Last week I talked about allowing your urges to exist without reacting to them.
If you’ve been trying and have found it extremely difficult, you might not be allowing them, but instead resisting them. There’s a big difference.
Resisting comes from a place of fighting against. It’s like you’re saying, “No, no, no, no, no, I’m not going to give in, I’m not going to give in, I’m not going to do it!”
How exhausting does that feel?
On the other hand, allowing is more like, “I feel you, but I’m not going to give in to you. You can be here as long as you want, but I’m not going to give you what you want.”
Allowing is a much calmer place to be in.
It’s struggling versus giving permission.
The urge is there. This is reality. You have three choices now – give in and binge, resist (until you run out of energy and probably binge anyway) or allow it.
It’s like when a little kid is hounding you for candy. Giving in would be the easy way out, but that is just going to encourage him to keep asking for it. Resisting his relentless persistence is going to tire you out and there’s a good chance you’ll give it to him anyway just to shut him up because now you’re exhausted. Allowing him to be a kid and let him whine until he eventually gives up, while not letting it affect you emotionally, is what will bring you peace in the end. You didn’t give him the candy and you didn’t let yourself get all worked up about it.
Allow your urge to yearn for a binge, but don’t let it affect you emotionally. Allow it to do what it’s going to do and if you don’t get worked up and feed it with emotions, it will realize it’s not getting what it wants and it will go away.
Allow the feeling exist in your body.
Allow thoughts to roam around in your head telling you to binge. They’re already there, so why not? Why bother trying to push them away when you can just keep calm and let them disappear on their own?
Your urge is not going to exist forever. It will end when you give in to it or when it goes away on its own. If you choose to not give in and wait for it to pass, it will go much quicker if you allow it than if you fight against it, get mad at it, or try to ignore its existence.
Choose calm and watch it fade away.
