I’m angry. Whether my anger is correct or not, isn’t the point, the point is that, regardless of the reason I am still angry and I don’t have the skill set to deal with strong raw emotion. So I am saying I over ate.
Anger is a healthy emotion. It’s especially good if it lead us to do brave deeds. To stop something bad that is happening or correct a situation that is out of control. Anger is only bad when it involves losing our tempers. This means that we are no longer in control of the anger, but the anger has control of us. As Gail Elaine Tinker , a writer here at Pop Culture Madness, has pointed out this makes us vulnerable to rash decisions and bad choices, both of which I succumbed to in the past 48 hours.
I am quoting Miss Tinker here as she describes a method to deal with these raw emotions.
“In the recovery programs they teach a technique called HALT: Hungry, Angry, Lonely Tired …the theory is halt when you are feeling these emotions, make no official decisions and take very good care of yourself, as they warn of dire vulnera
bility to failure from important goals (such as sobriety). For me it was such a life saver on so many levels. I use it in my practice for ‘people who care too much, ‘ for my sensitive son, all sorts of folk who need a reminder to be gentle with themselves every single day. I hope this helps you as much as it helped me.”
I wish I had realized some of this in the past couple of days. Had I done so, I would not have made the rash decisions I made or got involved overeating and indulging in comfort foods.
The bible says we need to “guard our hearts.” Our hearts are our emotional center and it is where we rashly make the bad decisions that can lead us to trouble and failure. The more we lead with our emotion and the less with use our minds, the more likely we will get into trouble. This is not the first time I have written on this and it may not be the last, as it seems that this is the true enemy that I have to fight in order to succeed in getting this weight off and being a better friend and a better person in all of the relationships I am involved in. So, thanks to Miss Tinker, I now have a tool to HALT the bad moves. The question is will I learn to use it. Time and practice will tell.
