Morning Quikie

Got the bike yesterday. They did not charge me, as they were in error, (duh). But I don't think I will ever go to that shop again- customer service sucked and so did the repair.

But enough bitching- the past is the past and the present is bikedom! This is the official Bike to Work Week here and I'd like to take part but Monday no dice, T, W, TH I'm on course in a remote location that is unbikable. So Friday is the only day I can partake. Perhaps the universe is throwing obstacles in my so I can learn to relax? It certainly feels like I've been doing a lot of waiting/bumping up against walls. Which is hard for me. It triggers my need for instant gratification- which is what so often leads me to binge. "I don't feel happy and I want to feel better now! I think I'll eat, that'll help."

I never learned to just sit with my feelings. And that more than anything is probably the magic ingredient I am missing since I lost the initial weight. For the last year, I've kept trying to pinpoint the magic ingredient to success, right down to thinking that the season, summer, was the pivotal reason why I lost weight, or that I won't lose weight in every other season. Obviously, I have to let go of that magical thinking. And ironically, the way to do that is to sit with my feelings of sadness at having gained weight and sit through them until they pass- rather than eating. Which is what I've been doing.

When I was just sitting through feelings, letting them pass through and over and out of my world, I was losing weight. During those times when things gelled and I was able to let feelings pass without too much "weight" being attached to them, and I was consistently sitting through them, I lost the most weight, and it was easy in the sense that it wasn't a struggle. I would say to myself, "I know you want to eat right now. And I understand that urge. But let's wait 20 minutes, if you still want to eat we'll discuss our options. I need you to sit with me right now though this feeling though, and let it pass. If we act on it by eating, by doing anything destructive we're literally feeding it and it will never go away. We know that, we've done it many times before and food never works in the longterm. If we wait, it will go. And we'll get what we want in the long term and short term."

I'd repeat bits and peices of that over and over to myself as I sat through the feeling. And if I decided I did need to eat I would go to Sbux and get a lite drink- because it was summer and I wanted something icy and refreshing. But not calorie laden.

It wasn't a magic bullet, and as I recall I journaled a lot and had a lot of moments where I was painfully emotional and feeling raw- especially on long days left to myself. But it was hepful.

Am I ready to try again?