Emotional Pollution

I was in Briones Regional Park on my birthday, walking, feeling peaceful after listening to an audiobook by Eckhart Tolle. Three doggie visits into the walk, the bliss kept deepening, their puppy smiles and sweetness filling me up. My phone chimed with Facebook alerts, all happy birthday wishes. Life is good, I thought.

My mom called to say Happy Birthday. Then she got all instructional about how to take care of myself (because at 47, I apparently still don’t know how) and judgmental about my sisters (because that’s how she is). Since I can’t talk her out of her negativity, I kindly excused myself from the conversation – yay me! Still, a little emotional pollution got in. I refocused on the now, the woods, finding and photographing trees that look like they have faces.

I could hear a jogger coming, her footfalls, rhythmic and stomping as she loudly fought with her boyfriend on the phone. I heard her complaining about how he treats her, his negative judgment about her weight. She passed me. She was skinny and fit. And she was flooded with anger which leaked into the forest, into the trees, into me. I felt slimed. Once again, I redirected myself to the present moment, the music of the birds, the excitement of the squirrels in a bounty of acorns. I felt almost better.

As I came to the end of the trail, the jogger was there, stretching, still fighting, even louder. She didn’t know it was my birthday. Didn’t know she was in my "church." Didn’t know her hostility was polluting me (or even that it was polluting her). I wanted to tell her to hang up, to stop running, to slow down and see how beautiful the world is, and she is. I wanted to hug her till she calmed down. Instead, I hugged myself till I calmed down. It was all I could do.

Driving home, I was still upset, and all the upsetting things my mind could find started joining in the chorus. Eckhart Tolle was on the CD player, talking about being in the now. You can’t have problems if you are truly in the now, he said with his German accent. Clearly, I was not in the now. Or maybe I was. Maybe the sensation in my body, feeling slimed, was the now I was not accepting. Eckhart Tolle said to take action if I could or to accept reality if there is no action to take.

The action I could take in that moment was to keep hugging myself, to breathe in pain and breathe out love as the Buddhists instruct. It worked. But I had to work it, training my mind, like a puppy, to be in the now, to be in loving presence with myself. Like the jogger, like my mother, I had to get myself off the phone with the part of me who thinks life should be different, that I shouldn’t have to deal with slime in my church, on my birthday. Shoulds, clearly indicating that I am not accepting reality.

I leaned into the present moment. There was a tightness in my chest, my sympathetic nervous system still processing out the chemicals that arose in reaction to my mother and the jogger. I helped it along, reaching inward with an invisible hand, massaging the tightness. I’m so sorry this doesn’t feel good. I told myself. I will stay with you until it feels better.

At home, I went back in my mind to the start of the walk, the smell of the bay laurel, the coolness within the shade of the trees, the baby plants sprouting after the first fall rains. I remembered the dogs, all tail wags and love. My chest eased.

Then I remembered on my way out of the park, a man carried some trash to a can in the parking lot. I don’t know if it was his trash. It could be that he found some trash in the park and decided to throw it away, even though it wasn’t his. And in that moment, I put my emotional trash in there too.

Weight Loss Advice - Who to Trust

My local Borders is closing (I guess they all are). So I stopped by to pick up some bargains. Books that support the non-diet approach always catch my eye, so I picked up a book called Full: A Life Without Dieting. And just as my mother told me, you can't judge a book by it's cover, or title. The book starts out interestingly, explaining the biology of fullness and confirming what real* non-diet practitioners know. Hunger and fullness are signaled by a complex system of chemical reactions in the body. Our chemistry is dictated in large part by our DNA. And then environmental factors like stress, overwork and emotional disconnect can make it hard to pay attention to our hunger and fullness signals.

Where the book loses me is at the moment when Dr. Snyder begins talking about what to eat, when to eat, and how much to eat. Excuse me, but isn't that... a diet? And then, the doctor begins contradicting himself. Early in the book, he notes that the top 10% of the stomach is where the nerves that signal fullness are located. And he recommends eating enough to activate those nerves, noting that diets are doomed to failure, in part, because they leave people hungry. But then later in the book, he advocates eating less in order to shrink the stomach.

In his "troubleshooting" section, he briefly mentions emotional eating and recommends that you let go of stress. Really? Like the complex system that governs appetite, there is another complex system that governs our emotional states. If we could let go of stress by simply deciding to do so, guess what? We all would!

So, once again, we have an "expert" telling us what to do. Another expert is recommending a diet, and then saying he doesn't believe in diets. And yet there are a few gems among the dross of this book. I'll sum it up for you and save you the time and expense of buying and reading the book.

1. Your stomach has fullness sensors that get activated when you've eaten enough. However, they can get short-circuited by emotional distress, preoccupation, or the smell of freshly baked cookies.

2. If you are eating beyond fullness, it may be helpful to practice mindfulness. If mindfulness is not helping (I know I'm full, but I feel compelled to eat anyway), then you may be hungry for something else.

Here's why expert advice doesn't work. YOU are the only expert on you. You are the one receiving those signals. So only you can know when to eat, what to eat, and how much to eat. If you are an emotional eater, you may need help differentiating emotional hunger signals from food hunger signals and then learning how to respond to both with care and self love.

So let's talk about mindful eating. Turn off the TV. Eat alone if possible. Eat slowly and really enjoy your food. After each bite, pause and notice how your body is responding. If you are feeling pleasure, revel in that pleasure. Notice flavors, textures, temperature. Notice belly feelings. Is there relief as you move from hunger to fullness. Your job is to increase your awareness of the physical signals your body is sending you about the experience of eating. That's all. If you find yourself worrying about food "rules" or feeling fear/shame about your body while you're eating, ask the part that is worried if it can move aside temporarily so you can listen to your body. If the worried part can't let go, you might find it easier to start with the emotional stuff.

Food is soothing. Food is distracting. Even worrying about your weight or your health can provide a great distraction from other feelings that are harder to face. This is why real non-diet followers abstain from all forms of food restriction. We know that dieting, just like overeating, is a distraction from difficult feelings.

Feelings 101:
With rare exception, we are all born with the need and capacity to feel a range of emotions at a range of intensity. Our emotions are like the dials on the dashboard of a car. They tell us when things are going well. And they tell us when we need to make adjustments. We are also born with the need and capacity to bond. Bonding with our parents keeps us safe, comforted, and connected.

Our ability to feel a full range of emotions without getting distressed or overwhelmed DEPENDS on the quality of our bonding experiences. If our parents made us feel safe, soothed and valued as children, regardless of our emotional expression, then we learned that our emotions are fine. We can bring them to others and receive care. And when others are not available, we can draw on the care we received as kids and self-soothe.

Many overeaters have less-than-optimal bonding. Parents may have been abusive/scary, preoccupied/distant, or intrusive/needy. Because bonding is essential to our survival, we will shut down any feelings that threaten our bond. This can be obvious. For example, I've worked with clients who had abusive parents and don't feel safe in relationships. When they feel lonely or upset, they turn to food because it calms them. And food won't yell at them (though they often yell at themselves later for eating).

Sometimes the bonding problem is a little obscured. Another client had a hard time receiving compliments. Whenever someone acknowledged her skill or strengths, she would change the subject and brush off the kind words, not really believing them. It turns out her mother criticized everything she did. As a kid, she longed to have her mom beam at her with pride. Instead, when she had an accomplishment, it was dismissed, creating deep shame. In therapy, she was able to start taking in positive feedback. And in the process, she was able to notice hunger and fullness more easily.

Figuring this stuff out is hard. Most of us need a healthy adult bond where we can explore all of our feelings with another person, and have our feelings/our truest selves be accepted and held with respect and regard. Attuning to our feelings and welcoming the messages they carry is in direct parallel with attuning to our appetites and welcoming the messages of hunger and fullness. This is why diets don't work (even when you call them something different).

*Real non-diet practitioners trust that our bodies know when they are hungry and full. They trust that when emotions are nurtured, emotional eating falls away. They trust that each body has a size and shape encoded into its DNA. That size and shape may not fit cultural ideals. But instead of pushing and punishing bodies into unrealistic sizes and shapes, real non-diet practitioners advocate for self-acceptance, health at every size, and activism that challenges the shaming and devaluing cultural beliefs about size and weight.