Lack

Lack

Posted: 03 Jun 2011 03:04 AM PDT

What don't you have enough of? 

When I talk about this with clients, they invariable say they have everything (or almost everything) they need to be happy.  They talk about their family and friends, their jobs, how blessed they financially, etc.  Sure, they might indicate that their mom/husband/coworker doesn't support them as much as they wished they did.  Or, sure...a raise would really make things at home a little easier.  But for the most part, they tell me they have enough.....

And yet, as we talk, the overwhelming undercurrent to their eating behaviors is lack.

They don't have enough Time.  Energy.  Motivation.  Fitness.  Emotional resources to deal with their eating behaviors.  Love for themselves.  Appreciation for themselves and what they bring to the world.

All of that lack adds up and changes us.

When we used to be hunter-gatherers out there in the wilderness, lack was something we dealt with often.  No berries = empty stomachs.  Uncomfortable hunger pains were the signal to get moving and find some food.  For thousands of years, that sense of lack was solved with food.

We are blessed not to be hunter-gatherers now.  But our training is still -- uncomfortable pain = lack and you fix that lack with food because it fills up the lack.  Which is fine if your lack is lack of food.  But that isn't the problem, is it?

Food won't fix our feelings of lack of time. (And what do we mean by lack of time, anyway?  We all get 24 hours each day -- non-negotiable!  It is our priorities that are the root cause of the feelings labeled as "no time")

Food won't give us the emotional energy to deal with changing our behaviors.  Food gives us physical energy -- and if we don't need it right away, it gets stored as fat -- which is just potential physical energy.

Food (even "healthy" food) won't increase your fitness levels -- The tool for that job is movement.

Food doesn't motivate you -- if it did, we all would be super-human, right?

And yet, we continue to reflexively eat...and eat...and eat.  Storing up potential energy we can't get rid of because we aren't using it up.  All to try to fix our sense of lack that we don't even want to acknowledge.

Do the work.  Find the lack you are trying to fill up with food.  Deal with the lack.  Today.