Love Yourself Through Chaos

Love Yourself Through Chaos - Interview with Leslie Davis

Calming the Chaos welcomes Leslie Davis, Author of “You Can’t Eat Love,” a book that describes how loving yourself through the chaos of life can help you transform your relationship with food.

Leslie introduces herself as a wife and Mom who at one point was going through a hard time in her life.

“I was either going to continue going down a not very good path or I was going to make a change”

Made a decision that I would be the very best me I could possibly be, which meant that I would be healthy physically, mentally and emotionally

It was a lot of hard work!

When we face the chaos, we don’t know what’s in store for us, we simply move through it

Kids in the playroom: Picking up one thing at a time and dealing with things one thing at a time

“Swiss-cheesing” is taking tiny bites and celebrating the wins you make, and move forward

What do you do when it’s just too much and you want to give up?

1. Pause…take a deep breath

2. Ask: “What is one thing I can do right now?” (Changing habits and thoughts)

3. Celebrate it when you complete something, however small it may seem

Ways to celebrate:

• Say to yourself, “Yay! You did it!”

• Give yourself a treat or an experience you enjoy

• Affirmations

• Encouraging yourself

• Talking to yourself like a best friend would talk to you

• Send a card to yourself from yourself and send it to yourself

“I was using food as my drug of choice.” “I used food to numb pain.”

Eating was used to relieve the anger and tension and other feelings within herself, which led to shame

“I had to learn to name my emotions and not be afraid to sit with my emotions.”

“I had a my-self sized hole in my heart, and I was filling it with food”

“When I learned to love myself, talk to myself and started being kind to myself, the need for the drug of choice started easing up.”

“There are still times when I find myself going to food for comfort. But I catch myself and ask myself, ‘What is really going on here?’ And then I have a conversation with myself.”

“Put this bus in park, and ask myself what is really going on?”

1. How can you become aware of your behavior of using food to comfort yourself through emotional pain?

• I made the decision to improve my health, which included noticing what I was eating

• I noticed that I was grabbing for food when I wasn’t really hungry

• I put the bus in park and considered what was really going on with me emotionally… in a curious way…not in a “critical parent” way

• Have an honest conversation with myself

• I put the conversations in writing (as if you are talking to yourself in a conversation) and include all the voices in the conversation

• Validating your feelings, and congratulating yourself when you don’t use food to cope with your feelings

To get through emotional pain, you do need to have conversations with others that are helpful, affirming and validating

How to voice that “I am struggling with emotional pain and using food as a Drug of Choice to relieve my Emotional pain”

What was missing: I am not feeling as if I am loved unconditionally

Why is it that I am not getting what I am wanting?

Well…maybe I’m not giving it to myself!

Leslie then started building a relationship with herself by realizing that she didn’t even really love herself, so “How can I expect others to love me? “Am I giving that love to myself?”

Building a relationship with myself was key to healing (send a loving card to yourself)

Introspection, reflection and action toward ourselves

1. Ask yourself “What is it that I am wanting?”

2. Can I give what I really want to myself?

“We are only in charge of us.” Consider how you are treating yourself, back the bus up, and move forward to calm your own chaos

Leslie’s Book, “You Can’t Eat Love: How learning to love yourself can help you change your relationship with food.”

Leslie talks about her book: it started with three paragraphs, inspired by an experience she had on Mother’s Day and eating a chocolate pie. This book talks about how learning to love herself helped her change her relationship with food. A simplistic but difficult solution

“You have to do the hard work…you can’t just flip a switch and expect it to switch.”

Stay in your car. Don’t get out. Don’t park it. Don’t put it in reverse. Just go forward on your journey!

What would you tell someone who is a beginner on this journey?

1. Pick up a pen and a notebook and prepare to have conversations with yourself

2. Start having conversations with yourself each day

3. Celebrate the wins along with the “not so great” things that happen

4. Work on replacing the old tapes in your head with more positive thoughts

5. Love and accept yourself and your body where you are right now, as you change

6. Eliminate the word “should” from your vocabulary

7. Love yourself through any traffic jams that happen through your life and your journey

8. Keep going forward, “tomorrow is another day.” Learning to forgive yourself

9. Ask yourself: “Why are you giving up on your very important life goals, when you wouldn’t give up on yourself if you were in a traffic jam?”

Cleaning the Attic:

Tracy’s idea: Leslie could start a YouTube channel focused on cleaning her attic “one piece at a time” and see how she rewards herself

Set a timer on the microwave for 10 minutes. Do what you can. Reward yourself. “That was so amazing!”

The next day, do it again. You can also bump up the time.

Adult coloring books by Leslie, “Flowers”

“Until you believe it…I will believe it for you: You are enough. You are enough just as you are.”

~ Leslie Davis

Leslie’s Contact Information

Website: www.youcanteatlove.com

https://www.facebook.com/youcanteatlove

https://www.instagram.com/you_cant_eat_love/

email leslie@youcanteatlove.com