Problem Solving Sugar Sensitive Dilemmas

People often ask me how they can sort something out. You say, “Kathleen, I just can’t figure out what to do.” Often you are desperate and feel that you have to know NOW.

Well, first of all, the haziness, that sort of fog and cloudy sense of not knowing is often induced by what you are eating, or by when you are eating. Skip a meal and get dumb. Have sugar and whites, and get foggy and not be able to make sense of anything. These are the times when you push forward trying to find answers and you feel as if you are pushing into cotton. Nothing comes, even if you wrestle for hours.

The first way out, of course, is doing the steps. I know you thought that doing the food would just deal with cravings and your weight, and maybe mood. But there is a huge payoff...you get clarity as well. The fog lifts. Things make sense. Answers come unbidden without thrashing.

But let’s say you have a problem now. You can’t wait for step 7. You need some practical skills today. So let’s do some of those.

Usually, sugar sensitive people munch – this means you say, "Is it this? Is it that? Is it this? Is it that?" You never find anything, you just fret for hours. The task is to go under what appears to be the question and seek a deep answer. Go under the surface, see what it conceals.

When you start you will often think you are too busy to sit with it. Or if you sit, you just munch so why bother. This is different. You take one issue, and you decide to focus on it. You call a sense of clarity. You basically decide to leave the munch and ask the real question. Let me give you an example. I recently had a discussion with a friend who is trying to figure out some major life choices. Should she go to graduate school, what if she gets the new job she was interviewed for, should she stay with the old job, what if she has to move, how will she have enough money? Sound familiar? So I suggested this technique of going under the munching. I asked her what she wanted in her life in 5 years. I asked her to sit with that in stillness for maybe 30 minutes and let all the “stuff” quiet. This is going under the surface. Not the munching, but the real question.

She did. And she discovered that she really, really wants to be an art therapist. You might imagine that all the munching faded away. Once she was clear, the choices were clear. She didn’t have to wait for step 7. And she realized that she had been munching for weeks and had never stopped to ask what was underneath.

Once she was clear, she focused her energy and in 3 days, all those issues were settled. Concentrated focus is a mighty tool but we rarely use it. We dissipate it with sugar or munching. This is a learned skill. We will talk more about it as we go. Practice the first piece.

(c) Kathleen DesMaisons 2006 All Rights Reserved