Coping Mechanisms

To get myself out of a funk of Blah yesterday, I did Power 90 Sculpt 1 and Jillian Michaels 30 day shred.  Big thanks to KT for giving me the idea that 2 workouts a day are do-able! It did make me feel better.  Not great, but back to even.  Then we got a call for a car accident (a little bumper bump), and then dog training in the evening, and that was the day yesterday.  I made it through without falling into food or drink.

My book is frustrating.  It bothers me that in every. other. paragraph. the author says that I have to get a therapist.  Every single issue she raises, she says to work through it with my therapist.  Gawd.  I'm not knocking therapy, goodness knows.  It's helped me bunches over the years.  But I'm not looking for a book to tell me that I'm broken.  It's a book about care for the self (hence the title "Radical Self Care for Weight Loss"), so why does she spend time writing about getting out of abusive relationships, or how to eat small portions through the day.  It's all over the place, and I'm finding most of it to be not valuable.

There are some excellent nuggets though.  Here's one that I'm digesting now (pun not intended!).  Food is my coping mechanism.  When I'm losing weight, like now, the weight loss process is my coping mechanism.  I'm spending mental and emotional energy focusing on and controlling my food and activity.  When I've lost the weight and gotten to maintenance, that coping mechanism won't be there any more.  And I won't be able to go back to food as a coping mechanism if I want to keep the weight off.  So - I've got to learn other ways to cope.

I've got to start by feeling my feelings, realize that feelings aren't facts and I don't have to act on everything that I feel.  I can just feel, note it without judging, and move on.

I get stuck there.  I have no idea what most of my feelings are, most of the time.

Like now.  I found out this morning that a mistake was made at work and I'm in a wrong place on the org chart.  My real job that I thought was mine will have to be posted and I'll have to apply for it.  Yeah, it was a shock, and I feel .... something.  I'm not sure what, except that I don't feel good.  It will be fine in the end.  I still have a job that will end up to be what I want.  It will take a few more months than I thought, and I'm not happy.

I want to fall into a cookie or a beer, or both.  If I had a best friend, or even ANY close friends, I'd want to get together and commiserate over drinks and dinner.  I want to stop by the firehouse and hang out and be around people talking about OTHER things to get me out of my head.  I want to work out really hard and let those endorphins make me feel better. And I'm still not sure what it is that I'm feeling, exactly.

I think this is what the book means.  Find a way to feel what I'm feeling.  Find a way to cope with that feeling without being damaging.  And then find a way to let it go.