Have you often wondered why you’re eating, or why you ate the food you ate, or why you ate the way you ate?
If you’ve experienced compulsion with food, you’ve certainly wondered these things many times.
The answer to this question, for me, has really become quite simple.
The reason I’m eating (or doing anything compulsive that I really don’t want to do, or isn’t healthy for me) is because I am AFRAID!
I’ve felt threatened by something.
I’m nervous.
This might have happened many years ago, or very recently.
But my view of a relationship, a task, a request, an activity, a dynamic about life and the world….
….is fearful.
Here’s an amazing question to ask that can really help uncover the truth of what you’re thinking and believing when you feel like doing something (in this case eating).
Eating Agony can turn into Eating Peace….you have what it takes to quit hurting yourself with your thinking, with your eating, and change your life
The first Eating Peace course I taught was in 2010, six years ago.
I can raise my hand and say with all honesty, even though some people benefitted, I was a total beginner and it wasn’t anywhere near as good and clear as the program is now.
Ugh.
It was not actually called Eating Peace back then. It was called “Too Much Not Enough”….because what I had found in my own recovery from horrible eating was that the way I ate had to do with what I was thinking.
What I was thinking was…..there was Too Much of something OR Not Enough of something in my reality, in my world.
Or both. Usually, both.
Too Much of something right in the very moment I was eating, or wanting to eat, when I wasn’t hungry. And Not Enough of something in the very same moment.
It’s like some kind of centered internal balance was GONE. Vaporized. The pendulum was swinging out of whack.
Too Much of what, or Not Enough of WHAT….you might be asking?
A most excellent and brilliant question.
What I believed was Too Much was most often the following:
big feelings, pressure, requests from others, too many demands, advice, danger, threat, boredom, disappointment, rebellion. The biggest feelings I had the worst time dealing with were anger and fear and every variation of either one (anxiety, nerves, rage, irritation).
What I believed was Not Enough in situations where I found myself eating when not hungry were the following:
my ability to stop the cycle, my capacity to love myself, receiving unconditional love from anyone, not enough time, not enough genuine attention, not enough kindness or forgiveness, not enough willingness to let something go. The feelings I felt most unhappy with that there weren’t enough of were love and acceptance.
My whole entire view of reality was it was flawed….and unfortunately so was I. Something was missing (Not Enough) or something was present that shouldn’t be (Too Much).
One of the best ways you can begin to explore your inner world (and get ready to be shocked by how this actually affects your eating–for the better) is to honestly examine your mind.
People believe they need a mate, money, time, kindness, a bigger house, a better job, world peace, no war…..in order to be truly happy.
People believe they must eliminate sadness, poverty, violence, and their own qualities of not-enoughness in order to be truly happy.
What I know is, if you’re waiting for life to be perfectly in balance according to your definition of Just Right….
….you’ll be waiting forever.
When I ate because I was angry, terrified, bored or hurting….I didn’t have the conscious thoughts “here’s what I think is too much for me right now, or not enough of right now”.
I just started eating. The belief sped by under the surface, and I quick started eating before I could see it. My feelings ruled everything, they were wild and frightening and very big.
The only way I’ve found to get started on unraveling this deep level of how I feel about life, and how this affects the way I ate, was to start by identifying the thoughts running in my mind—the stressful, troubling, harsh ones I felt about life.
We start to do this in the Eating Peace Core TeleClass.
And like I said, after six years teaching eating peace and the improvements I’ve made, and experience I’ve had along the way working with others, I am better at working and guiding people now than I was six years ago when I first wanted to share recovery with the world.
I’ve heard the same kinds of thoughts over and over again by working with many people, and I recognize the similarities those of us who eat off-balance have about food, eating and the body.
Sure, there are variations. Some people have never been super heavy in weight because they’ve vomited or over-exercised. Some people have under-eaten most of their lives and felt extreme tension around food. Some people have been chronically overweight or even obese, or yo-yo’d up and and down and been on a thousand diets.
But even if the symptoms and the appearance looks different, they are all sides of the same coin.
The coin that says “something is wrong with reality here”. There’s too much, or not enough. I can’t handle this. I’m too scared. I’m too angry. Life is too hard.
I call the Eating Peace Core TeleClass the “core” teleclass because we dive into the basic first-level beliefs most of us carry who have eaten weirdly.
When I first started out teaching, I wanted so badly for everyone to find relief and freedom, I hardly talked about myself. I didn’t share what I really thought when someone was struggling, even though I had lots of experience. We needed to question reality, after all….this wasn’t about the food! But it was jumping over too big a canyon, and people didn’t get what I was talking about.
Wait, isn’t this about eating?
I learned along the way to move back and forth between questions of life, and questions about eating, and to listen very closely with every group and class for the unique flavors and concerns of every person present. I learned that it was never the same, but it was helpful to present the patterns I saw come forward, and share these with everyone, every time.
So, that’s what we do in this Eating Peace Core Teleclass. I’m sharing with you what I found very helpful to begin with on my road to recovery, and how to practice it in an ongoing way.
For the first two weeks (Module One) we look at our relationship to the food/eating/diet plan. Everyone shares theirs with me. We dialogue back and forth about it. You will make a commitment to explore why you eat too much when you do, or why you eat too little when you do. What takes you out of a peaceful, balanced, normal way of eating?
Weeks 3 and 4 (Module Two) we identify our judgments about bodies. This is fascinating, to write what we think about someone’s body who is “overweight” and what we think about “perfect” bodies. Where did you learn how to see this way? Finding out brings huge ah-ha’s and insight for many.
During weeks 5 and 6 (Module Three) we remember moments of eating with our family of origin. What was it like when we were young, with mom and dad, or other huge influencers in our lives? What did these people say, or model, about eating or reasons to eat?
Finally the last two weeks (Module Four) we get to really sink into what we think there’s too much of in our lives, and not enough of in our lives. What’s missing, what’s overwhelming? We get to make a list and see what our thought-system holds.
Only by identifying clearly all our beliefs can we take them to inquiry and actually QUESTION them. When we question our thinking, we can change our vision, and change our eating, and change our lives.
Everyone who takes Eating Peace Core Teleclass will get weekly exercises and then we’ll go through the actual inquiry process on our live phone calls using The Work of Byron Katie. You’ll know how to begin working with your eating in your daily life, and begin the journey of the road home to eating peace.
Peace means never eating so much you hurt yourself, and never eating so little you hurt yourself.
This Eating Peace Core Teleclass will be the last until the fall. We meet Mondays 5:30 – 7:00 pm Pacific Time for 8 weeks beginning tomorrow, May 9th. Room for 2 more people. Please write to me if you really want to enroll, but you can’t afford the fee ($395). It’s my privilege to help everyone who suffers from eating battles, food fears, body hatred and criticism, to question their beliefs and change their eating.
This course is also excellent for those wanting this support, but not ready to take the full Eating Peace Online TeleProgram offered for the past two winters. This long course, covering more than 3 months together from November through February, is a very comprehensive practice combining the best practices and spiritual principles of a mindful, feeling-full, peaceful life with food. It’s a program of transformation and everyone who joins Eating Peace Online gets access to life, so no matter where you are in your journey….you can take the time you need to come home.
In the Eating Peace Core Teleclass, we explore how the mind takes over our experience of eating and our relationship to food becomes eating war, not eating peace.
But when you travel and leave home or are faced with something different and unusual with eating, anxiety and war-like thoughts might become even MORE difficult.
When you leave home, or change something familiar….even going out to eat at a new restaurant or attending a meal at someone’s home….
….many people with eating concerns think “Oh no, what will they serve? What will I eat? Will it be OK? I might overeat! I might not get enough! I’ll probably gain weight!” and on and ond with fearful anxious thoughts.
First, take a deep breath.
(What I always love to call the “first course” of any meal….a deep breath).
Then, do this (watch the video). Nothing else required.
If you’re ready to join the next Eating Peace Core teleclass, the next one is 8 weeks (instead of 6) and we’ll meet on Mondays 5:30-7:00 pm Pacific time starting May 9th. (Yes, you can listen to the recordings if you can’t make it live….and I will also offer this course on a morning hour in the future as well Pacific Time if this works better with your schedule).
Module One: (weeks one and two) Underlying Beliefs that fuel eating off-balance and the Food Plan. Should you follow a food plan, or not? I’ll share when it’s a good idea, and when not. I’ll also share the most common underlying beliefs I’ve found that create eating havoc. You’ll send me your peaceful food plan and I’ll share mine with you.
Module Two: (weeks three and four) Judging Bodies. What are your thoughts about how you should look, or what those other people look like? What do you think of other perfect bodies? We’ll explore why we
Module Three: (weeks five and six) Who Taught You? Here we look at what we innocently learned from those around us, whether family of origin or society or both. We learn to disconnect our actions from what we thought was “truth” about eating.
Module Four: (weeks seven and eight) Peace Beyond Beliefs. We look even deeper at the underlying beliefs, including what we’re thinking there’s Not Enough or Too Much of in our lives that isn’t food.
If you’d like to come along on this journey, the core eating peace teleclass is a wonderful way to look closely at your relationship with food and what thoughts and feelings take you away from the natural peace within.
All you need to join the course is a phone, or skype, or any way to dial the number or connect to the event via computer. The course is audio only (not video). We will have only a small handful of people so I can give you personal attention on this journey.
Teaching Eating Peace Retreat recently in California was magnificent.
I always love who appears to share the freedom of slowing down, stopping, holding still on a moment and identifying the thoughts that come alive in the presence of food.
Memories from the past, the people who raised us, the experience of being with food and eating it can all be present in this moment now, when we’re eating.
Together, we went back and looked at situations and our history, and at what we projected into the future that might happen that seemed scary.
If you’re wondering how to do this….today I’m sharing my January Eating Peace talk from the Institute for The Work convention (Byron Katie and certified facilitators in the audience). I didn’t know it would be filmed when I was there, but so honored it was and so happy to share it with you now.
This is the way to begin to understand and end your experience of eating off-balance.
Knowing you can discover peace with everything, including food and your body.
In the latest Eating Peace notes and videos, I’ve been suggesting you talk to the parts of yourself that want to overeat, graze eat, obsess about being perfect with food, or see your body as ugly.
Those voices are rough, I know.
They feel rude, nasty, frightening and like the kind of guests you’d call the police on.
But I got quite a few questions about HOW to talk to them. I mean….they’re pretty freaky, right?
With eating, people can get particularly mean to themselves.
Ugh.
“You’ll never amount to anything. Look at you, stuffing your face again. Have you no pride, or willpower? You’ll never be thin. You’ll never get this handled. You’ll never get past this. What’s wrong with you? You ate that….again?!”
When this kind of aggression is directed towards yourself on the inside, it doesn’t exactly feel easy to do positive affirmations, look on the bright side, or turn your mean thoughts off (as if you had any great personal control over them).
Step One, (you may have noticed from other posts I’ve written), is to allow that voice to stay in the room.
Let it be there. Don’t fight it. You’ll never win!
Step Two, ask the voice a few very powerful, very pointed questions.
Watch here to see how I’ve worked with The Voice. If you do these exercises, let me know how it goes!
HOW to talk to the crazy voice that wants to eat (when you are not hungry)
“Ending addictions has nothing to do with getting rid of cravings. It’s about seeing cravings for what they are and deeply allowing the to be there. Yes, in the end, this freedom is even there in not getting what you want. This realization challenges all conventional wisdom, goes against much of our conditioning, and isn’t taught in any positive-thinking or self-help books….When you discover who you really are, you’re free whether you get what you want or not.” ~ Jeff Foster in The Deepest Acceptance
On April 15-17 I’ll be traveling to Newark, California to offer my three day Eating Peace Retreat. People who take this program report finding deep awareness and freedom from compulsion through truly communicating with themselves, including their inner eater. I’m here to help you do that. Join me (we’re in a private home, still a few spaces left). Click HERE to read more, and register.
“I am the source of my pain, but only all of it. One hundred percent.” ~ Byron Katie
Sometimes, when people read a statement like this out of context, they say things to themselves like……
……”That’s so true. I am my worst enemy. What a schmuck I am, causing myself such turmoil. I wish I was different. It’s hopeless. My life sucks.”
But you know, of course, it’s not the intention that you feel bad about yourself and take this personally.
Often, when we feel frightened or nervous about conditions of life, we automatically get defensive, or attack something….anything.
This moment, this condition, this situation is WRONG!
And so am I!
But the more I work with people in mindful inquiry (and feeling deeply) the more I see that every time there’s a compulsive movement towards something, like binge-eating for example, or obsessive thinking, or other addictive behaviors…..
…..the thing we miss is what was so dang scary that eating felt like the better choice.
Could it be that the self-hatred or judgmental stream of thoughts or compulsive behavior actually covers up something more frightening, that we’d rather not think about at all?
What I found in my own internal excavation was….yes.
Big time.
I had a huge amount of fear, anxiety, resentments and unacknowledged grief about things that had happened in my life.
And I had never spoken of them to anyone, and certainly hadn’t done The Work on them.
No wonder I wanted to eat like a maniac sometimes (or starve myself, or smoke, or move to another town, or start making plans for something in a non-peaceful way, or spend time thinking about how to improve myself).
The other day, I read a quote that most humans would love to take the easy, fast solution to a problem that’s highly unlikely to work, than a slow, hard solution to a problem that’s guaranteed to work.
Isn’t that crazy?
We really hate the idea that something might take awhile, that something might be a practice over time.
Believe me, I tried all the fast solutions. I still lean that way at times, depending on the moment, before I realize “oh, right, there is no fast miraculous solution….time to slow down and take it one step at a time.”
If you’re wondering where to look more closely to find out what’s running below the surface, the underlying thoughts and fears you’d rather not see….
….and yet, you really DO want to see them in the end….
….then watch here today for one exercise that may help. It’s something a therapist did with me many years ago. It will slow you way down, and you may make some discoveries about what’s driving you to eat, be stuck, do that compulsive thing, avoid change.
An exercise to help you uncover underlying stressful beliefs that may be driving you to compulsive thinking or behavior
Much love, Grace
P.S. Not everyone has an eating issue, but if you do….and you want to take a closer look in this sometimes scary but profoundly life-changing way at what’s going on….come join Eating Peace Retreat. It’s in San Francisco area next month. We’ll be in a private home in Newark, and it will be wonderful, and safe.
To celebrate leap year, I’m offering an early-bird special fee for the upcoming Spring Retreat in The Work in Seattle on May 13-15 (including all day Friday starting at 9:30 am). If you register by next Monday Leap Day February 29th, it’s $325 (you save $70). Click HERE to register.
Write me separately to reserve a room in the lodge (two left) for only $50 per night.
And, if you’d like to get a sense of this work of self-inquiry and un-raveling stressful thinking in your life, especially the way stress leads to compulsive behavior like eating, then onight I’m opening up my home for a new meetup called Eating Peace (which is a drop-in group for only $10 donation).
We’ll take a look at beliefs that drive compulsive reaching for food (or anything, really) and use self-inquiry to explore what’s going on in that stressful moment.
I had the thought….how can this topic be covered in two hours?
With people who have a full range of experiences, all of which may be completely different?
It’s difficult to hold still, and see what’s happening, when you’re used to popping something in your mouth when you feel bored, confused, angry, nervous, you’re around other people, or you feel uncomfortable in some way and the call of eating (or other behavior) is so strong.
But we’ll dive in, identify some of what we’re thinking, and investigate.
Often the very first place we start, when we’re looking at behavior we don’t like….
….is pretty vicious:
there is something wrong with me
I should be completely different (thin, calm, peaceful, sober)
the thing I repeatedly want will make me feel better
We can take anything through inquiry, exploring what’s actually true, questioning the line of thinking.
Is it true that reaching for that thing will make you feel better?
Is it true you can’t tolerate feeling bad right now (before you take a bite, or do the thing)?
Are you sure there’s something wrong with you?
Are you really not able to stop?
For me….I keep finding the answer to be “no”.
How do you react when you believe any of these thoughts?
Ugh.
Drowning in the movement of compulsion. Trying hard to fix myself. Making plans to change, and this might even include “get enlightened”.
Anything but be here now, in all my imperfections and troubles.
So here’s the profound question that can sometimes be pondered for days:
Who would you be without your story?
Who would you be if there was nothing wrong with you, you shouldn’t be any different than you are? Without thinking you can’t stop doing what you’re doing, or that the thing you reach for makes you feel better?
Wow.
It seems like reading books and spiritual teachings makes me feel better. It seems like drinking coffee makes me feel better. It seems like doing “x” makes me feel better.
But what if you didn’t have that thought?
I notice, anything I’ve ever thought that’s outside of myself that makes me feel better….only does for a temporary amount of time.
It never really supplies a wonderful, fabulous feeling, or a peaceful feeling. Not completely, not permanently, not with full satisfaction.
So what to do?
Notice what you don’t like, right now, that’s happening. Notice what you don’t like feeling. Notice what frightens you, makes you sad.
Take these thoughts (and feelings) as a practice, through self-inquiry.
It’s not easy.
I myself would sometimes like a temporary, short, easy activity to end my boredom, or anxiety, or sadness.
It never does in the long run.
If you’re not sure where to begin, start to write in your journal what you’re upset about in your current condition, situation, life circumstance. Write about what you find disturbing.
Then….you can do The Work!
Join me if you’d like support at a retreat or meetup. There’s nothing like gathering together with others to give you the freedom to inquire, notice, slow down, feel the help available to you, personally.
I couldn’t have started out all alone….and being with others never stopped!
When I can’t seem to do it myself, the presence of others brings it all home, once again.
One week of special early bird sign-up for spring retreat in northeast Seattle. We’ll have an awesome time.
