Forgiving myself and other things I did on Wednesday
Thursday morning. I've talked before about some of the less than proud moments of my past, so I'm not going to go into it all again today. For reasons unrelated to this journal, the feelings of self loathing and disgust bubbled back to the surface yesterday, leaving me questioning whether I was truly worthy of being loved by someone decent, kind, and loving. Strangely, at no point did I seriously consider a binge as an antidote to those feelings, although the thought did make one or two lazy passes through my consciousness. I don't know if it might have made more of an effort if I hadn't had a wonderful friend to talk to (thank you, J) who reassured me that I am worthy of love, am not dirty, cheap, and all used up, and that a decent, kind, and loving man would, indeed, be happy and joyful to have me in his life.
In the aftermath of yesterday's drama, it feels as though I have an intense feelings hangover. This is actually something I've experienced several times since attending the Geneen Roth seminar last month and making a concerted effort to let myself really experience my feelings instead of just shoving them away or eating around them. Sometimes it makes me want to pace or fidget or scream or cry. At first, I got pretty freaked out by those urges and shoved the feelings away until the urge to do something odd passed and then I stopped and thought about it for a little while and realized that, if what my body wanted to do when faced with the emotion was pace, I could pace the floor and nothing bad would happen. If it helped me deal with my emotions to cry or scream or turn off the TV because it was grating on my last nerve, I could do any and all of those things, and so that's what I do now. It requires truly being inside my body and listening to it - what it wants, what it needs, how it's feeling - and then doing what it tells me. You want to hear something funny? My body never tells me to binge. Never. Not once. It tells me about the twitchiness in my legs when I'm uncomfortable or the pain in my temples when I feel overwhelmed but it's never told me that it's hungry and needs a skip loader full of food shoved into my mouth as quickly as possible. Huh. Imagine that - my binges aren't in response to anything physical at all, it's all in my mind. Now isn't that reassuring?
In the aftermath of yesterday's drama, it feels as though I have an intense feelings hangover. This is actually something I've experienced several times since attending the Geneen Roth seminar last month and making a concerted effort to let myself really experience my feelings instead of just shoving them away or eating around them. Sometimes it makes me want to pace or fidget or scream or cry. At first, I got pretty freaked out by those urges and shoved the feelings away until the urge to do something odd passed and then I stopped and thought about it for a little while and realized that, if what my body wanted to do when faced with the emotion was pace, I could pace the floor and nothing bad would happen. If it helped me deal with my emotions to cry or scream or turn off the TV because it was grating on my last nerve, I could do any and all of those things, and so that's what I do now. It requires truly being inside my body and listening to it - what it wants, what it needs, how it's feeling - and then doing what it tells me. You want to hear something funny? My body never tells me to binge. Never. Not once. It tells me about the twitchiness in my legs when I'm uncomfortable or the pain in my temples when I feel overwhelmed but it's never told me that it's hungry and needs a skip loader full of food shoved into my mouth as quickly as possible. Huh. Imagine that - my binges aren't in response to anything physical at all, it's all in my mind. Now isn't that reassuring?
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