P.S. Eating Peace Workshop is filling this year. I love the people who are attending. Reserve your spot now, it’s one month away only. Click HERE.
Eating Peace- The Imperfect Dance of Eating Struggles
Everyone feels alone from time to time, but the heaviness of the belief running through your mind “I Am All Alone” can be torturous and frightening.
Whenever I check, I find it isn’t true though.
I just can’t ever PROVE that I’m all alone, no matter how much I kick and scream that its true!
I can get all riled up, frustrated, shake my fist at the universe, feel separate, be depressed at my circumstances, or my eating issues or addictive behavior….
….but I still can’t prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am all by myself, completely on my own, in a vacuum of dark outer space with no earth or life in sight.
I mean, there’s stuff all over the place in this room! Have you noticed?
If you’ve felt all alone, join me today to investigate this a little, and notice the imperfection in this dance….
….the imperfection in food, having a body, eating, hunger, fullness, exercise, the people around, health, career, relationship, money, you name it…..
….it’s not perfect. (Kinda like this video, ha ha!)
P.S. Eating Peace Workshop is filling this year. I love the people who are attending. Reserve your spot now, it’s 6 weeks away only. Click HERE.
Eating Peace – Something you can do if you’re overwhelmed
P.S. Eating Peace In Person 3-Day Workshop Is Coming! This is open to everyone wanting freedom from eating issues that feel painful. February 6-8, 2015 $297. For more information about housing, location, and details (updated frequently) or to register click HERE.
Eating Peace Posts – Are You Sure You’re Ugly Or Overweight?
While I’ve been in silent retreat this week, I notice my body is the vehicle for getting into the meditation hall, lying down on the bed at night, making a cup of tea, moving into the kitchen for a meal.
My body takes me here, there, through life.
I used to attack the image of my body with such a vengeance, it was like having a disgusting, foul, cruel enemy with me all the time.
What I didn’t realize was that it was my thinking that was the meanest…..not my body.
And actually, it wasn’t inherently cruel, it was only frightened.
My thinking believed I should look a certain way, present a picture of health or beauty, or else it would mean I was sub-standard somehow, not good enough, horrible, gross.
I never thought through very far why I got that message, where I got that message, what happened that took me from childhood innocence of not caring or noticing the body….
….into imagining it was something to be shunned, something ugly, something constantly needing improvement and criticized.
Why so important? What’s going on?
Such a deep, desperate fear that people will be repulsed and abandon me…or something. I never thought about it. I never questioned my beliefs about beauty.
They were totally bizarre and crazy!
People who perceive themselves as having eating troubles will often think that without the mean, vicious thoughts, they wouldn’t care and they’d eat more, exercise less, care less, and get worse than they already are.
They wouldn’t be motivated to change their eating.
But I have found the opposite to be true. The complete opposite.
If hating your body and your looks doesn’t lead you to change, why not try loving it the way it is instead?
You’ve got nothing to lose, right?
CLICK HERE to watch Byron Katie facilitating The Work with a woman who hates her body and sees it as ugly, flabby and wrong.
Catch yourself being unloving to the image you see in the mirror.
Notice when you are unloving with yourself if you’re stuffing food into your mouth. Be gentle with yourself and accept your cravings. Ask yourself like the kindest grandma you ever met what’s going on, is there anything you need right now?
Practice being madly in love with you, your body, your condition just the way it is.
Kiss you arm right now! Do it!
See what I mean?
Love is inside you, living and breathing and tender and vibrant. It can heal anything. Including a difficult relationship with food.
In fact, it may be the only thing that does.
You are beautiful!
Much Love, Grace
Eating Peace: Stop, Drop and Roll When Your Mind’s On Fire
Even though it seems crazy simple and like seriously? That could work?
Yes.
Your mind is going 924 miles per hour, believing the thought “I have to eat something!” or “I can’t take it anymore!” or “Emergency!”
If you find yourself in the middle of a craving, or starting to binge eat, try this:
Eating Peace – Video #2 – Write It Down
On the first video I sent a few days ago, I identified the three grand areas that most eating pain comes from: lack of power, upset with emptiness, afraid of feeling fear.
Powerless, empty or afraid….or any combination of the three. I used to have all three running at the same time, frequently, in my underlying beliefs about reality.
In this second video, I wanted to give you an idea of how to get clearer in the midst of all these messy, difficult and uncomfortable feelings.
I give you one of the first steps to freedom I ever took.
It was writing down the thoughts going on in my head.
Even if you’re in the middle of a binge, even if you’re full right now when you’re reading this, even if you’re starving hungry but afraid that if you start eating, you’ll take off into another eating frenzy….
….write anyway.
The best thing I ever did on my early journey into recovery from all eating issues was to get a private journal just for me, called a Binge Journal.
If you don’t binge, but you’re wanting to become more aware of your eating, call it your Eating Journal.
You are getting to know yourself through how you reach for food, how you think about food. It’s really how you think about YOU.
Start recording your thoughts every day, several times a day if you can. This is not with an effort to change or force yourself to write anything ingenuine or untrue.
This is only for noticing.
You have to start with examining what is present, with taking in where you are and what you’re working with. Without trying to change it.
Watch this video for some more of my story, and how to get started in identifying what you really believe, so you can bring it out into the light:
How To Stop Your Mind When It Comes To Food? Write It Down
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In the next video, I’ll show you not only how to potentially change your thinking using lazer sharp questions, but also what to do in the middle of a wave of powerless, empty, fearful thoughts…..when it seems like writing just isn’t enough to stop the urge.
“Awareness is a way you keep yourself company. When you are aware you are being compulsive, you are no longer locked in the behavior. You have a choice to stop. That choice–and therefore awareness itself–is freedom.” ~ Geneen Roth
Much love, Grace
Eating Peace: Being Afraid of Feeling Afraid Can Make You Eat
This is what it used to be like….
I’m watching the time tick by. It’s 4:15 pm. Every few minutes I glance up over the cubicles in the office where I work to the distant white clock with black numbers hanging on the wall.
Click, click. Wait. Click, click. Wait.
Maybe I can get out of here early, just slide out at 4:50 pm, and no one will notice.
No. Better stay.
I would hate to have a boss or manager walk by and see my chair empty. They’d think I was irresponsible, they’d be disappointed, they’d wonder what was going on. I need to follow the rules.
I feel bad because I made a mistake last week, and it was discovered by the business manager. A check went out to pay a bill and it was for the wrong amount.
I’m such an idiot!
She was so mean to me the way she confronted me about the error. Her tone was so vicious.
I should get a new job. I could just leave today, and never return. Who cares? If this is what it’s like to work 8-5 then it’s not worth it. I refuse to be a cog in the machine, a rat on a spinning wheel!
But if I quit, I’ll have no rent money, no health insurance. I’ll have to move back into my parent’s house. I’d be a worse failure than I am already. I hate looking for new jobs.
I am not free.
5:00 pm. I gather my things and race out of the building to my car.
Behind the wheel, it feels quieter.
I’ve escaped the building. A few hours this evening of open-ended time. A few hours where I don’t have to worry about my supervisor asking me any questions.
I should go running, I should go to the gym, I should go to that meditation group, I should change the oil in my car, I should read that self-help book before it’s due back at the library, I should see what jobs are open for application, I should re-do my resume, I should look at grad programs, I should enroll in that personal development success program, I should be doing more in my life, I should be a better person, I should, I should, I should….
….eat.
Suddenly I’m picturing food.
I could get any kind of food I want. I could eat anything, absolutely anything. I can pick ANYTHING I WANT!!!
The next few hours were lost in the fog of eating, rushing, numbing.
Bummer.
What I never realized, because I was vibrating at such a highly anxious level, was how my mind got so freaked out with all the unresolved, fearful thoughts….
….it felt like I was about to explode.
What I didn’t let myself even realize were all the thoughts and feelings that were practically ready to burst out of me:
- I can’t do anything right
- having a job is too hard, life it too hard
- I should never make mistakes
- other people are disappointed in me
- I’m terrified
- I must be some kind of messed up person to be so nervous about something so trivial
- the world is a difficult place
Being afraid of being afraid was so deep, I smashed the feeling of fear down and switched channels, ASAP, to getting the fear out of me by eating.
Quick!
Who would I be without the thought that eating would make things better right now?
Sheer beyond-control icy emptiness, sadness, isolation.
It would make things worse, if I didn’t have the thought that food will help. I absolutely have to have food.
Wait.
Right?
What if you stopped for a second, right in that MUST-HAVE-NOW moment. Even if it’s not a full-fledged binge, and you’re more the graze-eater type….
….who would you be if it was SAFE to not eat right now?
Who would you be if it was absolutely completely whole-heartedly safe to feel lonely, bored, isolated, small or worried you did something wrong?
Who would you be if in that moment, the universe was not cruel, or even difficult?
Here’s a little special piece of magic I love to use in this art of healing a compulsion that feels so strong and intense, like eating, when you’re in that eating trance like a zombie:
Say to yourself “lie down!”
If you can actually lie down, then do it.
It would be a little weird if you were in a grocery store, or driving your car…but you can do it on a “magic” level, like a part of you hears this command, this encouragement, and it can follow this wisdom.
Lie down.
Pick yourself up and cradle yourself like you are a little baby. Rock yourself like you’re a toddler who was screaming in pain. Hold all those panicking thoughts gently, like they have something to say, instead of dismissing them all or hating them all.
You don’t actually even have to cry, or scream, all you have to do is lie down as that urge is hooking you….tell the frightened part of you to lie down.
Tell your thoughts to lie down.
If you really can lie down….go do it.
Find the couch, the bed, the floor and lie horizontal, close your eyes, breathe deeply and feel the support of everything holding you up on this planet.
Notice you are not getting wiped of the face of the earth, you are not getting struck by lightening, you are not fired, you are not hated, air is going inside your lungs, your heart is beating, you are safe.
You are safe.
All those terrible things that are possible, and running like crazy in the mind.
Have them all lie down for a second, like you have a gym full of 600 kindergartners and they are playing a game where when you say “lie down” over the loud speaker, they actually do it…because it’s fun.
You ARE free.
That’s the turnaround. You are safe, you are free. You can do nothing, you can just stop. You don’t need to escape.
Relax, relax, relax.
“I can go anywhere without the fear of being discovered, I can join anyone in their painful belief, because I have gone to the depths of my own painful beliefs. I have questioned them and seen them vanish like dreams. I have looked the monster straight in the eyes and seen only a child asking for my love.” ~ Byron Katie
We’ll be practicing LIE DOWN as one of the tools in Eating Peace, a 3 month program of recovery from being at war with food, eating or your body…..which is officially open for registration next week (even though five people are already registered)!
I’m only taking a small group. We start Sunday at 8:30 am Pacific time, October 26th.
This program will offer years of investigating this incredible dynamic, that I thought would kill me, to be honest (my relationship with food) and how I turned it into a relationship of love…a doorway to spirit.
This program is not only doing The Work. We’ll also bring many other simple but incredibly powerful practices into our process….like LIE DOWN.
These are living turnaround practices I’ve discovered along the way. Ways to feel free, feel safe, feel present here and now, whether hungry, craving, scared, anxious, tired, full or whatever the feelings are.
Most importantly….one of our practices will be to notice when we’re afraid of feeling something big. Whether anger, sadness, fear, or stress of any kind.
Turn it all around, all of it.
- I am doing everything right
- having a job is easy, life is easy
- I should always make mistakes
- other people are encouraged in me
- I’m not terrified, only my thinking is terrified
- I must be some kind of amazing person to be so nervous about something so fundamental to life
- the world is a wonderful place
Who would you be without the belief that feeling intensely is dangerous?
My answer?
I found I wasn’t hungry for food anymore. Ever.
Ready to join Eating Peace? Read more details and sign up by clicking HERE.
Much love, Grace
Eating Peace: Do You Believe You’re Not Enough?
People who are hurting around their relationship with food and eating have their unique paths and experiences when it comes to food.
You may have noticed something funny happening with food when you were a kid, like really super young. You noticed craving desserts, hiding stuff under your bed, sneaking things out of the “special food” cupboard where treats were kept by your parents.
Or maybe it began in adolescence when you were a teenager. You don’t really remember ever thinking about food or eating before you were in middle or high school, but you started worrying about looking fat, that your appearance had to do with food, and you were doing it wrong. You wanted to be thinner, different, better.
Sometimes, people have eating aggravations that begin when they are adults, well past their highly active years, when they are what we call “middle age”. They start to get an extra layer of fat around the middle. They never lose pregnancy weight. They’re never the way they were when they played football as a young man. They start to yo-yo with weight.
But one thing I’ve seen that everyone has in common?
It’s not really about the food at all.
There’s something else you don’t like. Something else troubling, sad, upsetting or annoying.
What is it?
Ooooooh. Good question.
Hard to figure out sometimes—because it zooms by so fast. Like a flicker on a movie screen or something scooting by out of the corner of your eye, and you’re not sure what.
Kind of hard to look and see what something is, when it zips by so fast like something hiding in the bushes, in the dark, with no moon or streetlights in sight!
And yet….
….there’s one idea people will tell me often who come from every kind of experience with food. Whether they are concerned with being fifty pounds too heavy, or eating too much junk food, or intense binge-eating, or staying on a perfect food plan….
….one thought often is spoken, and believed.
I’m not enough.
I’m just not enough for life. It’s too much work. I’m not successful. I can’t. I failed. I haven’t made it. I haven’t done it.
Too hard, too lonely, too unloved, too empty, too disappointing, too limited.
I am not ENOUGH.
There is always more to do. I just want to have fun. I can’t relax. I “have to”….clean, take care of kids or other people, work, earn money, meditate, exercise, write.
I haven’t….seen the world, found a great partner, become financially solvent, achieved all I wanted to achieve, gained spiritual enlightenment.
This is a little different than the belief “I am not good enough”.
I’m just not enough. I want to be MORE.
It’s a very deep feeling that there is something missing.
I know you don’t have this thought at every waking hour…but see if you have it when you feel like eating too much, or eating that you’re allergic to, or avoiding exercise you really love, or doing anything with an addictive quality to it.
Like…for example…I have my thing with caffein.
It doesn’t seem to ever be entirely over. I love coffee with real whole cream in it.
I stop for awhile from time to time. Sometimes a long while.
But lately, I’ve been making myself my little french press pot of coffee again, pouring that delicious thick cream into my gorgeous black and red cup and drinking it in every morning.
It’s true I never think about coffee or caffein for the rest of the day…I could make it sound like it’s no big deal…but it makes my skin very dry.
I put up with it. Because I want MORE in the morning when I wake up. More liveliness, more energy, more pleasure, more of a zip zap kick yum.
What if I stopped an inquired? Shall we? Let’s do it!
That moment in the morning….it’s not quite enough.
Is it true?
Oh. Huh. Hmmm.
Can we skip this part?
No skipping. Just look. Nothing terrible will happen. It’s simply noticing what that thing is, the thing believing in Not Enough.
Well, OK. It’s not true.
In the morning there is space, quiet, a big beautiful kitchen with things in it ready to move from dishwasher to cupboard to garbage bin to a wet cloth.
Things these eyes see, ready to move from here to there to celebrate the beauty of the moment.
In this moment of the morning there is evidence of the activity from yesterday, the movement of bodies coming and going, putting things down on counters, picking things up.
In this moment there is a mind thinking about what needs to happen this day…groceries, dandelions pulled, book to finish, writing to complete, yoga class, drawer emptied out and piece of furniture moved, emails to write, emails to answer, tickets to purchase.
The list. It might be long.
Get some coffee before you start. Ha ha!
Who would you be without that thought, that something is missing…or it would be just a wee bit better if “x” was already done, or “y” was here.
Surely, it would be better if I wasn’t alone right now, or that project was finished, or the dandelions were already all pulled from the yard, or I had more money in savings, or I woke up spiritually.
But who would you be without thinking any of these beliefs were true?
“You have to understand that it is your attempt to get special experiences from life that makes you miss the actual experience of life….People tend to burden themselves with so many choices. But, in the end, you can throw it all away and just make one basic, underlying decision: Do you want to be happy, or do you not want to be happy? It’s really that simple” ~ Michael Singer
You mean…if I simply entertained the idea that I am enough, right now? That everything that has ever happened is enough, and that this moment is also enough, and that whatever happens in the future is…enough?
Without having to boost, add, do, think, be any different?
Wow.
Suddenly I remember how wondrous it is to feel the vibrant beauty of any given moment, even a morning moment when a list appears in the mind.
I remember how curious I am about investigating how I feel about life, and this beginning-of-the-day moment…and how lovely to have hot drink, and it doesn’t matter if it is caffeinated or not caffeinated.
No right, no wrong.
Interested and fascinated with the idea of needing nothing extra, of being enough, without putting anything into the mouth, into the body.
No argument with this moment NOT being enough.
You can ask yourself at any moment when you feel a craving, an urge, when you have the thought to get something or add something….
….am I believing there isn’t enough right now?
What if the opposite is as true, or truer?
What if I am enough, this moment is overflowing with plenty, pulsing with life, no matter what’s happening?
See what’s really true.
Don’t make stuff up, trying to be positive.
Write down what is here right now, notice everything. Write what you’re seeing, what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling.
Keep noticing. Nothing else required.
“What is is. I am not running this show. I don’t belong to myself, and you don’t belong to yourself. We are not ours. We are the ‘is’.” ~ Byron Katie
I am enough. I watch this unfold.
I am not interested in arguing with life, as if I know better and there’s a secret “more” somewhere.
What a relief.
I notice it didn’t finish the coffee in the cup. It forgot all about it.
You can stop and watch this moment, too, if you want. You don’t have to. I recommend it though.
It may be the sweetest thing you’ve ever noticed.
In the upcoming Eating Peace program that starts October 26th, we’ll learn about little tools you can use to stop. We’ll learn to slow down this speedy mind-flicker that skips past being here, now.
You may find, your cravings become really interesting instead of horrible. You may find, they begin to disappear. I always found it so helpful to have other people all in this together, gathered for support.
But you don’t have to be in the Eating Peace program….you can do this today, when you feel like overeating or like trying to be perfect.
Much love, Grace
Eating Peace – Hold Still With Anxiety For 60 Seconds
Yesterday, I talked about POWER and how it relates to this life with eating food….and how twisted up it can get.
(To read the post if you missed it, click here).
When I was eating frantically, or running at 6 am for 3 miles in the dark, or hanging my head over the toilet to throw up the huge amount of food I just ate….I felt very, very powerless.
My mind got stuck on my powerlessness over food and eating.
When I calmed down from a binge or purge episode, I would begin to feel just a little better again, I would feel a little rested, not so awful and full of self-condemnation, not quite so anxious.
I might have a day or two, or a week or two, where I stayed on a food plan or a diet, or follow my rules of what is “good” to eat and avoid what was “bad” to eat.
Then I’d feel like I could handle my life, things were going OK, nothing horrendous to report from the battlefield, all quiet on the front.
But the problem was, I was worried that I would lose control again wildly, unimaginably, and I wasn’t even sure why. It seemed to happen over and over again. I would cling to that food plan like it was my saving grace, as long as I stayed on it.
(Nothing wrong with food plans, by the way….they can be very stabilizing and give you the gift of knowing what to do and when to eat if you’re super confused).
What I really wanted was a relaxation that seemed impossible. To never, ever worry about food, eating, diet, my body size, or what I was or wasn’t eating again.
I wanted my whole entire problem to GO AWAY.
I tried everything to eliminate it and make it go away. I just wanted something to “work” and help me stay on solid ground for more than a few days or a few weeks (I once controlled myself on a food plan for over a year…but then that crashed as well).
It really seemed like the way people made changes in the world was to take control of a situation, use willpower, force, determination, persistence, motivation.
Most of the diet books and books on food used these kinds of words and offered tremendous structure and how to stick with something without getting thrown off course.
But none of that can work if you feel frightened of being in the opposite field…of being in the state of having no control, no clear way to change, no guarantees, no answer, no solution.
I found out, the very hard and difficult way, that I had to accept the places I had NO power at all….to find where I did.
Where did I have zero power or control in my life?
I started with a list of where I had no power when it came to food and eating, it seemed….and then expanded to where ELSE I had no power.
My list looked something like this:
I am powerless over these urges to binge, I am powerless over cravings, wanting to stuff my face, hunger and fullness. I am powerless over the exact appearance of my body, powerless over cellulite, the exact shape of my thighs or stomach, the way my face is designed.
I am powerless over other people and how they behave or talk with me or what they are thinking, I am powerless over the weather, I am powerless over my boss, my job, the traffic, how much time I have.
I am powerless over my emotions especially anger, sadness or fear. I’m powerless over what happens every day. I am powerless over my spiritual path. I’m powerless over achieving spiritual enlightenment!
Now, being powerless in itself is not necessarily upsetting…unless it is.
That’s where your key to understanding and clarity can burst open…when you feel yourself being upset at whatever you feel powerless over.
How do you begin?
Write down ONE troubling situation where you feel really powerless, something that scares you, something troubling you really hate in life.
It doesn’t have to be about food and eating.
In fact…if you see what else besides food and eating and your body feel powerless, you might crack into some deeper beliefs that sit inside you and fuel your urges to eat when you aren’t hungry.
Then use inquiry to explore and investigate your experience.
I am powerless over my anxiety.
(You might write a person’s name, what someone said to you, what someone thinks of you or did to you, a place, an incident, something about your body…anything you feel powerless over).
Now ask…why is that upsetting?
Let’s look at being powerless over anxiety. A lot of people who fall into addictive activities feel upset about having anxiety, right?
Why would you want power over your feeling of anxiety?
Because I hate feeling anxious, it feels sickening. I want to feel relaxed at all times, and happy!!
Why do you not want to feel anxious? Are you sure you don’t?
What if instead of being hateful and something to be controlled…anxiety was here to offer you something important?
What’s the reality of anxiety?
It exists!
“Argue with reality, and you lose, but only 100% of the time.” ~ Byron Katie
What happens when you hate anxiety, and you feel anxious?
I lower my eyes and don’t look at people. I try to pretend I’m not anxious when I walk down the halls. I hide under the covers. I soothe myself with food. I don’t say what I feel.
Who would you be if you couldn’t even have that thought that anxiety is bad?
Oh. Strange!
Yes, it’s odd…but what if you didn’t even know that the feeling we’re calling “anxiety” was called “anxiety”? What if you just felt it, coursing through your body, without a label?
Wow. I’d notice high energy, something that wants to run. I’d also notice what it’s like to look around, see the space and air and windows and people or activity around me.
I’d pause and look around, with this feeling running.
If you turn the thought around to the opposite….see what that is like, as you examine and feel “anxiety”….
….I want to feel anxious. This is OK to be feeling this feeling.
How could that be true?
“Quite simply, if you’re feeling anxious, angry, a sense of shame, whatever it is, breathe in and agree to touch or feel it. Breathing out, offer space and care to whatever’s there. If there’s blocking to touching it, emphasize the in-breath and stay embodied.” ~ Tara Brach
Try it and see what happens. See if you can not do anything about it (like reach for food).
See if you can not leave yourself when you’re anxious and try to get rid of it.
Are you OK?
I found, that’s the only place I have any power. To simply be with what is.
“Existence can feel overwhelming sometimes; the waves in life’s ocean can be so intense that it feels like we will be destroyed if we go any further, and the only solution seems to be to shut down and distract ourselves from present experience…But as the ocean itself, as the vast space of consciousness that holds all of these beloved waves, you can never truly be destroyed.” ~ Jeff Foster
We’ll work more with anxiety and not trying to escape it in the Eating Peace program coming up…but you can try it today without waiting.
See what happens if you stop and do nothing for even one minute when you feel anxious, and your mind is full of plans and ideas and thoughts of quick escape.
Wait for 60 seconds before running to eat something. You can eat in 60 seconds, so don’t worry, you’ll still get to eat. But pause and see what the anxiety is saying first….you may be surprised.
You may find the urge to eat….dissolves.
Really.
Much love, Grace
Eating Peace – Power, A Missing Ingredient For Ending Food Battles
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