Broken
I have read "Intuitive Eating" twice now, cover to cover. I feel like I have a pretty firm grip on the material and yet I still feel like I'm not done with that book yet. However, every mention of emotional eating makes me feel like I need to explore this avenue more. I feel really confident now about eating when I'm hungry and stopping when I am full. This I have figured out and it is a truly inspiring place to be after years of double and triple servings, feeling over-full and guilty about eating even what I considered healthy foods. And that would be super if that were the only times I were eating, but it's not. Honestly, does anyone truly only eat when they're hungry? Is this what life has in store for me? It sounds boring and unfulfilling. Food breaks up boredom, is enticing, is rewarding in and of itself. It is intrinsically rewarding all by itself. To only eat when one is full feels like deprivation all over again. So I stop and think...who is talking? Is it the me who is ok? Or is it the me that is needing more? So I started reading "Women, Food and God" a few weeks ago. I'm taking my time because I need to ease my way through the topic of emotional eating. Today's topic was "being broken". Geneen says that many times we eat because we are trying to fix ourselves because believe we are broken. She wants us to re-analyze our belief systems about being broken. This is a huge topic and I could spend days thinking about it because there are absolutely parts of me that feel broken. When you have depression like I have had, there's no way that you can't feel that a part of you is damaged...broken. I feel like I've been chunked up, barely living my life for 6 years. Every year I feel like this just has to be the year that things get better. And every year...it doesn't. Until this year. This year has been different. While I definitely still do feel not "quite right", I don't feel like everything is still falling apart. And yet, if Geneen is correct, should I not be considering myself broken at all? Do I just go up to the mirror and say, "you're fine!" Part of me feels like this will be taking something from myself. And the thought just popped into my head from out of the blue, "If I"m not broken, then what am I? " If that's not telling......
