Today we’re exploring a very specific pattern I see with clients.
Women who take pride in getting things done, often report a habit of eating…after having eaten.
Take Sally for example:
Sally’s work day is ending. She gets home, starts thinking about dinner. She pulls a bag of organic Asian veggies out of the freezer to make a quick stir-fry.
She sits down to enjoy. She’s approaching “satisfied,” even “full” but next thing she knows, she’s getting another helping, and then having a couple handfuls of chips…then a little icecream.
No, she’s not binge eating. She just ends up feeling really full. She knows that she was satisfied earlier, so why did she keep eating?
It usually takes a one-on-one conversation to tease out what is going on. Today I’m sharing one reason as we keep exploring with Sally.
Sally gets a lot done during the day. She knows what she expects of herself and gets things done.
What we uncover is once home from a full day of doing, a new list of tasks begin to bubble up in her mind…
The bathrooms need cleaning. I should prep lunch for the next few days. I said I wanted to workout more, maybe I’ll go to that yoga class tonight. Some people I want to connect with are going to be at X location. Maybe I should go.
Ack! Sounds like a whole other “workday” is presenting itself.
Women, who unwittingly have never-ending lists or feel an inner urge to fill any free time with SOMETHING, often end up delaying the end of eating (i.e. eating more after fullness or after the meal is done) because of an inner resistance to keep hustling.
In Sally’s case, continuing to eat ends up being the only way Sally can let her hair down. Something in her feels that after the meal, she’s gotta get back to it, so she eats more.
As you can see nothing is wrong! Sally doesn’t lack willpower.
Feminine Values
Sally needs the conscious integration of Feminine values.
Feminine values are NOT “woman values.”
We’ll look at feminine values as simply the yin energy opposite of the yang energy of being productive, ambitious, and goal-oriented. The feminine tends to be slower, natural, inclusive, concerned with relatedness, pleasure, play, and responsiveness.
Sally, like many of us, needs to balance herself with feminine practice. And doing the inner work to find VALUE in the Feminine.
One of my favorite authors on the soul, Thomas Moore, writes:
“It’s important to be heroic, ambitious, productive, efficient, creative, and progressive, but these qualities don’t necessarily nurture soul. The soul has different concerns, of equal value: downtime for reflection, conversation, and reverie; beauty that is captivating and pleasuring; relatedness to the environs and to people; and any animal’s rhythm of rest and activity.”
Without tending to the soul, or the feminine values, anyone may find they are reaching for symbolic substitutes, more food easily being one of them…You can red more about that here.
And you may find, just like in Sally’s case, that the Feminine will “win out” either way. She’ll get her needs met. The real question comes down to whether or not you’re up to meeting this need on your terms.
I hope you found this helpful!