What to Expect…

I have been working on my own emotional eating and binge issues for over two years now. As soon as I stopped dieting, the bingeing stopped. However, facing uncomfortable emotions has taken me longer.

At first I wanted to make the emotions, that were uncomfortable,disappear. I hoped that if I noticed them before eating, voila! I would no longer want the food and the emotion would dissipate. If only, it was that fast!

Now, two years later, I see that it is not a linear healing, "do X and then Y will happen". It is more nuanced and actually, more joyful than I had anticipated. There are moments of darkness as right before the sun rises and the world goes black. Yet, immediately after the lights "shut off" before a sunrise, the most magnificent colors of light burst forth.

This is exactly what happens when we experience a dark emotion: notice it, welcome it, allow it, accept it (don't push it away by eating it). There is a pause in the darkness and then the light that is YOU expands and encompasses that dark space.

We have many layers of emotions and it takes time to peel the layers back. There is always a choice to skip this work and go back to dieting (and probably bingeing as a result) but that would be like facing west right when the sun starts to rise.