Emotional Eating - Overeating Help - Compulsive Eating Disorders: November 2005

So many of the people I work with hate their bodies. They hate their thighs, their stomachs, their noses, or their love handles. They hate themselves for overeating and for not exercising. They berate themselves when they can't stay on a diet and criticize themselves when their bodies don't feel good.

What do you think this self-rejection does to your life? Have you ever considered doing something new? Opening to a different perception? What might that do to your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual self...

Many of my clients are tortured souls when they start with me. When I teach them to use love rather than self-hate, they are convinced I must be insane. How could I possibly think they are going to stop overeating if they are loving with themselves? How will they ever get off the couch by being kind? They swear that self-rejection is the only thing keeping them from fully self-destroying.

So I make them do an experiment. For a week, only a week, try eating, exercising, making mistakes, looking at your body, trying on clothes, with love. For a week, change your perception and open up to a different world. You have nothing to lose if I am wrong. I mean, I can clearly see that your harsh criticism has really helped you heal...

Here are the rules:

When you eat, imagine your digestive system is the site of the best party you've ever been to. When food comes in, welcome in, invite it to the fiesta, make it feel welcome, loved. As it gets digested, allow your system to be the most loving environment you've ever been in. A place where you would just love to hang out in. Let food bathe in the love.
When you look at yourself in the mirror, do not let your "outside" eyes look. Use your "inside" eyes. The ones that know that every second of every day, your body is performing thousands of miraculous functions for you. The ones that know that your heart beats 100,000 a day, that your blood goes on a 60,000 mile journey, and that your body will defend you against most attackers. Look inside your moving bones and muscles and be awed by what they can do. Feel your spine move and feel gratitude for its flexibility. Feel the warmth of the floor, touch a piece of clothing and be stunned by how your senses work.
When you exercise, don't do it to "lose" anything. Do it as a present to your body, as a gift to your heart, muscles, blood, bones, skin, and so on. With every move you make, you allow your body to be energized, to let go of old toxins, to work better for you. Exercise to give your body the care it needs.
When you overeat, instead of berating yourself, ask your body to forgive your mistake and TRUST it that it will take care of it. Give it all the love you can, because our bodies work best with our love. Let your stomach relax, your intestines open, the food flow.
When you sleep, dedicate your sleep to your body. Thank it for the work it did for you today and tell it lovingly that you are now giving it the rest you need.

When we change our perceptions from looking at everything we are doing wrong to everything that is loving and right with our world, everything changes. Let me know what happened to you!

PermaLink posted by Isabelle @ 9:10 PM

I swore I would never be like my mother. Actually, I have hardly spoken to her the last few days so furious am I that she does not listen to me, constantly invades me, and only thinks of herself. I try to be so clear about my needs to her, about my desire to be heard, to be given space. I feel sad and frustrated, not wanting a relationship with someone who is so unable to take anyone else into account.
Tonight, I learned a tough lesson. I do the exact same thing onto my body that my mother does to me. Boy do I ever not want to see this!...

My body tells me what it needs and I don't listen
My body tells me when it's had enough and I just keep putting more and more in, invading it violently
My body uses all kind of language, subtle and not so subtle, to express its displeasure to me and I just ignore it
My body is my object, to be used for my purposes only. I do what I do when I want to do it, regardless of the consequences onto my body.

When I look around, to my family, friends, or clients, I often find that this is not so unsual. People often act onto their bodies the very things they judge as outrageous in others. I know of one client who is desperate because her mother abandoned her, but yet keeps abandoning her body when her body tells her it needs rest, or food, or exercise. I know of another client who suffers daily from having being rejected by her father, yet cannot see how her every day criticism and rejection of her body compares quite nicely.

Many of us are quite proud that we have managed to be different from our caretakers. Better. We may not spank our kids, make every effort to listen to our mates, and make sure to manage our control issues. We have unfortunately forgotten one place where a part of us IS carrying on our childhood legacy: in our relationship with our bodies. Unfortunately, because our bodies don't show their pain as our crying children do, or their anger like an irate husband, we can easily overlook our destructive behavior. It often takes until we get sick for us to see how badly we have mistreated our bodies.

Today, when I realized that I treat my body just the way my mother treats me, I felt humbled and scared. I truly believe that my mother could do much better than she does, that if she made just the slightest effort, truly wanted to love me, she could change easily. But when I realize that I need to spend more time truly listening to my body, focus less on the short-term pleasure of doing exactly what I want, give my body more space to be in relationship with me, I'm not sure if I can do it. I am just like my mother.

Will I call my mother tomorrow and cry with compassion and humility? I'll let you know. Tonight, I would still so much rather stay on my pedestal of the victim child. But my full belly keeps reminding me that it spoke to me tonight and I didn't listen. That it told me to stop invading and I refused to see. No one knows better than me what that feels like. My heart breaks. I am sorry. It is time to walk the talk.

PermaLink posted by Isabelle @ 8:39 PM

Monday, November 07, 2005

Seeing your body as beautiful is YOUR choice. And you'll feel much better for it.

I swore I would never be like my mother...and yet I am.