transferring our behaviors, was :today's relevant cartoon

[Guest guest]

By the beginning of November, 2001, I realized I had transferred

anxiety after the 9/11 attacks to my need to "be prepared." For me that

meant being able to feed my family and went well beyond the blizzard

preparations my mother used to make. I came home from the grocery store

one day, my husband was helping me unpack things and he asked "where

should I put this stuff?" I replied "in the pantry." "There is no room

in the pantry," he said, groceries in hand, standing at the pantry

door. I stopped my own unpacking, stood up and really took a look at

what I had done. Went downstairs to the overstock shelves, opened the

extra freezer and found that I had stuffed every bit of extra space we

had with food and there was, in fact, no more room. I had overstuffed

my home with food. (are you seeing the parallel here?!!)

I stopped bringing extra groceries into the house then because unless

we started storing food in the living room or bedrooms there wasn't

space for it. I had been doing IE successfully for almost a year by

then. When I stopped overstocking my shelves, though, I started

overstocking my body. I ate and gained and was filled with that double

anxiety of fear for my family and friends, our nation and neighbors,

and the anxiety of knowing what negative impact overeating could have

on my body, on me.

Sometimes there are periods since where I've regained my IE footing,

sometimes I lose it. But I'm sure it can be transferred to shopping or

gambling or scrap-booking or cleaning house (one of my friend's has

done this substitution with mixed emotional results)...or it can be

transferred to overstocking our pantry shelves!

Alison

ajslinton@... wrote:

It is so funny that you bring this up, because Gillian and I had

been talking about just this thing, as well as intuitive spending. And

yes, I do think that there is such a thing. For instance, I noticed

that as I was getting this intuitive eating under my belt, I was

somewhat switching to "spending too much when shopping". But because I

was aware of it I was able to reign in my spending and get it under

control. I can see how easy it would be to trade compulsive eating

over to compuslive shopping. For me it all comes down to remaining

aware.

--

Alana

-------------- Original message

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From: "iv_adb" <iv_adb>

I haven't seen in years . Is there such a thing as

Intuitive shopping?

>

> http://www.gocomics.com/cathy/

>

> This made me think of IE -- Irving being the character that's in

touch

> with himself. Clearly, 's out of control today!

>

> Alison

>