You reach for food to soothe yourself, to comfort yourself, to make everything better just for a moment.
But what happens when that moment is over?
The discomfort kicks in.
You feel over-full. You feel sick. You hate yourself.
What was intended to be comforting has to turned into physical and emotional discomfort.
Why have I done this to myself yet again, you ask. Why?
Continue reading “Gentle Reminder: The Discomfort of Comfort”
“One gender-related theme that stood out was related to caretaking. Every woman in the study, but none of the men, reported putting others before themselves…
Tina was a compulsive eater who used food as a way to practise self-care. During the second interview, she began to realise how taking care of others led her to eat: “I had no down time. I had no time for myself and I think I was using food more than I had been to take the edge off and medicate myself, reward myself, treat myself”.
– Patricia Goodspeed Grant, “Social and Emotional Origins of Comfort Eating”
Self-care – that old chestnut. Right now, it feels like we can’t move for people telling us we should care about ourselves.
It’s great in theory, but what about in practice?
Many of us yearn for healthy self-esteem. We think “if I lose weight that will make me feel better about myself” but, while it might make us feel better physically, it doesn’t increase how much we care about ourselves.
“I found in my research that the biggest reason people aren’t more self-compassionate is that they are afraid they’ll become self-indulgent. They believe self-criticism is what keeps them in line. Most people have gotten it wrong because our culture says being hard on yourself is the way to be”.
– Kristen Neff
That self-critical voice has such authority, doesn’t it? We think “if I just strive to be the person it tells me I should be, then one day I’ll be OK”.
But that day will never come.
The day will never come when that negative voice in our head says “well done, you’re worthy, now you deserve to look after yourself”. Its sole motivation is to make us feel not good enough, not smart enough, not thin enough, not successful enough, not enough, not enough, not enough…
Continue reading “Food for Thought: Unlocking Self-Compassion”
“And so this is Christmas, I hope you have fun,
the near and the dear ones, the old and the young…”
– John Lennon, “Merry Christmas (War is Over)”
Ah, Christmas – an enchanting season of celebration and wonderment…and hectic shopping trips and online deliveries, endless food preparation and overeating, feeling bloated and uncomfortable.
Wait, let’s try that again.
Continue reading “How Can You Make Sure You Have Fun this Christmas?”
Does it sometimes feel as though your thoughts are like a thousand out-of-control driverless express trains simultaneously zipping through a labyrinth of tiny tunnels in your mind?
If so, you’re not alone.
People whose eating is emotion-driven often describe themselves as “overthinkers” – they’re so consumed by their thoughts that eating is the only way they find respite from the turmoil in their heads (that and going to sleep).
But how do you start making sense of your thoughts when they’re whizzing by so fast you can’t grab hold of any of them? Where do you even begin?
In my experience, the best way is to get a paper and a pen and start writing.
Julie de Rohan 