That
was the advice. Sought after advice. Eagerly awaited advice. Kindly delivered
by my wise mentor. Kind because I know she wanted to use the โFโ word.
I
had been focused on building my business and organizing my time. I was stressed
about doing something completely new that exposed me, encouraged being
vulnerable. I was not tolerating that stress terribly well. My brain kept
offering up my old security blanket, overeating.
When
I built my new neural pathways, the ones that support me in extinguishing the
desire to overeat, I built them strong and wide. I made it easy to divert my
thinking away from thoughts that lead to overeating and back to thoughts that
lead to focusing on my life, not on my food and/or my weight. For a year and a
half, I had successfully kept off the 60 pounds that I had lost by changing my
brain. And it was easy.
Now
my freedom from food drama began to feel less free. It turns out that the
neural pathways that were previously laid down from a lifetime of overeating
have not been completely removed. Though the new paths are well established,
when my little lizard brain panicked, it chose to run down the old familiar
paths, despite 18 months of overgrowth.
I
chose to respond with shock, and awe, and confusion.
Not
wanting to take responsibility for it.
โItโs
the stress.โ
โItโs
too hard.โ
โI
donโt have the bandwidth to deal with this now.โ
Bring
on the chips. Ice cream. Handfuls of nuts. And weight gain.
And
my panic over the weight gain, of course, led to more weight gain.
Like
all my clients, I have a human brain. And that brain wants so desperately to
keep me safe. And is wholly inadequate at deciphering what is actually
dangerous and what is โmade upโ dangerous. It doesnโt know that my story, a
bunch of sentences in my head, will not actually kill me. But
running/overeating from the feeling that story produces ๐๐๐๐๐
actually kill me. Obesity, diabetes, heart disease. All encouraged by
overeating.
Now,
the choice between believing those sentences and the outcome of that, and the
choice to see them as harmless words on a page has taken on a heavier meaning
(pun intended). My mental health. My goals. My business. My future. My life.
I
asked for advice. Plaintively. She responded with tough love. โYou are the best
coach for you.โ
My
confidence in my own abilities is what is going to get me what I want. Itโs
there. When I clean up my mind, Iโll see it.
I
just need to quit messing around.
Iโve
got this.
๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐โ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐ ๐ถ๐๐๐ก๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ฟ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐โ๐ก ๐ถ๐๐๐โ. ๐โ๐โ๐ ๐๐๐ ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ก๐ ๐๐๐๐ข๐ก ๐ก๐๐๐โ๐๐๐ ๐ค๐๐๐๐ ๐ก๐ ๐๐๐ ๐ 50 ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ข๐๐๐ โฆ.๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ก๐๐ฆ. ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐. ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐ ๐ก๐๐ข๐๐๐๐.