light bulb!

I ordered Barbara Holtzman's book & CD from her website(www.consciouseatingconsciousliving.com) and it's a combo of GR & Evelyn Tribole & others (as she acknowledges). Anyway, she said something I thought made a light bulb go on for me: "Initially, I thought I could simply talk about my feelings. Talking provided a great deal of insight and some relief, especially when a therapist or friend validated my feelings. But it was not until I learned to sit compassionately with my feelings that I was able to experience self-understanding and self-acceptance. Only by practicing acceptance of all of myself, including the parts I didn't like, was I able to make any real changes".

She says we try to "figure it out" to avoid feeling our feelings. I never "got" why it was important to "sit with your feelings", as everyone says, until I read this. I always thought sitting with my feelings meant trying to figure out why I wanted to eat when I wasn't hungry. But I guess (as my therapist did try to tell me) it really DOESN'T matter sometimes why. You just have to feel your feelings, even if they are only the discomfort of wanting to eat and not doing it.