How frustrating is it to watch someone (that’s thinner than you) match you bite for bite?
I guess it depends on your mood. It could be a slight annoyance or it could be significant — just short of making your blood boil. (*raises hand* I’ve certainly been there before.)
While no one actually wants to feel this way, we can use it as a moment to pivot our actions and turn things around. We can use it as a useful sign. Here’s what I mean…
When we have a strong reaction like this, it means we’re pushing too hard. There’s too much resentment piled up, which acts like kindling to a fire: easy to burn and quick to go up in flames.
Resentment towards someone because of food or weight is a sign that you’re restraining yourself too much. Perhaps you’re punishing yourself and you don’t want to be punishing yourself.
Perhaps you’re trying too hard to limit your calories. And because you’ve sacrificed SO MUCH to achieve this (by not only sacrificing calories but also spontaneous invitations to eat out or even your mental health) it can be wildly frustrating to come across someone eating food in such a normal way…
Use resentment as your compass.
Use it as a sign to soften.
When you feel yourself hating other women for being thinner than you (or for having some unknown genetic advantage that allows them to eat more but weigh less), or you feel insecure in their presence, it means you’re being too hard on yourself and you need to ease up. Soften. Relax.
You are not a monster. You do not need to be confined to a cage (aka: a diet) in order to “behave.” You can listen to your body to inform what and when you eat and trust that everything will take care of itself.
And if that doesn’t feel true — which for many of us it really doesn’t — that’s okay. Trust isn’t built overnight. And the only thing we can do is keep coming back to ourselves over and over again…
To keep coming back home. Back to your essence. Back to your feelings.
You don’t need to feel good in order to be okay. (I have to remind myself of this constantly.) You can feel lonely and sit still with it. Feel depressed and surrender to it. Feel crawl-out-of-your-skin resentful and soften into it…
And if you’re not feeling so good about this, that’s okay too! (That’s kind of the point!) The only thing we can do is keep trying over and over again… Skills like emotional tolerance are built through practice. Through putting in the reps consistently over time…
I know you’re strong enough to feel any emotion and still be okay. I know this, because you’re still here. Still carrying on. And you’ve been through A LOT.
Feeling bad and letting it be okay is not easy.
But it leads to the most freedom you’ll ever experience.
And I’m not even being dramatic. It really is the most freedom ever, because feelings permeate everything we do, and being free with them (not free from them, but free with them) changes everything.
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