New Direction for Blog

I’ve experimented with my blog.  Originally I started it to provide motivation, inspiration and information to my coaching clients, members of OH and to myself!  While I enjoyed it, after posting fresh content daily for over a year, I got overwhelmed and burned out with all the other parts of my personal and professional life.  But….I’m back with a new direction for my blog.

I’m still going to blog the same sorts of posts with the goal of providing motivation, inspiration and information, I’m also going to make it more personalized.  I am a fan of other blogs that are posts about themselves and their lives.  I’m going to do a mix on here with you.  I would appreciate any input you have as far as what you enjoy, would like to see more of or less of. 

A few months ago, one of my sons had a severe allergic reaction that was very rare and even more scary.  Since this time, I’ve struggled with wanting (and indulging in a bit of) emotional eating.  I mean, after all, that’s been my crutch since a little girl.  Just because I had weight loss surgery doesn’t mean that coping strategy was bypassed too.  Through the years, I’ve learned to manage my emotions with non-food ways.  When a situation with my child came up that was so scary, I returned to what had worked before.  Reading a book, calling a friend, taking a walk and other coping habits I’ve developed didn’t work when it came to the health of my son.

The great news is that he is, for the most part, fine.  The immediate scare is behind us.  For me, the experience of those emotions remain.  Just like any experience, there are things to learn and benefit from.  I will be blogging about some of that to share with you here. I’ll also share about personal, every day things as well.  One of the things I’ve picked up from the blogs I’m a fan of is that when we share about ourselves, it can normalize our own emotions and things in our own lives. 

One of the things I’ve come to define as one of the triggers for me to emotionally eat are “FFA’s” which are Free Floating Anxiety.  When the situation with my son occurred, it was easy to identify why I wanted to drive thru Krispy Kreme for boxes of glazed donuts.  There are times that I feel a trigger to eat and I don’t know why.  Everything is going okay, nothing specific is upsetting me that I can put my finger on yet the head hunger is screaming in my head.  When I can identify the emotion and become aware that I’m triggered, most of the time I can overcome it and deal with the trigger healthfully.  There are those other times that I’m just plain uncomfortable and don’t know why yet the trigger is pulled for emotional eating.  So help me identify what is going on so I can deal with it appropriately, I acknowledge my FFA’s. 

I don’t know the source of my FFA’s most of the time.  Who knows and actually who cares.  If I’m experiencing FFA’s, that is all that matters at the time.  I am aware of my uncomfortable feeling, identify it as FFA and then deal with it by distracting myself in some way.  I have found that if I get absorbed in something else that:  (1) I don’t emotionally eat, (2) the FFA dissipates, and (3) I’m happy that I outlasted the FFA in a healthy way.  I exercised my internal muscle of being more than any emotion or external situation that occurs.  That feeling is great!!  When we use any muscle, whether physically or emotionally and mentally, it gets stronger.

For today:  I will continue to exercise my physical and emotional/mental muscles to become stronger inside and out.

Believe In Yourself,
Cathy, ACC-ICF, CLC
Certified Life Coach, Weight Loss Surgery Coach
Certified Back On Track Facilitator