Managing vs. Acknowledgement

I've had a lot to manage. Lots of stress, vaca blues, and well just life in general. My work is in a hugely transitional state. I came back from vaca to someone being let go which was actually a positive but still unsettling. Maybe this is dumb but I spend very little time worrying I will get fired. The changes taking place at work though leave me in a weird place. We have added three new people to our team and someone has been put in place above me for me to report to. I have not really had to report to someone in 4 years. This has been good and bad. It's been great to make me learn how to oversee myself, get things done, and manage other people. It's been bad in that bad habits have taken root, and I have been left without support and protection. You can only thrive in survival mode for so long. I feel as an individual and as a company we're not thriving anymore. We've pushed it as long as we can. I am welcoming a lot of the changes and feel they are hugely necessary for our growth and in the long run will be a great thing for us as individuals and as a team. This does not mean it's not incredibly unsettling. I have felt really unsettled. I swing sometimes from feeling left out, paranoid, just plain ole annoyed to demoted, unnecessary, very excited, and looking ahead positively. It's been a roller coaster. I also have been put in the position of explain and defending a lot of how we have operated as a company. Not awesome. It makes me feel defensive because a lot of what is "wrong" was never my choice but what I had to do with what I was given. I am super lucky in the the person who has been put into place to rehab these aspects is a really great guy, who is super smart, and not judgmental. I can learn from him and I can become stronger, smarter and more experienced working with him. I have to get past a bruised ego though. Easier said then done and I am finding my way. All of this has impacted my eating. 

Not a huge surprise the eating would reflect the unrest in my life. I have been aware of it and trying to manage it. I even said to her at one point I need to be more vigilant about my choices and she no it's not about the food or being vigilant about that, it's connecting to the emotion behind it. She also pointed out to me was I was managing the using of food as my outlet, but not acknowledging the emotion behind it. This was leading to the mindless eating, and even some middle of the night eating. I have not hugely suffered from that and I am certainly not looking to add it to the roster of ish to worry about. I am still learning how to process emotion and it's still amazing to me these simple things that get pointed out to me that I need to work on and address like acknowledging emotion. I assumed I was but I was not. I was dealing with the eating impulse but not what was fueling it therefore making it harder. Oh the tangled webs we weave! 

I am back in therapy and super digging it so far and loving the lady I am seeing but it's probably helping and hurting me by stirring up emotions. For my appointment next week I am to think about what I want to start working on first. Where do I even begin? Body image? Self Worth? Inability to process emotion? The mind boggles at the choices. I am going to keep it simple though and think about what do I want and what do I need to achieve it? I want to be healthy and happy ultimately and I need help learning skills to be more capable of doing that on my own. I love something she said to be when I explained to her part of what had lead me there was feeling stuck. She said based on your history and what's happened to you, you were never going to be able to process and heal from it on your own. You did not get there by yourself you were not going to be able to undo it by yourself. I felt such freedom from that statement, like it's not my fault I am not healed. I told Marisa about it and she said she validated your feelings. I wonder how often we just need how we feel to be validated and that's some of what is so beneficial about therapy. At the very least who doesn't like the idea of having a carved out pocket of time to talk about themselves and their goals once a week? Not too shabby. 

How do ya'll feel about emotion? Do you think you process it? Or do you have signs maybe you don't beyond eating?