Handling Special Occasions, Family Drama, And Practicing Forgiveness

As the holidays approach, it might be tempting to relax into the season with the attitude of eating in excess. It can be very easy to allow yourself extra bites of food or another piece of pie and to forget that you might feel overly full or uncomfortable later. In some cases, you might find it hard to refuse a relative who keeps filling up your plate or to eat moderately in the midst of a delicious holiday spread.  In this episode, I identify common “excuses” that parts of our mind use during the holidays to give ourselves permission to overeat. I also talk about how to incorporate intuitive and mindful eating during the holidays. Lastly, I share the Hawaiian prayer of ho'oponopono to help you manage potential stress that can arise from interactions with family and friends.  I am now offering a 10-week virtual class! The class will include pre-recorded videos, audio recordings, handouts, membership in a Facebook community, and weekly private group sessions. This transformative class will teach you how to change your entire relationship with eating.  If you would prefer more individualized help, contact me so we can schedule a private virtual session. To sign up for the class or to get private help, you can send me an email at [email protected] or visit my website. Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full podcast episode:  Identify excuses you may be using to justify mindless eating during the holidays.  Learn useful tools to help you on your journey of intuitive eating. Discover the transformational ho'oponopono prayer.  Episode Highlights Common Holiday Excuses As the holidays approach, most people come up with several excuses to justify overeating. One is that because it’s the holidays you should be allowed to eat whatever you want! Another one that gets us into trouble is not wanting to appear rude when someone offers you food. A third is the excuse that eating what others eat could prevent them from noticing you or wondering if you’re concerned about your weight. Turning The Brain Off Other common excuses include, “I need to eat this so I don’t have to think about it anymore,” or “It’s there! Might as well eat!” or even, “It smelled good so I can eat it even though I’m full”   When you succumb to these thoughts without first checking in with your body, it’s as if you’re turning off your brain to nudges that might be there that would prefer attuned eating.  It’s helpful to ask yourself, “what does my physical body need and want?”  Most people associate food with pleasure and celebration. After all, you’re in the company of friends and family that you hardly see the rest of the year.  It’s possible to have joy and fun without calories, alcohol, and sugar. Pleasure is always available to us. A few extra bites and sips each time you get in a celebratory mood can counteract the effort of months and weeks of trying to be mindful and intuitive. Four Useful Tools Honor your body. Know when you’re hungry, but don’t eat when you’re too hungry — don’t wait that long. While you eat, be mindful, eat slowly, and notice the urge to mentally check out. Eat things you really crave. Identify your trigger foods. If the food you crave and tend to overdo is a trigger and binge food, make a plan to manage the impulse. Some people do best by keeping trigger foods out of the house, although for many this isn’t possible.  When you feel yourself falling down the rabbit hole of obsessive worries about food, deciding to focus on other things can change everything. Your brain won’t want to do this of course. Giving the brain a hard “no” and moving your attention to the conversation you’re having or the background music or your breathing can be helpful. Focus on the solution, not the problem.  Ho'oponopono Prayer It’s easy to get out of touch with your heart space. The Hawaiian prayer of ho'oponopono can help you get out of your head and into that space of compassion and forgiveness. It’s easy to remember and can transform your energy immediately. The prayer can be directed either at yourself or to others.  The prayer has four lines:  I am sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you. When you say “I am sorry,” you are saying, “I am sorry because I did not understand things the way you are seeing them.” This line asks you to be humble and have courage. You can also direct this to yourself. Many people beat themselves up or say mean things about themselves in their mind. To say you are sorry to yourself it means you are sorry for not seeing the inherent good in you.   “Please forgive me,” can be a plea to forgive yourself for believing that you should be perfect or that you should never be selfish or that you should have been able to see things from another’s perspective.  “Thank you,” connotes appreciation and accountability. It acknowledges that others and you have had to sacrifice and feel pain as a result of your behaviors. It’s also a step toward accepting full responsibility for your actions. “I love you,” is the doorway to complete freedom. To love unconditionally is the key to happiness. You may have heard the expression, “resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. By finding a way to completely forgive ourselves and others, and to love them, and to love ourselves, we become free. We are the ones who suffer while carrying around our anger towards others or towards ourselves.  5 Powerful Quotes from this Episode  “So the goal, ultimately, is to honor you and your needs. And there's nothing wrong with being honest and saying, “I really am not hungry right now” or “I've had enough” or “No thank you” and change the subject and have a big smile and be done with it.” “What are the basics of mastering a perfect relationship with food? Be aware and notice what physical hunger feels like for you. And eat when you're hungry.” “There is no book out there that's going to fix you or your problem. It doesn't exist. It's your book. It's your story. It's your body. It's your patterns. It's your family. It’s you. In a nutshell, it's your history. It's your belief system. It’s all of it.” “‘Thank you’ acknowledges that you appreciate that others and also that you may have had to sacrifice or feel pain as a result of your behaviors. So thank you is another step towards accepting full responsibility for your actions.” “Resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. You're the one who took the poison. And when we are holding resentments towards other people for anything, anything at all, we are the ones who suffer.”   If you listened to the podcast and enjoyed it, please share and post a review! Have any questions or want to schedule an appointment or join my class? You can email me at [email protected] or visit my website. To making peace with eating, Betsy