You can be aware of your past without being it.

Bingeing is such an emotionally frenetic activity that no other concerns can exist in the same space. It is a hell that people who are food-sensitive are familiar with; and, because it is known, it is therefore not so terrifying as some of the problems that are outside our control. Problems like divorce, illness, death.

People come and go, pain comes and goes. But so does joy. And if our hearts are closed because we don't want to suffer, they won't be open enough to recognize the joy as it flies by.

There's a basic feeling of lack that we want to distract ourselves from. We want to fix it by looking outside ourselves, as if it is going to fill us up.

Our work is not to change what you do, but to witness what you do with enough awareness, enough curiosity, enough tenderness that the lies and old decisions upon which the compulsion is based become apparent and fall away. When you no longer believe that eating will save your life when you feel exhausted or overwhelmed or lonely, you will stop. When you believe in yourself more than you believe in food, you will stop using food as if it were your only chance at not falling apart. When the shape of your body no longer matches the shape of your beliefs, the weight disappears.

Awareness, not deprivation, informs what you eat. Presence, not shame, changes how you see yourself and what you rely on.

The relentless attempts to be thin take you further and further away from what could actually end your suffering: getting back in touch with who you really are. Your true nature. Your essence.