There are several questions I always ask new students as I try to get them know quickly!
“What’s your relationship with compliments?”
“How do you respond when someone compliments you or gives you positive attention?”
Most of us who deal with emotional eating will say it’s complicated – we cringe, get shy or embarrassed, we feel like we get too much attention too fast, we try to explain ourselves…or we just feel plain uncomfortable.
Why won’t we accept? What feels unsafe?
Perhaps accepting a compliment would mean we get to see and treat ourselves differently.
It would also means challenging the relationship with the people who co-created our self image.
Perhaps they were wrong.
Which would open us to a whole ocean of rage, sadness and grief.
It would challenge the very fabric of what we think we are made of.
– I like your dress!
– Oh, that old thing!