Tag: binge eating

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the voice

I have a really close friend I met in 2005 at the Byron Katie School for The Work.

We’ve talked almost daily ever since.

Not exactly like the way you might think.

What we do is send voice messages to each other.

This leaves us room to listen when we can, even if it’s the next day or a few days go by, and respond when ready.

This just happened organically. We didn’t try to make it happen.

Something about it unfolded in this smooth way that works so beautifully.

However, it does make for a very interesting relationship….

….kind-of A.I.-ish before its time: we don’t hang out with each other physically.

We live thousands of miles apart.

(She did come to my wedding in 2012).

The other day, we were exchanging messages about The Voice.

No, not a show or a band.

The mean voice.

The one that shows up in your head that’s very, very harsh and can be downright violent.

Some psychologists label it “intrusive thought”.

My friend had noticed it after she spoke publicly.

“You shouldn’t have said that, you shouldn’t have opened your mouth, you should never speak in situations where many people are giving you attention, you need to improve yourself, there’s something broken about your brain.”

Long ago, I heard Byron Katie say something that caused my ears to perk up:

“Victims are vicious”.

No one wants be a “victim”.

And yet, what I had to admit was….when hearing that voice, it was acting like a perpetrator, very brutal and attacking.

Which left some other part of me a victim.

I used to have acutely around one topic in particular: my behaviors with food (although it would expand in a flash to just about any other behavior, it could find fault with anything).

When I ate a lot, or binge-ate, or grazed from one end of town to the other, or looked in the mirror, or thought about what I should or shouldn’t be eating, or had urges for junk food, I had a running voice that also said “you are lower than dirt, something’s really wrong with you, you need to get it together.”

It was bitter, focused, undiscerning.

So one of the very first things any of us can do, who experience an addictive/repetitive behavioral process of any kind, is to relax and recognize the presence of this aspect of living with mind.

What if it does NOT mean there’s something broken about your brain, just because it exists?

Yesterday, I heard the Voice talking in my own head about this recent webinar that had no slides, no script and no selling.

There is a desire within me to support people who suffer like I suffered and to help them move from that entrenched position. Or be a part of the journey that helps them get unstuck.

Can you absolutely know that this is true that you need to change, snap out of it, get over it, stop being who you are?

I can’t know it’s true.

How do you react when you believe you’ve got to change?

Now…who would you be WITHOUT that thought?

WHAT???!!!

But.

I’ve been trying to fix, adjust, improve or change myself when it comes to eating, feeling, thinking, acting for “x” years (long time)!

How could I NOT want change?

Try it on for a moment here now. Just right now. Relax without having a single drop of a future, or need to change.

Rest a moment.

Notice how connected you are to everything in your environment, sharing the air, the furniture, the space, the people (if there are any). Sharing your life with this thing called “food”, having a brain that thinks and a body that moves.

What would it really be like if you did not go to war with yourself to improve?

What if you did NOT have a broken brain?

What if that wasn’t even possible?

It can be exciting. Peacefully thrilling. Restful. Simple. Open. Mysterious.

It doesn’t mean there isn’t a profound curiosity at the way things move in this life, in the mind and the body.

Turning this belief around: I do not have to change. My thinking has to change–especially about the brain. Change has to come to “me”.

Could any of these turnarounds be just as true, or truer?

Yes. I can find how I am still alive, studying life and the world and myself in it and I’m not “done” even if some part of me believes I haven’t changed, or that I need to. I can notice life has its own timing. That even though I’ve eaten in crazy ways, I’ve also experienced joy, gratitude, peace and happiness here on earth.

Yes. I’m busy questioning my thinking. I’m learning by turning things around. I’m learning that what I’ve assumed to be true….often isn’t. Maybe always isn’t.

Yes. I can hold still and be open to transformation meeting me, not think of myself as needing to chase after it. I can make friends with life, my environment, my mind, my body, with food.

Love is here in the present. Here I am with all my imperfection, a human being, being lived.

“Seeking is arguing with what is.” ~ Salvadore Poe

Who would you be without your violent story, especially when it comes to eating, food, your feelings, your body?

Can you accept everything, including yourself, as it is for just for this moment, now?

Eating Peace Experience starts next week on Sunday, visit this page to learn more HERE. We have a lovely group. We will be doing a deep dive into exploring the voices that contribute to off-balance eating, thoughts of food, and emotions.

“When your heart is cheerful and at peace, it doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do, whether you live or die. You can talk or stay silent, and it’s all the same. Some people think that silence is more spiritual than speech, that meditation or prayer brings you closer to God than watching television or taking out the garbage. That’s the story of separation…..You can’t let go of a stressful thoughts, because you didn’t create it in the first place. A thought just appears. You’re not doing it. You can’t let go of what you have no control over. Once you’ve questioned the thought, you don’t let go of it, it lets go of you. It no longer means what you thought it meant. The world changes, because the mind that projected it has changed. Your whole life changes, and you don’t even care, because you realize that you already have everything you need.” ~ Byron Katie

Much love,

Grace

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Who would you be without your story that deprivation = success?

Deprivation.

It’s something people feel so angry about when they’re dieting, or trying not to eat certain foods.

When we feel deprived in a diet, everything gets lazer-focused on this food we “can’t” have.

If you notice you feel upset about NOT GETTING something you want….

….you might get stuck in a really difficult pattern of grabbing what you want, then avoiding what you want, then condemning yourself for what you want.

You get stuck in using violence and punishment or scarcity to control your mind, eating, and your future.

If you say “no” to something, you’ll really, really be deprived.

Let’s do The Work.

is that true that if you say “no” and you feel and attend only to your body’s signals, you’ll be deprived?

Yes! I want to taste, to enjoy, to consume! I don’t care what my body feels like!

Can you absolutely know it’s true you’ll feel deprived if you say no to eating something, drinking something, doing something?

Hmmmm. No.

How do you react when you believe you’ll experience physical or emotional pain when you say “no”?

Today I share this inquiry in the eating peace video.

Who would you be without this story of suffering?

Notice this moment, now. Today.

Happy New Moment.

What is it like, without considering the future? (Or, the past)?

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Eating Peace: Are you more afraid of hunger than you realize?

Have you ever really considered how you feel about hunger?

Noticing the conflict within of fighting hunger, being torn about it, having thoughts and beliefs about it, can offer incredible insights.

Maybe you feel determined to overcome your hunger, or conquer or override your hunger urges. This is usually a diet mentality approach. When I was on a diet, I was furiously controlling my hunger, or any signs of hunger. Doing anything I could to take up arms against hunger and learn tricks to manage hunger without giving into it….eating….took huge amounts of energy.

When I supposedly “won” over hunger, I felt good. I felt like I WAS good. I was being good.

When talking about hunger and eating, other people I knew who were interested in losing weight or not responding to their own hunger would call eating outside of the diet plan “cheating”. Like we’re playing some kind of strange game called Control Yourself Forever when it comes to food.

I felt like hunger was a “problem”.

For me, this meant also that submitting to hunger was a problem. Giving in to the urge to eat was like failing.

Others might feel like giving in to hunger is the only option, they’ll say “screw it!” and eat rebelliously. (I did this one, too).

But what if you really looked at what you’re believing and thinking about hunger that brings fear, sorrow, guilt, or violence into your mind?

I found, when I wrote down how and what I felt about hunger, very very honestly, I understood why I was so upset about it.

When you write it down, you can take what you write to inquiry using The Work of Byron Katie: the four questions and turnarounds that offer such wonderful insight into your exploration of your inner world.

Today I’m sharing thoughts about being hungry, and how to question them. If you do this, you may find a lightness about the flow of eating you never imagined possible.

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Eating Peace: which comes first…hating yourself, or eating?

Many years ago, my eating wars grew so heavy and awful, I dropped out of college.

I actually shifted gears entirely, and began to do what was critical for my own well-being. Researching, attempting to understand, learning how to be honest and intimate with other people and with myself (it took awhile of practice), and questioning my beliefs

One of the most powerful beliefs I had?

I’m a terrible person, worthy of hatred.

I know that sounds strong, but it was that intense. I was horribly self-critical. I could do nothing right, especially when it came to food, eating, exercising and having a worthy body.

Later, I realized, the whole cycle of self-hatred and eating were intimately woven together.

I ate, so I would hate myself, so I would eat to soothe or have a small crumb of relief or pleasure, which would turn into more and more, so I would hate myself and starve and punish myself for the binge.

Nothing ever seemed peaceful or balanced when it came to eating.

Being in a hotel room reminded me of a night with myself long ago, in a hotel room, the night I dropped out of college.

Here’s what it was like for me, along with my biggest suggestion (stop hating yourself and start wondering what’s going on in a more kind, loving way):

M

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Eating Peace: When you feel deep despair about this eating thing….consider this

Sometimes, we just feel like “death-warmed-over” as one of my grandmother’s used to say about depression, deep despair, discouragement.

Thoughts appear like: I’ve been at this sooooo long, this will never change, there is no solution, I can’t stop overeating, I’ll never be thin.

The sense is that peace is impossible, in this arena. Non-existent.

If you’ve had this kind of disappointment when it comes to finding eating peace, or body peace….or really, thinking peace….then consider this today:

All is not lost.

You are alive, you are still aware, conscious, and able.

Beneath, or behind, or greater than your stressful, emotional, disturbing thoughts about food, eating, weight or appearance….

….there is a realm beyond thought.

Are you sure peace is not possible, today, for you? Are you sure you can’t stop eating, or that you already don’t? Are you sure something’s missing that’s not here and should be? Are you sure peace is someplace in another time, a future, the past…but not here?

Who would you be without this story?

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Eating Peace: You need a plan…but are you sure you need THAT kind of plan?

It can feel like such a relief to know what to expect.

Perhaps you’re about to visit a new country, and you’ve read tons of books and talked to many people about how to navigate and have the best time when you’re there.

Planning can be fun.

But are you planning, organizing, analyzing, gathering data, or mapping things out so you can Not Be Scared?

I used to notice that going on a diet (the plan to do it, at least) would provide some relief for sure. I’ll get this thing under control. I’ll handle, or manage, this situation and no longer be whacko when it comes to food.

This can happen with far more than only food and eating issues.

I’ll get this particular thing together and squared away, and I’ll be OK. I don’t care if I suffer, or if it hurts. I’ll start x and stop y.

But what if you could relax with not knowing what’s next, or what will happen tomorrow, or how this whole thing unfolds? What if you could come back to right now, today, and see if what you’re looking for….or even relief, peace, quiet, gentleness, and love are all here in this moment.

Without having to know anything about what’s going on tomorrow.

Here I share what it’s like to inquire into the stressful thought “I need to know….”

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Eating Peace: Will your eating cause disease or early death? Are you sure?

Lack of eating peace comes along with more places than trying to be thin, have you noticed?

Sometimes, people experience great stress with eating that has nothing to do with thinness….but instead contains anxiety about perfect health, or longevity, or cancer prevention.

It’s no way to live, with such stress about certain foods, and the dictate to eat broccoli constantly, so you’re safe, and healthy!

(Although I do love broccoli, but let’s not get carried away).

Today, I offer you an interesting exercise that you might think is taking things a little too far: looking at the worst that could happen.

What is it (in your opinion)?

What are you most afraid of?

What pictures come to mind when you believe you need to prevent that future dreadful image of The Worst?

Watch here, and let me know how it goes to see who you’d be without your stressful story of eating and health.

By the way, I mention a Judge Your Neighbor worksheet in this video. You can download one for yourself right HERE.

Much love, Grace

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Eating Peace: Ending Crazy with eating can happen any moment, even now…and the timing is not really up to you

Sometimes, when you want it to be another way….not the way it is….the sense of discouragement is awful.

I’ll never get there.

I can’t do this.

Nothing ever works.

I’ll be an overeater or a binge-eater forever.

I’ll never be a thin person.

I give up.

But can you really know that it’s true that you aren’t on a path to peace? To liberation?

You’re here, reading this, aren’t you?

Who would you be without the story that this learning process, or un-learning process, is taking too long? Who would you be without your stressful beliefs about yourself, and what a compulsive person you are, or how difficult your mind or your thoughts are to deal with?

Who would you be, right here in this moment, without the belief this situation is never going to be ideal, or over?

Recently an eating peace inquirer was saying she feels she’s made progress with losing her diet mentality (on the wagon, off the wagon type thinking), but wants to lose more weight.

As she continues investigating her thoughts, and even looking very specifically at what she’s eating and what she might tone down or reduce, without deprivation, I know she’ll find new awareness.

At one point in my journey of healing, I remember thinking I would never ever be over this horrible binge-eating problem. But then, as I connected with mentors, went into group therapy, learned to talk with people very honestly, risked being myself very naturally (the best I could at the time) and committed deeply to a life of peace and freedom….

….I noticed I returned again, even after a binge or turmoiled eating, to feeling open to studying what happened, and a willingness to stop being so terrified of change.

I’d also find calm again. I was never at the peak of horrible stuffing in of food all day, every day. Good to notice.

One day, I realized it had been awhile since my last restriction/self-starvation day and my last binge-eating day. The gaps got bigger between episodes, between the stress or isolation.

They got bigger, and wider, and bigger and wider and then one day, I knew I could promise to myself at the deepest level “I will never binge again” and know it was true. Even if I had the urge, or felt fear, I just knew I wouldn’t.

It was nothing like all the previous promises to stay on the diet or control myself or use willpower to force any cravings underground.

This was more like a knowing, a commitment, a depth of certainty that I didn’t have to follow any craving, or act on it, or be so threatened by anything in my life that the only option was to eat.

Watch today as I speak about this idea of being “done” with the obsession, and share a poem I remembered from just about the time of my very last binge (it was written in 1988).

Seattle workshop: Eating Peace rare 3 hour mini-retreat on How to do The Work of Byron Katie on eating, weight, body image and cravings at East West Books in Seattle, March 18th 3-6 pm only $25. Please pre-register here.

 

Much love,

Grace

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Eating Peace: Shame Keeps You Stuck…..And Hungry

We all know shame doesn’t feel so good.

In fact, it feels so sickening sometimes, we’d rather die, or dissolve into the floor, or go live on another planet.

The thing is, when you focus on your shameful self, your dreadful act, the horrible way you eat….

….you miss some exceptionally important information about why, and how, this strange way you ate came to happen.

What was going on before you had the thought “I know, I think I’ll go eat something, that’s it!”

How did that process occur? Why do you think it occurred? (And no, the answer is not “because I’m an idiot” or “because I can’t do it right”).

Condemning yourself and beating yourself to a pulp is what leads people often to a violent approach to solving their eating problems. Training regiment, torturous exercise, alarm at 6 am to hit the gym, eating exact amounts of food, weighed and measured and documented and counted with many foods left off the menu, weighing yourself with a scale, measuring body parts with measuring tape.

I repeat often there’s nothing wrong with a food and diet and exercise plan. But they rarely work long-term. They rarely offer permanent peace and satisfaction. They fix the symptom without addressing the underlying cravings and hungers that have nothing to do with food.

At least that’s what happened for me. Thank goodness I couldn’t ever stay on a food plan or diet for longer than a few hours. Something inside of me was determined to get to the bottom of the issue, to see myself and know myself from the inside out, and to end the struggle.

Anyone, including you, can do this.

You don’t need to take vows and oaths and make promises never to eat that way again (or do any other troubling activity you get pulled towards to cope with your thoughts and feelings).

When you identify what you’re thinking and feeling, without shame and self-hatred, and inquire with kindness and self-compassion….

….eating off-balance is no longer necessary.

If you notice shame and meanness arise towards yourself because of the way you’ve eaten….stop. Ask what else is going on, besides failure to eat peacefully?

Get to know the wonder of YOU. It’s not as bad as you think!

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Eating Peace: Who would you be without the story of fat?

Eating Peace Process has just begun. If you want to join, you still can. You’d watch the first presentation (one-hour) and begin the powerful written exercises. You’d start the practices that provide structure, like a diet and exercise program but for the MIND (not for the usual yada yada eat this, weigh that). The first practice is to sit in silence 5 minutes day. Then, those who can will jump on the first Thursday inquiry call which is tomorrow 1/19 at 8:30 am Pacific Time.

The cornerstone of the program is….self-inquiry. We do The Work of Byron Katie, questioning painful beliefs about eating, food, your body, all bodies….and following the breadcrumbs (literally) to OTHER stressful beliefs we have about life, thinking, feelings, satisfaction, fulfillment, power, and control.

Such an adventure. Read about it here and join soon, before we’re too far underway for you to catch up.

And even if you never, ever join a formal group program like Eating Peace Process….you can use you own imagination to do the following exercise, which is part of The Work.

It goes like this.

Imagine….who would you be, right in any situation where you’ve typically had trouble with food and eating, with friends, alone, at home, at work, at a restaurant…

….Who would you be without your beliefs about being fat? Without your negative or stressful beliefs about eating? Without your thoughts about what you can’t do in your life? Without your fearful thoughts about why you need to be careful?

Who would you be if you loved every feeling you had, and didn’t fight your thoughts, but allowed everything, including you, to be as it is?

The key is to only wonder who you’d be without ONE thought at a time, otherwise it’s too much to hold in the mind all together, at least I find.

What would you be like, in the presence of food, if you let yourself be honest, powerful, clear?

You can use your imagination and find it, feel it. See what happens.

Much love, Grace