Day Thirty Five!!!

I mentioned a little earlier how food can be an addiction. The other day Dr. Laurie asked me to work through the Emotionally Focussed Addictions work book. I am now on chapter two. The addiction work book focusses on any kind of compulsion or obsession which includes eating. It’s a twelve step focus, covering many topics and I am on the second step. The first step was admitting that I am not in control, defines what addiction is and determines how severe your addiction is; mine is mild. The second step dives into feelings that I have been carrying around with me.
When I started the first chapter, and even when I finished the first chapter I was still under the mind set of “yeah right, like overeating can be an addiction.” But as I continued onto the second step and was confronted with a list of emotions that I was tasked with expanding on I realized that I was carrying a lot more feelings that I didn’t understand how to express or articulate. I realized I was minimizing my problem, avoiding it, avoiding the bad feelings of it, recognizing it, I started to realize “wait a minute, this is all starting to make sense now”.
Because we believe there is something wrong with us we disown our personal experience and we blame ourselves for failures instead of looking at all of the things that can strain us and all of the forces that are at play that shapes how it is that we do life. What we end up doing is internalizing oppression which keeps us exactly where we don’t want to be. 
I still feel critical of my body, but I’ve gained some compassion for myself as I begin to address my pain as a result of my eating problem I am working on integrating this new program into my personal life and work. It’s important to make sense of it cognitively and I need to make sense of it emotionally in order to be able to feel like I’m actually in control, trust the process, so that I can let all of those emotions go so that I can focus on moment to moment awareness of being present to my emotional needs as well as physical needs. 
I think it’s getting easier for me to work through the emotional side of this process because I am now approaching twenty pounds of weight loss. This almost accomplishment is a great way for me to stay motivated on my journey to healthy living, even if shedding weight means shedding some emotional baggage as well.

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