I’m feeling relieved.
I thought I had an incurable condition.
I had accepted it and was prepared and calm about having it.
Then the doctor said I didn’t have it.
Which made me want to binge.
I didn’t immediately want to eat the store out.
But I noticed it as I was in the supermarket after my appointment.
I wanted to buy every single item of junk food I saw.
Felt a compulsion to reach for it.
Imagined the anticipated relief of eating it. And then some more.
Almost believed that it was inevitable that I would do it.
Today, I didn’t give in to that urge.
I decided to take on the Watcher role.
I just watched myself from a neutral place.
Almost as if I was standing above myself and observing myself with interest and no judgement.
I let the urge to do it be there.
I noticed that my body was recoiling from the food as my mind was tricking me into thinking I wanted it.
I didn’t try to fight with the urge, or push it away.
I didn’t try to convince myself that I should rather eat something healthy.
I just let it be there.
And I stayed with it, and with myself.
And eventually it passed.
I paid for the food I came to buy.
And I left.
Only when I came home did I realize that this urge started with my immense relief.
With the fear that I thought I didn’t have.
It’s tricky and unusual this mind of ours.
If I had given in to my compulsion to hide under a mountain of food
I never would have uncovered all the fears I had about what I thought was wrong with me.
That I was pretending I didn’t have.
I would have abandoned myself and my emotions.
I experienced the calm after the storm.
Without the storm.
It felt good.