You Can't Rush Your Healing
/A few weekends ago, I spent some time with my sisters. We have an amazingly supportive relationship and they are my best friends. But that's not the point of the story.
I also titled this post "You Can't Rush Your Healing" because that is what it's about and because I love the song by Trevor Hall. And then I realized after I wrote the whole post that the reason my sisters and I got together was to go to a Trevor Hall concert. Isn't it funny how everything is connected?
Anyway, while we were visiting, we went on a walk. This is a walk that I do routinely during the warmer months. I had only done it a handful of times this spring so far, but it's one of my favorite walks.
My husband came along with us. We often do this walk together when we can.
We set off on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. I was feeling good in my body and happy to be moving it.
And then everyone walked faster than me.
I didn't realize it was bothering me, but I noticed that I was struggling to keep up. A couple of times I threw out a joke about it and asked people to slow down. My husband put his arm around me as I was lagging and commiserated that the pace was fast.
He walks with me regularly and he is used to having to slow his pace for me. I knew he was trying to be supportive, but I also knew he could have kept up with my sisters perfectly well.
I also noticed that I didn't take my sisters up this particular little steep hill. And I mean LITTLE, the hill is maybe 30 steps up? I skipped the hill because I knew I'm always breathless at the top and I didn't want to be panting and breathless. When I walk with my husband we stop talking for this part of the walk and resume when we get back to flat ground.
I was judging my breathlessness and subconsciously equating it with the idea that it meant something was wrong with me.
I knew during the walk that I was feeling irritated. But it was very subtle. For the most part, it felt like being pestered by a mosquito. I kind of batted away the irritation and thought that was that.
At one point on the walk, my older sister dropped back behind me and I knew she did that so I could set the pace. I was grateful and yet somewhere deep inside I was also embarrassed. Come to think of it, I don't KNOW anything. I assumed that's why she did that!
NONE of this was happening in my conscious mind. This was all happening "behind the scenes" in my body and in my experience. It is only in hindsight that I am able to piece together how I was feeling on this walk.
The reason I tell this story is because when we got back to my house, we hung out for a bit, and then my sisters left. I should also mention that one of my sisters owns an amazing bakery and café in Princeton, Massachusetts. (Check it out if you are ever in Massachusetts and tell her I sent you!)
My sister is always incredibly generous with her inventory and had brought several goodies to share with us for the weekend. I had already sampled several and they were yummy and felt very satisfying.
And when my sisters left, I ate the rest of everything.
I could not figure out for the life of me why I did that. My body felt gross all afternoon and at the same time, there was no stopping it. I kept going back for more until it was gone. And I wasn't going for the farro salad, I was going for the cinnamon muffins, the ham and cheese brioche rolls, and the salted caramel brownie. Oh yeah - they are as good as they sound.
I found it strange that I had been around these foods for several meals and previously had no desire to eat more than a couple of bites.
But when they left - I could not leave the food alone.
I even put it on a plate and sat with it to eat and focus my attention on it. I started with half a roll and even when I was full I went back for the other half. That was only the beginning.
I tell you this to illuminate several important points on the path to healing your relationship with food.
First, I did not beat myself up for this deviation from how I wanted to be with food. Instead, I dove in and got curious about what exactly this was all about.
I started with some journaling which always helps me make sense of my thoughts, feelings, and emotions.
Second, I reminded myself that one day of "inexplicable" bingeing does not eradicate months of mindful and attuned eating. What it does is show me where there is still work/healing to do.
Third, I realized that the weekend was a perfect storm of all my emotional eating triggers. In the past, I would often eat AFTER a social event or weekend. I used to find it stressful to be around people without feeling centered and grounded and comfortable in my skin.
Sunday afternoon/evenings also used to be a big trigger. This was leftover from the days when I would have to go to work at a job I didn't like on Monday, or back to school when I didn't want to. The "Sunday night blues" they call them. Sundays are also when my husband leaves the house to play hockey and used to be a favorite time to snuggle up with Ben and Jerry.
The trigger I wasn't as attuned to (and this is the one I think was up for clearing) was the SHAME I felt for not being able to keep up on the walk. There was also some comparison to my sisters' experiences with food and their bodies over the weekend.
Oh my - it was like being right back in my chubby 8-year-old body. I remembered feeling left behind as everyone else would cross country ski circles around me and I could barely stand up.
I hated that feeling of ineptitude and as an enneagram one, when we feel bad we often turn it inward on ourselves. And that only makes the desire to comfort eat even stronger.
It also brought me right back to being in high school with my sister who was a 3 varsity athlete. I played varsity softball for one season. During that season, I had to go to the nurse for hitting myself in the head with the bat. I also managed to catch the ball with my eye socket one time when the sun got in my way. (Yes, I am blaming it on the sun.)
I was the kid who preferred to do Algebra on the beach rather than go for a walk or a jog. My father once put together an obstacle course to entice me to move my body as a kid. He meant well but it felt humiliating - running laps around our property, jumping through tires, and climbing a rope swing.
Other kids probably would have thought that was incredibly fun but I took it to heart as a sign of my inadequacy. The obstacle course was about being too big and it only served to make me feel worse about myself.
I wasn't athletic. And I wasn't skinny. One thing didn't have anything to do with the other but somehow they always got linked together.
So here I was on a Sunday, eating my shameful feelings and following an old Sunday neural pathway of unconscious eating.
I share this so you know that the healing path is not a straight line. Having a day that feels like a colossal failure can actually be taken as an opportunity for learning.
Following the debacle, I reached out to my own coaches to unpack the events of the weekend. I also kept using my journal to glean more insights.
What I realized is that most of the triggers I am aware of have decreased by 80-90%. Now I rarely eat after a social event because I am more comfortable in my skin. I also do things to ground and center myself and set an intention for the event before I go.
I also broke up with Ben & Jerry years ago. We have a casual relationship now rather than a steady thing.
Perfection isn't the goal and "success" for me doesn't mean I won't sometimes use food as a coping mechanism. Success isn't a light switch where one day you do something and the next day you don't. Success is more like a dimmer switch where you go from doing something all the time to doing it less and less and less. By the time the behavior is gone, you may not even notice or remember you had it.
So the takeaways?
Healing is called a journey for a reason. It takes time.
Mindset and beliefs often need to shift before behaviors will.
It's important to understand and heal the parts of us that still feel like 8-year-old losers.
Don't beat yourself up if you have behaviors you wish you didn’t. There is always a good reason why.
Instead, use compassionate curiosity to explore and unpack why you do what you do when you wish you didn't.
Everything is happening for you in order to move you to your next level of healing.
Even when you think nothing has changed - when you look back over time you will see you have been growing, evolving, and changing all along.
Acknowledge and celebrate your progress, even if it seems small. How do you move a mountain? One stone at a time.
So rather than focusing on the behaviors, I don't want to have, today I am celebrating:
Going back to an in-person yoga studio this week for the first time in 3 years.
Connecting with a new like-minded practitioner who lives in my town! Yay!
How much my beliefs and mindset have changed and shifted over the last decade. I am a different person. More compassionate, loving, understanding, centered, and grounded. And less judgmental, anxious, fear-based, and rigid. In my food and in everything,
It's 5:30 pm, do you know what your triggers are?