This past Friday, felt like a perfect day to binge.
And honestly I could easily have justified a binge at that moment… it was a perfect storm and a day when it would have felt easy to say “fuck it, I’ll do better tomorrow.”
And…it’s a long weekend, a holiday, a change of season, an easy time to miss what was… the kids headed back to school, everyone living under my roof, all of the rituals of September.
And…the place that sells the chocolate covered gummies that for some bizarro reason have become the object of my affection is a very short walk.
And…Pansy my sweetie pie little Yorkie has been very sick for 2 days with truly awful diarrhea that has necessitated a trip to the ER and one to the vet less than 12 hours later. Not to mention the bills.
So what harm would a little bag of bears do?
Technically not all that much. But as you and I know, this is about something tender. The costs aren’t in calories or carbs. This has to do with what we believe we deserve, how we comfort ourselves, and who we let ourselves be.
When you try to process this through the language of food and numbers, you’ve really missed the point around what’s happening. There is pain, there is vulnerability, there is confusion around the quantity and quality of what you allow for your self.
Maybe it comes down to the knowing you are worthy of feeling good, in deep down ways.
When I hurt myself with food, when I take actions that create shame, and all of the old noise of the voices of old programming… it has a lot to do with not feeling worthy, not feeling deserving. It’s about how I provide for myself in moments when real love not cheap substitutes, really matter.
When we try to fix painful thoughts and feelings with old strategies (it may be overspending, drinking, creating chaos in other ways) that aren’t loving, nurturing or nourishing, it may be because we don’t feel deserving of more. Instead we enact and feed our shame and guilt… we repeat the familiar refrains of not-love.
The sense of worthiness isn’t there to throw us a line.
We can’t find the connection that allows us to truly know that we are worthy of holding our heads up, of finding our right place, of asking for what we want, of saying what we don’t want and aren’t able to make room for.
It’s so rarely about the food. The food is just a quick chemical fix, a familiar way out of the moment of painful thoughts and feelings. We avoid letting them speak to us and finding ways to be with the pain while holding our dignity and our worth.
Today as I was coming back from the bank, returning to a sick little dog, feeling a bit lonely as the long weekend kicked off, I considered whether the gummies binge would make a difference.
I knew in some very true way, that what would help more was treating myself with dignity. Not reverting to an old painful habit, that carries with it a whole slew of self-hate. Allowing myself to feel, while also allowing myself the possibility of love. Of siding with the part of myself that knows beauty and love and what is true.
This is a hard kind of piece to write without coming off as trite or preachy. Choosing to eat the gummie bears would not have ruined my life. But in the moment I so clearly heard my true self, my heart, the guidance that said, you don’t have to do that, you can choose to feel better about yourself, you deserve to love your body, you deserve to skip the shame whenever possible, you get to fight for worthiness and this moment matters. Hint: Always make these changes one moment at a time. Anything else is too big, too overwhelming, and not grounded in action.
It’s so easy to tell ourselves what I call the Big Lies– I’ll start tomorrow, I won’t eat them all, I’m in too much pain and I don’t care. We cling to whatever thoughts give us permission to stay in the identity that suffers, that feels not good enough or lovable enough.
For the record, I believe even as we are feeling drawn to old addictive strategies, there is always always a voice that says “over here my darling… come over here, be safe, wait it out, you will feel better in ways that matter”. Even in the midst of the pain, the desire to binge, the panic of not wanting to feel, it’s there. Listen for it. You may choose to ignore it and that’s ok, but know that there are invisible forces calling you to go higher, to feel better, to know your worth, to love yourself more, to create what is yours.
And you know I want that for you.
And…if you’ve been reading my writing for any amount of time you know I’ve been a binge eater most of my life and have found my way clear of it almost completely through lots of beautiful self care and deep work.
The same kind of beautiful care and deep work that I share with my clients who are struggling to love their bodies and eat without shame.
If you want relief, if you want to shift your identity, who you are being, how you see yourself, what it all feels like, and begin to find your way to a really different way of living. Many of my clients don’t have weight issues, but they have pain and struggle around how they treat themselves around food, and the suffering is real and the shame colors everything.
Please email me and let’s talk. I know this place intimately, and I am devoted to helping women find their way to their true identities..beautifully and tenderly.
I’d love to hear from you.
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