At one time or another most of us have happily set an extra place at the dining table for that dark cloaked ravenous guest: the carb loading, sugar spiking diet. The diet that seduces like Prince Charming and gallantly pulls our stuck chariot out of the mud.  Drags us forward a few feet and then leaves us stranded, feeling spent and dishevelled in our desire to feel better. What leads us late into the night with emotional eating?

A yearning is felt. An empty longing. Sometimes the longing is to feel something other than what we feel in the moment. Sometimes it seems as if the longing is for a certain person, place, or dream.  That person is gone or the dream hasn’t arrived and so we try to feed the longing.

When life breaks our hearts or our dreams, sometimes we get shuffled out the back door with the loss. We lose ourselves and then the loss defines us. We feel “broken up.” Life seems to have moved on without us. We struggle to feel relevant. We long. Sometimes the unrelenting longing you feel is actually for the one that’s truly missing from your life; You.  And no amount of sugar, carb loading, or indulging can ever fill in for You.

Even though you are in a painful situation, inside of you is a vibrant, unique, shimmering soul desiring to see the light of day. She will not disappear.  She will not quit you. She will keep calling to you, urging you to come back to your life. And as long as she is alive, you will feel her yearning.

In this place of yearning many of us believe the solution rests outside of ourselves hence the emotional eating we all know a little too well. Or we believe the solution rests with someone else “I just need to meet someone.” I like to remind myself that the solution lies with me. And if I don’t grab on and hold tight to those wildly flailing reins I will fall off the horse again no matter how charming the next Prince might be. So why not give yourself a real fighting chance at feeling alive again? Strip away the stuff that stands between you and your soul; Put away the place setting for the one that leaves you feeling passed over and left alone to make your home in the darkness of disappointment and despair.

If you find yourself eating to feel something, perhaps coming back to your life will require avoiding the foods that snuff out your life spark. How we treat our body translates into feelings, energy, confidence, and a sense of control over our lives. Handling our bodies with care isn’t about participating in a fad diet but rather a lifestyle that opens the front door to your heart, releasing weighty emotions allowing your brightness to surface.

It wasn’t until recently that I discovered that adding and removing certain foods from my lifestyle could be powerful enough to connect me to the clarity of myself.  I had purchased Kris Carr’s book Crazy Sexy Diet. As her promise for shiny hair, sparkling eyes, glowing skin, endless energy, and clarity of mind came to fruition, something else magical and unexpected happened for me. On day three of eliminating animal protein, caffeine and adding more plants and green juice into my life, I was soaking in the bath tub along with ¼ cup of baking soda and a few drops of lavender (as recommend by Kris), when I blissed out. I’m not using the word bliss loosely. Literally I blissed out. It was as if the oil slick parted and I floated to the surface lighter, brighter, and overcome with sheer joy. The joy was partly from treating my body so well but more profoundly the joy was “me” when given the chance to swim free from the heavy clunky cargo that worked to drag me down.

The magic is that once you start feeding your body in a way that clears heavy clouds, your body wants more and more of the “sunshine” and less and less of the dark Prince.

Carrie

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 28th, 2011 at 2:05 pm and is filed under Personal Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.