Oh, that feeling after a binge! It’s so discouraging, isn’t it? Learning to nurture ourselves sometimes entails picking ourselves up after a fall. In other posts, I’ve written about how we can soothe ourselves after a binge. (Look here, too.) In this post, I’m focusing on action steps we can take after the dust settles on the empty plates.
1. Don’t snowball mistakes. Snowballing is diving into all or nothing, black and white thinking. Our minds reason: since we screwed up, we might as well keep screwing up. Snowballing is when you think, “Since I ate the potato chips, I might as well have ice cream, too.”
To shift out of snowballing, it helps to use a metaphorical pause button. Take a deep breath, and mentally tell yourself, “Sweetheart, darling, pause.” Visualize yourself stopping. Sit with the discomfort of messing up. Let it pass through you, without having to act on it. Then, simply start over – right away. Don’t wait until tomorrow, turning the night into an eating free-for-all. Don’t turn one mistake into ten or twenty. Just start over, let go of your regret, and your mistake – which is past, and what you can’t change – and focus on what you can: this very moment.
2. Make small changes. Because our eating problems feel so huge, we can discount the value of small, incremental, regular changes. I find that the positive accumulation of many, small changes is both gentle, doable and powerful.
This is going back to grounding, our base camp, one of the 6 practices of growing human(kind)ness. Grounding is how we give ourselves roots, a solid foundation, from which to tackle the big obstacles. In my life, small changes like eating breakfast every day, eating regular meals, getting proper sleep, and spending time each day alone were essential to my healing. They continue to be essential today.
3. Do one thing differently. We often make the mistake of trying harder when we fail, thinking that we will get it “right” the next time. If we could do better we would. It’s that simple.
So how can we tap into the power of change?
You’ve heard the adage that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, while expecting a different result? We can shift this pattern by doing one thing differently.
For example, if you find yourself unable to stay out of the kitchen at night, undoing your healthy daytime eating with a nightly binge, switch up your nightly routine: go for a walk after dinner, brush your teeth after eating, call a friend.
If you skip breakfast, try eating it within an hour of waking up. (This practice, by itself, is so powerful for me in preventing overeating that I chuckle at myself when I don’t do it!)
Laughter helps, too!
