Revelation: Beyond Eating, I now recognize other harmful "mind police"
Tl;dr: If you have contributed to this sub or this movement... Thank you. This has changed my life in more ways than just eating. I wish I could pay all of you back. 🙇
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I'm new to the intuitive eating sphere. As a recently (no longer in denial) recovering binge eater... I have tried so many things. Food type rules, timing rules, ethics rules, etc. none of it worked more than a few weeks.
But Intuitive Eating is working... I no longer calculate or fear what I am going to eat based on what I ate earlier today / this week... Nor my eat based on physical activities or plan my cheats based on my invisible "reward scorecard".
I have evicted those "food police", and subsequently shed the giant ape from my brain. I cannot believe I finally am feeling ethereal, euphoric.
It has worked. So well that it has opened my mind to notice other external influences that I have engrained and drowned out my intuition. Accidental mindfulness?
Well I discovered that I also have "productivity police".
Probably another result of society, grind culture, growing up poor / resource scarcity, keeping up with jones, etc. Anyway for the longest time I could not spend a day off doing nothing. I always have to be cleaning, planning, prepping, studying, leaning a new skill/hobby, furthering my career / professional development.
The police would never allow me to just sit and play Mario kart for more than 30m unless I had earned it.
But now I realize how unhealthy this is for my psyche as well. The truth is I now have food, a job, and can afford rent. I should not have primal fear of scarcity through inaction.
So, I am going through the process of evicting the productivity police. Easier said than done.
Instead, focusing on what really will bring me fulfillment and satisfaction me in the moment. Just like Intuitive Eating, trusting that sometimes I will feel fulfilled by going for a jog, and other times it's watching reality TV. But to listen to the internal signals, and not the "hustle culture". Trust that my intuition knows what it really needs most during downtime. And by satisfying it, shedding all the stress and noise about worrying if I'm spending my time "correctly".
What better use is there for our short time on earth than to do the things that actually bring us joy and satisfaction? And to ignore what we are "told n'sold" will fulfill us (e.g owning a big house, being upper management, etc).