Are You Ignoring the Signals?

I have a confession to make: I am addicted to sugar. Like, big time. Psychologically. Physically. Emotionally.

Addicted.

My body tells me loud and clear that it wants me to ease up on the sweets.

Joint pain.

Digestive issues.

Lethargy.

But I ignore it. Well, not really because the symptoms are pretty hard to ignore, but I override my body’s alert system with distractions, rationalizations, justifications, and “I’ll quit tomorrow’s.

I know how terrible sugar is for me. I know its addictive qualities. Yet I keep eating the cookies and ice cream.

Why, knowing what I know, would I continue to do something so detrimental to my health?

Like any other form of clutter, clearly there’s a payout to my sugar consumption despite the toll it takes on my body.

I use sugar as reward, as comfort, as company. I use sugary foods to stuff down uncomfortable emotions. To pacify myself when I feel my voice isn’t being heard.

My perceived emotional benefit of eating sugar is currently outweighing the potential physical benefit of not eating it. And so my weight clutter stays put.

This is what I mean when I say that it’s almost never about the clutter. If losing weight was just about eating healthy and exercising, no one would struggle.

If clearing physical clutter was only about being organized and motivated, we’d all live in perfectly tidy homes.

But there’s more to it than that.

Whether your vice is food, shopping, drugs, alcohol, sex, or distracting piles, why are we so eager to run away from ourselves?

Because self-acceptance is hard.

And change is hard.

You risk failing. You risk succeeding. You risk being judged or criticized.

But we can do hard things.

When you peel back the layers to see how you’re benefiting from not doing what you say you want to do, you gain insight on what needs your attention. And then the real work begins.

For example, to work on breaking my sugar addiction, I can practice being present with uncomfortable emotions. When I do, I’ll learn to trust myself to handle them.

Every time I stuff them down with food, I reinforce a version of a belief that says it’s not ok to feel angry, scared, or sad. The more I feed that belief (pun intended), the stronger it becomes.

Your younger self (or your resistance) is the one who likes to distract you and get you to ignore your body’s alert messages, but she really doesn’t want to sabotage you. She does this because she’s afraid. She wants you to keep on keepin’ on and not make any changes in your life, even if those changes are for the better. Because to her, change is always bad.

To get on board with making changes, she needs to know she’s safe in your hands. It comes down to trust, belief, and self worth.

To build up trust in yourself, you have to get out of your comfort zone.

Shake things up.

Do something scary. The more you do, the more you show her that you have her back. She needs hard evidence to believe it. She doesn’t take kindly to lip service so you can’t just say all will be well. You need to do something that makes her squirm just a bit so you can let her see that you got this.

Because the more she believes you, the less she’ll resist change.

And the less she resists change, the more likely you’ll be to take action on your goals.

And you deserve to have all of your dreams come true.