Goreygirl
Gold Member
I think this is excellent... really resonated with me as my PAUSE has become "I DO care about me!"
"Just the other day a member asked me to explain how taking a warm bath was going to help her with the emotional eating habit that caused her to recently put on twenty pounds. I was puzzled at first, but then I remembered it was one of the items on a list in the second session about "what else" you could do when you feel emotionally overwhelmed.
Taking a warm bath isn't the cure for emotional eating, but taking a warm bath is a way to give yourself a little quiet time to calm down and think about things. Clear thinking is the essential process for curing yourself of a food obsession. There are dozens of other ways to stop and think, the simplest being to PAUSE, feel the present moment and then think about. It's important to interrupt the automatic quick reach for food that you might be using to stuff and numb yourself temporarily. Once you start stuffing it is too late to think. And you will not find the right solution, without thinking.
Whatever strategy works for you to stop the automatic behavior long enough to pause and collect your thoughts, is the right way. It can be a bath, a walk, a phone call, a mantra or even a game of peek-a-boo with a toddler.
I have had many patients come into a session and start telling me what they ate, how much they ate, and then comment on how they didn't even pause at all but just kept on eating mindlessly. They presented this as if there was something I could or should do about that. It always made me feel as if I was taking the place of the parent who told them not to eat so much when they were the children. Now they were eating too much and were either defying me or asking me to please stop them.
I tell them that I can't help them if they can't do the minimum for themselves, and that is totally within their capacity and control. I am certainly not going to tell them what to eat or how much to eat or admonish them if they slip and happen to eat too much. That's an eye opener for most. They realize that there is no one to do battle with, no one who has the magic potion, no one who can save them and that the only way to get where they want to go is to put their own intelligence to work.
It's the same conflict that every prospective member of Shrink Yourself has to resolve before they come to that critical realization. They read about the issue, learn about the principles, and listen to the stories of others all in hopes that that knowledge will somehow be enough. It is enough to motivate you, and the knowledge is what you need to guide you, but none of that makes any difference until you actually pause before the emotional eating reflex clicks in, collect your thoughts, and begin to wrestle with the emotion that you would ordinarily want to run away from.
When you pause and think right before you are about to eat too much, it is an emotional wrestling match that greets you. There will be a tug-a-war between staying with your feelings long enough to get a realistic perspective on what is bothering you; and the impulse to numb yourself with food and bury what is bothering you as quickly as you can. The purpose of the pause is to make you conscious of just this point in the process. This opens the door to the next insight, and the next one, and the next one after that!
It is the simple truth that as adults we must face and solve or decide to live with everything that bothers us, and we can do that best by using the most intelligent part of our minds. However, I also know that fear and helplessness are strong emotions that can rule us temporarily and subvert that truth. What you want to do is be sure to not let fear and the false state of helplessness permanently interfere with using your best intelligence. There is less to fear by being honest with yourself, and more to fear by not being honest with yourself.
Remember when you were a child and were afraid of the shadows on the wall that looked like monsters. Take a warm bath and and start proving to yourself that there are no more monsters, just real problems in living."
Originally from http://www.shrinkyourself.com/blog_...&utm_campaign=weeklynewsletter_2_04_11&bhcp=1 .... I am not advocating this book etc... the e-articles just provide me with food for thought.
"Just the other day a member asked me to explain how taking a warm bath was going to help her with the emotional eating habit that caused her to recently put on twenty pounds. I was puzzled at first, but then I remembered it was one of the items on a list in the second session about "what else" you could do when you feel emotionally overwhelmed.
Taking a warm bath isn't the cure for emotional eating, but taking a warm bath is a way to give yourself a little quiet time to calm down and think about things. Clear thinking is the essential process for curing yourself of a food obsession. There are dozens of other ways to stop and think, the simplest being to PAUSE, feel the present moment and then think about. It's important to interrupt the automatic quick reach for food that you might be using to stuff and numb yourself temporarily. Once you start stuffing it is too late to think. And you will not find the right solution, without thinking.
Whatever strategy works for you to stop the automatic behavior long enough to pause and collect your thoughts, is the right way. It can be a bath, a walk, a phone call, a mantra or even a game of peek-a-boo with a toddler.
I have had many patients come into a session and start telling me what they ate, how much they ate, and then comment on how they didn't even pause at all but just kept on eating mindlessly. They presented this as if there was something I could or should do about that. It always made me feel as if I was taking the place of the parent who told them not to eat so much when they were the children. Now they were eating too much and were either defying me or asking me to please stop them.
I tell them that I can't help them if they can't do the minimum for themselves, and that is totally within their capacity and control. I am certainly not going to tell them what to eat or how much to eat or admonish them if they slip and happen to eat too much. That's an eye opener for most. They realize that there is no one to do battle with, no one who has the magic potion, no one who can save them and that the only way to get where they want to go is to put their own intelligence to work.
It's the same conflict that every prospective member of Shrink Yourself has to resolve before they come to that critical realization. They read about the issue, learn about the principles, and listen to the stories of others all in hopes that that knowledge will somehow be enough. It is enough to motivate you, and the knowledge is what you need to guide you, but none of that makes any difference until you actually pause before the emotional eating reflex clicks in, collect your thoughts, and begin to wrestle with the emotion that you would ordinarily want to run away from.
When you pause and think right before you are about to eat too much, it is an emotional wrestling match that greets you. There will be a tug-a-war between staying with your feelings long enough to get a realistic perspective on what is bothering you; and the impulse to numb yourself with food and bury what is bothering you as quickly as you can. The purpose of the pause is to make you conscious of just this point in the process. This opens the door to the next insight, and the next one, and the next one after that!
It is the simple truth that as adults we must face and solve or decide to live with everything that bothers us, and we can do that best by using the most intelligent part of our minds. However, I also know that fear and helplessness are strong emotions that can rule us temporarily and subvert that truth. What you want to do is be sure to not let fear and the false state of helplessness permanently interfere with using your best intelligence. There is less to fear by being honest with yourself, and more to fear by not being honest with yourself.
Remember when you were a child and were afraid of the shadows on the wall that looked like monsters. Take a warm bath and and start proving to yourself that there are no more monsters, just real problems in living."
Originally from http://www.shrinkyourself.com/blog_...&utm_campaign=weeklynewsletter_2_04_11&bhcp=1 .... I am not advocating this book etc... the e-articles just provide me with food for thought.
