Thursday Morning Check In

Ok, so it is not morning, it is almost, but not quite noon. But I am writing on my lunch hour, morning was rushed and I didn't get a chance to post before I left for work. Today I am still focusing on hunger - recognizing true hunger vs craving or just wanting to eat, waiting utnil I am at a 3 on the hunger meter, and stopping at a 5 or 6. What I am fighting with today is just plain wanting to eat. I know that the food is there in my lunch sack - I am not really hungry, but I want to eat. Some of it is boredom. I am pretty bored with this job right now...can't wait untill they start giving me more projects to keep me busier. But some of it is --- I don't know what. Is my world so completely engulfed by thoughts of food? I don't remember thinking this much about food when I wasn't trying to loose weight, get healthy and eat healthy. And I don't think that I ate all that frequently, I ate ALL the wrong things, mostly living on fast food and convience food and resturant food as well as eating late at night and never exercizing. I am hoping that as I sit with this exercise of being aware of hunger that this wanting to eat all the time will end; that it is just a result of focusing on the hunger levels. A.M. says that eventually you will learn to respond to hunger naturally with out thinking about it...but to do so you must first spent the time learning what it is, how it feels like and what it takes to make you satisfied. It is a really uncomfortable feeling for me right, which tells me that it is what I should be doing right now.

I am convinced that one of the things I am learning through this is how bored I am with my life right now and that I am/have used food to entertain myself, to fight boredom...in other words I eat when I don't know what else to do with myself.

So...solutions:

1. Keep at getting my studio set up so that I can be creating.
2. Finish washing walls and ceilings upstairs
3. Clear out old studio and set up as bedroom
4. Continue to cultivate new friendships and get out of the house
5. In otherwords get a life!!

I have gotten into the habit of coming home after work and vegging out. It is not even that I am tired it is just an easy choice to make at night. Since moving home I feel like I have lost some of my focus and energy in life. I know I have, I am at loose ends living in my mother's house. I miss having my things around me, my home, I miss living alone. For now, though, this is where I know I am to be, and I wouldn't choose to be anywhere else in spite of the little difficulties. Who knew how much having "things" around me would be so important!?

It is also bringing up some awarness of irrational fear of not having enough food. Now I know that I won't starve to death, but I worry that if I allow myself to get hungry I won't be somewhere where I can easily get food to eat. I find myself checking before I leave to go somewhere..."am I hungry, should I eat, will I get hungry before I get back home, will there be somewhere I can get food if I do get hungry???" Now I know that this is not normal for most people, it reminds me of when older people go out somewhere and they have to check that they go to the bathroom before they leave, wheather they need to pee or not! But I am trusting that this is a process that I will need to go through to re-train and re-teach my body to trust that there will be enough food to live on and for me to learn to trust my body for correct signals about hunger and food. Baby steps, baby steps.

Gotta go

Jackie