Here’s a trend that I’ve noticed in people who struggle with their eating: we don’t take ourselves seriously.
Often, one of my clients will have the most amazing insight. Something like:
“I realized that I eat because I’m so tired and drained at work that it actually feels painful. When I eat, I don’t have to feel that tiredness.”
“I just noticed that I eat after I’ve put my kids to bed because I want pleasure…now. And there’s not a lot in my life that can give me pleasure that reliably, and quickly.”
But many people, once they’ve had an incredible insight like this, will then say: “But it’s not like my life is really hard, compared to other people!”
Of course, I appreciate this humility. Yes, there are other people fighting bigger battles — most of us are (hopefully) not working in coal mines or battling late-stage cancer.
And yet.
And yet, if we’re eating in response to fatigue, a need for pleasure, or a need for breaks…we’re going to keep eating until we address these needs in some way. Sometimes this requires actual changes in our lives (changing our schedule, our job, the support we seek out, etc.), and sometimes it just requires a perspective shift or new mental or emotional tools.
We’re never going to make the changes required if we don’t acknowledge our challenges and our suffering for what it is: challenges and suffering.
In other words: We need to take ourselves seriously.
I’m sure you know someone with greater challenges or more severe suffering. But you don’t do yourself, or them, any favors by denying your own difficulties. The pain doesn’t go away just because you don’t acknowledge it — it just goes underground. It infects your eating (and probably other areas of your life, too).
So today I’ll ask: What pain or challenge in your life aren’t you taking seriously?
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