In the last few weeks people have been sharing their struggles about being in an abusive relationship. I thought it would b helpful to share this.

Many of you learned at an early age to use sugar and fat and white stuff to help you manage. As children, bad things happened to you. You had no way out, and no one to help you make sense of bad things. Little brains cannot wrap around these bad things. And little psyches have no alternative. You were *stuck* in a family. You could not just move out, or go live with someone else. You could not say, "Oh, excuse me, this is not working for me, I would like a different set of parents." 

You found ways to manage. And usually that included eating. On some level you learned the beta-endorphin effect, you got it that sugar is a painkiller. You may not have understood that on a conscious level, but on a physical level you did. Your body knew. You got by. You drew inside and got quiet. You scrunched. You knew the message of "Don't talk,  Don't tell, and Don't feel."

As adults, you sort of figured that out. Some part of you knows and remembers that childhood was no bed of roses. But what you cannot figure out is how you got here as an adult? Why do these things still happen? How could you keep doing it with all the knowing? That part makes no sense. And often you trash yourself because you think you should know better. How could you go back to a situation that is abusive? And if you are really honest, you think, "How could I be that stupid?"

Ok, here is an outrageous idea. Rather than thinking of the "going back" as being stupid, I want you to consider the option that you go back for two core reasons. The first is that your psyche wants to be healed. It seeks a recapitulation of an old story again and again, not because you are messed up, but because your psyche wants to be healed. You will do the same story over and over as a way of "seeing" the truth.

If you can change the filter that you are not bad, not inadequate, just persistent about finding healing, it helps. You want to sort out this story so you can heal it. The other key issue is that while you are caught in addictive behavior, it is impossible to step outside a negative situation and heal it. Addiction keeps you caught. It chains you to the abuse. What you originally thought was giving you relief (and it did), actually now is killing you. When you are in an addictive pattern, you have one primary focus, and that is how to feed it. Your rational brain may say, "I have to get out of here. This is nuts. My life is at stake." Or "I am dying here. I have to stop," but if you are caught in sugar and white stuff, or wine and beer, you cannot make the move to be free. 

On some core level, the way out is by doing the food. At first your brain may balk at that. You cannot imagine a relationship between what you are eating and staying in an abusive situation. But there is an absolute connection. Or you cannot imagine ever being able to heal those old feelings. They are too big and too overwhelming. The anger, the fear, the rage all swirl up if you even go there.

But here is what is exciting. As an adult, an adult with healing, you have power over what happens to you. Feeling like a victim is biochemical. Feeling stuck is biochemical. Feeling helpless or enraged without a way out is biochemical. When you heal the biochemistry, those feelings change. Even though the memories are real and the abuse happened, as you heal the biochemistry something happens. You find yourself thinking, "You know, I don't need to keep doing this old story."

And that thought creeps into some new pattern. You learn to say, "You know, this does not work for me." You don't stuff it, you don't lash out in rage and spike your beta endorphin, you just say, "nope, not going there." And that energy, the energy that comes from a healed place starts growing and feeding itself.

Now, when a grocery store clerk is surly, you laugh and say, "Excuse me?" When someone is obnoxious and testy, you walk away. When your husband or boyfriend or girlfriend picks a fight, you say, "This does not work for me, what alternatives do we have?" You acknowledge that you need to learn new skills, new language. You didn't learn either when you were growing up, so you start listening to the skilled. Your ear hears new ways of deflecting and disarming. You become confident and skilled. The longer you do the food, the more natural the skill becomes.

This does not happen all at once or in a flash. It, like your food program, comes in baby steps, sometimes in nano steps. But it does come. Do the food and things change. Do the food and heal. It is a very simple equation.