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?

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.

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.

Workaholism

Emotional eaters often have more than one compulsion. And we tend to be ultra-responsible, often co-dependent. It's no surprise that many compulsive eaters are also workaholics. While we may not get the cultural approval we seek by being thin, we can get it by being good workers. But as with any addiction, workaholism comes at a high price. If you think you (or someone you love) is using work to avoid feelings, relationships or both, read this article by Erin Lenderts. Next time, I'll follow up with more about how to recover if you are a workaholic. Till then, be as gentle with yourself as you can possibly be.

Not all overeating is emotional eating

My focus in this blog and in my work with clients is on the emotional component of overeating. Yet, as I navigate the waters of peri-menopause, I'm discovering something really important about my body. As I get older, my body is processing food differently.

Till a short time ago, I've was having BIG hunger (it was waking me up in the middle of the night) and I had to eat every two hours or I'd get a headache. The blood sugar tests my doctor ordered appeared normal, but my body was not behaving normally.

For most of my adult life, I've been a plant eater, with a little meat sprinkled in here and there. I love bread. For years I've made my own sourdough from scratch - starter and everything. I love potatoes - mashed, fried, baked. I love pasta, especially farfalle - little bows of joy. And I love cake, especially princess cake with it's edible, pastel-green wrapping.

But what I'm discovering is that these foods don't love me back. And I'm not talking about weight gain here. This is about ginormous blood sugar crashes, complete with headache, grouchiness, and hunger pangs like I hadn't ever eaten in my life.

A friend, about my age described the same symptoms. Then another friend. We are all perimenopausal. Could there be a connection? What we all started to discover, through advice and experientation, was that contrary to what a lot of "experts" say, our bodies felt better when we ate more meat and stopped eating sugar and starch.

If you read my blog, you know, I'm not a fan of the experts. I trust the messages my body gives me. For the moment, the message is clear. Eat meat. Eat animal fat. Don't eat the pretty princess cake. And I'm listening with all love and tenderness I've learned in the process of healing my emotional eating.

My inner child sometimes really wants cake, and I tell her, "I know honey, cake would make my mouth really happy right now. But after, it would feel bad, really bad. And she knows, having felt so much better recently, that the pleasure of cake, at least in this moment, is not worth the suffering it brings. So we stay with what works, in this case, what many have called "the candy of meat." Bacon :-).

I would love to know how you have been listening to your body - or would like to. And what you have learned. Comments are welcomed and encouraged.

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.