Thoughts from Morning Commute: I Deserve More than What Food Can Do for Me

I deserve more than what food can do for me. On my commute this morning I was thinking a lot about how I've been consciously shifting toward a more positive perspective and how doing that has brought me to greater happiness. I was thinking that even though I have not been abstinent for much of this shift, my general movement towards greater happiness is making me stronger and more capable of being abstinent. 

Likewise, though perhaps I could be happy without abstinence, I know that I deserve more, much more, than what food could ever do for me.

Just as a side note, isn't that a beautiful image? #crowlove #crowmedicine ;)

Staying Inside My Body

"Today, I will keep my energy in my body. I will stay focused and within my boundaries. God, help me let go of my need to escape myself. Help me face my issues so I am comfortable living in my body."--from The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie

Sometimes when I share on Twitter or other social media it makes me feel ill. I think it has to do with putting too much energy out there, something along the lines of what Melody Beattie talks about in her entry on "Owning Our Energy" from The Language of Letting Go.

She says, "our energy spills out of us on to whomever. Our energy is our energy [my emphasis]. Our feelings, thoughts, issues, love, sexuality; our mental, physical, spiritual, sexual, creative, and emotional energy is ours."

I don't intentionally try to invade others' boundaries with my energy. I just want to express myself and I think sometimes just the unintended consequence is that you can't just express yourself willy nilly without other people being affected by the energy you're putting out.

So, it's a fine line. How to express oneself
without overstepping others' boundaries, or your own?

Back, from outer space

         I have been thinking a lot lately about allowing for God's will to guide and direct me. OA recommends submitting one's own will, with the suggestion that personal willpower will not heal us. Sometimes that can be confusing, don't we need willpower to stop overeating?

I think it's good to admit confusion with OA principles (or with anything), but I do also know that in general when I'm worried or fearful I always feel better the more fully I am able to "give it to God." So it makes sense to give the fear that causes my overeating over to God.

When I overeat, it is out of fear and worry. Sometimes I eat because I'm happy, or seemingly that's why I'm eating, what I've realized is that I often run into fearfulness that I'll lose happiness. So even happy times cause great anxiety. I'm often waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Returning to this blog a little over a year later, I would like to focus more on the positive. I think when I began in OA it was important to me to feel like I was being honest about my shadows, acknowledging my compulsive behavior, looking my addiction square in the face.

And of course that is still important. But I also want to be honest about my strengths, my joys, about the progress I've had.

I am newly abstinent again. I've moved back to eastern Ky to be near my family, and that's been a great change. Partly due to OA, and additionally from getting back to my roots and my sense of rootedness, I'm happier at this point of my life than I've ever been. At the same time, even while continuing to become happier and better adjusted following a major depression in 2006, I haven't been abstinent for a long time.

Abstinence itself doesn't bring happiness. But I know, that as a fairly calm and contented person (these days! and believe much I'm much happier and more centered even than when I started this blog) that I deserve, in my contentedness, to be treating myself with good health and with the continued mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being that comes with abstinence and the freedom from the insanity of compulsive eating.