With All Due Respect to Eckhart Tolle, and Oprah

Ok- so it seems lots of people are involved inOprah’s online series with Eckhart Tolle, and there is lots of good stuff there.

 

A former client emailed me part of the transcript on overeating from the course- She wanted to know what I thought. I will enclose the part of the transcript she sent me so that you can see what I am responding to.

 

Transcript:

Oprah: For me it is always about food. When you eat it and you know it isn’t so good for you. A voice in your head says you shouldn’t be doing this.

Caller: I am 27 years old Ekhart. My question is…how do i manage things that I label; things that
are bad for me. Like eating French fries and potatoe chips. I always eat these and often, overeat
and eat way more than i should have, I know that i shouldn’t and feel bad afterwards.

Ekhart Tolle: A lot of overeating has a lot to do with the ego. Because the ego state lives in a state of ‘not enough’. The need for more that is built into the ego and it gets transferred into the body, much more than the body wants. To eat consciously, is the way out of it. I would suggest
that when you eat your French fries to make a meditation out of it. To eat them consciously.
Without having a 2ndary entity in your head that says you shouldn’t be eating them. Eat them fully and consciously, and at the same time, feel how your body feels while you are eating them and
after you have eaten them.

Then you bring some presence into it. And you may realize, in some cases, you will notice that it wasn’t your body that wanted to eat it them, it was your mind that wanted to eat. Eat consciously is the way out of it. If you eat a sandwich, if you go to the fridge, if you get up in the middle of the night, they open the door and they reach in “I have to get something” you are trying to feed something. The body doesn’t need it.

Stop resisting it. Because the French fries are not bad. It is the thought in your head that has
told you that the French fries are bad. If you sit and consciously make it a meditation, you won’t
eat 2 bags of French fries unconsciously. That you will enjoy every single french frie. You will eat
5 or 10 or 20 and it will be pleasurable. Enjoy it, feel it, sense it, allow your whole body to be with
it and when you are done with the pleasure of it, let it go. You can sense your body and your body will often tell you “no more”

ET: You don’t become overweight or even intoxicated as long as you are acting consciously. It is when you become unconscious, is when you eat too much unconscious, is when you drink too much unconscious, is when you take drugs unconscious, is when you become obsessively indulgent with things. All these addictions are unconscious.

Enjoy your French fries. Enjoy a glass of wine! Consciously.

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Ok, here are some of my thoughts. I know that every single one of my clients would sell her soul to be able to eat fries or icecream of whatever with conscious enjoyment, as a meditation. But they can’t! And although I understand what Tolle is suggesting and why, I still believe that most  people do not truly understand addictive responses and reactions.

If my clients (or I ) were to try this, we would likely end up feeling like failures. Because in all likelihood we would want to keep eating, and the eating would go from a meditation to a frenzy.

Here is the analogy that I know most will understand-would you encourage a heroin addict or an alcoholic to have just a little “hit”, and enjoy it, really consciously focus on the pleasure? Why not?

You probably would not do this because inherently you understand that there is a chemical reaction or an alchemy that occurs that takes conscious choice and moderation out of the equation- in an instant. Is that because the heroin-addict is “unconscious”? Well he is, he is high and disconnected, but his body will crave the drug regardless of his state of mind.

Many of you with issues of overeating or weight, have tried these approaches- making the table pretty, putting on quiet lovely music, preparing the dinner lovingly and making it sensually appealing. But there is something about the food interacting with your particular chemistry, memories, brain and neural network, personal belief system and more that may cause you to overeat, every time.

I still advocate total enjoyment, as much consciousness as possible, and blessing something rather than judge it if you are going to take an action. But I think for people with longstanding histories of overeating or abusing food, are going to be unable to follow Tolle’s suggestions.

And while I don’t label foods as good, or bad- a french fry is hardly a shining example of a culinary pleasure- it’s a learned taste, with many associations- we might not even be that turned on by a simple french fry if it wasn’t so forbidden.

I believe you are better off savoring the true pleasures and bounties of the Seasons- right now it’s all about greens, and fresh food coming back, and breaking away from the heavier starchier foods of the winter hibernation. I bit into a tiny gorgeous bright red grape-tomato the other day and it was incredible.

So with all due respect to Eckhart and Oprah, I think the advice was lacking.

Hope your local weather is as glorious as here in Massachusetts- we are on a run of magnificent sunny dry days- it was warm enough for me to walk at 8 am.

xox

Lisa