Honoring Your Inner Mother on Mother's Day

If you struggle on Mother's Day (or any holiday) because your relationship with your mom was (is) difficult -

If you felt more like a burden to her than a gift -

If you've been learning to love yourself (or want to learn how) unconditionally -

Read my newest post on www.reparent-yourself.com.

Brilliant TED talk on the brain's role in regulating weight.

if you're trying to lose weight, especially for your health, watch this great TED talk

I'm cheating on my blog, with another blog

Yes, I know, I've been neglecting this space all month (well two). It's time to come clean. I've started a new blog. It's not that I don't love this one. It's just that I find I keep writing about self care instead of emotional eating. And yes, self care is part of the healing process, but I've really been off topic for a while now.

I also wanted to learn WordPress (sorry Blogger!). So I made a site using that tool. I can't say I've loved it. The learning curve made me want to slap the internet. But with all the hard work now mostly done, I'm keeping it. Besides, it's purple.

So, come over for a visit. www.reparent-yourself.com.

It's just got a few posts, but in time I will add more and more, eventually creating what I hope will be a definitive "How-To" for those of us who didn't get the parenting we needed as kids.

I hope it proves healing and helpful!

What I Know for Sure about Emotional Eating

It's been a long time since I've written about food or weight or emotional eating. And yet, all the other topics - self esteem, self-protection, loss, cultural dogma - aren't those the things we eat over? I was wondering about the shift in the blog. It mirrors a shift in my own growth.

It's been fascinating to step back from myself and watch my relationship with food change over the years. Don't get me wrong. I still love bacon, and I'm a huge fan of ice cream.

Bacon Ice Cream (photo, from House and Home magazine)
no longer has the power to fix painful feelings or create self-loathing. Yay!

What's different is I don't turn to bacon or ice cream for soothing anymore. Also, my weight hasn't really changed significantly in the past fifteen years. What's different is I don't hate my body anymore.

This blog is a chronicle of how I got to this place of self love and self acceptance. In the beginning, I took it on faith, that if I practiced being loving with myself, I would create loving feelings for myself. I took it on faith that if I practiced unconditional self-acceptance, I would eventually stop criticizing myself or wishing for a different shape or size (the magical one that would end all suffering forever). And it worked!

I often tell my clients who struggle with overeating or other compulsive behaviors, that addiction is substitution. What we are all really hungry for is the safety of being loved and accepted exactly as we are. We live in a culture where there is so much judgement and rejection. And we imagine that a different size or shape (or income or title…) will inoculate us against that painful not-belonging-ness. But changing ourselves to avoid criticism doesn't work. As the young people say, "haters gonna hate."

The person who has to love you absolutely and fiercely, no matter what is YOU. You may have to take it on faith for a while. You may need help to change your inner critic into an ally. You may have to set limits with friends and family who still judge themselves and others negatively. The process is slow and marked with fits and starts. But I can tell you this. The freedom - not just from emotional eating - but from the insidious self-hatred that follows a binge or a weigh-in, that freedom is DELICIOUS.

Do You Have to Forgive?

Sometimes our spiritual traditions work against us, making us feel broken, sinful, or weak if we can't or won't follow their precepts. Often those precepts are offered as the only way to go or the only right way - even by people who say they embrace diversity and differences. One of the topics where this phenomenon occurs is forgiveness. I see all kinds of FB memes - especially in the wake of the new year - telling us we must forgive in order to set ourselves free. And while I agree that holding on to anger or resentment is damaging to the self, I don't agree that forgiveness is always THE path to freedom. It is one path. 

If you are finding it difficult to forgive, don't despair. If you feel bad or defective because you can't forgive, don't despair. Your grudge may be trying to tell you something important. Before you rush to get rid of your ill feelings, listen to them. What do they need you to know?

Recently, I found myself invaded by recurring thoughts of an injustice I experienced. I kept having fantasy conversations in which I would explain to the other person how they had wronged me. Yet I knew without a doubt that confronting this person would have no positive effect for either of us. In this situation, the serenity prayer was far more effective than forgiving. I needed to accept what I could not change (the other person) and change what I could (myself).

It's the story of the scorpion and the frog. If you don't know it, a scorpion asks a frog for a ride across a pond. The frog says, "But you'll sting me." The scorpion says, "No I won't. If I sting you, we'll both drown." The frog agrees. Half way across the pond, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog says, "Now we'll both die! Why did you do this?" The scorpion says, "It's my nature."

I didn't have to forgive my scorpion. I needed to stop giving it rides. 

I needed to look at why I had been forgiving the stings for so long. 

For me, it was about a deep fear, instilled when I was a child, that saying "no" would bring about retribution. It was about recognizing my fear as a post traumatic stress reaction, and taking the risk of showing myself that now, as an adult, I can say, "No more rides." Those who respect me will manage their disappointment. Those who don't will move on. If they throw tantrums, I can move on. 

When I worked my way through this process, my resentment disappeared. I didn't need forgiveness to let go. I needed to know I could and would protect myself. 

Often when we are hurt or violated in some way, we are left feeling powerless. If this is true for you, it might be important to reclaim your power. This doesn't mean holding power over others or taking vengeance. It just means knowing that you will love and protect yourself from relationships that feel depleting, diminishing, or disrespectful, even if it takes work and courage to get there. 

Befriending Your Inner Critic

So much has been written about the inner critic - that voice in your head that says you aren't good enough. Cognitive therapists use the term, "shame busting," to describe how they approach the inner critic. And many of the other psychological theories advocate some variation on this same theme - silence the inner critic, tame the gremlin, etc.

But most of my clients, like me, have inner critics that do not want to be killed off. Many therapists would call this "resistance," or some kind of self-sabotaging impulse. I disagree.

As an adult attachment therapist (I look at how early attachment in our families shapes our self-image and world-view), I learned that my inner critic developed to keep me in alignment with the values and needs of my family, peers, and teachers at a time when I was too little to survive in the world alone. Being so young, I could not know that many of the values and needs I was trying to conform to were unhealthy. They arose out of the insecurities of those around me, and they created insecurity inside of me.

I have written here about my dad and his abuse history, but my mom's insecurities were far more damaging. She is a classical narcissist, whose primary objective is to procure admiration from others. When I reflected well upon her, I was treated kindly, even celebrated. If I needed her (especially if I needed something she was not good at providing), I was ignored or rejected. I was constantly compared unfavorably to my sisters, cousins, even strangers. I spent a lot of my childhood depressed, but didn't know it. Depression was my normal. I turned to food for soothing, even though the price was more disapproval and rejection from mom, who needed thin daughters that people would admire.

As I began to understand this dynamic through my adult eyes, so did my inner critic. As soon as I stopped trying to kill her off (my inner critic, not my mother), she became my ally and took on a new job. Instead of keeping me in line with people who are not healthy for me, her job is to let me know when things don't feel right. Instead of yelling at me to conform or be "good enough," her job is to remind me that my life is for me, not others. I am no longer tiny and vulnerable. I can say "no" or walk away from anything that is depleting, diminishing, harmful - or even vaguely not-quite-right.

When I was little, I had no choice about who surrounded me. Today, I actively choose friends, clients, colleagues, and extended family who are healthy, safe, and loving. My inner critic is AWESOME at detecting narcissists, psychopaths, and other icky folk and sounding the alarm so I steer clear of them. I LOVE her in this role.

She also keeps me company now when I am alone. She knows this was the lynchpin for me - the thing that kept me stuck in one-sided relationships far too long. Now, instead of buying into the notion that my aloneness was my own fault, she reminds me that there are lots of people in the world who are compassionate and caring, who love and accept me as I am, warts and all. She also reminds me that she is with me now in the best of ways. I will always have her loving, supportive presence within. And that inner safety and sweetness is more than good enough.

"Coming out" with a mental health diagnosis

I love the art in this article in the Huffington post, but more than that, I love the message. SOOO many people have (or have had) a mental health diagnosis. The shame that often accompanies the diagnosis is, I think, one of the worst parts. Too many of my clients have refused or delayed seeking help because they feared the stigma. Let's make it safe for everyone to be who they are, warts and all. Ready, go!

What Bipolar Disorder Really Feels Like, By Sarah Klein in the Huffington Post