HAPPY IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES IS THE GOAL

"Cravings are going to occur to you. So here's the rule of thumb about eating, or about investing in the stock market, or about anything else: If the impulse comes from a joyous thought that feels good, follow it. If the impulse comes from an uncomfortable thought that felt bad, don't follow it."
--- Abraham http://www.abraham-hicks.com/
Excerpted from the workshop in Portland, OR on Saturday, July 13th, 2002 # 327

Sunday, Jan 22, 2012. Compulsive eating feels like a thing of the past. It's been well over a week...maybe two weeks and I have been totally binge free, easily effortlessly vegetarian, eating meals sitting down savoring with Cliff, happily waiting for hunger, eating what i want and stopping when I've had enough, thrilled to be enjoying former binge foods as if they were never emotionally loaded - they've just lost their power over me. I just feel so blessed. I'm enjoying food more than ever, don't allow myself to feel bad about anything I've eaten, or overeaten, though overeating is more and more infrequent. I work at being totally guilt-free about food. This once completely out of control voracious binge eater now has self control, and confidence that binge eating is a thing of the past. I've lost some weight (my clothes are baggier! I feel lighter!). I've lost the obsession with food, don't experience obsessive food-thoughts or preoccupation with weight or with what i've eaten or should eat. Quite simply, I am experiencing a profound new unbelievable freedom around food (and living). THIS is what i'd been searching for.

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Yesterday, we went to Govindas for lunch. The desire to go to Govindas was a "joyful thought that felt good" like it says above. I was very hungry, we were in the neighborhood. That mock chicken cheese steak was so delicious. The eating experience was such a positive one. It was nothing like the last few times I have eaten there, where my compulsion for food overtook me, I was so needy, I sought comfort in Govindas amazing vegetarian faire, I ordered enough for 3 and scarfed it all shamefully, I left hating myself, berating myself, and continued to binge elsewhere.

It was SO different yesterday. So wonderfully different.

What I've been doing...

I read my daily email messages that i receive from http://www.abraham-hicks.com/ as if they were bible verses and i was a born again Christian. I meditate on them, I try to live what they teach, I try to understand them and apply them. I get so much from them! Thank you, my dear friend, Joy, for pointing me in this direction!

I now fully accept and know, deep down, that I will never overcome binge eating and obesity so long "as I soothe myself with food." Finally I "get it." I thank Esther Hicks for this teaching, and Joy for sending me the audio that really brought the message home. I included in the last blog. Let me know if you cannot download it. I'll send you a copy.

My new motto is: I soothe MYSELF! I no longer look to food to soothe me.

Case in point. Twice I went to the snacks cabinet at my moms house feeling needy and awful and just wanting to binge. I looked inside and saw all of the goodies I could eat! I took a survey: I wanted the whole bag of raisin muffins, 1 would never be enough, several packs of cheese crackers, oreos, potato chips, Lorna Doone cookies. My family would notice it all missing. Awareness overcome me. I was nervous about my singing practice. I turned away from the food knowing that soothing with food...is pointless. There is never enough food to do the job - I always want more and always walk away from the experience feeling sickeningly stuffed - but profoundly empty.

I now know that food is not love and food is not satisfaction or fullness or comfort or love or peace or relaxation or confidence or fun. I know now I can only get these things....from myself!

In those desperate moments when i want to eat, there's something troubling me and I've learned to create a lot of distraction around what bothers me by being caught up in the terrific negative insanity of guilt/judgement/fear around food and weight.

Today, i remedy what's ailing me by facing it. Today, I stop runnning.

Once i do, the desire to binge evaporates, and it's not even like i "do" something specifically comforting like a bath or do my nails or hug a teddy like therapists tell you.

I'm finding that in just walking away, I receive comfort in a very real and very deep way. It's the best self care I can give myself. I now know that food is not love. I forget about food, and just go do something else...

It's not uncommon for me to want to soothe with food when i'm nervous about singing. I look in the fridge, i realize i have to sing in two days... There I go again. I walk away, and the spell is lifted.

I now understand that DIETING is NOT the answer. From years and years and years of failed food plans, I know that the pendulum always swings back from a diet, meaning, I always end up wanting what the diet says i can't have and always end up going off. On and off, find a new diet, on and off, find a new diet. From experience, I know I can never stay ON a diet and always binge out of diets, so what is the point of going on one ever again?

Instead of weighing 500 lbs like i thought i would after giving up dieting, i weigh less than i did 2 weeks ago, without any effort. Incredible. The only effort is in changing my mindset.

I also no longer look to diets as the answer to feeling "better about myself." Losing weight can never make me feel better about myself, because my self esteem will always be caught up in my weight.

I finally realize that "feeling better about myself" WAS the work and that that had to come first. Since I figured that out, I feel SO MUCH better about me, not "because" of how i'm eating or how i'm exercising, or how much I weigh. I feel so much better about me, because i decided to.

I also trust that dropping the weight will follow all of this self acceptance, like they say it will, and now that i see it happening, i have such renewed confidence in this new way day after day.

If I can help other people suffering from binge eating, it would be such a blessing.

I used diets because they finally allowed me to "like" myself and "feel good" about myself. I was so out of touch with my true feelings about what was really disturbing me. All of that got funneled into feeling bad about ME. Then, I followed the rules, and I was a good girl on the diet! A return to binge eating awoke the ugly shameful ogre. I used binge eating to speak for me. But it never told the truth. "I'm so out of control with food! I need to be controlled!," I yelled. The truth is closer to: "I don't know who i am and how i feel about anything. I'm out of touch with myself. I learned to beat myself up instead of speak up."

On the diet and off, the pendulum swung back and forth - self worth - no self worth - self worth - no self worth.

With every failed plan, i learned to trust myself less and less. I'd turn to "what other people think" I should eat (diets). I never learned to ask myself. I was weakened by every diet, by every failure. Each one beat me down lower and lower and lower.

Having your self worth attatched to a diet or a weight is a very destructive thing.

Binge eating was all about grabbing up what i couldn't have on the diet. Figuratively, it was my assertion that "I wanted it all" and "I wanted to be the one to make MY choices, MY decisions! Fuck that diet and all of its rules and regulations. Who says I can't do what i want? I'll show you!"

Ironically, now that i allow myself to have WHATEVER I WANT foodwise, suddenly I want only vegetarian! I'm just gravitating to desiring those foods.

Watching "Forks Over Knives" has lit a fire to lean towards veganism. I have my eye on the goal.

I stopped eating meat effortlessly. I never told myself i would. It was my number one binge food.
I know i can have it now. I just don't WANT IT!

It will never again be about what he says or she says on this or that plan. It's about what "I" say. I'm in control now. I make the rules.

I know that as I stay on this journey, my body size will continue to shrink effortlessly. I'm loving myself into thinness.

I know that i am worthy of love no matter what. I repeat this to myself all day. I am worthy of loving myself when I'm eating raw. I am worthy of love when i'm eating a bowl of dog food, weighing 350, or 150, when i'm eating more than i think I should, or more than you think i should.

Knowing I'm worthy of love and happiness no matter what, even though i'm fat, or poor, or sloppy, or blind in one eye, or have stretch marks, is such a new place. I look in the mirror and blow kisses at myself instead of make ugly hateful faces at myself. I love my fat hips. I'm shapely! I have always loved people who love and accept themselves no matter what. Now I am one of them!

I monitor my emotional/mental state all day and make sure it is set to "happiness mode." I no longer focus attention on the contents of my lunch (judging myself good or bad by what i've eaten) or on my weight. What i eat or what i weigh no longer provides esteem/happiness/self-value. I get my value from finally loving myself, from loving myself because I decided to.

If i am not feeling happy and worthy, I notice and get that way quickly! Or expel if i need to cry, or shout, or share I'm feeling bad or nervous, etc... I talk to myself today. I give myself pep talks.

Food and exercise no longer holds the power to "make me feel better," either. They have both lost the power to deem me "good" or "bad." For instance, I'm happy now....with or without exercise. If i exercise, that just means i'm a little fitter, not happier.

"I" hold the key to my self esteem. "I" decide over and over all day that i am worthy.

As a welcome amazing consequence, suddenly, I eat well, I sing exceptionally well, i exercise! SELF LOVE....with no judgement, no pressure, no demands, just full and total acceptance, peace and happiness, no matter what....is so powerful. It has the capacity to heal. Love is healing me.

As long as I practice this way of being I will never binge again. I don't need to! I already eat what i want and like, I have no diet to break out of because i'm not on one, I already feel worthy and loved all day so i don't have to turn to food for love, I don't feel deprived like I want something I haven't got, I feel grateful for what i have, food -and otherwise. I have no reason to binge anymore so long as I maintain this way of being/thinking!

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"Contrast helps you to identify desire. Desire is summoning. It's always flowing through you. You have the opportunity of opening to the harmony of the vibration of your desire or not. As the desires are being summoned through you, and you go with the flow, you thrive, but if you use things to be your excuse for not going with the flow, you are arguing for your limitations. We want to show you how to go with the flow. Which means nothing more than finding vibrational harmony with your own desire, and letting the Universal Energy that your desire is summoning to it flow to it through you. It is optimum creative experience
--- Abraham http://www.abraham-hicks.com/
Excerpted from the workshop in Silver Spring, MD on Saturday, October 21st, 2000 # 325

Monday, Jan 23, 2012. To feel the joy of FREEDOM is so sweet....in contrast to the shame and self hatred I felt before and how that state of being reflected in my out of control binge eating, and then running to the temporary extasy of dieting as the cure...., back and forth, back and forth. Since I have felt real freedom, I don't want any of that ever again!

I trust that God will lead my diet. If more and more raw is the answer, it will reveal itself, effortlessly, like vegetarian did.

Plus, I have always said I wanted to find balance with my eating. I wanted it all. I wanted raw, i wanted cooked, i wanted rich and lean foods. I said it here over and over again. I wanted to enjoy food like Nigella and Lydia.

I'm living "my desire..." and I'm thriving!

Diets are immediate. The failure on them is also immediate. All of that quick weight loss can vanish with one binge and I'm back to self hatred.

This way will be permanent. I know it will take longer. I have the patience to wait today.

_ _ _ _

I finally realize the reason I have not been singing well for quite some time, too... It was because my attitude needing serious adjusting! My dissappointing performances had very little to do with the level of my talent, and everything to do with my very very low self worth and self esteem, and not knowing how to gather up my energies, gather up my knowledge and instinct, to allow the positive and creative energy to flow through me. I didn't know how to take what i had learned and turn it into success.

Until now!

I sang yesterday at the opera. I refused to allow it to be ANOTHER in a long line of performances where I leave feeling dissapointed in myself. I told myself, "I determine how well I will do!" "I am worthy to sing as well as I can because it makes me happy and why shouldn't i be happy, G-d dammit, I deserve it!"

I grew some balls!

I actually shocked myself how AMAZINGLY WELL I sang. It sounds cliche', but it is SO true. We have to BELIEVE we can achieve something before we can ever achieve it.

It's good to read this again because it's so true.

Our Greatest Fear
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,talented and fabulous?Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.—

From Return to Love by Marianne Williamson, Harper Collins, 1992.

I finally believed i can sing well.

I finally believe I can overcome binge eating and obesity!

I finally believe, and THAT'S THE ANSWER!

Confidence is everything.

Yesterday, when i sang, and every day of these two or so weeks i've been binge free, I've "aligned my vibrational harmony with my desires..." and have become "liberated from my own fears," and from my pull to fail. Self - fulfilling profecy. Believe you are shit and you produce shit and lots of binge eating.

Can it really be THIS easy?

It is.

Binge eating is over.

I have found the answers I have been searching for and am blessed to be able to share it with you. The answer is not a diet. The answer is love. Better quality foods appeal to you when you are vibrating at a higher frequency. The answer is already in us. We just have to grab ahold of belief, faith, self love, and never let go.

Nothing needs to be fixed. Everything is unfolding perfectly. So when you stand in your now accepting that all is well, then from that vibration, you become surrounded by more and more evidence that all is well. But when you're convinced that things are broken, that there is pollution, or that things have gone wrong, or that the government is doing conspiracies... then what happens is you get caught up in that vibration, and you begin to manifest that kind of stuff, and then you say, "See, I told you that things were going wrong."
--- Abraham www.abraham-hicks.com
Excerpted from the workshop in North Los Angeles, CA on Tuesday, March 7th, 2000 # 328

Tuesday, Jan 24, 2012. My mom is in the hospital again since Friday night. Today I am on duty all day. I awoke tired, wish I could sleep another few hours, but my needy mom needs me. Yesterday she pulled out some kind of cord from her neck because it felt foreign and they weren't able to do the bronchoscopy procedure. Pnemonia, again, 2nd time in months, and she had a small heart attack. She's been on antibiotics more than not over the last two years. They kill your digestive enzymes and weaken your immune system. This time she came within minutes of dying. And they said her immune system is shot. No wonder I awoke this morning feeling "fat" and like i wanted to go on a diet and scared that last night's low calorie dinner harmed me in some way. Fear'll do it to me everytime.

I must accept that all is well and accept that everything is unfolding perfectly and learn to speak no longer in the language of eating disorder. I will focus on staying happy and allow the food choices to stem from that and reflect my happy state. Happy in all circumstances is the goal. Happy no matter what. I will place my trust and faith in God. All is unfolding perfectly according to His plan.

Please say HI and keep in touch.

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE
“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me...” (Psalm 23:4, NKJV)

TODAY’S WORD from Joel and Victoria
Have you ever gone through something and felt like it was the valley of the shadow of death? During the tough times, it’s easy to get discouraged. But I love what it says in today’s verse, “though I walk through...” No matter what you are facing today, know this: you are not alone, and you are just walking through. You don’t have to stop and live in the tough times! They are only temporary. I encourage you today; don’t allow fear to paralyze you in the middle of “the valley of the shadow of death.” Remember, God is with you. He is walking beside you. He is strengthening you. He is making a way of escape for you. He is lining up people and situations to bring you out of that tough place into a place of strength and victory.
Today, don’t give up! Press on and walk through! Start to get a vision of your life on the other side. See yourself more loving, more faithful, stronger and more blessed than ever before. As you keep moving forward and walking through, you will get to the other side and walk in the victory God has prepared for you!

A PRAYER FOR TODAY
Heavenly Father, thank You for Your faithfulness in my life. Thank You for walking with me even in the hard times. I trust that You are taking me through my circumstances to a place of victory and strength in Jesus’ name. Amen.
— Joel & Victoria Osteen

xoxoxo, Michelle
LaSoprana@aol.com