I do my best with clients to give a disclaimer– you are not expected to not have desires to be thinner or change your body or follow the latest proclaimed food regimen.
You may from time to time, hopefully less and less as you delve into your relationship with food, want to distract yourself from the pain in your system (your mental and emotional body) with donuts (or the numbing food of choice).
The point here is that it happens and it is not bad; it is actually your doorway in. It’s where the healing is and where the magic happens.
You see, when you want to try to do Attuned Eating perfectly, or yearn for weight loss or a binge, your whole being is saying, ” I have something to say and I need you to listen. You have been ignoring your deepest needs and desires. You are distracting yourself from your sad, scared or mad. So I will get your attention now with food and body talk”.
That fullness in your belly or tightness in your chest that we diet or binge to get away from is likely an emotion that with attention, will dissipate, and in it’s place will be the lightness, peace and trust in yourself you really crave.
But since so few of us (I know I miss the gap when my ego story takes over and then feel like I am in autopilot) have had emotional education from our environments growing up, we struggle to cope with the un-control-able: our emotions. We didn’t learn that we can create a gap the moment we get triggered by first just not doing anything. Taking a break before acting on what we are hearing in our heads in the first step.
We have been so used to using food and body as a way to comfort the fear that chaos brings, the sadness of feeling separate and the anger of boundaries crossed, that it can feel like that is what it is about; the food.
So of course, you are going to have moments of as you learn to become an Attuned Eater that might make any critical, impatient or perfectionistic tendencies within rear their heads to say you have messed up. Again, this is a moment to say, “wait, I have been using food for a (long) while, so it will take time to unwind all of this. To know who I am without those distractions from emotions”
For now, please remember, you can’t make mistakes. You can use each desire to see your food or body as a problem as an invitation to what your authentic self, your essense in fact, wants to say.
If you have a ” I feel fat or I gotta eat” thought, learn from this offering. you aren’t failing, you are learning. You are learning who you are as an eater, how your body operates at this moment in time and even more exciting, you are coming home to who you really are.
Big Hugs to You–Be Nice to Yourself!
Tracy
