Gentle Reminder: Stay on Your Path

~ Julie de Rohan, eatonomy®

The path to a peaceful relationship with food can be long and twisting.

And many things can try to pull you away from it.

Maybe someone at work raves about losing weight on the latest diet and you consider joining them for yet another “quick fix” attempt.

Maybe you go clothes shopping and nothing fits well or looks right, and you decide your body is to blame.

Maybe someone snaps a photo of you and your Inner Bully has a field day pointing out all your “defects”.

There’s one thing, though, that’s perhaps more disheartening than anything else.

You’re feeling better about yourself because your eating is improving and you’re developing healthy self-compassion. Excited at beginning to feel in charge of your life you decide, even though you feel vulnerable, to share some of your therapy process with a friend or family member.

However, instead of being met with words of support and encouragement, what you hear is “well, it’s obviously not working, you haven’t lost any weight”.

In a heartbeat, they dismiss everything you’ve achieved.

In a split second, they threaten to undermine all the courageous work you’ve done: healing from negative experiences; connecting to your feelings; defining your personal boundaries; strengthening your self-esteem; tuning into your true needs; dismantling your diet mentality and normalising your relationship with food.

They might as well have punched you right in the gut.

There will always be people who, rather than caring about what’s going on inside you, are only ever concerned about what’s outside of you.

Don’t let other people’s ignorance or insensitivity throw you off course.

You know how far you’ve come and you know where you’re going.

Trust yourself.

Stay on your path.

©️ Julie de Rohan 2020.

🌷🌷🌷

To help you stay on your path, here’s a reminder of the principles of intuitive eating.

Published by Julie de Rohan, eatonomy®

A psychotherapist and binge eating disorder specialist helping people struggling with compulsive eating, emotional eating and binge eating.

28 thoughts on “Gentle Reminder: Stay on Your Path”

  2. I think you can read my mind sometimes, Julie 🙂 I catch myself practicing defensive arguments with my mother who sees my size (my “outside”) as a huge failure when really all that matters is that I know me, and I know how much healthier my current view of myself and food is than it was before. I don’t necessarily have to find a way to convince her, and hopefully by my age, I’m beyond needing her approval, lol. I’ll trust myself!

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    1. Clearly I’ve been honing my mind-reading abilities! It’s such a shame when the people who should be our greatest cheerleaders let us down. I think it’s horrible when you feel backed into a corner, attempting to justify yourself. Sometimes it’s possible to highlight the other person’s behaviour in a non-defensive, curious way – for example, “I’ve noticed you often make comments about my appearance, what’s that about?” – as a way of handing it back to them. Other times it’s better simply not to engage. As you say, what really matters is you know who you are and what you’re doing. Good to hear your thoughts, Karen, many thanks for sharing your experience.

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      1. I did ask her once why my size bothered her so much, and with less maturity, I’ve snapped “the only ‘problem’ with my thighs is you!”… neither worked of course. I like my thighs, they carry me well on hikes, and telling her that seemed to help a bit.

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      2. Accepting and expressing gratitude for those parts of us that others criticise can be so disarming. Good for you, Karen. It’s such a shame when people are only focused on thinness.

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  3. I think the most important part of a journey towards healthy goals is NOT to seek validation from ANYONE! Other than that one can be just fine going at your own pace.

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  4. Whenever we’re in any kind of recovery it is easy to be thrown off course by the comments of others. We all have our vulnerabilities; and they are called vulnerabilities for that very reason. Because they can quickly cause us to spiral downwards, and give up when we’re doing well. Hence the importance of your comments: “Don’t let other people’s ignorance or insensitivity throw you off course.You know how far you’ve come and you know where you’re going. Trust yourself. Stay on your path.” Thanks for a practical and inspiring post.

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    1. You’re so welcome, thank you for your kind words. I think learning who it’s safe to be vulnerable with – and who isn’t trustworthy with our feelings – is a really important part of boundary-setting in recovery. We can use negative experiences such as these as essential learning – as long as we don’t allow them to derail our process. Many thanks for sharing your thoughts, hope you’re doing OK.

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  5. Pingback: Gentle Reminder: Stay on Your Path —Guest Blogger Julie de Rohan – Survivors Blog Here

  9. Thank you for sharing!.. more often than not some people criticize others in an effort to belittle and ridicule… one should ignore them… 🙂

    “Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinion drown your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary” Steve Jobs

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    1. Very well said, Dutch, thank you. It’s hard when the criticism comes from people who are supposed to love and care for you, but it’s worth remembering it’s their issue.

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  13. One of the things I struggle with most when it comes to keeping on track is reminding myself that these things take time and to forgive myself if my progress is not as far as I had hoped. It’s hard, but worth it.

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    1. It’s really important to focus on improvements to your wellbeing and your relationship with food, rather than weight loss. You can’t resolve binge eating issues while putting pressure on yourself to lose weight. You’re right, it takes time. Thank you for sharing your experience, Ang.

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