Emotional Eating: Stopping the Compulsion to Binge or Overeat
My clients inspire me. Namaste. I acknowledge the teacher in you as you acknowledge the teacher in me. To make sure I was using the term “namaste” correctly, though I’ve been using it for years, just this moment I looked it up in Wikipedia. This meaning, how I think of namaste, wasn’t quite there, but almost, “the light in me sees the light in you,” attributed to Bridget Laureira and her experience with yoga. We are all reflections of the human experience which we share in ways we aren’t even aware of. And this is a beautiful aspect of being human, that given the smallest human exchange, we have the potential to expand, to grow, engendering wisdom.
What I’ve learned from my clients is the key, the very key, yes, the one that has seemed unattainable, it is the key to stopping the compulsion to binge or to keep eating beyond full. So here it is, here lies the coveted secret to stopping the madness:
It is the ability to extend love and tenderness to yourself.
That’s it. It is exactly what Geneen Roth teaches.
It is the ability to practice loving kindness toward yourself, daily, consistently. And yes, I understand it isn’t easy, nothing newly learned is. It is a practice of building awareness over time until eventually, guess what? You believe you are worthy of love and tenderness.
The next time you feel the urge to binge or overeat try this:
Sit down, away from the food.
Breathe slowly for a few minutes, feel your breath inhabit your body.
Then, engage in a loving dialogue with yourself. Sweetly, be curious about what is going on in the moment.
The immediate urge will begin to dissipate. This is because you are being loving to yourself, open, and generous. And once the urgency abates, you may be able to make different choices for yourself; nurturing choices, nourishing choices. Not always, but some of the time. And the more you practice, the chances of being loving next time increases.
Namaste.
Namaste.
So beautifully put. It will be nice to read this again when I need a reminder. Namaste.
Thanks Jenn!
How have you applied Roth’s thought about “What do you love?” “If you follow this love all the way to the end..if you start with the thing you find most beautiful and trace it’s perfume back to its Essence, you perceive an intangible presence of stillness that the allows the things you love to be visible like the openness of the sky.”
Hey Black Beauty,
That is a lovely question. Would you care to answer it? You with your internal poetry?
Kristen
At first I thought it was pure and simple like noticing a stem, two leaves, and the love of a rose opening. However, now I see it differently. That was just the beginning of the journey. You go even deeper to a place where you may even not know where you are going but you trust that you can find the answer you are looking for. You begin to slow down until all the world has stopped and yet the presence of the moment is larger than life. It is here that one finds one’s essence, one’s true voice, one’s vision. Now one needs to bring it to life, to make it appear in one’s life. This is where I am. How does one now intergrate the truth into one’s life?
Well, it seems there is little one can do to “make it appear” in one’s life. I think it is more about “allowing” your truth to shine. And I think that flow begins to happen when you do what you’re doing Black Beauty, simply slowing down and going inward. The more you practice, the more your essence will be revealed in all that you do in life.
I like these quotes:
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life? Mary Oliver “The Summer Day”
Waking up this morning, I smile,
Twenty-four brand new hours are before me.
I vow to live fully in each moment
and to look at all beings with the eyes of compassion. Thich Nhat Hanh
What a wonderful answer! It’s not about fixing but about being. You are magnificant!!!
Yes, it seems to be about being in the present, in the moment, letting go of the need to control, the ability to give yourself up to the river of life, allowing the flow….