Do We Need More Mindlessness?

I know I’m bucking the trend here, but hundreds of conversations with clients have convinced me that there is an often missed correlation between mindfulness around food and mindlessness in the rest of the lives of disregulated eaters. From my perspective, many of them would benefit greatly from being more mindless in life so that they can become more mindful around food. Here’s why. As I wrote in Nice Girls Finish Fat (whose ideas also apply to “nice” men), your typical disregulated eater—at least those I’ve come across in my 30 years in the field—is no goof off who wants only to party, play, take life easy, and let loose. I’m not saying that some weren’t perhaps that way at one point in their lives, only that when I meet them, they’re fixated on being responsible, doing things “right,” achieving success, and desiring above almost all else to be “good” people. Frivolity, recklessness, and wild abandon would be hard-pressed to make their list of stated intentions. In my experience, most disregulated eaters are so tightly wound that they find it almost impossible to unwind, relax, chill out, and kick back. To the contrary, they exhibit excessive mindfulness—guarding what they say in order to please others, putting too much effort into doing the right thing so they don’t offend, keeping their noses to the grindstone, and obsessing about decisions to ensure they’re on the “correct” path. They’re so driven to “mind...
Source: Normal Eating - Category: Eating Disorders Authors: Source Type: blogs