Are You Trying to Escape 'What Is' With Food?

When I was in the depths of my sugar addiction, overeating and yo-yo dieting, most of the time I didn't like what I was feeling, so I would eat or diet to alter what I was feeling. But this just re-enforced the fear and perception that I needed to diet to 'gain' some control over my food and weight. Feeding the whole problem cycle (pun intended).

To fully break myself of this pattern, I instead had to commit to learning to tolerate discomfort, aka. feelings ~ ALL feelings regardless of whether they were biochemical, physical (such as physical pain) or emotional. I needed to be able to hang out with my experience and not have to alter that experience with food and dieting.

So how did I learn to create resilience with feelings. I did the following steps:

1. When the urge to overeat or eat out of alignment with what my body craved, I paused, connected to my body, and allowed what I was feeling to emerge. I also described those feelings as sensation words and would sometimes write them down to stay objective. For example:

I feel... sad, depressed, hopeless, helpless, stuck, pathetic, angry.

The sensations underneath these feelings are... shortness of breath, constriction in the chest, tension in the jaw, numbness in legs, pain in hips.

2. I called on support. I would visual a mentor and ask them for guidance and strength and simply feel and relax into their support.

3. I would write down all the judgements I had about what I experiencing and would ask myself if I was willing to let these judgements go. Because it wasn't the feelings that I was struggling with the most, it was how I judged these feelings ~ that something bad was going to happen if I kept feeling this way. And the ironic thing was, the more I judged what I was going through, the worse the feelings felt. And the more urge I had to eat to escape.

Typical judgements could be... I don't like this feeling and sensation, it sucks, it has me feel out of control, how am I suppose to function and pay the bills if I am feeling this way, am I ever going to get my life together, I'm so pathetic, I feel so abnormal, when am I going to start feeling good for a change, etc. etc.

4. I had gratitude. Sometimes I had to fake it and just speak the words, even if I didn't believe. It got me into the habit however.

The funny thing is, the more and more I practiced these steps the more and more I was drawn effortlessly to those foods that are healthy and alive. My whole life, I thought I had to use will-power and control to manage my food. Now I see, that I actually had to let go of my control and let go of all the ways I wanted to 'fix' and change what I was going through. And it was through trusting and letting go that enabled a greater sense of empowerment and awareness to surface with my food choices.

Are you a yo-yo dieter and/or overeater? If so, are you like I was, trying to escape 'what is' with food?

Author bio
Lisa work as a Somatic Practitioner, specializing in Dr. Peter Levine's Somatic Experiencing approach to embodiment and healing injury and trauma. In addition, I am certified as a BodyWay Coach and have an academic background that spans to also include courses in Integrative Body Psychotherapy(IBP), Business Management and Facilitation, Access Consciousness and Personal Fitness Training.

For more information please click in link: http://www.embodi.ca/

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