Many of my clients talk to me as if I’m a priest in a confessional.
“Judy, I am so bad, and I just can’t stop being bad”
When this first happened over almost decade ago, I was afraid that my client had committed a crime.
She explained that she was terribly bad…because she at a cheeseburger.
There are other confessions too, like pizza. ice-cream and chocolate.
In diet cultures, guilt and feelings about unworthiness are attached to eating forbidden foods. Women are especially notorious for transferring a perceived bad food choice to mean they are actually a bad person.
Is there a bible of food commandments somewhere that says we are going to, hell if we eat the wrong food?
Nope.
Beware, of the false diet gods. We have heard from the lo-fat gods, the calorie gods, the grapefruit gods and others. Each time a woman tries a new diet, it is like coveting a false god. There are new commandments to learn and inevitably break.
I was that diet-crazed woman for decades. I lived that belief that if I ate a perceived bad food, then I was bad. Periodically I searched for a new set of rules, especially when I was feeling like a bad witch. This was a no-win situation because I held the belief that if I ate bad according to the current plan, then I WAS BAD.
After many years and a closet full of clothes in various sizes, I abandoned all restrictive diet approaches. I embraced focusing on being grateful for my uniqueness while working to maintain my health and fitness.
We can diet endlessly to be a fake “good”, but when we do, we sacrifice self-love. With this perspective, we will never feel good enough. This is a perfectionist mindset.
Listen here, witchy woman. You are already perfect.
We are already perfect in our own uniqueness.
When we finally stop trying to live according to a fantasy image, we can open up and allow in feelings of true worthiness.
Brené Brown says it like this “Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.”
Most diets shame us into temporary action, only to revert back later.
Buuuuut……..”When we get our mindset right, our physique will follow” (Sohee Lee)
We may be witches, but we are neither good nor bad.
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