Saturday, November 14, 2015

November 14th, 2015 A Daily Practice

November 14th, 2015 A Daily Practice

For whatever reason, I had trouble sleeping in this morning. No alarm and still, up a little after 8am. Granted, this is nearly four hours later than a typical weekday, but still, I was shooting for 10am. I immediately decided there would be a nap at some point.

I did exactly what I planned to do today. I relaxed, rested well, made time to read a few things I've been wanting to read, did some writing, prepared some great food, experienced some good support exchanges, had a great workout and enjoyed dinner out with my oldest daughter. No work commitments or anything else, just some really good quality time all the way around. Oh, and my hometown football team made it out of Ames, Iowa with a win after trailing the entire game. I'm pretty pleased with today.

Life Coach Gerri is always writing things that fit me like the most comfortable pair of shoes. Occasionally, I plan on sharing some of her wisdom on this blog. Here's a sampling:

 From Life Coach Gerri Helms:
"When I stopped eating compulsively, I experienced feelings in a new way; they were intense.  I didn’t know how it felt to be happy — I was wildly excited. And instead of feeling sad, I went directly to deeply depressed. Since I wasn’t anesthetizing those feelings with food, they came popping out of me, trapped for half my life under mounds and mounds of food.  It took me quite some time to get those emotions to settle down to more of a middle-of-the-road experience."

 This offering from my friend is powerful. For anyone who has used food (or anything else) to stuff down emotions and then stopped using, you likely relate, too. Experiencing feelings without the buffer of excessive food, at first---oh my, it's challenging. I like how she put it, "they came popping out of me, trapped for half my life under mounds and mounds of food."

 If you're new along this road, I'm here to tell you--when you first start handling emotions/feelings and stress without loads of food, it can be intense. But as Gerri writes, it does level off.

The peace and clarity that came with my abstinence from refined sugar and my overall "food sobriety," provided a stable foundation where I could suddenly make better decisions and deal with things more directly in positive ways. Is it perfect? Not at all. I have very little experience handling things in positive ways. I'm much more experienced at stuffing down emotions and stress with food.

Making support connections important while maintaining the integrity of my calorie budget and abstinence from refined sugar, are critical elements of my turnaround from relapse/regain and critically important for my continued recovery in maintenance. It's a daily practice.

My Tweets Today:




































Thank you for reading and your continued support,
Strength,
Sean
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