First things first: what the heck is “Feeling Disease?”
In a nutshell, it’s letting your feelings run your life.
Wait, wait! Haven’t we been told that feelings are natural and it’s good to be in touch with them?
That’s right. But there can also be too much of a good thing. With feelings, the “too much” problem arises when they keep sabotaging our eating hopes and dreams (or any other goals we have.)
How Feeling Disease Works Picture this: You are no doubt committed to eating better, i.e., eating lots of vegetables, whole grains, clean proteins and good fats–and ditching processed and refined foods.
BUT, when it’s time to make those good intentions show up on your plate, do your feelings sidetrack you? At 5:30 when you walk in the kitchen after a long day, maybe:
- you just don’t feel like cooking,
- or you don’t know what you feel like eating,
- or you just feel like putting your feet up and watching Netflix,
- or you just feel like takeout cause it’s been a hard day and you feel the need for comfort food.
You’ve seen kids begging mom or dad for sugary cereal in the store. They know just how long it takes before a parent caves.
Our feelings aren’t much different. If they just beg long enough (and it doesn’t take that long, really), they know you’ll cave in and eat whatever is fast, handy, yummy, comforting . . . and most likely won’t meet your healthy eating hopes and dreams.
That’s how Feeling Disease works: Short-term feelings submarine the long-term goals we really want for ourselves.
This little-known disorder is likely causing havoc in your food life
“Emotional Reasoning” I learned about Feeling Disease from business and life coach Derek Rydall in his seminar, “The 7 Strategies for Self-Mastery.” Turns out that Feeling Disease is known professionally as a cognitive disorder called “emotional reasoning.” In other words, we use our feelings and emotions to reason away our hopes and dreams when it comes time to DO them.
The Antidotes According to Derek, commitment is the “Self-Mastery Strategy” that’s needed to thwart emotional reasoning when it threatens your most sincere self-improvement hopes. “If you commit to it, you do it!”
I would add that discipline is the twin sister that’s needed along with commitment.
Of course, there are times when we do need to back off a little and pay attention to our feelings, but as Derek says,
if you are not yet someone who has mastered the ability to make and keep your word to yourself, to do what you say you’re going to do, especially for the things that matter most, then you need to begin by being much more vigilant with yourself and much less flexible until you’ve developed that mental muscle.
Additional Benefit Commitment and discipline are vital beyond the day-by-day execution of our eating goals. As importantly, each time you follow through and execute, “you build integrity, internal fortitude, resilience and self-trust, and you have more and more likelihood to try bigger and bolder things and know that you’ll follow through.”
The Big Danger: Failure Pattern Conversely, when you fail to keep your word, you end up “breaking down your internal integrity. You stop trusting yourself and have less and less ability to commit in the future because you don’t believe you’re going to follow through.”
In my experience, you almost become “afraid” to set goals because you don’t want to risk facing failure again. You dread the thought of telling your accountability buddies, yet again, that you failed. Your self-esteem and self-worth dive and you get sucked into a “failure pattern.”
How many New Year’s resolution makers are feeling swallowed up in a failure pattern right now?
Making New Friends Can I encourage you to make friends with discipline and commitment. It’s OK to be that person. The one who makes a good dinner or packs a good lunch or makes a healthy breakfast while half of Americans (including your friends) are watching TV and eating pizza, or sleeping in, or going out for burgers and fries at lunchtime every day.
You are not crazy or a loser for putting your deeply held dreams before short-term rewards which, according to our culture, are cooler and more satisfying.
This is what my New Kitchen Culture is all about–introducing and supporting each other in achieving a way of eating that truly serves our health, rather than eating the “cooler, hipper, much more modern” products hawked by food marketers.
Treadmill Worries? But are you worried about getting chained to a dreary and tiresome treadmill of commitment and discipline? Know this: A magical thing happens as you build the mental muscle to follow through and execute on your goals and dreams. You get whooshed into the Positive Upward Energy Vortex or, as Rydall calls it, the “Confidence-Competence Loop.”
The Positive Upward Energy Vortex By making even just one good and satisfying dish, even if it’s just adding a little spice to some vegetables, that’s enough to get energized to try again. When you again meet with success, you’ll be whooshed further up the Vortex. Then the magic starts to happen. Day by day, the Vortex sweeps you up and along a yummy success path that becomes increasingly easeful. You don’t have to keep drumming up the energy to exercise discipline and commitment–it happens naturally.
Ever get aggravated (like I do) by good swimmers who skim across the pool while you’re plodding along in the next lane? It’s because they’ve developed enough muscle and skill so momentum kicks in, which takes them into a realm of relative effortlessness.
Energy and Momentum I can attest that the same happens with healthy meal making. As I always say, “It takes energy to make energy.” At the outset you must indeed give yourself the proverbial kick in the b–t to get going. But if you’ll just get the wheels turning, they start rolling on their own.
Day by day, meal making starts rolling along in your life very naturally and without much thought. It becomes integrated and woven into your lifestyle instead of being an annoying obstacle you must constantly bob and weave around.
New and Improved Resolutions So could these be your resolutions going forward: 1) To not let your feelings run you or determine the fate of your healthy eating hopes and dreams, and 2) To just give yourself that kick in the b–t to get going! Be kind and compassionate, sure, but reach down inside, grab hold of some energy and get going!
P.S. Whatever healthy eating resolution you tackle, focus first and foremost on generating the inner spark of energy to exercise discipline and commit to making that one thing happen, again and again, and watch as the magic starts taking over!