After a binge, most people think mean things about themselves.
“I’m disgusting, I’m worthless, I’m a failure.”
But what happens when you do that? You feel emotionally awful, right?
Understand that it’s not the actual binge that brings on feelings of shame, regret, and frustration, but it’s those thoughts you’re thinking that cause the feelings.
I repeat, your thoughts cause your feelings.
And those thoughts are not true, and you don’t have to think them.
You can think whatever you want to think.
I know those are the ingrained ones that come up when you binge, but that doesn’t mean you can’t override them with different, more useful thoughts to think. As humans, we have been given the gift of being able to direct our thoughts. We don’t have to just go with what pops into our head. We can decide we don’t like those thoughts and choose different ones.
Ever caught yourself saying, “I don’t want to think about that” and then you don’t?
Same thing.
Of course, new thoughts take time and practice to stick, but start now and get to stickin’!
When you have the nasty thoughts that cause the shameful feelings, you’re more likely to run to more food for comfort, just making it all worse. I’m sure you already feel physically ill, no need to make it worse by adding horrible emotions to that.
On the other hand, if you’re kind to yourself it will help you feel better and you’d be less likely to eat more.
When you comfort yourself you don’t need food to do that for you.
It may seem like being kind is excusing what you did but it’s not. It’s accepting what you did and deciding to not beat yourself up because that’s not helpful. Beating yourself up is not going to change what happened, nor is it likely to stop you from doing it again. The more beaten up you get, the worse you feel and the less likely you are to treat yourself well.
But the kinder you are, the better you will treat yourself.
Allow mistakes to happen, it’s okay if you mess up. You ate it, it happened, and now you can decide how you want to think and feel about it.
It’s your choice.
Speak to yourself like you would to the people you love the most. What would you say to a loved one if they just binged? Say that to yourself. It can even be something simple like,
“It happened, and it’s ok.”
Just be kind to yourself, because the other option sucks.
