Eat Whatever the Huckleberry you Want

I just saw an article on FB telling us that milk is harmful. If you love milk, don't fret. Next year, milk will be a superfood that cures everything that ails you. And if you hate milk, no worries. The year after that, it will be demonized again. I've said it before. The experts have no idea what's good for you. Carbs, fats, nuts, eggs, gluten - they all get their turn as villain and hero.

I wonder if this scientific back and forth is really a reflection of a bigger struggle in our culture: we feel guilty for enjoying delicious food. It must be healthy, or we are "bad." 

Food is not a moral issue. Neither is being fat - even though people fiercely judge those with body fat. Know what is a moral issue - at least in the Christian faith? Judging people. You can't control whether other people are judgemental. But you can work toward making your own mind a judgement free zone. Loving yourself unconditionally is a very good diet to adopt. It will lower your stress. And I think the experts remain consistent that stress damages health.

Love, on the other hand creates oxytocin. Dr. Michael Gershon, author of The Second Brain, writes about how oxytocin appears to reduce inflammation in the gut and positively impact autoimmune disorders. It also creates feelings of bliss. So, rather than fussing over what you put in your mouth or the number on the scale, feed yourself a steady diet of kindness, gentleness, play and compassion. Wrap your own arms around yourself and send love to every cell in your body. Even if the feelings aren't genuine at first, pretend that they are. Treating yourself lovingly will make you feel loved over time. 

If other people judge you, tell them to take a flying huckleberry.

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.

Radical Self-Love Instead of Resolutions

My friend and mentor Robyn Posin (forthelittleonesinside.com) often says that setting goals rather than forming open-ended intentions can lead to problems. Because we don't have the ability to predict the future, we can't know what will be right for us tomorrow.

Today though, you may have an idea that losing weight will make you happy in the future. Today, as the new year approaches, you may be setting a resolution to diet harder, to eat less, to exercise more, to get thinner.

I want to invite you to think about the last time you lost weight (and the time before that, and the time before that). Did you feel an initial rush of excitement as you fit into smaller clothes? Did your self-esteem go up as the number on the scale went down? Was there another feeling alongside or just under the excitement? Was there fear or worry, maybe even dread that you would not be able to sustain the behavior required to keep losing weight?

This is the conundrum that 95% of dieters face. Most of us can restrict our eating and up our exercise on January 1. Many of us can continue our “lifestyle changes” through January, even February. By March though, a lot of us are selling our exercise equipment on eBay. By April, we are in therapy wondering why we have failed again.

If this is you, please listen. You are not a failure. Diets have failed you. If you are an emotional eater, no diet will ever be able to address the underlying reasons why you reach for food to change your mood.

In 2012, you have an opportunity to look at your relationship with food and your body in a whole new way. Instead of viewing food or fat as an enemy to be conquered, what would it be like to open your heart in compassion and curiosity? What would it be like to feel a craving, but instead of fighting with yourself, to be a loving ally who asks, what am I really hungry for?

A few days ago, I was talking with my friend, Nadine, about how she quit smoking. She talked about having to let go of all the ideas in her head about quitting, and how even the word “quitting” was getting in the way for her. Instead she found the word “finished” as in, “Am I finished with smoking yet?”

I wonder if Nadine's discovery might be helpful in your process as well? When you feel a craving, what might happen if you ask yourself, “Am I finished feeding my emotions with food?”

If you choose to play with this language, please don't make being finished right and not being finished wrong. There is no right or wrong here. Maybe an even better question would be, "Am I ready to feed my emotions with love instead of food?"

However you phrase it, the question should help you get close to the part of you that has relied on food to feel okay, close enough to really feel into the need. Is the timing right to feel your emotions? Is the timing right to make a loving space for your needs? If the timing is right, then you might be finished feeding your emotions with food. And if the timing is not right, can you have your own tender and gentle permission to not be ready yet?

At the heart of these questions lies a fundamental stance, that you never deserve your own scorn, that anger and disgust will never motivate you, at least not for long, and that you always deserve your own lovingkindness, gentleness and support without any conditions.

Is 2012 the year you set an intention for radical self-love instead of making resolutions?

Workaholism, Part 2

A lot of emotional eaters tend to be adults who were "good kids." We do as we are told. We are courteous. We have a lot of empathy. When something goes wrong, we are quick to ask, "What did I do?" often taking responsibility for mistakes or problems we didn't create. Given these characteristics, we make really good workers.

We also have a tendency to feel less than or not good enough. We may diet to feel thin enough, which is really code for worthy - worthy of love, respect, good relationships... We are always proving ourselves, always "earning" our place in the world. This too makes us really good workers.

But the price of overwork and/or perfectionism at work is incredibly high. You may pay the price with stress related illnesses, more overeating, drinking, impaired relationships or isolation. You may pay the price in time - waking up one day to realize that you haven't really lived your life.

Recovery from Workaholism is just as hard as recovery from emotional eating - maybe harder, since overwork is praised and rewarded in ways that overeating is not! The recovery method is the same - really as it is with any addictive behavior. The key is in learning what the behavior is trying to help you soothe or distract yourself from: loneliness, anger, worry, emptiness, lack of security, shame....

When you have a better grasp of the feelings you are working to avoid, then you can begin tending to these feelings directly. As you become a skilled caregiver to yourself, you may discover that work is not so compelling. You may be more tuned into other needs - the need for rest or play, the need for time with family or friends, the need to just goof off.

Getting there is a process, so be gentle with yourself and celebrate even the little moments when you close your laptop or turn off your Blackberry. Close your eyes and just breathe. Find the parts of you who haven't yet learned that you are loveable, even when you are doing nothing, and send them love anyway.

Cheesecake, Feelings, and Self Love

I had a client* recently tell me she ate a half bag of chips, a pack of girlscout cookies, and part of a still-frozen cheesecake without understanding why.

Then as our session progressed, she told me about taking her sister to the airport. My client had a back spasm from sitting at a computer for too long. Her sister called at 4pm, stating that she had forgotten to arrange a ride to the airport, and needed to be there by 6:30pm for an 8pm flight. My client dropped what she was doing, and drove to her sister's house. Her sister was not packed, and there was rush hour traffic. "I was more worried than she was," my client laughed.

"Can I slow you down?" I asked.
"I'm sorry," she apologized, "am I going too fast?"
"It's not that," I offered, "I'm just wondering if we can make space for your feelings?" She took a deep breath and sighed.
"That was a big sigh," I said.
"Yeah. I don't know what this is," she said, pointing to her throat.
"What are you noticing?" I asked.
"It's like a lump, like I swallowed something, and it's just sticking there."
"Stay with the lump. See if it can tell you what you swallowed." I encouraged.
"My pride," she said, tears starting to flow.

This was not the first time she had put her own needs aside for someone and ended up feeling used or lessened in some way. And this was not the first client to share a similar story - overeating without connecting the binge to an emotional upset.

Like so many of us, this client learned from a very early age that she was expected to be helpful, no matter the cost to herself. She had strong, painful memories of being called selfish by her mother and sister, if her needs conflicted with theirs. Her mother was unemotional. Her dad, while kind, was just not around all that much. When she needed care, support or understanding, she was usually criticized for being too needy.

The one place she felt soothed and safe was with food. Food filled up the empty space inside. It calmed her. It was her one haven, till she hit puberty and had a crush on a boy who called her fat. Then, her one safe form of self-care became completely unsafe. She still ate to soothe herself, but now, after a binge, she would yell at herself and criticize herself, even more harshly than her mother and sister did.

What I find hopeful and tender and heart-opening, is that this woman has never stopped trying to take care of herself in the best, and often only ways available to her. First with food, then with a great education she paid for on her own, and then with a high-paying job that allowed her to have therapy, as well as acupuncture and yoga for her back. As much as she was used to self-criticism and shame, there was always this thread of awareness (I need to feel better), that allowed her to keep reaching for more.


As this session progressed, we uncovered more feelings through her physical sensations:

"I feel a burning in my stomach, like heartburn, but lower." (her)
"What does the burning want to tell you?" (me)
"I'm angry. I'm really angry. My sister is so selfish." (her)

It's no mystery that these physical sensations often centered in her belly, her chest and her throat. All along our digestive tract are clusters of neurons that give us our "gut feelings." For emotional eaters, these feelings often get lumped into "hungry" or "empty" and food does a really good job of numbing us out. In therapy, we are just starting to sort out what is physical hunger and what is emotional pain, fear, anger, shame, hope, etc.

At the end of the session I asked her, "If you could have a do-over, what would you want to say or do?"

"I want to tell my sister that it's too bad she didn't make arrangements for herself, but I have to take care of my back, and I'm sure she'll find a way to get to the airport. She always gets what she wants."

"And as you say that out loud, what do you notice in your body or emotionally?" I ask.

"I feel lighter," she says, smiling. "I feel a fullness, a solidness." Her face is lit up. "I think I feel happy!" She says, laughing, surprised.

"And when you look in my eyes, what do you see?" I ask.

"You're happy too. You're happy for me."

"Yes. I'm really happy for you." We both tear up.

This progression from not knowing, to feeling something, to naming anger, and then finding her voice is nothing short of miraculous. Voicing feelings was a punishable offense in this client's family, and the punishment was either getting criticized (shamed) or ignored (devalued). It is going to be essential for this client to keep looking into my eyes and seeing my care for her, my continued presence, my desire to know all of her feelings, my joy in her joy, my compassion for her pain.

Spending time with her, and seeing again and again her commitment to her own happiness and well being tells me that we will convert her shame into compassion and that her urges to eat will become a beacon that tells her when she needs comfort and care. And I know she will show up for herself with kindness and love because those things are already in her.

*This client is an amalgam of many clients over time so that confidentiality is protected.

This posting needs only two words...

Susan Boyle

See the youtube video here.

Then listen to her recording of Cry Me a River here.

Then go follow your dreams. It's never too late. You are not too fat. The world needs you. When you honor yourself, the rest of the world will honor you too.