Happy Valentine’s Day! I wish each and everyone of you a day where you take pause to love yourself, admire yourself and be smitten with just how wonderful you are. I have chosen one of my favorite coaching stories to share with you today in order to illuminate that the true thing you can celebrate every single day (not just Valentine’s Day) is your connectedness to yourself and the voice of your Inner Coach who is guiding you to the biggest celebration of all—long term permanent weight release. I hope you enjoy today’s coaching session.
The Inner Chocolate
I have always disliked Valentine’s Day.
As a child I hated the pressure to get as many Valentine envelopes at school—for some reason I always seemed to lag behind the more popular girls who seemed to have a bag brimming with special card and candies from all of their admirers.
As a teenager who didn’t really date (did I not have any boyfriends because of my weight or did I not put myself out there because of my weight—not sure what is more true) I always felt particularly undated, alone and unloved.
When I was in my late teens and early twenties I was a waitress. Waitressing helped pay for college and after college as I started out in the world. I always had to work on Valentine’s Day as a waitress because it was the most busy restaurant day of the year.
As a waitress, you get to see Valentine’s Day from the inside out because these are the times that everyone has to “go out and have a good time with that special someone”. Talk about high expectations run amuck!!! The pressure to have good time on this day forces everyone out to restaurants where they are paying twice for what they are getting, the restaurants are packed, the wait staff over worked and surly (that’s me), and I swear I have never seen so many miserable faces on lovers as on Valentine’s Day where the pressure to be lovey-dovey forces every one into a state of “gotta squeeze all of the love of the year into one night” panic.
I remember one Valentine’s Night in particular that stands out because I learned a really amazing lesson about stimulus control. It was the mid-eighties and I was working as a cocktail waitress/coat-check girl at this really old and famous steakhouse in Manhattan called “The Old Homestead”—yes there was a huge statue of a steer over the front door. The owners of this place in the meat-packing district were a couple of real charmers—real Tony Soprano types. They were always telling me, “Honey, go put on some make-up” or “honey if you’d lose some weight you might just be hot”. Gee thanks guys—did you ever look in the mirror at your not-so-slim physiques? Anyways, I was young and overweight and fell prey to feeling horrible whenever they made these remarks—especially since I was single and feeling fat and unlovable.
So on this Valentine’s night everyone is coming across the bridge or under the tunnel from New Jersey to eat a pound of prime rib and make phony goo-goo eyes at their Missus across the table. I was up to my ears in mink coats in the coat-check room and starving because I had been dieting for the last four days. I was on some new diet, a drink in the morning a drink at night and a potato at lunch—you know the score. Tsu Tsu the skinny leopard skin clad hostess comes up to me and motions with her long three-inch nails to come with her. “Honey, they want you in the gourmet shop—the girl got sick and you have to stand in for her”. She shoves me into a room filled with boxes and boxes of Godiva chocolate. “Sales are down honey, and we gotta move this chocolate—do whatever you can—Valentine’s Day—IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CHOCOLATE!!!”
So it’s me, starving and unloved standing amidst a mountain of chocolate. Hmmm and there, right beside the register is a tray of sample chocolate truffles. My stomach rumbled and I moved away, trying to stay busy because nobody was coming into the shop. I smoked some cigarettes (yes this was NYC in the 80’s and you not only could smoke but were encouraged to do so—it was called defensive smoking). I smoked and cleaned but still the chocolate samples called to me and my Inner Rebel said, “hey you could just have a nibble—you have been so good and that potato you ate at lunch was so small”, so I reached over and very delicately took a bite. I tasted all of the creamy gooeyness of the chocolate and for a second the gourmet shop and the horrible owners and the minks and platters of prime rib all faded into the background—for a fleeting truffle second. But then I was back, in the musky gourmet shop and I had the taste and I wanted more—I wanted to be transported back to that place of peace—my sacred chocolate space. So I took another bite and another, but I couldn’t get it back—that place that the first bite had taken me to. All I got now was more sugar gushing in my system and a guilty feeling in my soul, “why am I doing this?” Half the plate of truffles was gone—I had eaten them down in a dark chocolate frenzy. I smoked another cigarette--hoping that would make me feel better—it only made me feel worse—the sugary chocolate earthy taste now mixed with the smoky nicotine. I felt sick but had no choice-- I had better eat some more chocolate to get the yucky cigarette taste out. I ate a few more bites, really in the depths of physical and mental despair—when a beautiful older woman stepped into the store.
She was the type of woman that you think of when you think classy New York broad. She was beautifully dressed, elegant, slim and sophisticated. I muttered a muffled hello, half a chocolate still in my mouth. She looked around the room at all the different chocolates in all of the different cases. She pointed to a heart shape one with a walnut filling and asked me, very politely for it.
I gave it to her. She looked at it, smelled it, and smiled. “I used to love these things,” she said to me as she paid for it.
“Why don’t you get more?” I asked—Tsu Tsu’s voice ringing in my ears-sell the chocolate! , “I mean it is Valentine’s Day”
“Actually,” she replied, “I won’t even eat this one.”
“Huh?” I wasn’t quite sure of her logic and my sugar induced insulin surge was making me dizzy.
“You see,” she explained, “I used to eat quite a lot of these, in fact so many that I weighed eighty pounds more than I do now. Then one day I decided that I had had enough. That even though they tasted divine, the moment of pleasure I got was not worth all of the agony they caused me being overweight. So I stopped eating these and all the other sugary foods that I ate.”
“So why did you buy one then?”
“To remind myself that I have a choice, I could choose to eat this, but what I get from being thin is much richer and far more decadent”
“So you’re buying it but not going to eat it?”
“Yes, because I have come to realize that even the best chocolate in the world, is not as good as the feeling I get knowing that I am staying true to myself and my desire to be slim and healthy. Thank you for the chocolate, I have really enjoyed it—not eating it that is”. She threw the chocolate in the trash, turned and left. I thought about her logic and how strange it was at the time. I figured well, just another eccentric Manhattanite coming in to add to my surreal Valentine’s Day reality. I did, however, follow her lead and dumped the rest of the chocolates from the sample plate into the trash and immediately felt better! Once the mind has made a decision with 100% of itself, it’s amazing how easy it is to disengage from things that seem to have power over you. I made the decision not to eat any more truffles, the desire lifted and I could sit amongst the Godivas like they were mothballs for the rest of the night.
Now all of these years later, having Shifted and made my journey to where I am now—I understand that woman’s logic. As I am surrounded by chocolates and candies every holiday season (monthly!), I see them in a different light. I do not see them as a source of love, or temptation, or as my sacred space as they used to be—I see them as chocolates—which I could choose to eat or not to-- it’s up to me—it’s a decision.
So this next upcoming holiday season I urge you to make a decision—ahead of time—what your relationship with chocolate will be before you get shoved into a room full of Godiva on an empty stomach. I invite you to make your holidays about practicing stimulus control and staying connected to your Inner Coach and by doing so you give yourself not only the gift of staying connected—but others get to be connected to you as well. This feeling can become a sacred space that you create that lasts a lot longer and feels a lot better than any fleeting enjoyment you would get from any chocolate or anything else for that matter outside of you—because this feeling comes from inside of you. It’s yours for keeps—so it’s truly special and doesn’t melt in your hand when it gets too hot!
Have wonderful Shifted Valentine’s Day!
ox Rita
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