Love Yourself Through Chaos - Interview with Leslie Davis
Calming the Chaos welcomes Leslie Davis, Author of “You Can’t Eat Love,” a book that describes how loving yourself through the chaos of life can help you transform your relationship with food.
Leslie introduces herself as a wife and Mom who at one point was going through a hard time in her life.
“I was either going to continue going down a not very good path or I was going to make a change”
Made a decision that I would be the very best me I could possibly be, which meant that I would be healthy physically, mentally and emotionally
It was a lot of hard work!
When we face the chaos, we don’t know what’s in store for us, we simply move through it
Kids in the playroom: Picking up one thing at a time and dealing with things one thing at a time
“Swiss-cheesing” is taking tiny bites and celebrating the wins you make, and move forward
What do you do when it’s just too much and you want to give up?
1. Pause…take a deep breath
2. Ask: “What is one thing I can do right now?” (Changing habits and thoughts)
3. Celebrate it when you complete something, however small it may seem
Ways to celebrate:
• Say to yourself, “Yay! You did it!”
• Give yourself a treat or an experience you enjoy
• Affirmations
• Encouraging yourself
• Talking to yourself like a best friend would talk to you
• Send a card to yourself from yourself and send it to yourself
“I was using food as my drug of choice.” “I used food to numb pain.”
Eating was used to relieve the anger and tension and other feelings within herself, which led to shame
“I had to learn to name my emotions and not be afraid to sit with my emotions.”
“I had a my-self sized hole in my heart, and I was filling it with food”
“When I learned to love myself, talk to myself and started being kind to myself, the need for the drug of choice started easing up.”
“There are still times when I find myself going to food for comfort. But I catch myself and ask myself, ‘What is really going on here?’ And then I have a conversation with myself.”
“Put this bus in park, and ask myself what is really going on?”
1. How can you become aware of your behavior of using food to comfort yourself through emotional pain?
• I made the decision to improve my health, which included noticing what I was eating
• I noticed that I was grabbing for food when I wasn’t really hungry
• I put the bus in park and considered what was really going on with me emotionally… in a curious way…not in a “critical parent” way
• Have an honest conversation with myself
• I put the conversations in writing (as if you are talking to yourself in a conversation) and include all the voices in the conversation
• Validating your feelings, and congratulating yourself when you don’t use food to cope with your feelings
To get through emotional pain, you do need to have conversations with others that are helpful, affirming and validating
How to voice that “I am struggling with emotional pain and using food as a Drug of Choice to relieve my Emotional pain”
What was missing: I am not feeling as if I am loved unconditionally
Why is it that I am not getting what I am wanting?
Well…maybe I’m not giving it to myself!
Leslie then started building a relationship with herself by realizing that she didn’t even really love herself, so “How can I expect others to love me? “Am I giving that love to myself?”
Building a relationship with myself was key to healing (send a loving card to yourself)
Introspection, reflection and action toward ourselves
1. Ask yourself “What is it that I am wanting?”
2. Can I give what I really want to myself?
“We are only in charge of us.” Consider how you are treating...
