Weight Loss for People Who Feel Too Much (29 page)

Of course, some people will grumble and bristle if you make light of some serious topic they want to discuss. They thrive on conflict and negative attention, and if that means they have to pick a fight over the proper way to make guacamole, damn it, they're going to have their drama! If there's someone in the group who can manage to stir up anger, anxiety, and tension no matter what the topic, physically avoid him and switch the subject, crack a joke, or walk away as soon as he delivers the opening line to his emotional drama. And let him make the guacamole his way.

No matter what, people who feel too much need to remember this motto: life is short so leave the drama at the door! Drama is exhausting and life-draining and rarely solves anything when you get dragged into it. All it does is feed the other person's self-centeredness and self-righteousness (because the other person always seems to cast herself in the role of the poor hard done by martyr, or victim doesn't she?). If you join in, the person feels great and you feel like crap. Do you have people in your life like this? Be careful. The anxiety these relationships trigger will not be worth it in the end.

Longstanding friendships and family members who exhibit these signs feed the compulsive need that people who feel too much have for helping and rescuing. Your boundaries become so enmeshed you feel caught in a web of confusion, and you will have a very hard time maintaining your equilibrium. If you are the one who creates the drama, then consider if drama is one of your detours. Family gatherings and holidays bring this trait out with gusto. Stay grounded. Stay centered. Stay sane.

ANNIVERSARIES OF LOSSES

The time of the year when someone you loved passed, or you were a victim of a crime and lost your sense of innocence and sense of security, can make you especially sensitive. When a loss is fresh, you expect to feel sad as the anniversary approaches, but as time goes on, you might not realize how much these anniversaries continue to stir up old pain. You might find yourself irritable and sensitive all day long, then go to write out a check and instantly recognize the date and its significance.

Holidays are often emotional times because of all the reasons I explained above, but also because they can remind us of what we lost—the dream of a marriage that lasts forever, or of a perpetually happy and healthy family. It's as if our painful experiences are held like fossils in amber. Every year, regardless of how I have changed and how much my husband loves Christmas, I can still hear the echoes of Christmases past reminding me of a dreaded holiday of drunken arguments and the feelings of fear and loss hanging in the air between my parents. I know that in time, these memories will fade in intensity as they're replaced by happier memories of my being with Marc and our two “furry children.”

If you're like most people who can feel too much, you can start to obsess about the past and pull yourself, and others, down into sadness—or friends or relatives can try to drag you into their depressive attitude. Holidays tend to inspire fantasies of perfection anyway. Maybe it's because advertisers are great at pumping out images of blissfully joyful people gathering together in harmony as they open their presents from the big department store that's having a holiday super sale. Then again, maybe marketers are just responding to our own habit of thinking that whatever problems are present in our relationships, they'll magically disappear for one day or one holiday weekend and we can reclaim the old fantasy.

I lost both my parents, in different years, around the holidays. Both of them became terminally ill around Thanksgiving and died the following February. Even though it has been a very long time since I had those experiences, I know—and expect—that I will be more sensitive and open to other people's feelings during that holiday season. Emotional triggers for me are everywhere, and I'm extra careful to do my self-nurturing work so that I don't start detouring into disordered eating.

Take a few minutes to identify the times of year when you have experienced significant losses. Have you found that you're more emotional, more prone to detouring at those times? Journal about your experiences, and remember next time those dates roll around why it's more of a struggle to manage your porous boundaries and avoid emotional overload. Just being aware of these triggering times can help you minimize their impact on you. Then, too, as I said before,
plan
for being more sensitive. Maybe on that significant day, you need to take some time off from work or chores to do something that lifts your spirits, or maybe you want to spend more time meditating or journaling at that time of year. A friend of mine decided that every year on her mother's birthday and death date, she and her family will go out to the movies—her mom's favorite activity.

VACATION TEMPTATION

In some small resort towns, summer tourists are often referred to as “fudgies” because when they're visiting, they feel they just have to buy fudge. Vacation time comes and we feel we just have go for the fudge, the ice cream (Double
scoop? Oh, what the hell, sure!
), and penny candy (
Ooo, they have those? I loved those when I was a kid! I'll take a pound of them! What? Twelve bucks?
). Like holidays, vacations are times to relax and be with people you love and care about, and break the old routine. Come up with some better ways to bond than consuming the junk food sold in every tourist shop. Bond over healthful meals. Enjoy cooking together or eating out at restaurants that have healthy food. Now you have access to menus and reviews on the Internet—you don't have to get stuck in the places that fry up foods and douse them in fatty sauces and serve them with bread made from processed flours. Ask for condiments on the side or bring your own.

I found some common issues discussed among my students around vacations and taking breaks in general. People who feel too much oftentimes don't know how to relax or take a break, owing to the familiarity of hyper-vigilance, always being on intuitive “patrol,” and they can suffer from stability boredom when things become quiet. Being aware of this, if this is your tendency, it is important to be mindful of putting something in your mouth. Once you recognize the “poised for detour” behaviors, you can prevent yourself from sabotaging your progress.

TRIPPING UP WHEN ON A TRIP

I travel a lot for my work, and I've come to accept that the best way to eat healthfully is to bring, or purchase, snacks that are healthy and make them into meals. Again, you should try to figure out what restaurants near where you're staying serve healthy foods, but also, you might look up where the nearest grocery store is so you can pick up cheese (preferably organic and cruelty-free), nut butter, baby carrots, salads, celery sticks, fruit, and maybe some whole-grain or gluten-free crackers. I always travel with raw nuts and with packaged nutrition bars: I avoid the ones with textured vegetable protein (which is highly processed) and high carbs.

In most airports, the food kiosks between security and the gate have some fruits, yogurt, and salads, and sometimes they'll have hummus, too. If I don't have any cut vegetables to dip in the hummus, I'll use pretzels, which aren't a great choice but are okay in a pinch. It can be tricky to work around the rules for bringing liquids with you, but with a little planning, you can figure out how to have some good salad dressings or condiments available to you. Remember to bring a little bag or shaker of Himalayan salt everywhere you go.

Also, I always call the hotel I'm staying at and get them to clear the mini bar in my room, even if I have to pay for it. It's not worth the temptation to binge. After I've taken in the emotions and energy of a crowd of people, I like to retreat to my hotel room without those candy bars and bags of salty chips crying, “I'm here! Yummy yummy yummy! Let me comfort you! C'mon, no one will know!” Ask if there's a room without a mini bar. Find out if the nearby restaurants can serve you brown rice and steamed or grilled vegetables. Do the best you can and don't expect it to be perfect. Mindfulness, praying, and giving thanks for the food you are about to eat are powerful and good for you mind, body, and soul, regardless of whether you know where everything comes from. Freedom from obsession is the key, so don't sweat it if you can't access the perfect foods when you're on the go.

If you're overtired, which is very likely if you're traveling across time zones or you've had to spend an entire day or two getting to your destination, you'll be more susceptible to disordered eating. Figure out how you can take the time to ground yourself once you arrive, and shed all the emotional and energetic detritus that's clinging to you. I find it's easy to take a daily Himalayan salt bath whenever I travel, and it makes a huge difference in my ability to handle the stress of being on the road. If you can't access a tub, try to take a shower and use a salt scrub, or at least spritz and do the affirmations and your tapping. You might meditate a bit, too. Try not to schedule back-to-back meetings if you can. Even if you can just work in 10- or 15-minute breaks to be alone, away from anyone else's energy and your phone, the television, or other stimulation, you'll have an easier time managing your porous boundaries.

DEADLINES THAT OVERSTIMULATE YOU

For some people, an approaching deadline turns up the volume on their excitement, energy, and creativity. They do their best work in the wee hours before the project is due. I'm like that—an adrenaline junkie! I love having to go, go, go; but I also know that the high level of stimulation I feel when I've got a deadline hovering above me can lead me to feel ungrounded, which sets me up for disordered eating.

Now, other people completely shut down with anxiety as a deadline comes near, so they're better off getting started on the project right away and holding themselves to a strict schedule. Whatever your natural response to deadlines, the important thing is to know yourself and not to let any fear or frustration build up and cause you to go into emotional overload. If perfectionism is a problem, or your last-minute work usually needs a lot of tweaking, set yourself a false deadline ahead of the real one. Then you'll have a cushion of time to play around with your finished product, whether it's a book, a paper, or a presentation. Understand and accept the truth about how you work best instead of denying it.

Don't harshly judge yourself if you're bad with deadlines. As always, start with self-compassion. Then, your fear of failure won't interfere with your plan for how to get the work done on time. Procrastination stems from fear. Call it out into the open and work with it—as you sit in your salt bath, using the EFT, affirm, “Even though I am not a perfect writer (or speaker, or presenter), I deeply love and honor myself.” In fact, use this technique before you sit down to write, or get up to practice your presentation. I know that's going to be a little tricky when you're waiting to walk up to the podium, but you can dash into the bathroom to do it, and repeat the affirmations as you're sitting waiting to be called to the front of the room. Remember, there are only two main emotions, two sources of consciousness: fear that comes from the wounded ego and love, which is the natural state of your soul. The first is false, the other is true. Love is the answer to every question, and compassion is the attitude we should hold at all times—compassion for other beings and for ourselves. Love yourself even if your inner thoughts are churning with fear because you're afraid you won't make a deadline.

It's important to have deadlines in order to get done the larger or difficult projects we would otherwise avoid. Our challenge is to decouple the deadlines from the emotional agitation we create around them. If the deadline was set by someone else, the fear of disappointing that person can be intimidating. If we set it and told someone about it, time seems to shrink because we fear we can't get the work done by that date. Because we're people pleasers, we also tend to overpromise. One habit a good friend of mine had to break was telling every client, “I'll get back to you tomorrow.” It was an instant reaction to every request and it put enormous pressure on her. She learned that even if she thought she could get the task done in 24 hours, she could say, “I'll try to get back to you by the end of the week,” and no one ever complained. Then, if she got back to the person the next day, or even the day after that, she looked good and felt good about herself. Do you have a habit of letting unrealistic promises pop out of your mouth automatically when you're anxious about pleasing someone else? Give yourself a time cushion and your emotions about deadlines will be quieter.

Also, if you're working with others on the project, be careful not to take on their agitation. You might be better off not partnering with someone who has a different response to deadlines than you do—early starters drive late starters crazy, and vice versa. If you're ready to go full steam ahead and your partner is looking at the amount of time you have left to complete your work and freaking out, it's not pretty. If
you
are the one who is anxious about time, try the following exercise for relieving your anxiety and helping you to feel you have enough time to do what you need to do.

MAKING DECISIONS

Maybe your deadline involves making a decision. Weighing your options takes time, not just because you have to think through the pros and cons of your choice but also because you have to quiet the noise in your head and get in touch with your feelings about the decision. Are you upset that you have to make the decision in the first place? Change can be hard. If you can't get out of making a decision, and you don't like your options, soften your resistance and open yourself up to accepting that the circumstances have changed. After you make this internal shift, who knows? Maybe a new choice will present itself to you.

People who feel too much often have trouble with decisions because they pick up on everyone's feelings and don't want anyone to be hurt, upset, or angry so they procrastinate.
Maybe if I just think this through long enough, and poll enough people, I can find a solution that everyone will be okay with and we can all live happily ever after.
Let's face it, most people resist change, so the likelihood that you can reason your way into the perfect decision that no one disagrees with is approximately, oh … 
next to nothing.
Let go of the illusion that you can please everyone and spend more time getting in touch with what your emotions are. Don't forget you can always use the IN-Vizion Process and discover what the landscape that represents your feelings can teach you.