Cameron says we over-eat and gain weight when “something is eating us.” A lot of emotion gets displaced onto food. We use food to feed our emotions and our minds and spirits, instead of our physical bodies.
She suggests simple tools to deal with this.
One is Morning Pages, setting the timer for an hour, and writing about your feelings, emotions, and whatever else—anything and everything—that crosses your mind.
The Morning Pages are thus a form of therapy.
Gradually, one “gets current” with one’s emotional life, frustrations, dreams, aspirations, and current failures, and frequently, she says, people actually do something about them.
Her other suggestion is a food journal: writing down everything one eats. Those who record what they eat lose twice as much as those who do not. I have lost 5.5 pounds this year. So if I had recorded it, I would have lost 11. Wow!
More importantly, Cameron suggests we record what we are feeling (other than true hunger) when we want to snack For instance, I’ve just had dinner, and felt the urge to snack right now. I am clearly not hungry. So? I identified the emotion as stress. Stress about what? The answer did not immediately come to mind. I think it’s about some paperwork I need to finish, and that I haven’t yet done any “real” writing today.
Being more mindful, calmer, more current with one’s inner life, writing yourself to the right size. You wouldn’t think a writer would need such admonitions, but this one does.
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I’m reading her Right to Write and love it. I’ve underlined half of each chapter it seems. Love what she says here in this one too. This is wisdom.
Yes, there is such joy in getting unblocked, isn’t there–for what is in our souls to get out on paper.
Thanks Anita. I find that even though God has healed many of my emotional and stress related issues, comfort eating and drinking is a residual bad habit. I’m in the process of breaking the habit of a life time, but really want to do it through Christ, as I know it will make more space for Him within me. Maybe a food journal could help this process! thanks.
She suggests 3 morning pages, writing down what is bothering/eating you, so that one does not use food to stuff down these feelings.
I am thinking of doing mine as a prayer journal, addressing these issues in prayer.
She also suggests a food journal writing down what you ate, and what you are feeling when you want to eat, but are not hungry. I think it will be very helpful, and will blog about how I get on.
Blessings to you, Ali!