You are welcome, Tatjana. I very much agree with what you wrote above, I thought very similar to what you expressed last after my last post to you and before reading your most recent.

anita

Dear Tatjana:

You are welcome and thank you. As to your post before last, it stimulated my thinking and I would like to develop what you wrote more, in my own mind as I share with you.

You wrote: “The behaviour is partly wrong, and then partly not wrong (especially when i’m eating when hungry, or eating so called “forbidden foods). So sometimes… the behaviour should stop, as you said. But sometimes, it’s the judging that needs to stop”

My thinking: in my disordered (over)eating, I am accepting that it is okay (what you called “normal”) to want to feel good, which is what my overeating is about. It feels good, especially sweetness. It is okay for me to want to feel good. Looking back at my life, I suffered so much, felt badly so often and so overwhelmingly, no wonder I wanted then and want still to feel good. I think that this is the message behind my overeating: wanting to feel good.

The motivation to overeat is not a bad motivation. It is a good motivation, understandable. Looking at the bigger picture, it doesn’t feel good to be bloated (one consequence of overeating). That feels bad. So keeping this consequence in mind, I will not judge myself as I used to do (“stop overeating! From now on you will …!!). Instead I will apply the empathetic approach:

I want to feel good. I understand. Well, I will do my best to feel good: I will pay attention to my eating so that I do enjoy it and do what I can to prevent being bloated as a result and prevent gaining weight as a result as well, so that I do indeed feel good all around.

anita