I am on an epic journey of self-discovery. I feel I have gone so far in just a few months, although some may say I haven’t travelled at all, my perspective has just shifted. 

I’m currently at the Local Government Association Conference, a great reward for having taken part in the Local Government Challenge (you can read about my experience of the challenges here, here and here).

I want to confide in you…this is the first time in a long time that I’m away from home without comfort food in my luggage to lean on if I need to.

This was a commitment to myself I made last week and I thought it would be helpful for me (and perhaps you, dear friend) to reflect on what this experience has been like so far:

Peace

It’s really tiring to have ‘secret’ food in my bag and to go through a mental tussle of ‘will I eat it’, ‘I shouldn’t eat it’, ‘I’m going to eat it’, ‘no I won’t’, ‘yes I will’. I don’t want to dramatise this; it didn’t rule or fully dominate my life but it did take energy to even have this inner dialogue and took me away from the present moment.

Taking the decision to not bring food along has taken this conversation off the table and this has brought me such a feeling of peace.

Truth

I’m so grateful that I’ve experienced a week without what I would call low level ‘disordered eating’ – thinking about food too much, worrying about how much/little I’ve eaten. Since taking steps to not overeat, I’ve been sensitive to the triggers that would usually set me off on a spiral of comfort eating and have had a greater awareness of them than I usually would –

• feeling ‘not ok‘,
• not having genuine conversations with people (i.e. reflecting a mask of what I think they want from me as opposed to my truth),
• worrying about the past or the future and not being in the moment

I’ve discovered it’s not an exhausting process to deal with all these issues as they arise. All I’ve needed to do is acknowledge them, feel them fully for a few moments and then release them – let them go.

Changing the dialogue

Yesterday at the LGA Conference I went to buy myself a drink. Before, my internal conversation would have been something like this:

“What do I want? Pepsi. But that has too many calories. Ok, what about pepsi max? I like pepsi max. But it has so many nasty chemicals in it. Do I just like it because it’s low calorie? Maybe. But I don’t want to have 400 calories of drink…” and on the conversation would go…and regardless of the final decision, I would be dissatisfied and slightly anxious.

As I discussed in my last post, I’ve started to change this dialogue and, instead of thinking what’s ‘best’ for my health (i.e. lowest calorie/fat), I’ve started to think about what will best nourish me.

I’ve started to make my choices based on what will make me glow and what will bring me the most joy in that moment.

I know this journey will be ongoing and that I haven’t (by far!) come to the end of this particular path, but I know the past week has brought such a sense of wellbeing, peace and has made me glow.

It has given me courage for the continuation of my personal journey and self-trust for the steps I next take in my life.