There is a voice in my head. Not a schizophrenic voice, but an insistent one never the less. It reminds me where the tasty food is in the house and, if there isn't tasty food, how much money I have and how to get it. It remembers every cupcake I walk by and how many pieces of candy there are.
I was talking to a friend today about this voice. Now I am speaking out about it. This is the voice that needs silencing. I do not need another serving of Chinese food, and if I don't eat the chocolate and someone else does, that's ok. This voice tells me lies all the time. It tells me I NEED to eat the treat before someone else does - that if I don't there might not be more. It tells me to stockpile excessive amounts of food, for just in case.
My friend call this voice a monster. He wasn't wrong. But it is a smart voice - it can calculate how to get the most calories and fat and sugar for the $7 in my pocket and it knows how quickly I can get them. What the voice doesn't know is I have an ally. I can choose to hear new messages about food - I can choose to hear that fruits and vegetables are good and filling, and I can choose to listen to that message, instead of the one about how if I don't eat carbs I will be hungry.
The voice is the master of guilt. If I eat too much chocolate, to many chips, another brownie, the voice lets me forget about it. But today, the voice wanted me to feel bad for eating salad and peanuts. "too much" the voice said - but the voice is wrong. These are the foods that are good for me, not snickers and ruffles.
So lets talk about those messages that play in our heads. The ones that let us justify what we are doing, the ones that don't leave us alone. Lets talk about it and then lets learn new things to talk about so that eventually, we can find a way to quiet or weaken the voice.
What does your voice say? How are you working to overcome it?
