10-14-08 Thread on Transforming Female Emotional Eating

[Guest guest]

This thread has been started as an intent to strengthen female wisdom

we all share. I intend to shine our collective light on some of our

darker corners and so transform them into light!

I started following 's podcasts a week ago and have felt much

more empowered to change self-defeating attitudes and behaviors.

Through journalling, I clarified an old self-defeating pattern, which

results in self-soothing with food, which I would like to transform.

I was wondering if anyone has some feedback on it. Here goes:

I am married to a wonderful man who loves me and who is is honest,

capable and dependable. He is very generous with me, I feel I often

get what I want and need. I feel the bad to good percentage in our

relationship has never been more than 50%/50%. I am happy when we

are friends, we do have fun together. However:

He has high standards for himself, dreads being seen as inept, wants

to feel competent and smart. Because of his high standards, I am

occasionally a target for his criticism or toxic angry comments (he

holds me to his standards). This usually catches me off guard. Often

the result are:

Toxic comments or behaviors (like " what were you thinking " , " get it

right " , " try harder " , " do it right the first time " , cursing in the

next room, slamming stuff around etc.) If I am caught off guard I

feel pressured " shutting down " emotionally and falling into fear-

based thinking. I feel fear because this is a pattern I hate and have

felt powerless to change. My attempts at communication in the moment

seem to cause escalation of his bad moods. (Note: he is not and has

never been violent.) If I LISTEN TO IT, thinking it could be

constructive criticism, I'm sunk. If I protest when he is in this

kind of mood it quickly turns into a no-win conversation. So I

ignore him and get on with some positive activity by myself and wait

until his bad mood blows over, which it does. Then next day or so he

acts like nothing's happened. Later he'll say " I'm sorry I'm so

grumpy " . I usually say thanks for the apology and we kiss and make

up. But this last time I realized I waited too long to act. So now

I still feel bad, (underlying thought: " I need comfort, NOW " ).

Here's the self defeating part: because I am off-balance, I start

overeating, abandoning responsibility ( " chucking it all " ), and over-

pampering myself. While I am " zoned out " this way, I get more

criticism from him for my inattention to common-sense stuff.

I have never figured out how to pick a time to just say how I feel

about this type of exchange without it causing him to ascribe

ulterior motives to me (more put-downs). My only coping skill now is

to try to be mindful of his moods: stop it early by just getting out

of his way and doing something I enjoy, like take a walk, a long

shower, go meditate in the car, journal, or call a trusted relative.

Which all help. About 12 years ago I explained to him that " I am

just trying to work on a respectful framework for our marriage. If

you are in one of these moods I want you to know I will simply get

out of your way, go for a walk, etc. until you can talk to me in a

way I can handle. " He must need more frequent reminding.....

Wow, this turned out to be long... Your thoughts???

Sending you positive waves .....

Reninth