Kiss today goodbye and point me to tomorrow

Saturday afternoon. So Gloria and I did this really cool hypnotherapy on Wednesday where she had me visualize the part of me that needs to binge (it looks like a take-out box from my favorite Mexican place, by the way) and ask it what positive purpose it was serving for me. It had to ask several times before I got the answer: bingeing helps me know that I'm OK and that I'm "here". It's like validation for me. Then she had me visualize the part of myself that wants to be healthy and whole (it looks like me, in shape and Zen-like, in workout clothes) and think about how it felt, how I felt. After that, she asked me to look back at the Mexican food take-out box and see if it had changed any, and you know, it really had. It was smaller and further away. She then asked if it would be possible to feel validated without the bingeing and I could feel that it would, so she asked what I saw for the bingeing part of me and I had to tell her that I couldn't see the box anymore. Seriously, I just couldn't see it there! We went on to combine the feeling associated with bingeing with the part of me that wants to be healthy and whole, and I really could feel the validation that I crave starting to associate with my healthy self. Very cool.

Why am I telling you this? To explain why, even after I had the biggest binge of my life Friday night (seriously, it involved three different restaurants), I feel very hopeful. I don't need the binges and I can be validated and safe without them because it's all about keeping myself and my health at the forefront of my eating decisions. Sounds simple, I'm sure, but this is really a break-through for me.