Food for Thought: Our Needs Bear Equal Weight

“The wants, needs, feelings, hours, hopes, and dreams of everyone around you bear equal weight to those of your own. Neither mine nor yours are greater. Ingrain that into your understanding”. ― Richelle E. Goodrich

How easy or difficult is it to “ingrain that into your understanding”?

For some it’ll be easy, it’ll already be part of your world view. “Of course my needs are as important as anyone else’s. Why wouldn’t they be?”, you think.

Some behave as though their needs are more important than anyone else’s.

For others, it’ll be tough to believe your wants, needs, feelings, time and aspirations are in any way important, let alone just as important as anyone else’s.

Intellectually, you might know that it must be true.

But you just don’t feel it.

Continue reading “Food for Thought: Our Needs Bear Equal Weight”

Summer Rewind: Why Do We Feel Responsible for Other People’s Feelings?

This post from 2018 explores why we often take responsibility for other people’s feelings, and the subsequent impact on us and our eating behaviour.

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You’re about to send an email and you’re re-reading it for the tenth time to make absolutely sure there’s nothing in it that could be misconstrued and cause offence. Then you check it another ten times after you’ve sent it – just in case…

You bump into a friend in the street. As you walk away, you replay the conversation over and over in your head trying to work out if you said anything “wrong”. You’re still rerunning the conversation in your head as you lie in bed that night…

A work colleague seems a bit off with you. You instantly rack your brain to recall your most recent interactions with them. You spend the day desperately trying to work out what you did to upset them so you can apologise and make things right…

Sound familiar?

Continue reading “Summer Rewind: Why Do We Feel Responsible for Other People’s Feelings?”

How Do You Soothe Yourself Without Food?

Trigger warning: binge eating.

Back in my binge eating days, I’d often hear a soothing little voice in my ear.

If I was having a tough day at work, the voice would whisper: “it’s OK, pick up some food on your way home”. Like co-conspirators, the little voice and I would plan the binge I’d have later.

Planning was part of the bingeing ritual and looking forward to it helped me get through the day. I’d feel excited as I imagined all the food I was going to eat. All those “bad” and “naughty” things I felt I wasn’t allowed because I was firmly entrenched in a diet mindset.

But the little voice gave me permission. After all, it told me I was having a difficult day and food would make me feel better.

Continue reading “How Do You Soothe Yourself Without Food?”

Welcoming in the New Year

Happy New Year

“May light always surround you;
Hope kindle and rebound you.
May your hurts turn to healing;
Your heart embrace feeling.
May wounds become wisdom;
Every kindness a prism.
May laughter infect you;
Your passion resurrect you.
May goodness inspire
your deepest desires.
Through all that you reach for,
may your arms never tire.”


― D. Simone

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Food for Thought: The Rush to Forgiveness

“Genuine forgiveness does not deny anger but faces it head-on.” – Alice Miller

“I forgive them”. This is what victims of crime sometimes say when they’re interviewed on the news days, or even hours, after some terrible violation has been committed against them. Perhaps they were brutally attacked. Perhaps someone they love was murdered.

“I forgive the people who did this to me”, they say.

I always feel a sense of concern when I hear this.

Their forgiveness seems so immediate. It makes me wonder what happened to their feelings.

Continue reading “Food for Thought: The Rush to Forgiveness”

Gentle Reminder: You are Enough

If I were to ask you why you’re not enough, you’d probably say “I don’t know, it’s just what I feel”.

But a feeling isn’t truth. It’s not fact.

It’s just a feeling.

If I challenged you to give me a list of your deficits and defects, would you struggle to produce evidence?

Continue reading “Gentle Reminder: You are Enough”