again

This is what self destruction tastes like.

• banana bread
• caramel slice
• slice baked cheesecake
• 6 arnott's cream biscuits
• slice regular cheesecake
• chocolate muffin
• 2 pizza twists
• 6 mars bar cookies
• 8 chocolate chip cookies
• a box of Sarah Lee baked cheesecake bites
• regular onion rings
• boost bar
• salted kettle chips
• timeout bar

I'm becoming such a cliche.

So blind to myself.

My day started well. I was feeling really good, wearing a new dress, reading the newspaper over breakfast at my fancy hotel, feeling quite the city slicker. Sushi rolls for lunch, all's good. But then as the afternoon drew on I started sinking, feeling out of control, wanting to stick my head in the sand because I haven't got enough to show for the time I've been on-site at this client's. Starting to feel the weight of all the work I've to do and not knowing how to get a handle on it.

As I started to eat I told myself that I have to be 100% cognisant of what I'm doing. If I was really going to do this, I had to make it count, learn from it, understand the processes at play and make it right, learn enough to see it coming and know how to avoid it next time.

I spend my working life telling clients the folly of fixing a short term need without consideration of a long term strategy. Yet that's exactly what I'm doing, satisfying an immediate food fix despite the negative long term outcome. So what exactly is the short term gain? What is it the food does for me? And how do I meet that need without food?

Is it just giving me space? Letting me stick my head in the sand? When I'm eating I'm not spinning, not thinking about all my worries. Is that all it's doing? If so, there are many far healthier ways to relax, why don't they occur to me?

What's going on? I had 4 good days then fell at the very first hurdle again. Why give up so easily? Why when I've been doing so well and feeling so good?

The more I was spinning and getting anxious about my work, the more every aspect of my self-belief was being eroded. It's no wonder I gave up so easily. In that moment I had zero confidence in myself. In my head I was already a failure. The very same feel-good-city-slicker-chick from the morning, now seemingly worthless - can't both be true.

How do I give myself the space to see all this for what it is, right there in the moment when I most need it? The moment when I have the choice whether to eat or not, whether to deal with an immediate need in a way that also helps towards a longer term goal.