“Spiccame too” is how my three kids used to pronounce ‘Despicable Me 2″
You know, the Disney Pixar film.
Tis pretty good if you haven’t seen it (and you have kids to entertain).
There’s one scene in which Gru, the evil baddie, is dressed as ‘Zinkerbell’ – “the most magical fairy princess of all!”
A young boys interrupts him with “How come you’re so fat?”
“Because my house is made out of candy and sometimes……… I eat instead of facing my problems.”
Now we know you don’t live in a candy house.
At least we presume you don’t?
But you don’t need to in order to face challenges with emotional eating.
Emotional eating isn’t something many FitPros talk about.
It can be a sensitive subject.
People often feel ashamed of how much their actions can be ruled by their emotions.
The truth, of course, is that many of our decisions throughout the day are influenced by our emotions.
All of us.
Good decisions and bad.
In lots of different ways.
Emotions aren’t a bad thing.
They are what makes us human.
It’s when we use tactics for managing them that are, shall we say, not ideal, that problems arise.
And we know how deep routed many of these emotions are.
We may not even be aware of them.
Matt recently had a light bulb moment about how the way one his teachers used to react to him has shaped his reactions to some of his challenges all these years later.
And we’ve both booked on a course next month with the lady whose work spurred this realisation.
Byron Katie if you want to look her up.
Anyway, back on point.
Without going too deep on an email………..
The most important first step to dealing with anything………..
Is awareness.
Being aware of the emotions that affect our decisions.
Being aware of how we’re feeling when we make those choices.
Being aware of the ‘stories’ that go through our head when this is happening.
When we roll mindlessly through life, acting on long established habits………
Only stopping to think ‘why’ afterwards……….
Then we rarely get anyway.
When we stop.
When we actually think about how we’re feeling.
When we question those stories going through our heads.
When we remember that “between impulse and action …….. there is a gap.”
We take that important first step to changing those actions.
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So, don’t be ashamed of those emotions.
But learn to recognise them.
Learn to question the thoughts they create.
Challenge the habits that have been developed for dealing with them.
Keep doing that for long enough and new emotions, thoughts, habits and results will follow.
And that will get you better long term results than just relying on ‘willpower’ to stop yourself doing something you’ve returned to for years.
Much love,
Jon ‘Kevin’ Hall and Matt ‘Stuart’ Nicholson
P.S. If you like the sound of lasting changes rather than a lifelong slog –> myrise.co.uk/briefing-meeting 🙂
