The End of the World, and Dinner

On December 21st, there was an event called, “The End of the World, and Dinner.” The tongue-in-cheek wording of the invitation made me smile. On Facebook, someone shared a weather report from that week, in which the doomsday forecast showed fiery chunks of brimstone pelting the earth, predicted temperature: 1200 degrees. Hysterical.

In the same week, my beloved Honda died at the age of 15. As a therapist, the irony was not lost on me – the car blew a gasket. How perfect. And how perfect that I had saved just the right amount of money in my emergency fund to buy a new car.

Of course, as soon as I paid for the car, we had another emergency. My husband’s car had a crumpled strut (sounds like a pastry, doesn’t it?). Despite my ability to laugh at the end of the world just a few days before, feelings of fear and stress began to surge when I learned how much the repairs would cost. I looked around for someone or something to blame – and because I was looking, I found it.

I began to question my decision to replace my old Honda, rather than repair it (blaming myself). I thought mean thoughts about my husband’s car maintenance habits (blaming him). I wondered if I negotiated hard enough for the new car (self blame again). I faulted both of us for over-spending and not being good savers (two in one!). I felt a weight pressing in on my chest. The most important relationships in my life – the one with my husband and the one with myself – were under attack. By ME.

This is how the world “ends” for most of us on a regular basis. We get stuck in a pattern of fear, anger, shame and blame. Either we turn on ourselves or we turn on the people closest to us (or both). Sometimes we even turn on unsuspecting strangers. I was fortunate to see pretty quickly what was happening – that I was creating a catastrophe where there really wasn’t one.

My inner seven year old likes having the emergency fund fully funded. And she gets very scared when we use it for – you know – emergencies. But I saw what she was up to, and I sat with her while she ranted and railed. I didn’t try talking her out of her pain. I know that doesn’t work. I validated how scared she was, how hard it was to trust that all would be well.

Because I’ve had great therapy, I know that when my inner seven year old is triggered my job is to hold her tight till she can see straight again. I can give her what my parents could not: my own loving and accepting presence. And when she has that, everything gets easier. She calms down faster. She feels safer. She knows that she can tantrum and stomp and hate how stupid the whole world is, and she will still be loved and held. Ahhh.

After the world ends, we have dinner. All is well.

May you all feel your own loving arms around you whenever you need comfort or care in the coming year.

Inspirations for Self-Care in the New Year

Don't place your mistakes on your head, their weight may crush you. Instead, place them under your feet and use them as a platform to view your horizons.

- Unknown

And there was a new voice

Which you slowly recognized as your own,

That kept you company

As you strode deeper and deeper

into the world, determined to do

the only thing you could do –

determined to save

the only life you could save

- Mary Oliver

Too many people undervalue what they are and overvalue what they’re not.

- Unknown

The person in life that you will always be with the most, is yourself... What kind of person do you want to walk down the street with? What kind of person do you want to wake up in the morning with? What kind of person do you want to see at the end of the day before you fall asleep? Because that person is yourself, and it's your responsibility to be that person you want to be with.
― C. JoyBell C.

When I loved myself enough, I began leaving whatever wasn't healthy. This meant people, jobs, my own beliefs and habits - anything that kept me small. My judgment called it disloyal. Now I see it as self-loving.
― Kim McMillen

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.
― Siddhārtha Gautama

No amount of self-improvement can make up for any lack of self-acceptance.
― Robert Holden

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
- Steve Jobs

Buy or borrow self-improvement books, but don't read them. Stack them around your bedroom and use them as places to rest bowls of cookies. Watch exercise shows on television, but don't do the exercises. Practice believing that the benefit lies in imagining yourself doing the exercises. Don't power walk. Saunter slowly in the sun, eating chocolate, and carry a blanket so you can take a nap.
― SARK

Is it Atypical Depression?

Most people lose their appetites when they get depressed. Not so with Atypical Depression. Here, the symptoms are:

• Feelings of sadness, emptiness or feeling tearful
  
• Loss of interest or pleasure in normal activities
  
• Increased appetite
  
• Unintentional weight gain
  
• Increased desire to sleep
  
• Heavy, leaden feeling in the arms and legs
  
• Sensitivity to rejection or criticism that interferes with your social life or job
  
• Fear of rejection that leads to avoiding relationships
  
• Having depression that temporarily lifts with good news or positive events but returns later

I think that many people who use food to soothe their emotions may have Atypical Depression. This is good news in a way. When you know what's going on, the path toward healing becomes clearer and easier to follow.

There are probably many causes for Atypical Depression, from brain chemistry to complicated grief to being deprived of a certain kind of soothing or bonding in childhood.

Changing your chemistry may involve changing your diet, trying medication or natural anti-depressants, and structuring your life so that you build in positive, mood-lifting situations.

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Since Atypical Depression often lifts with positive events, it may be useful to seek therapy with someone who understands and practices some form of positive psychology - someone who will celebrate your strengths and achievements with you, as well as understand and accept the times you feel stuck or sad or irritable.

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Finding a group of people who share an interest - hiking, cooking, knitting, etc., and who are easy-going, non-judgmental and fun is a great way to boost your mood. If you feel shy at first, try asking a friend to go with you the first few times, to help ease you in and break the ice.

For medication and dietary advice, it's best to talk with your doctor or a nutritionist, always keeping a close eye on your physical and emotional responses to medication or dietary changes. Your body knows and will tell you what's right for you when you listen closely.

Emotional eating podcast

Based on my last post, I've created a hypnosis podcast: at www.julielevinmft.podbean.com

I'm slowly uploading recordings from a emotional eating group I run. The recordings are focused on self love, mindfulness and becoming an intuitive eater.

The first emotional eating podcast is up and called, Your Body Knows How to Eat Normally. 

This is a guided visualization/trance to help you reconnect to your body's natural signals of hunger, fullness and cravings. Within the visualization are hypnotic suggestions about natural, intuitive, movement too, allowing listeners to reclaim fun and play through the body, instead of seeing exercise as a chore or a way to burn off calories.

Please listen at your convenience. I'd love to hear your feedback!

Emotional Eating and Hypnosis

Even though I'm trained in hypnotherapy, I've always resisted applying hypnosis in my work with compulsive eaters. Most people who want hypnosis for weight loss are stuck in a trance of self-hatred, and helping someone lose weight from that place just feels so wrong.

Then, a few months ago, I sat with a client who has become adept at self-acceptance, and who now wants to become attuned and dependable with her self-care. She wondered if we could use hypnosis to help her recognize when she was turning to food and remember to comfort herself instead? What a great idea!

In trance, we visited a recent memory when she wanted to eat, even though she wasn't really hungry. We were able to pause the memory like a movie, going frame by frame to listen to her body's signals.

"I feel a tension in my stomach area. It's not hunger, but it's a lot like hunger," she said slowly, reliving the experience in slow motion.

"Keep the movie on the screen," I suggested, "and start another movie from a time when you felt real hunger."

She started the second trance-movie, again going in slow motion, and feeling the sensations in her stomach that came from physical hunger. Then she went back and forth between these two paused memory-movies, feeling the similarities and differences between real and emotional hunger. "They're in the exact same place," she said. "And they are both a kind of tugging feeling. Physical hunger is colder. Emotional hunger is hot. Physical hunger stays in my stomach. Emotional hunger moves up into my chest. Emotional hunger always happens after dinner. Physical hunger usually happens before dinner time or lunchtime."

We hypnotically anchored her awareness of these differences so that the awareness would stay with her. Then I asked, "What would you like to do for yourself when you are emotionally hungry?"

"I want to take care of myself. I'm usually tired or overstimulated from my day. I want to lie down away from my family and away from the TV and the electronics. No buzzing, no artificial light. I want to rest my eyes or maybe read something fun. This is like when my kids were little. When they got overstimulated, I would lie down with them in a dim room till they settled."

"What are you seeing?" I asked, noticing her facial expression moving into deeper concentration.

"I see me taking my younger self upstairs, into the dark, closing the door and relaxing. It's like this younger part needs a parent to pull her away from the family. She doesn't want to miss anything. But I know she really needs to rest, even for five minutes."

"What's it like for her to go upstairs with you?" I asked."

"Even though she wants to stay and have fun, she's grateful someone is making her go. She needs this, even though she is fighting it a little."

"What would make it easier for her?" I wondered out loud.

"Knowing that the family isn't really doing anything she likes. They're watching boring television. They're playing Angry Birds. I don't really have any interest in those things" she said.

"What is it like for your little one to remember that?"

"Good. Very good. She can have what she needs and not have to miss anything important."

I helped her anchor her awareness that taking her inner child to a quiet space for a while would feel good. Then we wrapped up the session and she went home, wondering if anything we did would make a difference.

It's three weeks later, and she reports that she has gone upstairs to rest three to five nights each week, sometimes falling asleep, sometimes just closing her eyes for five minutes and rejoining her family. She is turning to food less as she becomes adept at nurturing herself and helping her inner child feel comforted and taken care of.

I can't wait to try this with others!

Freedom from Self Hatred

If I were starting this blog today, I would name the blog the same as the title of this post. Maybe it's time for a new blog all together? Emotional eating and self hatred are usually cousins. More accurately, dieting and self hatred are cousins. Maybe sisters. People who diet, despite the double-speak of diet gurus, don't love themselves. When someone says, I want to be thinner because I love myself, they are lying. They want to be thinner because they believe that's they only way they CAN love themselves.

There is an insidious problem in our culture with true, unconditional self love, especially when it comes to status and appearance. We are told in subtle and loud ways that lovable means attractive. We are told that attractive means thin, athletic, young, strong, healthy, "normal," and a bunch of other things.

Everyone needs to be loved, to feel a sense of belonging and value. We are social animals. We are wired to want connection. Being told that we are not lovable, wantable because we are fat, old, ill, injured, or in any way different from "normal" - whatever that is - makes us feel less than, separate, icky. It hurts. Getting that message over and over makes us feel shame. And in our culture, we combat that shame by turning against ourselves in ridiculous attempts to fit in.

Capitalism benefits from and therefore fosters this process. If companies can convince us we are ugly, icky and unlovable UNLESS we buy their diet book/exercise equipment/magic lotion/hair thickener, they can make a lot of money. So that's exactly what they do. And the cycle of fostering more and more insecurity and self hatred gets worse and worse.

We need voices of clarity to turn to, as a counter to all the painful messages that we are not good enough right now, exactly as we are. Fortunately those voices are out there - if you know where to look. One great resources is Joy Nash. Her youTube video, A Fat Rant is hysterical. Another lovely voice is Ram Dass. His book, Still Here unmasks the self-hatred that calls itself "anti-aging." As if that's a good thing.

Here's a quote:

"Women now live a full third of their lives after menopause, and yet if you believe our popular culture, a woman who isn't young, shapely and still capable of bearing children is all but invisible. I have woman friends who've gone to great lengths to keep up a youthful front with the help of plastic surgery, and while the results may be superficially satisfying, the impulse to re-carve what nature has created often masks a profound despair. It is a if we are urged to fight over and and over again, a losing battle against time, pitting ourselves against natural law. How ghastly this is, and how inhumane, toward both ourselves and the cycle of life. It reminds me of someone rushing around the fields in the autumn, painting the marvelous gold and red leaves with green paint. It's a lot of wasted time and energy."

As I re-read this quote, I declare to the world and myself, I am PRO aging. I am pro-wrinkle, pro-grey, pro-age-spot. I am also pro-body, regardless of size or shape, full figured, flat figured, all figured. I am pro-kindness, especially kindness to the bodies we live in and the selves that inhabit those bodies. I am pro-fun, pro-silly, pronated (really, my ankles turn in).

May 6th is International No Diet Day. Let's strive to make every day World Self-Kindness Day.