Excavation in the ruins

After my rough eating day on Tuesday, I had an excellent one yesterday with no bingeing.  Also got in a 40 minute walk.  For those who read yesterday's post, I walked out 20 minutes, then had to walk back...a little mind game I played on myself about the whole "just do 20 minutes" strategy.  When I set out with the dog, I DID. NOT. WANT. to walk, and imagined various and sundry aches and pains cropping up in many body parts, but I kept telling myself, "well you're going for 20 minutes".  Finally about 19 minutes in it started feeling good, and since I had to travel the distance back home, it worked, it was a good thing.  But even if it hadn't felt good I would have had to do it because I did not bring my phone to call Hubby for a pick up.  Pretty crafty way to trick my self, huh?  I likely won't fall for it too often, but usually I want to walk, so this shouldn't be a problem!

It felt good to wake up without the regret and remorse of a binge.  But rather than feeling euphoric and invincible from my one day of sane behavior, I woke up wanting to eat.  WANTING.  But not actually hungry.  When I stopped for coffee on the way to my aa meeting, I considered getting something "off plan" but did not.  While driving from meeting to work - same.  Had my healthy breakfast.  And still I'm feeling hollow and off kilter.  Not empty in the physical sense.  But definitely with a low grade level of anxiety or depression or something.  And this non-specific and as yet unidentified blahness/angst whatever is a classic "reason" I so often choose to eat.  And once I eat, the blahness subsides and I lose all possibility of discovering what is at the core of my feelings, because they've been sufficiently but only temporarily stuffed. 

Today I hope and intend to just be with the uncomfortable feelings and see where they lead.  This is the key - but whether or not I can stay with it is uncertain.  I want to.  I know my binges and repeated overeating but non-binge behaviors are all about numbing, escaping and not feeling - but I honestly have no idea what I don't want to feel.  I pray for the willingness to stick with it today.  I'm glad this is here because waking up wanting to eat before having any awareness of my blahness and vague anxiety tells me how efficiently my disordered eating behavior has become.  Even before I feel pain or fear or almost anything... I want to escape.  The pain is still unconscious and so is the hair trigger reaction to binge. 

The only way through is through.  I have to do this or I won't find healing and recovery from food addiction.

Loretta had a beautiful post yesterday reflecting back on her early days of blogging and being in this process of seeking healing and peace with food.  She was reflecting on some of the things she'd written a year ago, and one particularly powerful paragragh was this: 

"I want to learn to FEEL the emotions instead of numbing them with food.  And to DEAL with them...and know it will be just fine...I will survive them regardless if they are uncomfortable or intense. And lastly, I will HEAL...not just try to survive or endure the same "stuff" that comes up over and over...but to resolve it, to put it to rest, to HEAL it."

How beautfiul.  This is why blogging is so good for me.  Sure - I can get my own stuff out when I'm honest and real enough to do so, but I think reading her post yesterday set the groundwork for me to wake up today with a new awareness of my process and my automatic response of overeating in answer to the vaguest if not unconscious stirrings of discomfort.  I get so much inspiration and wisdom from all of you who dare to be real and honest.  And I think I'm getting the courage to be the same way - more than I have before.

Here's to a good almost Friday.