24 – Chocolate! - used as a distraction – aka: “emotional eating”

I LOVE chocolate! I eat one to three small pieces of dark chocolate just about every day. By small I mean less than one square inch, so it really it not that much. I choose extra dark because the taste stays in my mouth much longer, so it is more satisfying, plus it is more healthy when it is darker because it's loaded with the antioxidants. The latter is the excuse I use to allow myself to eat this delicious piece of heaven on a daily basis.

Okay, so here is the 'problem'. A small amount of chocolate on a daily basis is not going to hurt me, the 'problem' is the addiction I sometimes allow myself to succumb to. This addiction happens because I am giving up my will to direct myself. I allow myself to become addicted to the feeling I get from eating chocolate to a point where I feel like I NEED it. I am giving my power and control away to a substance outside of myself – to chocolate! I am allowing myself to be dependent on an outside source to satisfy my desire. I have created this desire through the addiction and the dependency on chocolate.

So why am I giving up my power, my control? Why am I allowing myself to rely on chocolate to satisfy my desire and to ultimately 'save' me? I eat it when I am stressed. I use it as a distraction, to ignore how I feel, to push my mind to think happy thoughts. I am using chocolate as a means to not face myself. Wherein I need to be facing self and writing self out so I can get to the root of the problem that is causing me to feel stressed.

I lie to myself when I use the excuse that dark chocolate is healthy, that's why I eat it. Yes, it has been shown to be healthy, but I need to acknowledge that I am using this as an excuse to not realize the real reason I eat it so often, the real reason I desire it on a daily basis. Excuses are only lies to the self, and I don't want to continue lying to myself.

I know I go in and out of chocolate addiction. Sometimes I completely forget about it for months. Sometimes I eat it on occasion to get a feeling of excitement to perk myself up from boredom, and then there are those times, when day by day, I allow myself to become dependent on it as soon as I feel bad, nervous, stressed, and/or bored. When I am dependent I usually desire the chocolate, at around noon, after lunch, when I don't want the pleasure of eating to end, when helping the kids with homework and studying, in attempt to cover the stress with good feelings, or when I'm working on something that takes a lot of mental power. I also crave it at night, just as I'm settling down to have some 'me time', like I need it to make the best out of the time I have to relax.

So I no longer want to allow myself to give my power away to chocolate. I want to face myself and direct myself, to use writing and self forgiveness and self corrective application to overcome this addiction, this dependency on something outside of me. I am taking back the power!

Self forgiveness and self corrective statements to come.