Issue: 4: Reactivity and Our Eating Habits

Did you ever notice your own reactive tendencies and how it affects your eating habits? Well, you may be wondering what is reactivity? I tend to think of reactivity as the hot potato effect. No one wants to hold a hot potato. Our knee-jerk reaction is to throw the hot potato somewhere, anywhere! We just want relief. For our purposes, the hot potato is anything we feel uncomfortable with. It could be a body sensation (a pain, stress or an itch), a thought (thinking about how people upset you, how you don’t want to do something, having depressive thoughts etc.) or an emotion (sadness, guilt, shame, anxiety, loneliness, fear etc.).

Our reactivity tends to be lightening fast! So fast that most of the time, we don't even notice it. We are instantly swept away by it. And for many of us, we use food to get away from the hot potato.

So what can we do? Firstly, we have to be mindful (aware) that we are in a moment of reactivity. Once we become aware of it, we now have choice. When you become aware that you are in a moment of reactivity, the awareness itself starts to disengage you from the grip and pull of reactivity (eating food when you are not genuinely hungry). This will enable you to start to slow down the impulsive eating and understand it. As we start to learn about our reactive tendencies, we also start to dismantle the automatic and problematic eating patterns that seem so difficult to change. Remember you cannot do two things at once. You cannot 1) be reacting to something and 2) be in a state of awareness of it at the same time. With our awareness we can be curious about our reactivity, start to accept it and take ownership of it. The awareness should have elements of compassion, patience and gentleness. This is not a judging awareness it's a learning (investigative), curious awareness.

One time I was at a restaurant with my wife for breakfast and read a simple but profound statement on their blackboard:

In any given moment we have two options:

To step forward into growth or to step back into safety. - Unknown

We have infinite opportunities to steer our life (and our eating habits) in a healthy direction. It all starts with being aware and making choices to step forward into growth.

Newsletter tips:

• Mindful eating is not what you think, it is what you experience.

• When eating mindfully, we want to enjoy the eating experience with all the senses. • Do not expect any results or changes as you eat mindfully.

• Gently focus on the experience of eating: The taste, smell, sight, temperature of the food, the texture etc.

• When you realize you are distracted by your thoughts, judgments, body sensations, feelings, time pressures etc., gently come back to the experience of eating.

This Newsletter quote:

By practicing present-time awareness, even in the midst of a difficult situation, you can become aware of your impulsive (your reactive patterns), stop, perhaps take a breath, and respond skillfully in a way that does not lead to more harm. With such insight into yourself, wise actions are likely to follow, as one meditation student discovered.

— Susan L. Smalley and Diana Winston “Fully Present: The Science, Art, and Practice of Mindfulness”

Eat Mindfully, Breathe Mindfully & Enjoy Life!