I was thinking this morning about my ongoing battle with
emotional eating, and
how I've managed to make a lot of changes in the way I deal with
my emotions
during my journey here. I've changed from the INSIDE, OUT. The
running
dialogue in my head has changed.
I still find the need to 'spoil myself'....that's what it is, really...whenever I have a triggering emotion...which for me is anything from loneliness to anger to despair to frustration to...anything in between! In many cases I've found 'substitutions' that are healthy and yet still spoil myself, but that topic is for another blog.
DEALING with our emotions is tricky...and KEY! to permanently changing our eating habits.
LOTS of emotions can be triggers for my food addiction. But the difference is, I've learned new ways to handle them.
And each emotion is different, and can require different ways to manage it.
The process of 'debuging' each emotion isn't easy, and it isn't fun, but the end result is AMAZING. Because the end result can be a PERMANENT CHANGE in my eating habits.
Today I want to talk about ANGER. Which goes hand-in-hand with FRUSTRATION, another 'triggering' emotion for me.
Anger was a big trigger for me to overeat. (and I still struggle with it sometimes, but not - thankfully - as often).
I don't get angry too quickly, but when I do, it comes on suddenly (and it's usually at hubby...LOL...over something thoughtless or inconsiderate HE's done that I take offense at). Occasionally it's at others and this can be even HARDER to express, but I'm learning.
I HATE being angry. I want the feeling to go away, quickly.
Ever since I was a little girl, I was taught that 'nice girls don't show anger'.
'Nice girls' don't have temper tantrums.
'Good girls' don't yell or scream or 'talk back'.
I distinctly remember times when I was little....very little, like kindergarten, first grade...that I'd get angry and express it, and immediately be punished for it. Told to sit in the corner until I could behave myself like a young lady. (UGH).
"Children should be seen and not heard". (ever hear that one?)
To reinforce this lesson, my parents would tell me how 'disappointed' they were. After all, I was the oldest, therefore I should 'know better' (GOD how I hated this!)....and they wanted to be 'proud of me' and how I was supposed to be 'setting an example' for my younger siblings. (it's so funny, no matter how you fell within the hierarchy...eldest child, youngest child, middle child, only child...you can find fault with it! LOL)
Looking back on it, I can't (and don't) blame my parents...they did the best they could, and what they thought worked! And it did work...especially with 5 kids underfoot. They frankly didn't have time to sit down with me and figure out what was 'bugging' me each time. They tried...but everyone was busy! And you know what? I don't know that I'd do it much differently if I had children of my own!
I like to THINK I would....but who knows? I never had children. I helped raised my stepson, especially through his awful teenage years, but that was different. His basic personality had already formed by then. I just gave him a sounding board. I didn't have to raise him from an infant.
At any rate, I quickly learned to SQUELCH my angry feelings, bury them deep down inside me and not show them; because if I did, I'd be yelled at or punished by my parents for being 'bad' or 'misbehaving'.
It then followed...little by little, that I would express those feelings by soothing MYSELF....with food.
"Here, have a cookie, that will make it all better". So I learned to keep my mouth shut and NOT express myself, to just 'take it', whatever mistreatment I felt I was getting, without complaint.
So I learned my lesson!
Feel angry, BURY it. Then SOOTHE your anger with a treat. "GOT IT".
This can be dangerous -- for women especially, I think.
Years later, we've learned this lesson so well that, even when we are definitely treated badly and SHOULD speak up, we DON'T.
We've learned to push our feelings way down inside so well that we're afraid to open our mouths! Something 'bad' will happen if we do, right? So we just "take it". We squelch our anger once again...and then that 'have a cookie' feeling comes over us.
We can't SAY what we feel....because we might EXPLODE, we might never get control of ourselves again, and we might pay for our anger BIGtime, we're not supposed to show anger....so....our emotions need an outlet, and the next step is to think 'OK, I'll SOOTHE my own hurt/angry feelings by...eating something tasty! And I'll calm down and forget all about it.'
I can actually remember times....(and I'm not perfect, I still catch myself doing this at times) when I've gone through this process and wind up thinking "I'll show him....I'll eat this thing I'm not supposed to eat"...and/or "the world may be mistreating me, but my (insert goodie here) will never let me down, it's always there for me and it always tastes the same and it always MAKES ME FEEL BETTER".
But little by little as I progressed through this program, I realized that I had to find ANOTHER way to handle my anger.
Obviously I couldn't go off program every time I got angry, I'd never be able to reach goal or change my eating habits!
SO....what to do?
Well, I learned how to EXPRESS my anger, to LET IT OUT, finally! In healthy ways! By opening my mouth to SAY something instead of just put FOOD in it.
I won't tell you it's easy. It wasn't for me....at first, I was such a 'newbie' at it that I had trouble even explaining 'why' I felt the way I did. And usually, since it was at hubby, who of course was going to defend himself and question MY feelings, I would wind up APOLOGIZING for getting angry!
Why?
Why was I apologizing for having FEELINGS?
I then went through a process of getting REALLY angry....and staying angry...just to sort of 'practice' it. I started to dig deep inside my own feelings and I realized that I was ENTITLED to feel angry once in awhile. I was ENTITLED to be treated decently. And maybe he didn't 'mean' to be inconsiderate or discourteous or whatever....maybe it was just pure thoughtlessness (with men, sorry guys but it's true sometimes...sometimes they just don't 'think' the way we do....but they don't 'mean' to hurt us). But he'd KEEP DOING IT unless -I- OPENED MY MOUTH and STOPPED HIM! And TOLD him that that 'thing', whatever it was, really really BUGGED me and could he please stop it?
You are ENTITLED to your feelings. You are ENTITLED to be treated with respect and courtesy. You are ENTITLED to express your feelings when you're hurt or angry. WE ALL ARE!
It's little things sometimes. Stupid things. But they can get under your skin and if you don't express yourself, what's going to happen?
You're going to find yourself with an uncontrollable URGE .... to eat.
So I learned how to express my anger. And I'm still not great at it...believe me. Many is the time I've just 'clammed up' and started SLAMMING things around in the kitchen, banging pots and pans, etc....hubby knows I'm pissed...and he'll say something...and I'll little by little get it out. I have to be careful to differentiate...not to ACCUSE, not to jump to conclusions, but just to say 'This made ME feel...hurt' (HURT is usually translated quickly into ANGER for me). And that clues him in. I'll even say things like "I know you didn't mean to but.....when you did ...(X) ... I felt (Y)".
It's a hard process but it's worth it. Clearing the air is SO worth it. Both he and I can walk around telling ourselves all KINDS of krazy things...we mumble under our breath...we get mad and don't express it...and it can become TOXIC. We got to a point last year where we literally couldn't STAND the sight of each other! And we knew something had to change...because neither one of us wanted to leave; we knew we could work through it. It took time, and we still have to stop ourselves and TALK about things a lot....but it's worth it.
And EXPRESSING my anger instead of eating has many benefits.
First of all, hubby doesn't do a LOT of stupid little things that he used to do that 'bug' me.
And I'm talking ridiculously small things. Like leaving the toilet seat up (LOL). Finishing the last of something and NOT throwing it out (drives me NUTS). Leaving his dirty socks around. Tracking dirt through my just-washed kitchen floor because he 'didn't notice' that I was hard at work cleaning it all morning and didn't think to wipe his feet properly. Not offering to help me do something stupid like take the garbage out when he can SEE I'm overloaded doing at least 10 things at once. Getting 'zoned out' on the TV when I'm talking about something IMPORTANT. (SHUT THE DARN THING OFF for 5 minutes). LOL...you get my drift. In any relationship, compromise is important. But you can't compromise if you don't EXPRESS how you feel first!
DIGGING DOWN DEEP inside has been an ongoing theme with me since I first started this program 2 years ago. I never thought that would happen...it was just another 'diet program' and I was going to give it a try, hopefully I'd lose the weight...but I never quite 'connected the dots' that if I wanted to change my eating habits I had to change my own RUNNING DIALOGUE in my head....my thought process whenever I had an emotion that USED to result in raiding the refrigerator (secretly or out in the open).
Doing so has required courage and strength....two qualities I never thought I possessed in great quantities...but to my surprise, I've been able to summon tremendous powers of BOTH qualities when I really need them (and WANT them, that's 'key'!)
THINK about what emotions drive you to overeat. For me, unfortunately it's a whole HOST of them...anger is just "ONE";
(I'll try to discuss the others little by little in future blogs)
....but each one CAN be conquered.
You CAN learn OTHER ways....HEALTHY ways...to deal with your emotions besides overeating.
And once you do that, you'll find your 'cravings' and 'urges' .... disappear! And then you'll sailing OP and the weight is dropping off like krazy and you're realizing that you CAN do this, you can get to goal and regain control over your eating, once and for ALL!
Keep on keepin' on!
I still find the need to 'spoil myself'....that's what it is, really...whenever I have a triggering emotion...which for me is anything from loneliness to anger to despair to frustration to...anything in between! In many cases I've found 'substitutions' that are healthy and yet still spoil myself, but that topic is for another blog.
DEALING with our emotions is tricky...and KEY! to permanently changing our eating habits.
LOTS of emotions can be triggers for my food addiction. But the difference is, I've learned new ways to handle them.
And each emotion is different, and can require different ways to manage it.
The process of 'debuging' each emotion isn't easy, and it isn't fun, but the end result is AMAZING. Because the end result can be a PERMANENT CHANGE in my eating habits.
Today I want to talk about ANGER. Which goes hand-in-hand with FRUSTRATION, another 'triggering' emotion for me.
Anger was a big trigger for me to overeat. (and I still struggle with it sometimes, but not - thankfully - as often).
I don't get angry too quickly, but when I do, it comes on suddenly (and it's usually at hubby...LOL...over something thoughtless or inconsiderate HE's done that I take offense at). Occasionally it's at others and this can be even HARDER to express, but I'm learning.
I HATE being angry. I want the feeling to go away, quickly.
Ever since I was a little girl, I was taught that 'nice girls don't show anger'.
'Nice girls' don't have temper tantrums.
'Good girls' don't yell or scream or 'talk back'.
I distinctly remember times when I was little....very little, like kindergarten, first grade...that I'd get angry and express it, and immediately be punished for it. Told to sit in the corner until I could behave myself like a young lady. (UGH).
"Children should be seen and not heard". (ever hear that one?)
To reinforce this lesson, my parents would tell me how 'disappointed' they were. After all, I was the oldest, therefore I should 'know better' (GOD how I hated this!)....and they wanted to be 'proud of me' and how I was supposed to be 'setting an example' for my younger siblings. (it's so funny, no matter how you fell within the hierarchy...eldest child, youngest child, middle child, only child...you can find fault with it! LOL)
Looking back on it, I can't (and don't) blame my parents...they did the best they could, and what they thought worked! And it did work...especially with 5 kids underfoot. They frankly didn't have time to sit down with me and figure out what was 'bugging' me each time. They tried...but everyone was busy! And you know what? I don't know that I'd do it much differently if I had children of my own!
I like to THINK I would....but who knows? I never had children. I helped raised my stepson, especially through his awful teenage years, but that was different. His basic personality had already formed by then. I just gave him a sounding board. I didn't have to raise him from an infant.
At any rate, I quickly learned to SQUELCH my angry feelings, bury them deep down inside me and not show them; because if I did, I'd be yelled at or punished by my parents for being 'bad' or 'misbehaving'.
It then followed...little by little, that I would express those feelings by soothing MYSELF....with food.
"Here, have a cookie, that will make it all better". So I learned to keep my mouth shut and NOT express myself, to just 'take it', whatever mistreatment I felt I was getting, without complaint.
So I learned my lesson!
Feel angry, BURY it. Then SOOTHE your anger with a treat. "GOT IT".
This can be dangerous -- for women especially, I think.
Years later, we've learned this lesson so well that, even when we are definitely treated badly and SHOULD speak up, we DON'T.
We've learned to push our feelings way down inside so well that we're afraid to open our mouths! Something 'bad' will happen if we do, right? So we just "take it". We squelch our anger once again...and then that 'have a cookie' feeling comes over us.
We can't SAY what we feel....because we might EXPLODE, we might never get control of ourselves again, and we might pay for our anger BIGtime, we're not supposed to show anger....so....our emotions need an outlet, and the next step is to think 'OK, I'll SOOTHE my own hurt/angry feelings by...eating something tasty! And I'll calm down and forget all about it.'
I can actually remember times....(and I'm not perfect, I still catch myself doing this at times) when I've gone through this process and wind up thinking "I'll show him....I'll eat this thing I'm not supposed to eat"...and/or "the world may be mistreating me, but my (insert goodie here) will never let me down, it's always there for me and it always tastes the same and it always MAKES ME FEEL BETTER".
But little by little as I progressed through this program, I realized that I had to find ANOTHER way to handle my anger.
Obviously I couldn't go off program every time I got angry, I'd never be able to reach goal or change my eating habits!
SO....what to do?
Well, I learned how to EXPRESS my anger, to LET IT OUT, finally! In healthy ways! By opening my mouth to SAY something instead of just put FOOD in it.
I won't tell you it's easy. It wasn't for me....at first, I was such a 'newbie' at it that I had trouble even explaining 'why' I felt the way I did. And usually, since it was at hubby, who of course was going to defend himself and question MY feelings, I would wind up APOLOGIZING for getting angry!
Why?
Why was I apologizing for having FEELINGS?
I then went through a process of getting REALLY angry....and staying angry...just to sort of 'practice' it. I started to dig deep inside my own feelings and I realized that I was ENTITLED to feel angry once in awhile. I was ENTITLED to be treated decently. And maybe he didn't 'mean' to be inconsiderate or discourteous or whatever....maybe it was just pure thoughtlessness (with men, sorry guys but it's true sometimes...sometimes they just don't 'think' the way we do....but they don't 'mean' to hurt us). But he'd KEEP DOING IT unless -I- OPENED MY MOUTH and STOPPED HIM! And TOLD him that that 'thing', whatever it was, really really BUGGED me and could he please stop it?
You are ENTITLED to your feelings. You are ENTITLED to be treated with respect and courtesy. You are ENTITLED to express your feelings when you're hurt or angry. WE ALL ARE!
It's little things sometimes. Stupid things. But they can get under your skin and if you don't express yourself, what's going to happen?
You're going to find yourself with an uncontrollable URGE .... to eat.
So I learned how to express my anger. And I'm still not great at it...believe me. Many is the time I've just 'clammed up' and started SLAMMING things around in the kitchen, banging pots and pans, etc....hubby knows I'm pissed...and he'll say something...and I'll little by little get it out. I have to be careful to differentiate...not to ACCUSE, not to jump to conclusions, but just to say 'This made ME feel...hurt' (HURT is usually translated quickly into ANGER for me). And that clues him in. I'll even say things like "I know you didn't mean to but.....when you did ...(X) ... I felt (Y)".
It's a hard process but it's worth it. Clearing the air is SO worth it. Both he and I can walk around telling ourselves all KINDS of krazy things...we mumble under our breath...we get mad and don't express it...and it can become TOXIC. We got to a point last year where we literally couldn't STAND the sight of each other! And we knew something had to change...because neither one of us wanted to leave; we knew we could work through it. It took time, and we still have to stop ourselves and TALK about things a lot....but it's worth it.
And EXPRESSING my anger instead of eating has many benefits.
First of all, hubby doesn't do a LOT of stupid little things that he used to do that 'bug' me.
And I'm talking ridiculously small things. Like leaving the toilet seat up (LOL). Finishing the last of something and NOT throwing it out (drives me NUTS). Leaving his dirty socks around. Tracking dirt through my just-washed kitchen floor because he 'didn't notice' that I was hard at work cleaning it all morning and didn't think to wipe his feet properly. Not offering to help me do something stupid like take the garbage out when he can SEE I'm overloaded doing at least 10 things at once. Getting 'zoned out' on the TV when I'm talking about something IMPORTANT. (SHUT THE DARN THING OFF for 5 minutes). LOL...you get my drift. In any relationship, compromise is important. But you can't compromise if you don't EXPRESS how you feel first!
DIGGING DOWN DEEP inside has been an ongoing theme with me since I first started this program 2 years ago. I never thought that would happen...it was just another 'diet program' and I was going to give it a try, hopefully I'd lose the weight...but I never quite 'connected the dots' that if I wanted to change my eating habits I had to change my own RUNNING DIALOGUE in my head....my thought process whenever I had an emotion that USED to result in raiding the refrigerator (secretly or out in the open).
Doing so has required courage and strength....two qualities I never thought I possessed in great quantities...but to my surprise, I've been able to summon tremendous powers of BOTH qualities when I really need them (and WANT them, that's 'key'!)
If
you want it badly enough, and you're committed,
you will FIND A WAY.
you will FIND A WAY.
THINK about what emotions drive you to overeat. For me, unfortunately it's a whole HOST of them...anger is just "ONE";
(I'll try to discuss the others little by little in future blogs)
....but each one CAN be conquered.
You CAN learn OTHER ways....HEALTHY ways...to deal with your emotions besides overeating.
And once you do that, you'll find your 'cravings' and 'urges' .... disappear! And then you'll sailing OP and the weight is dropping off like krazy and you're realizing that you CAN do this, you can get to goal and regain control over your eating, once and for ALL!
Keep on keepin' on!
