Asking Versus Telling

I am not going to lie. Last week my eating was not good. Some lapses into old behaviors that haven't cropped up in a while. Mostly restricting my food during the day and night eating. I found it really hard to eat during the day and then to stop at night. My life had become a little more chaotic so my eating had as well. The relationship between the two is super frustrating. I know they are linked, I know that how I am eating often reflects how I am feeling, and I transfer how I feel to how I eat, and if my eating is affected it then also worsens how I feel because I feel more out of control, and gross. Wowsa just typing that made me tired, a lot of feeling and frustration. Lucky for me things never get too bad because I do not go more then a week without seeing someone brilliant who helps re-programme my noggin'.

Tuesday I saw Marisa, my nutritionist. I said I am frustrated and I am becoming more aware of the links and parallels but do not know what to do about it. This sometimes can be the worst limbo, you know what you are doing does not work for you or make you feel good but you do not know what to do about it. I walked her through an example, grazing at night having an English muffin after dinner and admitting it was emotional and a little hunger but probably could have been avoided. She asked me what my dialogue with myself was during this. I said it was admitting it was emotional but in some ways allowing it because I had admitted that.

As Marisa does she said something brilliant. You need to quit asking the unhealthy voice questions and tell it what to do. She said asking the unhealthy voice gives it a voice. I think we can all agree, if asked our unhealthy voice will answer and while it's answer may be appealing it's not going to be what is good for us. She said what you could do in the future is tell it you're emotional right now and there could be eating fall out so you can have an English muffin for breakfast but not right now.

Since Tuesday I have thought about this a lot and in other areas of my life. I generally am open to other opinions, and points of view. I will open up the dialogue about decisions, and I am good with asking others questions and respecting answers. All that is fine, but the one person who can no longer get a vote is the unhealthy voice. The unhealthy voice hoses me each and every time. It makes me think it's my friend and has my interests at heart and it does but the wrong ones. It has the interests of perpetuating old patterns, bad habits, temporary comforts, and old feelings of what I deserve. It wants to keep me where I am because that's what is knows and is comfortable with. There are a lot of things I do not want to do anymore. Some of them are possible, some I may never really be able to define what success would be, I do know the unhealthy voice will not be asked to contribute to these questions anymore. It can't because I don't want to eat English muffins at night when I am freaked out. The unhealthy voice is quite silent when I say okay that's over now what, it's no so smart then and that's when I really need to listen to my own voice.