Day 009

At the close of my previous post, I said I'd return to the homework we'd been given for this week. In our workbooks, this is titled 'Challenging Crooked Thinking', although it was done with regard t the metaphor of the river which I discussed on Day 004. You'll recall we had the river:

We were each asked to read out one thing from either side of the 'river' from the list we'd written up at home. Next, we were invited to call out one thing from the river itself, which is to say something that is preventing us from getting from where we are to where we need to be. After everything everyone else had said, I felt most of the items on my list had already been covered, so I choose the final item from my river; 'responsibility'.

A need to take responsibility for where I am. I need to ensure I keep track of my weight responsibly and don't hide my head in the sand about it, and, if it's not where I want it to be, doing something about it.

Actually, I didn't just read that out, but expressed it more along the lines of, "I need to take responsibility for my gluttony rather than being a passive victim of it." J found this very interesting. She'd already told us that she'd push us on the specifics of what we meant, because only through being specific can we properly identify if and when things are going awry. The river metaphor isn't just something we need to do for the lessons, but something to continually refer back to in order to check our progress. It's a tool.

She asked me about responsibility. Did I have a responsible job? Yes, fairly responsible; I have a job that requires me to speak to the upper levels of management in an organisation of some three thousand people or so. Apparently this was interesting to J too. She asked me whether my overeating coincided with time at work when I felt out of control. The honest answer to this is that I don't know. However, if I'm completely honest, there were times when I bought food when I felt out of control. My job is rather reactive, so I can't always plan my time effectively. In addition, I don't always plan my time effectively even when I could do so, and sometimes pay the consequences of this.

Perhaps J was onto something. When I said about how I'd buy the large amount of food in advance, she suggested that what this did was cover up the real reason I eat food. I don't know that this is true. I'd buy the same - literally the same - thing every single day. I used to go into the shop and buy a large amount of food and proceed to stuff it into my face in a specific order, at a specific time. I didn't particularly think of it like this, but that's what I did. J suggested that this represented an action that had become habitual. I'd been doing it for so long that I couldn't remember why I was doing it, but that there had been an initial spark. It was certainly habitual, but I'm not sure about the other bit. I wish there were some specific trigger I could pin my eating habits on, but I fear that I just went in to buy my lunch and it gradually got larger and larger until it was huge.

Of course, part of the reason I might not be able to remember the specific trigger is that I've been doing a similar thing for an awfully long time now. I'll continue to think about this and put down any thoughts I may have.

There was lots of other helpful advice though. This included the idea that you can replace one habit with another; i.e. you replace your bad eating habit with a good one. It sounds simple, but the point is about aversion and deliberately choosing to replace one with the other until the instinct to do the good habit becomes the strongest.

We need to put specific boundaries in place. Without strict boundaries, one can get sucked into lazy patterns, slips and habits. If you, for example, decide that you're going to set a strict calorie total for each day, then it becomes much simpler to manage your food.

We need to actively manage uncomfortable feelings, otherwise we reach for food. We all know that food is often eaten because it gives us (an illusory) sense of comfort. If we recognise we're having negative feelings we can be more aware that food will only give us that temporary fix and it would be better to fix the specific issue at fault.


J asked us how it's possible to get across the river. We duly chucked out a range of options. Swim, wade, bridge, go round it, jet pack, pole vault, plane, boat etc. She said the simplest method was a bridge (I disagree - it's wading - but that's just being wanky and anyway too literal), and described how the tools we're getting on this course - simply saying 'No', making choices rather than being stuck in fixed behaviours, setting boundaries, ensuring we drink a lot because often hunger is thirst and the food packs - form our bridge to where we want to be. If at any time we find ourselves back in the water, the tools are there to help us get back to where we want to be.