I’m listening to Pema Chodron’s Getting Unstuck: Breaking Your Habitual
Patterns & Encountering Naked Reality
I joined Audible.com this morning and decided that my first
book would be by Pema Chodrön.
She’s another gentle, effective teacher.
She was taking about meditation and how we are like children
with scabies. They itch. They scratch the itch. The itch gets worse until medical help is
required. The child is told to not
scratch the itch so they can get better – and they are given medication to help
with the itch. Children who desire to
get better will do their best to not scratch the itch and take the medication.
I immediately realized that my impulse to eat when I am not
hungry is very similar to wanting to scratch an itch – real or imagined. How many times have I successfully kept
myself from scratching an itch. Instead
I’d breathe through it, distract myself (probably not very Buddhist-like) and
eventually the itch would be gone and I’d be better – without the red welts
that mark my skin when I scratch it.
I’ve done this more often than not – unless it was a mosquito that bit
me.
When I have the impulse to eat when I am not hungry (ie, not
bitten by a mosquito), it is because something has made me uncomfortable and I
want to change that and my first response to discomfort is to desire food and
to act on that desire without thinking.
We all know that eating when not hungry is simply a minor distraction
from the discomfort. And it often
increases the discomfort level by adding guilt and remorse. I KNOW this.
I don’t practice it.
So, for this moment, I’m living through the itch. I want to eat, but my hunger level indicates
that food is not required by my body.
So, I’m living through that itch.
When my hunger level reaches the point that I know my body requires
nourishment, I will eat. I’m not there
yet.
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