Dear Jeff,
Happy holidays! Are you wondering how to get through the holidays without another unwanted 5 - 10 pounds? I totally get it. That was also my plight.
What I realized was that my addiction to food was related to a lack of connection to myself the rest of the year. By examining the roots of my need for a second helping, that extra Christmas cookie, and another glass of wine, I realized that I was in the game of short-term palliation for much deeper issues of pain and abandonment.
As a mother of two, a wife, a farmer, and owner of a busy clinic, my needs were often being abandoned in favor of a laundry list of obligations. When Christmas came around and a relative asked if I wanted more of the delicious offerings from the family buffet, I realized I was bereft of healthy nurturing in my life. No wonder I went completely overboard at Christmas. My thought was that I’d always deal with the fall-out in the new year. The thing is that I didn’t. My issues were cumulative.
After the holidays, I was left with the feelings of demoralization and extra weight, wondering how I was going to get out from under it all again this year. The extra roll around my belly was a token of all the unmet needs, and starting in January, I just started the cycle of self-abandonment all over again. That is, until I finally felt fed up with the same old rinse and repeat emotions and began studying the opposite state of mind and what it would take to stop self-sabotaging.
I had to grow my self-worth and stop gorging on temporary fixes for a long-term problem. I had to deal with the accumulated pain from the past and be more cognizant of my primary needs all year round. In this month’s feature article I address the practical ways that I stopped perpetuating the weight-gain cycle that kept me caught in the loop of feeling bereft and let down. If you want, you can do it too! Just read on.
Love,
Ally and Jeff
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