When it comes to staying on our Plan this time of year it's difficult for even the most "successful" of us. Holiday food is filled with sugar, flour, nuts, butter, chocolate, love, loneliness, anger, sadness, fear, guilt, pain, and shame. With such a high voltage ingredient list is it any wonder we feel so drained and powerless when it comes to food?
So this holiday season I suggest we give ourselves the gift of opportunity. Let's use our falls off of the wagon as an opportunity to get to know ourselves better. Every time we look to feed an emotion rather than physical hunger let's ask questions like:
Why do I feel the need to eat right now?
I'm not hungry so what am I trying to feed?
What just happened that triggered this feeling?
Has this food done for me what I had hoped it would?
When has food ever made the pain go away?
A sad situation happy?
Banish loneliness?
So let's get curious about who we are when we feel the need to medicate with food. Let's begin to peel back the layers of our hungers and examine the emotions lying beneath them. Let's shine light, understanding and self-compassion on them. Let's not bury them with food but examine them, feel them and lovingly accept them as part of our story. I don't think we can banish them but I do believe if we accept them their power over us will diminish.
And please know this: when you examine and feel, and yes hurt, you are changing! When you question your emotional hunger it means you are changing and no longer willing to sit in your pain but choose to step into joy!
