Wednesday, June 16, 2010

and the pause changed everything......

okay. i'm pretty excited about this one.....

i was feelin' pretty out of sorts.
the out of sorts where i just go eat stuff.

BUT i'm reading 'women, food and god'
and she's talking about binge eating and how we
are covering up our feelings when we do that.

i know that. but she's exploring it in the book
and it's really making me think.
so all that's on my mind.

so i'm upset and i think.......i'm gonna just eat
something. something with guacamole on it.

i'm laughing as i type this, but that's what i was
thinking.....

and i think of the book. and how i'm just tryin'
to cover my feelings.

'yep. i am.' i tell myself. 'and i'm gonna go ahead
and do it anyway. so there.'

okay, so that's not so good. and i would have done
that except that the guys had already eaten, and
i knew they were full. that slowed me down. it made
me pause.

and all i needed was that little bit of slow down.
that pause.
cause then i thought about it and said okay, i'll
go take a shower.

(i just learned how valuable the slow down is for
me! i gotta keep that pause in mind!!)

so in the shower i think of the book, and i think of
the feelings i'm tryin' to stuff down.

anger. a whole lot of anger, resentment and frustration.

'okay' i tell myself. 'that's what you have. and you
may have that for awhile. okay. how about you treat
yourself good thru this? how about you eat good and
don't binge and make yourself feel bad? how about if
you're good to yourself while you're hurting?'

and that was it.
and saying that to myself......allowing the feelings
without having to DO anything with them and suggesting
that i treat myself good......well, it was totally
empowering.

no fixing myself, no examining it all, no holding it
and dealing with it. just knowing it was there and would
prolly be there for a bit...and knowing that is a great
time for some extra care......that was it.

woe!!!!!!!!!!

that's all it took. i went and made myself dinner.
was aware of not overeating and relaxed.

and then, when i tucked myself in at nite, i offered
myself compassion for the circumstances leading to
the anger.

i wanted to top it all off with compassion for myself.

i fell asleep doin' that...

first time in my life i can ever remember doin' anything
like this.

and this so ties in to the travelin from my head to my
heart......i want to trust my heart.

last nite i did.

5 comments:

peggi said...

Isn't amazing how such a small, simple thing can make such a difference? And it's equally amazing that we are so thick headed that most times we just can't see it! Duh! What I've found though, is that I do much better when I celebrate the times when I truly get it and forgive myself for the many more times that I don't. Hang in there Terri.

QnDani said...

I did a weekend workshop/retreat with Geneen Roth about 8 years ago and it was awesome.

To this day I still ask myself the question of that weekend - "what are you really hungry for?"

The difference between my physical hunger and my spiritual hunger. The difference between feeding the darkness or feeding the light.
Thanks - I needed to remember!!

Merry ME said...

FIrst off ... hurray for you. You've done for yourself what you'd do for anyone one else you love. Woohoo!

I've heard of the book, seen the author on Oprah. Guess it's time to put down the cinnamon rolls and head for the book store.

Thanks, Terri, for being so open with your process. I think it helps all of us get to the place you're headed for.

Blessings and peace to you.

Luna said...

I'm reading the Women, Food, God book too my friend! What's so cool is that "the slow down" is not just about food, it's about life itself, we hunger for so many things, just beyond our grasp, it's like drooling over some cosmic cookie jar that torments us from the top shelf, we think that the sweets within will satisfy what we're craving! (I'm short, so the cookie jar on the top shelf is a good deterrant for me LOL, cookies, along with some of the other less than good for me things I want to do or consume)

Sometimes we think we need something else other than what we have, or who we are, and put things mindlessly into our mouthes and hearts or lives thinking that will make us happier, more satisfied, better somehow when what we're feeling makes us feel uncomfortable, unsettled, un-whatever ... Sitting with our feelings honors those parts of ourselves that we don't feel so great about. YEP the shadows we don't want people to see, but just like your quote of the day today stated, those parts of ourselves that exist claim the right to be, and I think they want to dance in the sunshine with us too, and to be seen. those are the things I think I try to "swallow" when I consume things mindlessly trying to fill some hollowness that can only be fed by ME with things other than food or material goods purchased! I was just writing to a friend who's struggling with parts of himself that he questions. Your quote of the day exactly hit the spot for what I was
grasping for words to say to him.
When it comes down to it, for lots of us it's about wanting to feel accepted, validated, cherished... That includes "all of those separate selves that make up the whole person that we are.

love you Terri!!
Luna xoxo

Anonymous said...

That learning to pause is freaking ESSENTIAL... I'm still learning. I always joke that being a Sagittarius means that I tend to throw one foot in my mouth, swallow it to the knee and then shove the other in after...and then wonder why people look at me strangely when i just blurt out tactless things. I've been working on the pause and learning to listen to what people are really saying before responding (sometimes I'm better at this than others).
Thanks for sharing this post -- my comfort foods are mozzarella sticks and pizza -- and when I get a hankering for the mozz sticks that come from a restaurant two counties over and it won't be quelled by anything else, and I actually start contemplating getting in my car and making the hour-plus trip to go and fetch them, I've realized that I'm dealing with something emotionally that I don't want to look at. I drown my sorrows with cheese (I suppose that's one of the dangers in being from Wisconsin).