By effort and heedfulness, discipline and self-mastery, let the wise one make for himself an island, which no flood can overwhelm.
-- Buddha#27
Mindfully Cope with Emotional Eating
In reaction to every event, a feeling generally follows. Just like the urge we have to categorize and sort objects such as socks, bills, and money, we desire a simple and organized way to understand our feelings. As a result, people tend to classify even complex emotions into three simple categories: pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral.
Feelings, also called emotions, are a myriad of complex, confusing, constantly changing sensations that can flood and/or cloud your awareness. Feelings are like the weather, natural yet uncontrollable. The trick is to forecast storms of intense anger or irritability and the emptiness of a chilly, lonely day. Protect your inner climate from extreme conditions. Remember feelings come and go and evolve quickly, which demands a watchful and flexible eye. Therefore, do not react to them at their onset or before you understand what they are really about. Feelings are extremely transient. This is demonstrated by thinking about the way memory tends to work. For example, think about something that really upset you in the past. Today, it is more than likely that it doesn't bother you at all. You might even laugh about it. Just because you feel an emotion doesn't mean you have to do anything about it. Label your feelings. Name them, and you end their power over you by identifying them as "just feelings."
Use meditation to get in touch with your emotions. Identify which feelings you repeatedly experience before and after you eat. Are they shame, guilt, or disappointment? Is it a combination of these three? Think about how you cope with these feelings. Do they stop any further analysis of your behavior by paralyzing your ability to think? Are you aware of your judgments? Do you listen to how many times a day your mind translates "This food is bad for me" into "I'm a bad person?" Do you hear, "I ate really well today, so I'm a good person?" Stop waiting for your verdict about how you feel each time you eat, and become more aware of the process. This will help you to make wise choices about your eating, based on your nutritional needs as opposed to your feelings.
Skill Builder: Walking Backward and ForwardMeditation brings wisdom; lack of meditation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what holds you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom.
-- BuddhaIf you have had a period of mindless eating, think about what happened before it. Retrace your steps. Go over your experience backwards, and identify all of the individual steps that led to where you are now. Do it one step at a time.
- Ask yourself this question. What began your mindless eating? What happened right before you started eating? Often, examining the context of the situation leads you back to the feelings and thoughts that prompted the situation. There are many factors that could have made you susceptible to uncontrolled eating.
- After you walk through the incident backwards, walk through it again, going forwards this time. Be aware of the feelings that occurred after your bout of mindless eating.
- Once you have walked through the incident, try to identify those points when you might have taken a different path. Commit the circumstances of this critical juncture to your memory.
Enduring and Controlling Difficult MoodsMindless chaotic, over-and undereaters generally respond similarly to extreme feelings. Whether good or bad, intense emotions become overwhelming and often intolerable. In general, the wish is to
get rid of them as soon as possible. Eating is one way to change or modulate emotions quickly. People use food to stuff down feelings, or they starve themselves and thus ward off feeling anything at all. People also use food to soothe, diminish, or intensify feelings. They use it to purge and release emotions, and to regain control over their moods.
Excerpted from 'Eating Mindfully' by Susan Albers, Psy.D. Copyright© 2003 by Susan Albers, Psy.D. Excerpted by permission of New Harbinger Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
