They say there are 5 stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. They don't always happen in order. And they don't always happen in relation to the death of a person... sometimes it has to do with a major life change. Sometimes we don't even see that we're in a specific stage. I've just come out of a rather ugly stage of anger... I knew I was angry, but I didn't understand it exactly. I almost felt like I was hiding behind the anger. Anger happens when you can no longer deny... but your mind and emotions aren't prepared to accept. So you lash out... at yourself or at others or at nothing at all. The anger somehow feels active... like you're actually accomplishing something while dealing with sadness and simply surrendering to the reality of life seems passive. But all you're doing is avoiding. The beautiful thing is once you put down the anger and just deal with how you feel the load does actually begin to lighten... and it happens more quickly than you expect. The anger, while a necessary step, really is just in the way.
So the past few days I've let the anger go... and the strangest thing happened at the exact same moment. I've been eating less. I didn't have the desire to go buy Famous Amos cookies and a pack of Starburst to go with my morning Dr. Pepper the last few days at work (and yes, that's been my breakfast a lot of mornings... no surprise that I have gained some weight, huh?). I didn't even have ice cream before bed last night (another bad habit... sugar really is my drug of choice). I've even brought home half my food from restaurants because I just didn't feel like finishing it. I'm no fool. I know for a fact I eat as a coping mechanism. It relieves stress temporarily even though the weight gain adds stress. Silly vicious circles.
I guess I'm writing this to help remind myself that the things we need to deal with aren't as bad as we think. We fight so hard to avoid them, and we hurt ourselves in the process.
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