Looking at concepts about food, and really, about life, is what we do in the
food and eating class. The power of the group energy is wonderful!

The best, quickest, most powerful and lasting awareness I have consistently
experienced has been in groups. I was lucky enough to find a therapy group
when I was most depressed to start learning new ways to approach life,
to learn not to panic emotionally about things, not be so fearful or angry.

Now, the teleclasses are wonderful collections of people all wanting to
identify their most repetitive stressful beliefs that they live by, and bring them
to light through their own answers.

I love that everyone is their own best teacher. I also love how anyone can do this
work, anyone, even a child.

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Tornado Sirens or Temple Bells

This past week I worked with two clients who felt very, very discouraged after having the experience of an episode called “binge-eating”.

I remember it well, like it was yesterday even though the last “binge” episode I had was many years ago, compulsively overeating food, absolutely stuffing myself until my stomach hurt, feeling like I couldn’t stop or wouldn’t stop until I was in extreme pain, like something was taking over me, almost another personality!

In that state of mind, there were no obligations, no future, all rules broken, no control, no care for consequences, surrender to the craving.

What exactly is this thing called a Binge? The dictionary defines it as an uncontrolled period of excessive self-indulgence, immoderate, unrestrained. Humans go on spending sprees, gambling binges, eating orgies, crying jags!

It’s like we’re ON these things, as if they are a trip. A train is running and it feels like we can’t get off.

I find that there’s a really interesting flip-flop between being in control and out of control, and people with different kinds of personalities gravitate towards the two sides more or less. And some of us bouncing between both sides.

In control looks careful, regimented, disciplined. It gathers information and data, really uses the thinking mind. I used to live in this place when I was not bingeing. Reading, collecting, analyzing. It felt very mental. I couldn’t get enough information, go to enough workshops, or ponder the meaning of my life and my problems ENOUGH.

Then there would be the state of FEELINGS breaking through and what felt most dominant would be anger, grief, fear, anxiety….some kinds of very intense feelings that seemed overwhelming, serious, and so powerful. Unplanned, unexpected and sometimes very extreme behavior would become the dominant experience in this dramatic place.

But both experiences are reactions to stories. The stories are simple. They go something like this:

  • This could be better, things could be better, I could be better
  • This moment is not perfect, I am not perfect, my body is not perfect
  • Who is God? What’s going on? I NEED to KNOW!
  • My feelings are not perfect, I am angry, scared, sad.
  • I am not complete as is. I need a partner, more money, happiness, a better body, a better mind, more fun, more knowledge, success.
  • Death is terrible
  • Life is boring
  • I’m not good enough

When you can hold still and not react to things like they are an emergency to which need to be figured out, then you can see what’s on your list of stressful beliefs.

The fantastic news is that the more I have found out that what I believed is not actually true for me afterall, the more calm and peaceful I feel. Sometimes it’s pretty stormy inside my mind, but it never works its way up into a frenzy of a binge.

No controlling anything, no being on plans, budgets, rations. No flipping out and going wild as if escaping from a jail.

Byron Katie says that when we feel stress, we’re actually believing something that isn’t really true for us. Which means, when we really get down to it and look…we already know it’s not true. The stressful moment or feeling is the little temple bell ringing, a wake-up call.

OK, OK, tornado sirens for some of us!

It’s just saying “Woah, you’re really believing a story here. This story hurts. You’re forgetting that it’s a story, and that it isn’t true”. Like a little kid believing there is something terrible in the closet.

The next Horrible Food Wonderful Food class starts the first week of April. A great place for first identifying what you’re actually believing about food, eating, your body, and then questioning these thoughts.

Love, Grace

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Admit What You Think About Angelina Jolie

Today I read an article about how many people reacted to Angelina Jolie’s apparently very skinny shape at the Oscars. The article was suggesting that people shouldn’t tweet things like “Dear Angelina Jolie….eat something.”

I remember my starvation days well. It’s true that if anyone said to me “eat something” it would have made ZERO difference in my behavior at the time. I would have written them off as being crass, ignorant, and rude. How dare they say that to me!

Everyone was suspect, everyone was either against me, unaware, too nosey, pushy, judgmental, uncaring, or needy. They did not understand. I was in control, and not eating was practically the only place I felt any personal control over my life.

The amount of energy it took to deny my own hunger and eat so little left almost no mental or emotional space to do anything but focus on NOT eating. Interacting with others was something I wanted to spend very little time doing, it was pretty scary for me. I was too afraid of people. I was too afraid of telling the truth!

I didn’t want to hear the truth from other people either. It felt too crushing.

Now, I have such gratitude for the people who spoke up and said something during the years I was “anorexic” and starving all the time.

I will never forget a fellow student in college who also ran cross-country on the team. I have no idea what her name was, and can hardly remember what she looked like. But one day at a meet she said to me “Have you ever been anorexic?” and as I looked at her in stunned silence (no one was supposed to ever mention this out loud) another team mate said “Don’t ask her that, jeez!”

I never said a word. But I remember it now, 30 years later. I KNEW at the moment that young woman spoke that she was noticing how thin I was and watching the way I rarely ate and worked out a lot in my running.

I was seen. I had a love-hate relationship with being seen. I couldn’t pretend I was invisible and slowly wasting away into nothing when that woman spoke up. I was noticed.

Around the same time when visiting home, my father came to me with a small plate of sliced fresh pears. He said “won’t you please eat something, sweetheart?” He had no idea how to be with his daughter who was so thin, he was sad and scared. I said “No!” and left the room. But I knew he cared and I knew he was seeing me.

Byron Katie suggests that anything said to her is something she needed to hear in that moment. If it’s said loudly, she needed to hear it loud.

When I was at the School for The Work once, a man stood and talked about himself being sexually inappropriate with a child once many years before. He said how ashamed he was and how afraid he was of others’ judging him for being so awful. Another man in the same room, filled with several hundred people, shouted at him and stormed out of the room, slamming the door so loudly behind him that the walls shook.

 Katie then said something like “there goes one person who doesn’t like hearing what you are saying and may be judging you for being awful.”But that was one person, the rest stayed in the room.

The experience I have with the Work now is that my past actually feels different than it once did. I am now grateful for those people who spoke up and said something….even if I scoffed at it at the time. It was part of  what I needed to hear, right at that moment, just in that particular way.

If you notice judgments rise about Angelina Jolie, write them all down.

See what you think is “wrong” with her and her body. Go ahead and write it! Watch your mind fill with what it means that she has that body looking that particular way.

When you do The Work, your own answers may surprise you. One of my favorite exercises in the Horrible Food Wonderful Food teleclass or weekend workshop is judging those other people out there with their fat or thin bodies. Let’s get the judgments out on the table, because only then can they be set free and seen, sometimes even with gratitude.

Much love, Grace

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Shut This Down

How many times in my life I have had the thought about a person or an event, or a circumstance “this needs to be shut down”.

It feels like a natural place for the mind to go, once there are enough stressful beliefs accumulating about a person, place or situation. We get really full of emotion and feeling, angry, afraid, confused, conflicted, maybe steam is coming straight out of our ears…

In comes the terminator. Total control. Military. All guns pointed at the culprit. This must be stopped!

In that mode, I’ve done things like start a new food plan, “quit” things like cigarettes, or gone silent with people who are important to me (talk to the hand!)

There is something really amazing about the power of discipline and goals and taking action with lots of energy and conviction and courage. However, for me personally, I really need to look at what I was believing right before I decided to bring out the big guns. In the end, it’s a LOT EASIER.

It’s usually been thoughts like these:

*I can’t make it through the day without _________ (fill in the blank, like cigarettes) because ___________.

*There is no other solution except to drink alcohol or overeat in this moment

*I am simply powerless over this, I don’t have what it takes to resolve this situation

*That person is too manipulative, too mean, too frightening, too annoying

*I am getting hurt

If I question whether any of these are true, and spend some time with the opposites and find how this can be as true, I feel a different kind of power grow within me:

*I CAN make it through any day, without __________ because ________.

*There IS another solution

*I am capable, I have what it takes to resolve this

*That person is being perfect as they are

*I am getting healed

Questioning even one of the stressful concepts that enters the mind before we think we need to shut something down is incredibly liberating.

And, it does not mean that I will continue smoking or continue overeating, continue talking with someone in my life in the same frequency or the same way. It does not mean that I won’t walk away from a violent or really painful situation.

It means I find a loving place inside myself and I take action or not, and I don’t have to “know” 100% what to do. I wait with patience and love. I relax. I don’t have to find who the enemy is or what is “wrong” with my situation and ATTACK.

When I attack and go into serious terminator mode, I find that the energy it takes to keep holding the weapons of mass destruction and be “against” something or someone break down eventually. Then I’m back to the more confusing thoughts I had before I decided to SHUT THIS DOWN.

Staying with those confusing thoughts, not moving away from them or getting distracted from them, can be uncomfortable….but it stops the cycle.

When I question the beliefs that bring out lots of fear, I have no desire to be violent or like the military with my thoughts. There is no need. I know I am ultimately safe and I can let things and people be as they are.

I notice I move away from some people, say “no”, say “yes”, leave certain situations like places of employment or move to another city, or I notice that I never binge-eat or smoke cigarettes or use drugs of any kind. These are done not out of defense or attack, but out of a place that feels like love.

I love knowing that we’re all on a path of un-doing our belief systems that keep us needing a personal internal military. The next time you think “this needs to be shut down” see what you.

Love, Grace

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Breaking Free From Food Laws

This morning I worked with a client who has had a very common
belief since she was a teenager;

“Crisps make me fat”.

(Can you tell she’s from the United Kingdom?) Of course here in the United States we have the same thought only we say “potato chips make me fat”. In France
they say it in French. Ha!

In countries all over the planet, people learn beliefs about food and
eating. This food is “good”, this food is “bad”, eat lots of vegetables,
quit eating big portions, never eat at night, count every calorie, be
free and eat whatever you like, leave food on your plate, avoid bread at
all times.

These beliefs can get pretty dramatic, like “Sugar will kill you”.

There is so much advice, so many books, and whole university programs
devoted to studying the “best” ways to eat. The anxiety, anguish, confusion,
and hopelessness many people feel who don’t know what to do is enormous.

I love answering question Number Four in The Work….Who would you
be WITHOUT that thought? What would I do, how would I feel, what
would my relationship be like with those potato chips if I didn’t
believe they make me fat?

What would it be like if I didn’t believe the thought that ANYTHING was
“bad” for me to eat or “good” for me to eat?

I might actually notice what I enjoyed. I might try everything. If my
doctor said “you have an illness called diabetes so you need to avoid
this list of foods” then I would stop eating those foods and notice how
many others were available.

If crisps don’t make me fat, like how I felt when I was a little kid about
all food, then perhaps I’d take a bite of them and savor and enjoy and clap
my hands with how yummy they are…..and then I might run outside to play hide-and-seek with all the kids in the neighborhood.

Who would you be without that painful, angry, hateful, sad thought
you have?

Food has so much connection in our minds with “fat”. The real crime,
the most dreadful state, the most horrible, hideous thing some of us think
we could be……is FAT.

But who would we be if we questioned the belief that food of any kind
makes us fat?

For me, I didn’t think that was possible. Of course food made me fat.
But then I remembered that I didn’t believe anything about food making me
fat from the moment I was born until around age 8.

It is possible to be your own personal authority on this subject. To start
all over and un-do your beliefs. Pretend you’re from another planet and
you never heard of certain foods being “bad” or “good”. Find out
what is really, really true for you.

It might be OK to not know anything….to be like a little child full of
joy, happiness, eating with delight, then moving on to the next fun
experience in life.

Questioning the “laws” of food and eating that you’ve learned can lead to
such happy freedom!

I love to do this over and over again with others, in our teleclasses.

The next one starts at the end of March!

Love,
Grace

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Ultimate Control For Control Freaks

I love “control freaks.”

Some of my best friends are control freaks!

(Like the one I see in the mirror every morning).

Actually, the one in the mirror turned over a new leaf. Things didn’t work
very well the way I was living before…..or I should say, the way I was
“thinking” before.

I used to do the “extreme control–extreme outta control” dance.

On the control freak side, I would believe “I AM INDEPENDENT!”
I used to think no one can make me do anything I don’t want to do. I used to think life is tough, you have to work really hard, you have to scan the environment for dangerous people and situations, you have to be a TERMINATOR.

On the outta control side (which would ALWAYS come along as a matter of balance
or something) I would believe “I GIVE UP!” I would think, I have to please other
people, I need to be normal and nice, I need help from other people, and I don’t
care what happens to me. I would be a puddle of jello.

Sometimes I just laugh when I feel myself starting to
try to “control a situation” with my body tension…my fists get tight, I
clench my jaw, I lean forward…

…as if that does anything but HURT!

In my teleclasses, I usually start with a “Katie Quote.”

The other day, in our “Horrible Food-Wonderful Food” class,
I read a quote from Question Your Thinking, Change the World by
Byron Katie. It went like this:

“For people who are tired of the pain, nothing could be worse than trying
to control what can’t be controlled. If you want real control, drop the
illusion of control; let life have you. It does anyway. You’re just telling a
story about how it doesn’t. That story can never be real.”

One thing I used to notice about that extreme attempt to control
my world, myself, my actions, and avoid difficult situations is that
DESPITE my attempts to control things in a very intense way….
THEY COULD NOT BE CONTROLLED.

I would wind up flipping to a sort-of opposite extreme of surrender.
I would be spent, wiped-out, crushed, smacked down, over-whelmed,
reclusive, king of licking my wounds….you can hear the violence in
this kind of experience.

Trying to control life, to control anything, I always wound up
being “forced” to stop trying to run into the wall head first.

I would have to lie down and rest eventually….

It’s a relief to realize we’re being breathed and our hearts are beating
without us actually doing ANYTHING. The chair is supporting me.
The floor is underneath the chair. I didn’t build this house, or the chair.
I just wound up sitting here today, typing.

I don’t have to hunt down air, it seems to be all around me, and I’m
totally and completely DEPENDENT on it. Eeeewwww! Dependent used
to be a “bad” word for the terminator.

Now it’s a relief. No effort. Just doing what I do right here, now. No need
to add anything more to my to-do list.

And guess what? The more I relax, the more I let go of trying to run things,
the easier life has become. There are kind people absolutely everywhere,
wanting to connect and help. There are fun ideas popping in constantly,
there is creativity and curiosity.

There is “success”, no more debt, always enough air, food, warmth, love,
happiness, laughter.

I love how Katie says “have you ever REALLY needed more money than
you had?!!” Wow. No I haven’t. I’m alive and well, it seems.

Come look at those terminator thoughts, the ones that aren’t so relaxing
and fun, and find out what a blast it is to be “dependent”. (Did you just
squirm?)

To your knowing that there is enough, and you don’t have to try to control
anything….

Love,
Grace

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Craving Torture Freedom

Craving. Wanting. Desiring. Grabbing. Needing.

I used to have this experience on a daily basis. If I didn’t
have an overwhelming compulsion to eat food, I might have
been in the middle of smoking a cigarette (yes, I used to smoke).
Or I might have been drinking wine.

The feeling was sooooo strong, sooooo dramatic and intense.

My mind was convinced “if I can’t get something to satisfy
my craving, I will die, I will explode, I will go crazy!”

Nevermind that right in the middle of that thought I felt
entirely and completely CRAZY already.

I had a one-track, focused, determined mind. I WANT.

Then, after indulging….I would feel desperate, full of despair, full of
self-hate (why can’t I control this???) and suicidal.

I would get a PLAN. I’ll get a new diet and do yoga, say affirmations,
have a meditation practice, get up at 6 am to exercise, buy
special food….and follow the plan. I’d get CONTROL of the
situation. of myself, of my symptoms, of my cravings.

But I always knew there must be another way…..

There must be a way to live without such intense craving,
without feeling crazy, without wanting to destroy myself.

I began to look at the moment of CRAVING and seeing what was
going on right in that split second. I had amazing guides along the
way; therapists, friends, practitioners….

And I began to question my thinking right in that moment of craving.
What do I actually really, really want? Is it true that I MUST get
something or go crazy? Is it true that I can’t handle this feeling right
now? Is it absolutely true that I am needy, or that I NEED SOMETHING
NOW OR I WILL EXPLODE??!!

I slowed down and found out what was actually true, for me.

That’s what we do in the teleclass group Horrible Food Wonderful Food.
We look at different parts of our thinking about eating, craving, wanting,
diets, plans, fat, thin…..watching all the thoughts that gallop along with curiosity.
What is this moment showing me? What is this feeling?

Even if you’re not sure what you’re thinking….it starts to become
clear. And it’s fun! It’s not torture!

Wow, who would have ever thought that CRAVING would be OK.
Even FUN.

And guess what? I haven’t felt the pull of craving turning into self-hate
around food, smoking or drinking for many years now. Everyone
has their own journey, their own timeline….but for someone who once
wanted to commit suicide just to get out of the cycle of craving, my
thoughts are now my friends and I love all my interactions with food!

You can have this too, I know it.

The next teleclass starts Saturdays (only offered once a year on the
weekend) February 11th, 7:30 – 9:00 am Pacific time. You can do The Work for
breakfast, as Katie likes to say (although I know some of you will be
in other distant time zones so you can do The Work for lunch…or dinner!)

To your freedom,

Grace

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Say It! Say No!

I’ve been known to say that if I only did The Work
on my thoughts about saying “No”….enough lightbulbs
would go off to light up the whole city of Seattle in January!

That takes a LOT of lightbulbs….(have you heard about
how much sun Seattle gets in January? Let’s just say it’s the
opposite of tropical).

I used to think it was rude to say “No”.

If I said “No”, I needed to explain myself and give a really good excuse
for saying “No”—like “my grandmother is sick”.

If I said “No”, I needed to give something in exchange for
saying “No”, to soften the harshness of the mean, nasty word “No”.
Like, “I can’t buy that for you right now, but later we can watch
a movie together” (and I didn’t really want to watch
the movie either).

If I said “No”, I recognized that I was really afraid that some
person in my life, even that stranger who asked me for $10 on the
street, would get angry, resentful, hurt, sad, or frightened.

If that person felt any of those feelings, they would hurt me
or go away. They wouldn’t like me.

Oh the horror of someone not liking me!

It’s pretty funny, but I’m not kidding that it felt really, really, really painful
on the inside. I REALLY wanted people to like me, I wanted
their approval, and I thought that if they did, I would feel happy.

I still get moments like this, but I’ve got The Work now, so I can
question ANYTHING that feels uncomfortable. Like getting asked
for something, and then seeing that my answer is “No”.

That’s what I love about looking deeply at Relationships that are
important in my life. The people I see the most often, interract with
regularly, or who have been in my life the longest, these folks are
often the ones I notice I want to please.

I can’t wait to start again with looking at those other people….
my kids, colleagues, mother, grandfather, partner….and bring
what I think about them to the surface for inquiry.

I love shining the lightbulbs on all these crazy, mean, nasty,
frightening thoughts….and finding out how I really want to
answer when someone says “can you do something for me?”

“No!” is so much fun now. So is “Yes!” Wow, this is freedom!!

Come join a wonderful group to look at just the kind of thinking
that gets you feeling stuck, mad, or pissy…

Much love, fun, and lightbulb flashes,

Grace

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Jiggling Mental Cellulite Dirty Laundry

Let’s take a deeper look at why people love that e-mail
and why I love my cellulite!

I think it’s because I’m taking my worst dirty laundry…
the thing that I absolutely shouldn’t expose…

…that is totally crazy to actually “air out” in the open…

…and instead, letting it rip.

It’s like when we’re just about to do The Work on something
with a partner, and get that sneaky little thought:

“Oh God, I don’t want to do THAT ONE.”

And an image pops up or flashes by of some shame or embarrassment.

But it’s not just an image of a “little” discomfort.

It’s that really DEEP, squirming, body-clenching, sweat-producing
flush of humiliation…even if it’s just for a millisecond and
you can shove it back down really fast.

Where you REALLY want to curl up in a ball and hide from
the world and from yourself (question #3, of course!).

And you actually toy with the idea of NOT doing that thought…
yet want to…yet don’t want to…but do…and we can confuse
ourselves right out of it.

But on the other side, there’s a wisdom within that can sense the
freedom of opening to the “worst” fears and hiding and embarrassment.

It’s just the slightest undercurrent of excitement because it’s so
radically crazy to actually DO IT!

To JUMP!

It’s the thrill of no-hands on the roller coaster’s straight down climax!

Woooosssshhhhh!

So…is it fear or excitement…that peeking between your fingers in the movie?

It’s worth a closer look.

Wishing you the exhilaration of going for some of those
really juicy, horribly squirmy ones.

Like my wonderfully precious, out-in-the-open, hideous cellulite.

Love and jiggles,

Grace