Who am I accountable to?

Interesting question...I’ve been battling emotional eating most of my adult life; just when I feel like I’m ok that’s when I give in to it.

Life is not simple and we deal daily with all kinds of stress. Some we can’t control like:

              • Uncertainty of world events
              • The economy
              • Family stress

And some we can control by the choices we make. God tells us:

             Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything,
             by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present
             your requests to God.  Philippians 4:6 (NIV)

I want to talk to you today about self inflicted stress. You must be asking why would I inflict stress on myself? One of my negative personality traits is being passive aggressive. That means I will inflict self injury or negative behavior on myself because someone else either hurt me or made me angry and thats how I'll get back at them. One example will be: “He said “You’re fat.” I’ll show him what fat looks like.” Then I would eat a half a bag of chips. Why do I have this type of thinking? How do I overcome such negativity? I’ve pondered these types of questions for a while and I think I may have come up with a couple of strategies to help me:

1. Ask God for help.

2. Keep a journal and ask the following questions before eating.

                a. Am I hungry?
                b. Is this food good for me?
                c. Why am I eating? I think this is the most important
                    question to ask. If I answer this question with an
                    emotional response then I must write down the
                    emotion and ask how food can make it better.
                    Depending on the answer I have to pray for God to
                    help me deal with that emotion and for forgiveness.

3. Get an accountability partner. If journaling doesn’t help I need to go to the next step and get an accountability partner. (Thank you AA for this.) This is very important...pray about who you should ask to do this. You will need someone you can trust to be honest with you. You don’t want someone that will say, “Oh honey, I completely understand, what you need is chocolate therapy.” You want the person who will say, “That situation sounds terrible but food will not make you feel better. Let’s pray about this.”

Remember to keep God the center of your life and ask Him for help first. Until next time please pray for me to find my accountability partner.

Blessings