What came of last month’s homework?
“I decided to stop fasting, and lots of good things happened after that.”
Go on.
“You remember I said that I’d long since stopped understanding what drove my semiweekly, 30-hour fasts? I begin doing these things, like cold showers and a daily meditation practice and Ayurvedic cleanses and monthly sessions in a sensory-deprivation pod, and then I just keep doing them, long after I’ve forgotten why I began doing them. Some are winners. Many are losers.”
Sure.
“What I realized after successfully fasting every Monday and Thursday in 2019 was that fasting drove a fixation on food, eating or not-eating. Mondays and Thursdays were spent focused on anything but my mounting hunger. Tuesdays and Fridays were spent eating enough to justify the promises I made to myself to get me through the preceding 30 hours. Subsequently there was no clarity or improved presence; all sensations got dominated by eating or not-eating.”
What was your answer to last month’s inquiry question?
“That compulsion of one type or another was at the root of many activities.”
What did that make you feel?
“That compulsion has taken me far as it might in this iteration. Writing on deadline, getting promotions, relationships, however many other things I honestly can’t recall, all the good things requiring volition, got fueled by compulsion of some sort. But so did overeating. So did impatience with others. So did anxiety of so many kinds.”
Compulsion caused anxiety?
“Or anxiety manifested itself as compulsion. Again, I think it’s a question of which iteration – far as which caused the other.”
And now?
“I believe compulsion is a manifestation of anxiety.”
What do you mean?
“I sit in my chair during work hours, and I challenge any thought that endures more than 30 seconds. I check it for compulsion. Any sort of looping. Anything I catch my mind treating from a variety of directions, I challenge it. If I’m hungry, I go eat. But if I think about walking to the kitchen then rigatoni then opening the refrigerator to see what’s in there then drinking lemonade then a trip to a barbecue place, I immediately challenge it as a probable manifestation of anxiety. I challenge it. And then, if it turns out I’m just hungry, I proceed to eat immediately, asking myself often if I’m still enjoying the food. Once I’m not, I stop.”
What else?
“It all seems to eliminate a sense of history. I’m not trying to remember what I already ate or what day it is and what I’m supposed to eat. As thoughts about eating and not-eating, I’m now learning, dominated so much of my thinking, now that I’m no longer feeding these thoughts, I’m better able to identify, on the fly, other compulsive thoughts.”
What is the difference between compulsion and concentration?
“In this iteration, I’m not sure there is one. I’m willing to eliminate concentration, though, to suspend compulsion.”
What happens in the next iteration?
“Some new form of compulsion I’m not yet able to imagine will be the new route to follow. What gets you to the next iteration inevitably sabotages you thenceforth. Welcome to life, eh?”
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What’s to come in the next iteration? Nobody “knows” – but a good coach can help us excavate it from within.
Schedule a free sample with Bart and let’s begin our excavation.