Last Thursday I was really struggling…just wanting to disconnect and escape from the cascade of overwhelming feelings that tend to arrive at the end of the week. It cracked open a realization for me that I’d like to share with you. Here goes.

I was having these judgy thoughts about why I just wanted to eat a shit ton of popcorn, drink a bottle of wine and call it “dinner”. (Not that there’s anything wrong with doing that occasionally, but I didn’t plan for it. Planning is a cornerstone for permanent weight loss, after all.)

I was thinking about how I’ve come so far and I’ve been actively creating food plans and living a lifestyle that I can sustain permanently…bucking against diet mentality and my past disordered eating patterns. You know, trying to just be fucking normal when it comes to food. And I’m pretty good at it much of the time these days. So then I was telling myself that the thought “I want a break from this” shouldn’t be an excuse for me anymore, because if I want something specific, I plan it and I’ll have it. Nothing is off limits for me. (Well, except alcohol. That lasted two weeks…I made a slight adjustment, now it’s relegated to the weekends.)

But what occurred to me in all of this is that even as we start to feel better and our emotional resilience grows, we are still going to have times when we feel like we need a break or an escape. That’s when we can look at it this way - we’re bumping into the corners of the broader capacity we’ve recently developed. We’re knocking against our growth edge, so to speak. And the discomfort is even greater here, so it could take longer to curb the behavior. This is why your overeats/binges start to return when you’re making progress - the greater the progress, the stronger the roar to return to your old ways. It’s your brain pushing back because the new pattern of behavior DOESN’T FEEL SAFE in the changes you’ve made. It’s used to the old coping behavior and will throw every urge at every opportunity it can to try to take you back to your past behavior.

So what the fuck do I do now, Dana?

You have to tell your brain that it’s okay, that it’s safe. You can start doing this by NOT judging yourself and holding space for the version of you that still overeats/binges/fuck it eats. Show yourself compassion. Talk to yourself kindly after a fuck-it eat.

Oh, I hear you…”But I screwed up! That’s unacceptable! Why would I be nice to myself about that?!?”

Well, let me ask you this question…how has kicking the shit out of yourself been working for you so far?

Yeah, that didn’t work so well for me either. So I started learning how to treat myself with more kindness. A word of caution: None of this happens quickly. I still fuck up. But I can tell you with full sincerity that it’s soooo much less often now. And that is a direct result of showing myself compassion rather than judgement when I do.

Giving yourself grace works. It doesn’t work PERFECTLY (spoiler alert: Nothing does!), but it does work. And if you’d like to learn more, email me at dana@revolution-within.com.

Love & hugs,

Dana