Coming Back to Life

The title of this post, Coming Back to Life, is what I’ve been feeling lately. Things that I have been working toward for the past few years are finally coming into fruition. I think that in some way, I’ve needed a catalyst to jump-start me, and being diagnosed with diabetes has been a catalyst.

For the past two months, I have been eating differently than I’ve ever eaten in my life. As a lifelong dieter, I am familiar with the Grapefruit Diet, the Mayo Clinic Diet, the 1200 Calorie a day diet that I got from an official diet doctor (when I was 15), the Lowfat Diet, and Weight Watchers. I’ve lost and gained back hundreds of pounds. About ten years ago, when I was once again trying to jump on the Weight Watchers bandwagon, and couldn’t even hold on for more than two days, something in me snapped. I realized that food for me was more than just nutrition and comfort. It was a deeply emotionally connected addiction. And I recognized that I would never be able to lose weight and keep it off until I dealt with the underlying cause.

In order to uncover and heal things going on so deep inside me that I wasn’t conscious of them, I chose to use a healing method that gets right down to the subconscious level: hypnosis. After learning about energy medicine or energy work as it’s also called, I knew that this was a key piece of the puzzle. Sometimes, our issues are deeper and older than just this lifetime. This is where energy work is fabulous. It transcends time and distance.

So, I’ve been reading and learning about us, as humans, and us, as souls that inhabit a human body, and learning about why we choose to come into life, and learning about this thing called healing, and pieces are starting to fall into place. Along the way of this thing called life, we have experiences where a piece of our energy becomes split off from us, and that bit gets stuck in that experience that split it off. An example for me would be an instance when I was little and my mother went off on me for no reason that my little brain could comprehend. Part of me freaked out and assumed that I must have done something wrong, or that something about me was bad. This little piece became separated from my core essence and forever held on to the belief that I was bad. As I grew up, from time to time, something would trigger me and this little belief would pop up, wanting to be heard. The adult me didn’t recognize what was going on and just knew that she was triggered into uncomfortable feelings. Something else that I learned at a very young age, was that sugar was soothing to me. So, put together feeling uncomfortable and the idea that sugar is soothing, and you have set up a pattern of behaviors where in order to quiet an uncomfortable feeling, I would eat. Because this was merely palliative, it became an endless cycle.

In “healing” things like this, I have uncovered what’s going on and have changed the patterns. I have transmuted the old beliefs by re-educating the young me during hypnosis sessions. Right now I am seeing that the thoughts, beliefs, and patterns that had set me up for emotional eating, are healed. When I’ve been frustrated or angry recently, my thoughts turn to food for about 30 seconds. Then I realize that I don’t want to eat, I’m just pissed off. There is no gut wrenching drive or desire to stick a piece of toast or pieces of licorice in my mouth, or to eat half a bag of tortilla chips and salsa. The ties that used to twist me into knots over food, have been severed.

I am able to stick with my current eating plan with ease. The biggest thing is planning ahead, by bringing a meal or snacks with me when I’ll need them. Or knowing which options for a meal on the go will work for me. It’s actually fun now to feel my body truly be hungry.

All of the work I’ve been doing towards healing my food addiction has also impacted my life in other ways that are fun to be experiencing. Big projects around our home, that I put off for years because they seemed overwhelming, are finally happening. I am physically moving my butt and getting things done. Change (in very good ways) is happening.

Having established healthy emotional and personal boundaries has also been a huge part of my healing. There are many things that I will no longer tolerate. I have learned that it is not only healthy, but very necessary to be aware of what truly are my responsibilities. I had a bad habit of taking on responsibilities that were not mine, and losing a bit of myself in the process. Having a child has been a fantastic exercise in boundary keeping, and it continues to be.

Finally, my favorite side effect of my new eating plan is the weight that is coming off (30 lbs. so far), and feeling like I’m getting my former physically fit body back. It’s not back yet, and might take many months, but I’m definitely on my way. Because I am feeling on the inside like I’m fit and trim, I know that it’s only a matter of time and doing before the outside matches the inside. And it’s all very exciting.