-- 16012013
Where the habit began
Before I went to school I lived a
pretty carefree life and spent a happy and normal childhood. I spent
most of my time with my mother and family, and as I was young I
didn't have anything special to do – I simply explored life and the
world and learned a lot of stuff pretty fast, such as reading,
because I had a stable and supportive environment to develop in.
Then came this thing called school and
along with it responsibilities. When I started school at the age of 6
I also started a couple hobbies (violin and dancing) – my first
weekly activities which I also had to practice during my free time.
Along the years I appeared to be “talented” and because of this I
was put into more and more hobbies, such as more music, more dancing,
theatre and lots of other various things. My mother wanted me to have
hobbies because she never had a chance to when she was a child and
saw them to be a precious chance to develop one's skills and explore
one's self-expression. Right now I am grateful for i.e. having
studied music since I was young, but back then for a child of
relatively young age the work load I was under became too much. I
started to experience stress.
Besides school work I had so many
hobbies that I only had one hobby-free day a week. I remember being
sad that I couldn't spend more time with my friends, and I remember
my friends making remarks on how I “always had something to do”.
They too wanted my company, but it was not mine to give.
Besides the stress from my over-worked
life, I also faced a new stress-factor: being bullied. I am not sure
how exactly the bullying began, because it was kind of sudden, but I
remember it being the result of this weird jealousy drama between me
and two of my best friends who wanted me for themselves exclusively.
Suddenly I had been dropped out of the picture and everyone (the
girls in my class) were avoiding me.
So I cannot be sure, but I am guessing
that the stress eating has begun during this period of my life. As I
was overworked (or not taught how to deal with a busy schedule / how
to be effective) and socially secluded and had no support (for
reasons yet unknown I never turned to my family or authorities about
my troubles), I began to escape my stress into eating. I was unaware
of the effects of excess eating and I did not care because all I
wanted was to fulfill the craving. I have always enjoyed food, and so
I guess the addiction grew pretty much unnoticed, and also because
kids are supposed to eat plenty. Also, the habit of eating sweets in
certain situations was accepted throughout my living environment, so
I just did what I saw others do – and then got confused when I was
told not to do it when it crossed a specific line. How come it's okay
to eat three candies but not five? How come at first it's delight and
then it becomes poison?
--17012013
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself as a child to experience stress when I was not
allowed to decide for my activities and was told to go to school and
attend my hobbies when I would've rather spent my time playing with
my friends.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself as a child to not realize the value of school and
hobbies as they were never properly explained to me.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself as a child to perceive playing with my friends
(free exploration) to be more important than school and hobbies
(disciplined exploration), not realizing they both have their pros
and cons.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself as a child to believe and perceive playing with
friends to be more interesting than school and hobbies because it
offered instant pleasure within my comfort zone, not realizing that
pushing the borders of my comfort zone further through guided
training would offer me long-time pleasure and more areas to explore
pleasurable things.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself as a child to create a resistance towards school
and hobbies, thinking they were things I had to do instead of things
I got to do, because I had assigned school and hobbies a negative
value in comparison to hanging out with friends which held a positive
value.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself as a child as I was faced with this resistance
over and over again to create an experience of stress where I
anticipated the resistance and created a resistance to face the
moment of resistance – for example, resistance during the violin
class turned into a resistance to attend the class at all – and so
made the experience of having to face these resistances stressful,
tiresome and draining as I did not want to stand up and carry myself
through the moments as I did not know how to do that and what it
would ever amount to.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself as a child to perceive myself as powerless to
affect the cause of this stress – the moments of resistance which I
was “forced” by authorities to face over and over again – and
thus as I couldn't fight the stress I forgive myself that I have
accepted and allowed myself to choose to escape it (“fight or
flight”) into eating.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself as a child to develop eating into a haven where I
did not have to stress as the physical euphoria of eating took all of
that “away” for a small moment – after which I had to eat some
more to keep the stress away for a little longer.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself as a child to believe that escaping an issue is a
valid way to survive, not realizing escaping is not a solution and
that the problem will persist as I was never taught any of this.
--
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself as a child to react with confusion to being
secluded by other kids as I had no reference in my short life
experience to what a situation like that means and what needs to be
done in it.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself as a child to feel distressed when my attempts to
talk the situation through with the other kids did not succeed.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself as a child to feel rejected and misunderstood when
my attempts to talk the situation through were ignored, shunned or
used against me.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself as a child to feel sad as my friends – most of
my social environment – suddenly weren't there with me.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself as a child to feel like my world “collapsed”
as my friends literally walked away from me.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself as a child, when and as I no longer had the social
environment of friends I had gotten used to at school, to react with
fear to the new uncertain situation where all I had around me was a
schoolful of kids and no friends (people I was comfortable with).
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself as a child, when and as I faced this new
situation, to not explore the possibilities the situation offered
(getting to know new people) and instead be intimidated by the
situation and decide to get stuck with the past as bitterness,
sadness and hatred towards my old friends.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself as a child to perceive the situation where my
friends had walked away from me as intimidating because I perceived
getting to know new people as “too much” for me as I “did not
know” how to do that (did not have a pattern which to act upon).
[This is related to the fact that until that point I had never
approached anyone; all my friends thus far had come to me first.]
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself as a child to create a horror image into my mind
of the moment where my friends walked away from me with words of
disdain on the school yard – an image where the school yard seemed
to expand to infinity and all the kids on it turned into possible
attackers – an image of helplessness and vulnerability which was
born as the fear of being alone creeped into my mind and rooted
itself into my flesh.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself as a child, as I had chosen to not face the
possibilities of the new situation but instead act upon fear, to trap
myself into a loop where I succumbed to the abuse of my friends out
of the fear of being alone I created when I was first abandoned by
them, thus becoming stagnant for the years to come where I became
more introverted, more collapsed, more anxious, and where I escaped
the results of my self-created loop into eating/snacking/sweets
among other escape mechanisms [more on those later].
--
How to move now
I've realized that a lot of those
moments where I fall are simply habitual. Eating cakes at work,
snacking while relaxing, having something sweet after a meal, always
walking through the candy aisle in the grocery store – all of this
is habitual. So as the moment comes when I've gone through these
habits with self-forgiveness and self-correction, all that is
required is to breathe when I'm about to fall and direct myself to do
something else – not to distract me, but to fill the “gap” the
habit leaves with something else – a more beneficial habit, maybe,
I'm quite careful about that, or something non-habitual, whatever
happens to be here. The more I support myself through these moments,
the easier it will become as the craving will become less. I know it
will as I've tried this before and nearly succeeded.
The thing is, if this habit did not
have any consequences, I would not do a thing to stop it. I don't see
why the physical euphoria itself would be harmful – it's the
attachment to the mind that harms my entire being as it supports me
to choose based on instant pleasure. If eating sugar didn't have any
consequences whatsoever, I wouldn't be here writing these words but
be out there eating candy to my heart's content. The reality is that
eating does have consequences both in the physical as in the mind –
and even without the physical consequences the mind consequences
would still be there. I'm not clear enough on the mental consequences
giving in to snacking has on me, and that's why I lack motivation.
-- 18012013
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to make a habit out of always eating sweets at a
certain time during my work day, thus creating a craving when and as
the specific time approaches and intensifying the craving if I do not
follow the habit at the right time and a “gap” appears where I
“should” be acting upon my habit.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself, when and as this specific time of my work day
approaches, to create an anticipation about the pleasurable moment to
come and start to look at the sweets we have at the cafe with the
intention of deciding on what to eat.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to always look at food with the thought “that
looks so good”, imagining/remembering the taste of a piece of food
and anticipating the pleasure of possibly eating it – in essence,
“I have access to this and thus I desire this because it is a
craving I am able to fulfill”.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to prolong the actual physical euphoria of eating
by at first imagining what the choices I have might taste like,
indulging in the privilege of having a choice over a shelf-full of
luxuries.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to create a habit out of eating something sweet
every day, thus making it a self-created necessity without which my
day seems to be “missing something”.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to associate eating sweets with relaxation, this
resulting to me feeling like I have not relaxed during my day if I
haven't had a moment of eating sweets.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that the fact that I have lived
through a great many days without sweets and been perfectly relaxed
and stable proves/shows that this association with sweets and
relaxation is not real and that sweets are not required for me to
live a balanced life.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not allow myself to rest and relax without
sweets.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that if I live my life believing I
need sweets, I will experience myself to be in need of sweets, and
that the root of the problem thus lies in my mind as to believe is to
utilize the mind.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not push through the moments of craving and
instead believe my thoughts as justifications and excuses to fall –
not realizing I am not my mind nor my thoughts even though they
reflect that which I am and that I am thus able to direct myself to
move contrary to my thoughts.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe I need sweets, not realizing this
belief is not based on the reality as in what organisms best support
my physical existence but on the desire to escape into an alternate
reality induced through sugar as a drug.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe my belief that I need sweets is
well-founded and justified even though I have never actually
questioned it by allowing myself to face this belief or the fact that
it is in fact a belief.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to be afraid to face the fact that this is in fact
a belief – that I am tricking myself into being directed by my
cravings through the tools of the mind (thoughts, imagination,
reasoning) and thus supporting myself to become and live as a
mind-directed being.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear facing the fact that this is a belief and
self-sabotage as I knew that I would then have no more excuses to
keep on eating sweets.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear losing the experience of eating sweets.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear losing the joy, enjoyment, delight and
stress release I get out of eating sweets as I have believed this
experience to be relevant to the “experience of being alive” - I
was afraid to lose the energy kick that made me feel alive – not
realizing that these feelings as energy do not support me to live as
a breathing, self-directed being of Life, and that they are just
replacements to the stability I have lost as I have lost my innocence
and humanity while being integrated to this mind-fuck of a system
where we're lost within ourselves and mess up the world as we
scramble blind to everything beyond ourselves for some sense of
what's going on.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe I need the energetic experience of
emotions and feelings to “feel alive”, not realizing I am already
alive in each and every moment of each and every breath.
-- 19012013
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to make a habit out of always eating something
when I sit down to watch a movie/documentary/TV series or to read a
book/magazine/newspaper because I have associated these activities
with relaxation and associated relaxation with eating.
I forgive myself
that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel like I'm “missing
something” if I don't eat while watching or reading something.
I forgive myself
that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel restless when I don't
eat while watching or reading something, wanting something to do with
my hands and mouth.
I forgive myself
that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I
eat while watching or reading something my focus isn't fully on what
I'm watching/reading because half of my focus is with the act of
eating.
I forgive myself
that I have accepted and allowed myself to not live as the best I can
be by limiting my full participation in watching/reading the material
I am faced with by distracting myself by eating meanwhile.
I forgive myself
that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and give in to the
feeling of “missing something” when I don't eat while
watching/reading something, not realizing this is the moment of
change where I either repeat the loop by acting according to my
patterns again or I stop, breathe, realize the craving is in my mind
and that there's nothing actually missing as everything as myself is
always HERE and then choose to not act according to the old pattern
and move myself to do something else instead – not to replace the
addiction with another, but to break the pattern and become
self-directed in each of these moments.
I forgive myself
that I have accepted and allowed myself to choose to stick with the
habit of eating even though I have presented myself other options in
the moment where I feel like I'm “missing something”, never
actually considering the options and the choice I make without the
mind's influence as imagination, memories, misconceptions,
justifications and excuses.
When and as I face
a moment where I feel like I'm “missing something” as I do not
eat, I stop, I breathe and I realize that there is nothing actually
missing as everything is always in fact HERE. I then investigate and
assess within/through self-honesty whether there is an actual need to
eat, such as hunger or malnutrition. I will here be brutally honest
with myself about the cause of the need to eat. If the need is
towards sweets, I immediately know it is not an actual nutritional
necessity but a luxury and a poison that will have it's consequences
on my physical body. I then make a self-aware choice to either eat if
I actually need it or to not eat if I do not need it, and I breathe
and continue with what I was doing as the feeling of “missing
something” occurred. If the feeling persists, I return to writing
and self-investigation.
I commit myself,
when and as I feel like I'm “missing something”, to immediately
physically bring myself back here from the mind by interacting with /
participating in whatever is here at the moment to prevent myself
from creating backchat and through that justifications and submerging
deeper into the layers of my mind.
I commit myself to
see sweets as that which they actually are – organisms that give my
body quick shots of energy but in exchange eat away my health –
instead of seeing them as “enjoyment I have access to and should
thus participate in”.
I commit myself to
investigate the thought “if I have access to X, I am entitled to /
allowed to / encouraged to take it”.
I commit myself to
show myself that through consistency in each and every moment of
choice I am able to actually change myself so that these patterns
little by little lessen and disappear.
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