Jackie, a coaching client of mine (not her real name), is recognizing that she has been giving away her personal power for years and that’s driving some of her emotional eating. Here are two examples she shared with me last week.
“In the past, I would have sat next to my husband while we watched the TV shows he wanted to watch and the food thoughts would come to me fast and furiously.”
“I give my Dad and husband the better looking pieces of fish and I take the one that looks like it might have bones in it. Then I feel unsatisfied or resentful and then I feel I have to have dessert, or I want to give myself a binge later that evening, or I’m snacking all night long.”
Jackie told me she’s been thinking a lot about a Dr. Phil quote she read in the October issue of O Magazine.
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“We may think of power as something other people give us, but in fact we grant it to ourselves through our moment-to-moment decisions, our behavior, our thoughts. The antedote to feeling powerless is to have faith in yourself – the confidence to determine the paths and outcomes of your best life. So if you’re getting the short end of the stick, remember that power comes from within. You, right now, are a powerful person–you just have to plug in.” Dr. Phil McGraw
Jackie’s beginning to recognize her responsibility for getting what she wants.
“I’m realizing more and more that I’m the one deciding how my life will be and no one else can dictate that. This week I even heard my internal voice say a couple of times, ‘I get to decide how/what I want this to be. I get to have a life.’ I felt very empowered and much less guilty about some decisions this week, especially with regard to my family.
I had two very cool moments where I realized that food would not improve those moments. These came as such a surprise to me since I generally have believed that everything can be improved with food added to it. 😉 Once was when I really wanted to watch a specific TV show. I chose it, instead of just watching something because I was tired, didn’t know what else to do, or because it was something my husband wants to watch that I have little interest in. As I was watching my chosen show I thought how perfectly wonderful I felt and how much I was enjoying the program. I contemplated going to the fridge as I always do and somehow the thought popped into my head that food would not make the moment any more enjoyable and that I was perfectly content. I think for just a moment I understood what you mean when you say how great it is to just feel comfortable in your own skin.
Then I had another similar experience after dinner last night. We had just gotten home from going out to dinner and my husband opened a particularly nice bottle of red wine. I had my usual thought, ‘what can I eat to go with this that would be wonderful?’ And then I thought that what I really wanted to go with the wine was to play the piano – how odd. It was late and others in my family were watching TV so I didn’t want to disturb them. So I thought a little harder about what would really make that moment even more enjoyable and I decided that a CD of Michael Buble would be good. Normally I would have been looking for chocolate!
I think these are both great examples of how I’m actually beginning to get in touch with myself and get clear about what I want, not what I think I should do or what someone else expects. I am seeing that I can care for myself in other ways besides just food.”
Is there anything you might do this week to take more responsibiltiy for getting the life you want?
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Ellen Shuman is a Life Coach who specializes in emotional and binge eating issues. She is the founder of A Weigh Out & Acoria Eating Disorder Treatment, Vice President of the Binge Eating Disorder Association (BEDA), and Co-Chair of the Academy for Eating Disorders Special Interest Group on “Health at Every Size”, ellen@aweighout.com
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