Friday, December 03, 2010

Healing the Post-Thanksgiving eating blues

I'm sitting down at the Thanksgiving table, having eaten way more than my body needs, feeling full, uncomfortable, in pain. The following dialogue immediately starts up in my head.

My Inner Critic or, as I like to call her, my Authoritarian Bitch pipes up:
"You are disgusting. You have absolutely no self-control. I've told you again and again that you are weak and lazy and undisciplined, and you've just proving me right once again."

Panic rises inside of me. I feel my gut and my jaw clenching. Anxiety rises all the way to my throat. These uncomfortable feelings threaten to burst to the surface. I feel scared, as though as I fighting for my very own survival, and I don't understand why.

My Good Girl replies:
"I am so sorry! I know that you are right! I promise to do better next time! Please don't be mad at me! I want to be good. I want to have control. I don't know what happens to me..."

As panic and hopelessness threatens to overtake me, my Good Girl finds a solution:
"I'm going to go to the gym every day this week! I will stay on the treadmill at least an hour! I will only eat Lean Cuisines for lunch and dinner. I will deprive myself until I can get rid of my sin of gluttony."

My fight-or-flight response suddenly lessens. I can breathe again. My muscles relax. My heart slows down. I exhale. All is well with the world once again.

If you struggle with food in any way, I am sure that this dialogue is familiar to you. You overeat (whether one extra cracker or thousands of calories); your Critic slams you; you feel panicked and overwhelmed; your Good Girl desperately tries to make it up through deprivation; you temporarily feel better; you eventually overeat again because deprivation can't work long-term; and the whole cycle starts all over again.

How do you heal this inner hell? Do you try to get rid of the Critic? After all, she seems to be at the root of so much of our suffering. She is the one who incites hopelessness, low self-esteem, deprivation, and shame. Let's burn her down!!!

I spent years trying to get rid of my Critic but it never worked because...I was now using a new Critic to get rid of my old Critic!!!!! I now had even more war and aggression inside of me!!! This certainly didn't help me become more loving and peaceful in any way.

One day, I decided to ask my Critic what she wanted from me. The answer stunned me. My Critic told me that she wanted me to be happy! She wanted me to be loved. And she truly, deeply believed that the way to be happy and loved was through being thin.

She had smartly and beautifully learned that truth from her environment (media, friends, family...), and she now spent every waking hour making sure that I became and stayed thin. When she saw me doing anything to move away from that, she literally felt as though I was threatening my very survival, as a human being's survival is so closely related to being loved, to not being alone, to being happy. This is why I felt such panic when I overate: my Critic believed that I was putting myself in mortal danger and it sent my body into full fight-or-flight mode to warn me against continuing what I was doing! Isn't she amazing?!

When I understood this, I felt so much love and gratitude for my Critic. My Critic was literally trying to protect me from perceived danger the best way she knew how. I realized that I didn't want to get rid of her: I wanted and needed her protection, but I needed to re-educate about WHAT she needed to protect me from.

Since then, I have spent much time teaching my Critic that my survival does not depend on being thin enough. My "survival", my ability to love and be loved, to be happy, depends on my being authentic, on being kind, on my being true to who I am. I've asked my Critic to tell me when I'm not being that authentic Self, but to do it kindly and lovingly, not with shame and criticism. My Critic now still has a job to do, which keeps her very happy, but her job is now self-constructive rather than self-destructive. She gets an A+!

This month, practice the following steps:
1. Ask your Inner Critic what she/he really wants for you
2. If the answer is that she wants you to be happy, ask her what she thinks will make you happy.
3. If the answer is an external reason (make lots of money, be thin enough...), thank her for her hard work and teach her that your happiness will come from internal reasons, not external ones.
4. Re-educate her again and again, asking her to let you know when you are deviating from true, internal happiness, rather than temporary, external happiness.
5. Soon, you will have the greatest ally you have ever had working for you 24/7! Have fun!

I'd love to know what you think!

Warmly,
Isabelle
303-817-6912

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