What do you do when you’re stuck in a cycle of bingeing or overeating? When you’re knee deep in sugar or food and you can’t find your way out? These questions may be your story – where you find yourself today. These questions are where I find myself, too.

These questions arrived at my own front door last week, in the form of a can of raisins.

Raisins are my all time favorite binge food. I can justify until the cows come home why I can eat them (after all, they’re not sugar, they’re “natural,” they’re healthy, they have fiber, heck, they’re even organic.) But when I eat raisins, I eat a whole can. And I know, when I’m eating a whole can of raisins, that I am not honoring my truth.

And that hurts. And that is what happened last week.

Last week I was recording an audio version of my book, Overcoming Sugar Addiction. As I was reading my book, I was struck by how much I’ve learned about sugar addiction – both how it affects me and how to kick it.

And yet I was also struck by how I haven’t been doing what I learned. And I’ve lived the consequences – namely, in a raisin binge.

For years, I’ve said that I write for my own benefit – I write what I most need to hear because I travel the same journey as each and every one of you. And that was made very clear to me this week, as I was knee deep in a can of raisins, and all the food that followed.

I have not been using my own tools. I have not been grounding myself. I have not been nurturing myself nearly enough. I have not mourned the losses that have been staring me in the face for a year, and which came to a head last week.

I have pushed and pushed and pushed myself with work, with doing too much, with my ego’s need to feel important and worthy and special, and the result was a raisin binge and overeating.

So, I’m going back to base camp. I’m going back to grounding. I’m mourning my losses. I’m facing the fear and groundlessness that I feel right now in selling my home, in starting over financially, and in facing the unknown terror of change. I’ll do my best to do these things without food, my crutch, but I know I can’t do it alone.

That has been my major problem. I do it alone – especially when I’m doing it badly. When I’m struggling, I keep it to myself. I don’t tell anyone. I hide.

I don’t want to show my failures. As Christina Sell so brilliantly said in her book, Yoga From The Inside Out, I would much rather appear healed than actually be healed.

I am still so rigidly attached to the linear line, the upward line of success and success followed by more success. I want that giant check box to be marked, “Done. Healed.”

I don’t want to accept my squiggly line, my bumps and bruises. I don’t want to accept that, yes, the shit is hitting the fan; that things are falling apart. Instead I try and hide the mess, pretend things aren’t falling apart, and try and put everything back together again as quickly as possible before anyone else sees. (After all, I won’t need to tell anyone about the mess if I can clean it up fast enough. They won’t know.) And if I admit my mess, that things are falling apart, won’t I attract more mess???

So, here I am, with my mess, with things falling apart, back in grounding, back in base camp. If anything, I’ve been here before. I know the drill. And I know that it, too, is in its own way, a beginning. A thing of hope. As Pema Chodron writes, when things fall apart, they always come back together again. One more spin around the circle.

So where do we go from here?

I know a lot of you are curious and eager to begin the Heal Overeating support program. I have it mapped out on huge sheets of paper in my office, and anticipated having this program ready for you this month.

But with my own eating in disarray, and my own need for healing, I am unable to commit to this project right now. Instead, I will be spending the next few months with my own aching, broken heart, to write the book that I want to read, to write the book that I need to read: a spiritual journey in healing from food “stuff.”

I’ll be sharing my journey with you. I’ll be posting updates to a special area of First Ourselves (go here to sign up and learn more), sharing my thoughts as I write and explore and synthesize how to Heal Overeating. And I could greatly use any feedback that you could offer. I’m tired of putting up a façade that I don’t need encouragement. The truth, is – I do. Many days, I think it would be a heck of a lot easier if I just poured my heart out in a journal and spared myself the time and expense. I’m tired, weary.

So if something I’ve written has helped you, please take a moment now to tell me. Here’s how:

• Post a comment to the page that resonated with you. Or just do so on this page below.
• Call our toll-free number and tell us what it’s meant to you. Choose option #2 and you can leave a simple feedback voice mail.
• Post a comment to our Facebook page.
• Join our private support forums.
• Make a donation to our scholarship fund.

During this time, I’ll be reaching out on the support forums, to enjoy the mutual love and support there. I’ll be getting the audio version of the Overcoming Sugar Addiction book ready for purchase (join the waiting list?). And when the timing is right, I’ll tackle the Overeating program. Hopefully without a can of raisins.

To your health and wholeness,

Karly Randolph Pitman