OVEREATING AND CHOICES:

Self-attack, self-love, curiosity.

These mean that I have options. Options mean I am free, I'm a real human being, I'm not stuck, I can learn and change and enjoy my life even if I'm not perfect or things around me aren't perfect.

Now to the eating thing.

One of the weird and wonderful parts about eating a raw/ living foods way, is that you can eat tons and tons of food and never gain weight, and never be sick. One of the downsides, though, is that you can eat and eat and get a very full stomach that aches and pains you in the middle of the night.

That's what I had last night, my yummy-too-much-to-eat-at-night, too full and aching stomach complaining bitterly of my abuse of it.

I could have gone into the "I should not have eaten so much story," which seems true enough on the surface, but after you've done the Byron Katie work for awhile you realize that these "shoulds" always carry an undercurrent of implication: you are wrong. There is something wrong with you. The should is a shaming word, as are all the should nots.

So, what am I to do?

Love what I am in the ache. Sense myself deeply and love and appreciate who and what I am right then. Just to do that is to begin to relax and the pain then has a better chance of healing away, since my poor overstuffed body now isn't constricted and can use its energy digesting.

Love that I have a chance to be curious about what to do with this "eating too much at night" habit. What variations can I try on it? Eating with more attention at night would help, since lunch is the meal Marlie and I sit down together and pay happy attention to food, and night is kind of a get this and that a enjoy while reading a book or watching a video.

Hmm. That would be a nice shift. And I can chant before I eat.

Or eat standing.

Or ( and this is great, if, if, if I remember) sense myself, taste each bite and follow my breathing as I eat.

Or do yoga after I eat so I will want to be light in order to do the yoga.

Or do the Byron Katie work before I eat, in case I'm filling up some sort of emotional holes.

Lots to be curious about and explore.

Which is a way of loving myself.

So these are the choices:
1) To go into a war: Thou Shalt Not Eat This Way any More. This is dreary and it doesn't work.

2) To invoke curiosity and self-love, slowing down, shifting habits and upping awareness. This seems like a good strategy to me.

Happy solstice, Christmas, Hanukkah and all the rest.

( Note: I'm back on a one a day essay/ thought/ contemplation/ posting per day,
and
am rotating them through (roughly in this order)
slowsonoma.com,
then wakeup-feldenkrais,
then taichiyoghealthweightloss,
if that interests you.)