Five months ago Virginia got started on changing her life. She was tired of eating so much she couldn’t move, being in a relationship which was going nowhere, having lots of ideas but taking no action. Virginia wants to have children and time is running out.
Like many who come to see me in my psychology practice she was highly motivated and determined to make a change. Her therapy began by her telling me her relationship and family history. Whatever we spoke about, Virginia pursued with curiosity and courage outside my office between sessions.
In my role as her therapist I recommended she ask herself just one question, every time she was about to eat.
“Am I hungry?”
This question made her laugh at first. How amusing that a serious psychologist would suggest she ask herself this question. After all, Virginia had rarely been hungry at all in the past 20 years since she had begun binging.
Her days revolved around food, shopping for it, cooking it, eating it, receiving what others could not finish on their lunch trays at work, digesting it just enough to imagine what she would eat next.
She decided to try out the question just before opening the fridge or the cupboard, before selecting foods on line at her work cafeteria and before filling her plate at a family meal. Every time she was about to eat she stopped for just a few seconds. And in these few seconds Virginia asked herself this one deceptively simple question, “Am I hungry?” Then she waited a moment to find the answer, within herself, within her body.
Often her answer was, “No, I am not hungry.” Then Virginia could eat or not eat, since we made it clear in her psychotherapy that eating was not prohibited. But, the little pause, to ask and answer the question, slowed her down.
Suddenly, in the presence of food, she was able to think. Taking a moment to think, before grabbing food, before putting anything in her mouth, began a little revolution in Virginia’s life.
By the third session of psychotherapy Virginia was no longer binging. When she asked herself the question, “Am I hungry?” and she realized she wasn’t, she was able to wonder about what she really wanted or really needed.
Her answers were brand new and surprising. She wanted things often having nothing to do with food, like comfort or company, like mental stimulation or physical rest.
Are you ready to discover a life far broader, more challenging and fulfilling, than a life confined to the food you put in your mouth?
Debra Berg, Psychologist in Paris