Growing Human(kind)ness by Karly Randolph Pitman

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The value of honoring and embodying your “suchness”

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In today’s podcast, podcast #11, I speak about the concept of valuing and honoring the “suchness” (or in other words, the essence and life force) of ourselves and others. I also give voice to my questions and cautions about our human desire to change and be changed.

Themes within this week’s podcast:

  • :40 – Opening thoughts on “makeovers”
  • 1:48 – An example of the downside of makeovers – the loss of “suchness”
  • 2:57 – Family story – how what brings us joy is part of what makes us unique.
  • 4:30 – A practice to appreciate the “suchness” of those around us.
  • 5:50 – When we allow the essences of those around us to touch our hearts, we feel love, warmth and peace.
  • 6:28 – Judgement: a lost opportunity for tenderness and wonder.
  • 7:16 – Honoring our “suchness” is about “seeing who’s there.” Be careful about how and why you’re trying to change or be changed.

What is it
you want to change?
Your hair, your face your body?
Why?

For God is
in love with all these things
and He might weep
when they are
gone.”

– St. Catherine of Siena

Photo credit: Môsieur J. [version 9.1] / Foter.com / CC BY-SA

Changing how you see your struggles

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In today’s podcast, podcast #10, I talk about the concept of “seeing” ourselves in a new way – with curious, non-judgmental, and compassionate eyes. Through greater insight into our behaviors and our very selves, we are able to cultivate a more positive self-relationship.

Themes within this week’s podcast:

  • :43 – What’s alive for me
  • 1:15 – Another definition of counselor
  • 1:50 – What we see helps shape how we respond
  • 2:40 – How do you see yourself and your behavior?
  • 4:05 – Approaching ourselves with insight
  • 5:30 – An invitation to pause and “see” when you are next triggered

Resources mentioned:

Additional resources for befriending our full selves:

Photo credit: VinothChandar / Foter.com / CC BY

What to do instead of blaming yourself for a sugar binge

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It’s so easy to judge yourself when you binge on sugar. Because binges can be so frightening, they can send us into fight or flight – where we ‘fight’ against ourselves with judgment, self blame and self attack, or we ‘run’ and ‘flee’ further into food.

Ouch, it can be so painful.

What facilitates growth and transformation with sugar? Rather than judging our behavior and “bad habits,” how do we look deeper? What are the needs that drive our behavior?

I answered this question during a Q&A session of the 30 Day Lift, a compassionate program to help you eat less sugar. Here’s a quick excerpt published below.

Are you wanting more hands on help?

I’ve created some pages with lots of information just for you – there’s one here on how to soften cravings, another on sugar and sugar addiction, and another on understanding the drives underneath overeating.

If you struggle with sugar binges, sign up here to receive the free Binge Rescue worksheet, what readers say is our most helpful tool in the face of a binge. It walks you step by step through a process of draining the emotions that lie under strong cravings and binges.

5 ways to say no to sugar with compassion

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For most of my life, I’ve been a compulsive sugar addict. Starting in my early 20s, I spent over 15 years trying to heal my sugar addiction. It’s been a long, winding journey.

What finally helped me heal my relationship with sugar was recognizing that my addiction wasn’t just something physiological – I was also emotionally addicted to it. Sugar was my mother, best friend, comfort, voice, and my power.

In order to heal my sugar addiction, I had to learn how to care for the deep needs and feelings that drove my habit. Ironically, this meant becoming intimate with my sugar addiction – leaning into and listening to it more, not less.

Today I help men and women heal their emotional addiction to sugar. The most common question I hear about sugar is this – how do you say no to sugar without creating a stronger desire for it?

It’s a powerful question! Saying no to sugar can bring up feelings of deprivation or even lead to a painful deprive/binge cycle – where you’re swinging from one extreme to the other, either bingeing on sugar or trying to abstain from it.

It’s a paradox, isn’t it? So how do we say no to something without activating feelings of resistance, deprivation or counterwill (feelings of “I don’t want to and you can’t make me”)?

Here are 5 ways to compassionately set a limit with sugar:

1. Include your resistance. My friend, what if I told you that it’s inevitable that some or all of these feelings – deprivation, resistance, “I don’t want to” – will arise when you say no to sugar? They do for me, and for everyone I’ve ever worked with.

So there’s nothing wrong with you or nothing wrong with feeling this way about sugar. These feelings are normal and not a problem – they’re simply something to care for – not control, overcome or eliminate.

In my experience, what we’re really trying to do when we say no to sugar is eliminate our feelings. We want a way to say no to sugar that doesn’t create any emotional conflict or turmoil. But I’ve found that’s impossible. If you’re human, and if you feel, and if you really like sugar, you’re going to have strong feelings about not eating it.

The solution is to accept this – to not make our tender feelings wrong. At the same time, we don’t have to necessarily obey them. We can honor, esteem, care for and listen to our feelings – while also honoring the deeper pull of our intentions.

2. Care for your vulnerability. I want to honor the vulnerability of this space – of saying no to something that may be difficult. Setting limits in a way that is loving and kind – especially if you haven’t had much practice or modeling of this skill – can bring up fear and anxiety.

You may also feel vulnerable because you’re really, really wanting to change your habits with sugar – you want to make this work – and you want to get it “right.” Of course.

Can you approach yourself softly and tenderly when your heart is in this space?

3. Understand and care for the deep needs underneath the sugar. Trying to white knuckle our desire for sugar doesn’t work – it’s like trying to control the wind. What helps is feeling and leaning into the cravings – feeling them more, not less.

I know this sounds counterintuitive, and yet in my experience, your cravings want to be felt and validated. This openhearted allowing is what softens them.

4. Honor the mixed feelings. If you’re choosing not to eat sugar (or to eat less of it), you may feel as if there’s an inner battle inside – parts of you that want to eat sugar, and parts of you that don’t. This is normal. As developmental psychologist Dr. Gordon Neufeld says, it’s normal to have mixed feelings about anything. We may want greater health or weight loss and feel sad (or angry) that honoring these desires means eating less sugar.

Instead of looking at your feelings as either/or – either I’m wanting to eat less sugar, or I’m not; either I feel happy about this or I feel angry about it – let the full mix be there. Let it be an and – honoring the no with sugar while also honoring all your feelings about that limit.

This allowing/acceptance of all your feelings softens the resistance and fight against the “no” with sugar. (The next time that small, sad, young part of you says, “I wish I could eat sugar,” try saying to it, “I agree!” See how letting it feel heard softens the desire to actually eat it.)

Every single part of you wants to be validated, seen, heard and understood. Fully hearing those tender, hurting parts of you (that want to eat the sugar) makes them feel loved – even as you also say no. This openheartedness brings up a willingness to honor the deeper “yes.”

This allowing of feelings is a way of tending your relationship – the relationship you have with all of your many different parts, selves, feelings and needs. So the relationship feels safe, loving, and secure, even when there’s a (loving) limit.

5. Put yourself in a position of power. There’s a big difference between telling yourself, “I can’t eat that donut” and “I’m choosing not to eat the donut.” (You can read a new study on this idea here.) It’s the difference between feeling like a victim – I can’t, I’m powerless, I have no choice – to feeling like a person of free will – I’m choosing what’s best for me – even if I also feel sad about it.

In her book Finding the Deep River Within, psychotherapist Abby Seixas describes it this way:  Are you telling yourself you should do something, or you could do something? Try telling yourself “I should stop eating sugar.” Now tell yourself: “I could stop eating sugar.” Do you feel a difference?

In my experience, saying “I choose” or “I could” imply possibility. There’s hope in these statements, a belief, a feeling of, “Yes, I can!” My body feels light and strong. My posture stands straight. My belly feels relaxed.

By contrast, “I should” feels like a duty that I resent and resist. I feel tense and tight in my belly. My need for autonomy flares up and I want to resist – even against things that are very good for me! It brings up a “fight” energy.

“I can’t” feels heavy. My shoulders round and slump. My belly feels hollow. I feel like an empty balloon – deflated. It’s an energy of collapse and hopelessness.

Try it on – how do these statements feel in your body?

Some people find that giving themselves full permission – “If you really, really want it, you can eat the sugar” – gives them a feeling of choice and empowerment. It feels like, “I’m choosing to eat (or not eat) the sugar.”

In this space of openheartedness, acceptance, and empowerment, you’re much more likely to honor your deep yes instead of your habitual reactions (and counter reactions.) You feel more aligned with who you want to be. Eating less sugar – and feeling more empowered – coincide.

Photo credit: Bob.Fornal / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA

How to free yourself from self blame (especially if you’re an HSP)

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In this human life, we all hurt at times. This is part of our shared, common humanity.

And yet some of us take this pain “on” at a very deep level, blaming ourselves for it. Instead of viewing pain as something we share as human beings, we take our pain personally, as if it’s our fault.

This belief can appear in our lives in several ways:

  • Feeling ashamed of our wounds.
  • Judging our pain.
  • Blaming ourselves for being “too sensitive,” for getting hurt in the first place.
  • Turning our spiritual ideals into weapons – where we tell ourselves if only we were more spiritual we’d be detached, impenetrable to hurt.
  • Feeling ashamed about how we coped with our pain. I particularly see this in those who loathe their overweight bodies. They hate the fact that they coped with their pain with food. This implies a “should” that they should’ve been able to handle their pain differently. And so their dear bodies become the scapegoat for their dislike of their vulnerability – and sensitivity – itself.
  • Blaming ourselves for our conditioning, for the early experiences that shaped us.
  • Judging ourselves for not doing better in the present – for the fact that our wounds still effect us.

To counter this, we can develop all sorts of coping strategies. We may try to control the pain we carry inside and “white knuckle” it. We may try to armor ourselves so that we never get hurt again. We may stuff and suppress our feelings and numb ourselves so that we don’t feel, period. We may bury our sensitivity.

Of course, these coping strategies hurt our tender hearts, and aren’t effective. So we may reach a point in our lives where we want to shift out of them. (If you’re reading this article, I’m guessing you’re in this place.) And yet to change these habits we must change how we relate to our pain. One way we do this is by healing our pattern of self blame.

The origins of self blame

The belief that it’s my fault, that I’m bad, and that’s the reason that bad things happen to me are the beliefs of a small child – a tender child who just wants to be loved. When the child gets hurt, when bad things happen, the child thinks, “I must’ve caused this somehow.” And sadly, sometimes that message is conveyed by our culture, families, or loved ones.

A highly sensitive person is much more porous with these messages – they sense and perceive them more easily than others, and can pick them up and take them as their “own.” An HSP is also highly conscientious. So they may internalize these messages more strongly than someone who isn’t so sensitive.

As we grow, we may carry these beliefs with us and internalize them. They run underground and become a part of the air we breathe. They’re unconscious – we may not even see their workings. But we feel their effects. We look at our lives through these wounded, young child eyes. In that child’s world, pain = I’m doing it wrong. Pain = I’m bad. Pain = I’m unlovable. Pain = I’m responsible.

Foul frustration and self attack

This is where self blame really kicks in.

According to one of my mentors, developmental psychologist Dr. Gordon Neufeld, when too many things aren’t working in our lives, the frustration and pain can build inside our bodies and become “foul.” Because foul frustration has a lot of energy and intensity to it, and because it has to move, unprocessed foul frustration will seek two outlets:  either we attack others, or we attack ourselves.

In my experience, most HSPs attack themselves.

This is what self attack looks like:

  • Self blame – At some unconscious level, we think that we must be so bad, terrible, unlovable, wrong. We blame ourselves when anything goes wrong – even when other people are the ones acting out their pain.
  • Bingeing or overeating can be a form of self attack. When you’re in this space, you’re bingeing almost as punishment. You may be telling yourself things like, “I’m such a screwed up mess.”
  • Any punishing addictive behavior.
  • Cutting, hitting yourself, or calling yourself names.
  • Feeling like you don’t want to be here anymore or telling yourself things like, “I wish I was never born!”

Because self attack can feel scary and intense, learning about foul frustration is soothing and normalizing. We can find a bit of space when we’re feeling this way and recognize – oh, I’m attacking myself. Oh, right, this is foul frustration. Ah, deep, deep breath. We can recognize self attack for what it is:  a sign that too many things are not working.

Not that there’s something so terribly wrong with us.

Healing self blame

We heal this pattern of self blame in two ways:

1. By setting an emotional boundary around what is ours and what is not ours.

Most people who are highly sensitive tend to be overresponsible. They tend to take responsibility for things that aren’t theirs – like the fact that they were hurt, the feelings and experiences of others, or even for life’s very imperfection!

This feeling of guilt, shame, of “it’s all my fault” is an illusion. It’s a veil and is not true. I know at a feeling level, it feels true. It lives in our emotions, in our thoughts, in our beliefs, and carries over into our experiences. But what if it’s not true?

The path to healing is a shedding of what is not ours – all the beliefs about the many things that we felt should’ve been in our control – and therefore, our responsibility. As we release the illusion of control and responsibility, we feel more grounded, centered, and less burdened.

2. By grieving our pain.

The path out of foul frustration is counterintuitive:  when we bump up against something we can’t change, we need to grieve. Grieving is what metabolizes foul frustration. This deep acceptance is how we soften the habit of blaming ourselves, or blaming others.

Your pain is not your fault. The fact that you were hurt is not your fault. A Sufi teaching put it this way:

Overcome any bitterness that may have come
because you were not up to the magnitude of the pain
that was entrusted to you.
Like the Mother of the World,
Who carries the pain of the world in her heart,
Each one of us is part of her heart,
And therefore endowed
With a certain measure of cosmic pain.  

My heart weeps when I tell myself, “precious child, it’s okay – you didn’t do anything wrong. You were simply ‘not up to the magnitude of the pain that was entrusted to you.'” I feel a release of all the “shoulds” and how I shouldn’t have gotten hurt.

When I simply accept that it did hurt – and stop the endless quest for how I should’ve been or done differently  – I find this very pure form of grief. The way out of self blame is this tender, acceptance, this openhearted allowing. To grieve what we wish were different. Dr. Neufeld describes it this way:  “we become changed by what we cannot change.”

Sometimes life is painful, and we cry “uncle.”

Sometimes we just get through and survive.

And sometimes the way we get through brings some scar tissue….

Beloved, do not make war against your own heart. Do not judge yourself for bearing scars.

Forgive your wounds.

Have mercy.

Release the guilt and shame that says it’s all your fault.

Release the belief that you’re the only one who’s been hurt.

Love yourself fully – even with your wounds, even with your broken heart, even with the patterns and habits and conditioning that arose from those wounds.

Thriving as a sensitive being

If you’re wanting more support to thrive as a sensitive being, my dear friend Fiona Moore, spiritual teacher and healer, and I are hosting a call in September.

In the call, you’ll learn:

  • how to set energetic boundaries (separate what is “yours” from what is someone else’s)
  • how to modulate your sensitivity
  • how to utilize the strengths of your sensitivity
  • how to thrive as an HSP (highly sensitive person) or empath

The call is free, but you’ll need to register for the call here.

Wanting more hands on help?

If you liked this post, you may also like these articles:

Which program is right for me?

If you’d like help in loving yourself unconditionally – finding forgiveness, releasing shame, and healing beliefs that say, “It’s all my fault,” you may like Heal Overeating:  Untangled. This 12 session audio program can help you heal the roots of binge eating, overeating and emotional eating. Our most popular program, women say it’s a “sacred healing space” that they listen to over and over……

Photo credit: Yen.® / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA

Go from “knowing” to “doing” with compassion

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The “how” of change

Karly was asked on one of her recent Heal Overeating: Untangled support calls how to get from, “I should do x,y,z, because that would be smart, and benefit me,” to actually doing x,y,z … to making changes. This is a tremendously important question, and it is one that many of us have struggled with in our lives. We intellectually understand the benefit of many practices, be they for self-care, weight loss, time management, etc. Yet, how can we move from the space of intellectual understanding to practice and action?

“The first thing is how much we need compassion. Because it is so easy to read something in a book and to intellectually get what we need to be doing and putting it into practice is a completely different animal, isn’t it? I hope that this very dilemma that we find ourselves with, that dilemma of the effort and the challenge it might take to put into practice; I hope that really helps you befriend your tender human self.

A lot of us human beings, we tend to be really hard on ourselves. I think those of us who struggle with food, we tend to be extra-hard on ourselves; we tend to be people who have really tried to get our ‘stuff’ together.

If there’s anything that food has taught me, is it’s taught me that getting it ‘more together’ is not what my heart is really, really needing. That’s what really kept me stuck in food for so long. I kept trying to control it. I kept trying to just push myself harder. I thought, ‘Okay. Tomorrow, I’m just going to really get it together.’ I am constantly humbled by how much my intention to finally get my life together once and for all … how that’s really not what’s it’s about.

What I mean by this is — I’m not saying we should just give up, I’m not saying we should just go to apathy, because that can be even just as painful. What I’m saying is this: Rather than looking at this as, ‘How do I actually do it?’ and approaching ourselves with all that frustration, I invite you to look at how you relate to it.

One of the most profound teachings that I have heard in the last couple of years that has really helped me and that I talk a lot about (it’s the whole foundation for the new ‘Untangled’ workbook), is this: It doesn’t matter what is going on in your outside life, whether it’s the sugar, whether it’s emotional eating, whether it’s overeating, whether it’s binge eating, whether it’s dealing with weight; it doesn’t matter what it is. It’s not so much as what you’re coping with as how you relate to it. That’s what your heart most truly wants, is to have a kind relationship, with that thing that you’re struggling with.

I’m going to do a little bow to my teacher, Mark Silver, who really finally put that into words — he’s the one that really made that light bulb go on for me. How are you relating to your own frustration about your ‘challenges with changing?’ When I say that right here in this call, I can feel my whole heart; my body just softened. Oh, my goodness. Just this morning, I was feeling this in my own life, like, ‘Why aren’t I more together?’

When we stop judging ourselves and relate kindly to it, space opens up.

And with that space, it opens up opportunity and creativity. It opens up our minds to new solutions we may not have thought of before. It’s like this whole other feeling arises, where we’re more connected to wisdom, opportunity, and possibility.

We can’t think our way into solutions. I’ve been telling myself that over and over lately, because my mind will start churning about some problem in my life and I’ll start thinking, thinking and planning, planning, and then it’s always this constant reminder, ‘Karly. Thinking is not going to solve this for you.’ I’m not saying that all thought is wrong; no thought can be beautiful, but when my mind is churning and my monkey mind is going, ‘blah, blah, blah,’ that’s not the space that’s going to solve my problem.

It is by dropping into this space of relationship like, ‘Okay. How am I relating? How can I be kinder?’ Then I’m more apt to connect to truly helpful thoughts, rather than just the worries, and anxieties, and fear-driven jumbles in my mind.”

Another tool that Karly mentions soon after in the call is that of support, or what Karly often calls, “coming alongside yourself.”In coming alongside ourselves, we offer ourselves a helping hand, a kind word, and the courage to reach out to others for help as well.This practice also helps us put our intellectual understandings of change into action.

Wanting more hands on help:

Photo credit: AndYaDontStop / Foter.com / CC BY

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