Eating: Guilt

My last thought around eating is the guilt and defensiveness we have around eating the foods that are a source of negative energy for us. I heard it on all the teleclasses and I hear it in my own head as well. As I mentioned in the eNewsletter a couple of weeks ago, despite all of the horrible side effects we have eating foods we know aren’t good for our system, we often continue to eat them, if not regularly at least occasionally. Knowing what we are all learning this year, eating this way can lead to guilt.

Interestingly, I wonder if the guilt is more detrimental to accessing our compassion than the food itself? I believe this work is more about taking responsibility about our choices and being conscious about them, and definitely not making all the changes you can in a month. Therefore, when you choose to eat something, be conscious of the choice, enjoy it, and be aware of the consequences. The more you attribute your actions to how you feel, the easier it is to let things go, but slowly and over time. In the meantime, be compassionate with yourself and for goodness sake, no more guilt!

Eating: Quantities of Food

Another idea that came out of our teleclasses was around the quantity of foods that affect us negatively. Several people mentioned that even though a large quantity of their "negative food" would affect them, they could eat a smaller amount and be fine. But...

I realized as we were discussing it that the "effect" had to be fairly large to be noticed since the effects people discussed were physical such as upset stomach, nausea, headaches, rashes, cramping, etc. The physical is the LAST place something manifests. Once you feel something in the physical, it has already affected you energetically, mentally, and emotionally. The exact order is energy first, then emotional, then mental, and finally physical.

If something affects you in large amounts, it is definitely affecting you in smaller amounts as well. Even a little bit will drop your energy level, thereby affecting your negative well inside of you. The more you feed the negative well in yourself, the harder it is to access your compassionate self.

Negative Eating

We had some great discussions on the teleclasses about eating. The piece I have been thinking about comes from a question that I asked on one of the calls. We had been discussing the effect of foods that are bad for our system. I was amazed at the range of effects. There was fogginess, nausea, cramping, gas, rashes, joint pain, and more. Yet, when asked if people still at least occasionally eat some of the foods that have those effects, everyone said, “yes”.

That led me to ask the obvious question. What keeps us coming back? Why do we do it? Initially responses were the taste, the craving, being tired so grabbing the first thing…

Then I remembered something Sofia Schatz mentioned in her book, “We eat what we are.” So that made me think that if we are eating what we are and we are eating the foods that are negative on our system, does that mean we are feeling negative? I know my reason for reaching for food that doesn’t feel good is a feeling of being out of control and unconscious. I want that food and the desire is like a runaway train inside of me. I also know that whenever I am like that, I have my scale tipped toward the negative. Now I know I am just feeding that negativity. The negativity in me just attracts more negativity.

I also know that I can “eat what I want to be” so I am working on using food to help me stay in a compassionate state. Along with the foods that aren’t good for my system, I have a list of foods that are good for my system. I make sure they are handy and I am consciously filling myself full of the “good stuff”.