Feelings (What are They Good For?)

It has been a long day. I am looking forward to putting my head on the pillow tonight. I feel like I earned rest today.

I want to try and tackle two things today. The first is feelings. It's a huge topic, I know, but I will narrow the scope to feelings as it pertains to weight loss and lifestyle changes.

I have talked before about how I grew up learning to eat my emotions. I quite excelled at it, actually. I have had periods of time in adulthood where I've done better than others.

I cringe sometimes when I flip through TimeHop and see some of the things I posted about over the years. I have aired a lot of grievances, frustrations and disappointments. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, per se, but I think it speaks to my emotional health at the time. There also seems to be some correlation between how well I was doing emotionally and how successful I was at losing weight.

I have been spending a lot of time recently listening to Brooke Castillo's podcasts. I really enjoy her. She has a lot of wisdom and the way she communicates resonates with me. I find myself nodding along a lot with her as I walk or work in the yard.

One of the repeating themes in her podcasts is that feelings are vibrations. I like this idea because it takes the value out of feelings. They are not inherently good or bad, they just are. Most feelings are temporary and not all feelings can be trusted.

I am fortunate now to have some very close friends who are good at helping me interpret my feelings. In any given day, I can be feeling highly motivated, like a failure or like a dragon momma. It has served me well to go to my friends and have them help me see the truth. I need objective people in my life because I don't perceive reality correctly. I have a warped sense of how things are and it colors everything I do. Some people are better than others at calling bullshit or pushing me to examine things more closely.

So how does this pertain to eating? I'll give an example.

I will confess that I started writing this week's protocol, got sidetracked by Brooklyn and mislaid my notebook. I have an idea in my mind of what I want the week to look like. I have stuck to my general framework and I've not strayed from the paleo-ish diet.

The weather has contributed to a general malaise. I ended up taking a short nap yesterday because I felt sapped. Today, I woke up at 5 AM again and slept fitfully until 7:45, when Bekah informed me that I needed to make lunches for everyone.

I had a choice today, as I do every day. I could have chosen to stay on the couch watching YouTube videos. I could have taken another nap. I could've decided, "hey, it's raining and I can't walk--I'll just eat all the things."

I *felt* crappy. I *felt* discouraged. I *felt* low.

But here's the thing. Those are just feelings. I can choose to feel the vibrations of them and wait for them to pass, or I can allow myself to set up camp in them and let them rule my day.

Today, I chose to keep moving. I cleaned the kitchen. I purged some things from my closet. I tried on some things from my closet. I threw out garbage. I straightened up. I went to Costco to buy more veggies. I made my salad. I baked a batch of homemade bread.

I can tell you, I am sitting here writing this and I'm still feeling a little low, a little discouraged and a little crappy. I don't think that action cures all that ails me. But today, action did prevent me from taking a detour from where I want to go into where I don't want to be.

(As an aside, I need to say that I struggle mightily with depression. That is in a different class and I don't think it should be construed that depression is just a feeling. When I am feeling legitimately depressed, I definitely take the necessary action to correct things.)

For a few weeks, I spent a few minutes every morning reading scripture and doing some other devotional readings. Once school started, it became difficult to fit that in. I used to stay up until the wee hours of the morning; now I'm in bed no later than 11. I decided that it was important that I fit my quiet time into my morning routine. So for the past couple of mornings, I've set my alarm (instead of letting myself wake up naturally around 7:30) and gotten up.

This is also not a cloak of protection against feelings that don't serve me, but it does help me get off on the right foot. I start every morning with prayer and it's a way of giving God the reins for the day and being willing to sit in the backseat. I confess that I grab the reins back several times throughout the day, but I am working hard to keep a constant dialogue with him. It helps me and it serves my family well if I am communing with God before I commune with them.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that stopping overeating or trying to change one's lifestyle is not *just* about changing the food. There is a lot of inside work that has to be done. I don't think what I am trying to do would have long-term success if I wasn't willing to do the hard work of examining my feelings. Ms. Castillo firmly believes that thoughts drive feelings, which turn into action and determine results. If I want to change the trajectory of my life, I have to start on the inside.

(And I know I said "first" earlier. I was intending to talk about how I shop with this new protocol in place. I am sitting here, though, yawning, and realizing that this is enough to talk about for one night. Stay tuned, my next post will definitely be about shopping!)