Letting Go of the Diet Mentality

Here I sit, trying to come up with something to say about giving up dieting and obsession with my weight. It is so hard to do this. Give it up, I mean.

I just feel so anxious most of the time, so disconnect, so lonely and I judge myself as a total and complete failure at life. At least I could have the hope and the success of a thin body to keep me feeling good and sort of high. Now, I don't. Now I have the mind that wants to focus on something, anything to keep me away from the grief that came up for me yesterday in my group for ending food and weight obsession. The therapist asked me what happens when I am just with myself, without the lure of food or the lure of a diet. Well, I am very sad.

Rather than restricting food, I allow food, anything I want, any time anywhere.But I have food sensitivities and, as I learn how to take care of myself better, I chose to not eat certain things and find substitutes that I like. I will never put myself on a food plan or diet again. So, the safety of the food is there, but I am introducing the concept of care taking myself when I want to eat from something other than actual hunger. This is very difficult. When I stop and sit down, what I feel is anxiety and lots of it. I feel overwhelmed. My head just swims with to do lists and shoulds. It is quite exhausting to hear this. So, why not eat and shut it up?

Here is where my meditation practice comes in. Here is where I try to be a good care taker for myself and see how I can lesson my anxiety somehow. My parents, ate, drank, dieted, read, prayed and worked their feelings away. This is what they taught me. My feelings were not o.k. I do what they did. But now I am changing the game. I am sitting with it and trying to come up with solutions besides food or diets, etc. Sometimes there is nothing to do but sit there. Sometimes, if I am lucky, the grief that I know I run from comes up. LIke yesterday it did.

Today, I feel anxious about the day ahead. I will be meeting people at a party for a deceased friend. I am afraid of being judged as stupid, or anti social.Part of me wants to go be with her friends, because it will be good to get out of my self and connect with others. But can I connect? Sometimes I come back feeling even lonlier than before. This I dread.

No wonder Jenny Craig sells, who wants to deal with this stuff?

Just like the work that needs to be done to bring about a change in our country, I need to work to bring about the change in myself. I need to do this digging into the deep of myself to find the buried parts of me. I keep thinking I have to do it alone.I get so hard on myself. Instead of needing to be have the perfect body, now I need to be the perfect recovered person. What's next? The perfect spiritual person. It never, ever, ends. But, I know that a light is here somewhere. That is the part that digs.

They say that it does not have to be so hard. All the teachers I listen to. Eckhart, Jesus, Buddha and others say the same thing more or less. God is closer than my own breath. What does that mean? Some part of me knows. But right now, I don't and their lies my faith. Well, this head that wants to figure it out will never be able to know for sure. I think it is an experience. I know it is. I want it. See, always wanting. O.k. I am human. Take a breath.

sh