Weight Loss for People Who Feel Too Much Read Online Free PDF Page B

felt very conflicted about it because she and her sister had not gotten along, although she loved her dearly and felt obliged to help. She was angry that she was inconvenienced, guilty because she felt angry, and terrified of losing her sister. She began eating more because, well, it made her feel better. She added an extra piece of this, a helping of that, choosing fast foods on the way to the hospital, adding wine when she got home. She came to my class a year later, a size sixteen, exhausted and filled with fear. Her sister recovered, but she found herself the one needing help.
    Menopause, and becoming an “elder of the tribe,” as well as losing our parents, brings to the surface unresolved issues and, with them, fears of abandonment. You feel that as an elder, you are responsible for all the problems in society that need fixing. You’re supposed to clean up the mess and offer wisdom. This is the time you should be feeling more secure, yet that feeling can elude you, especially if you may have seen the shifts in the economy eat away at your retirement security. You can’t help watching the news, and as you fill yourself with information you can barely process, and fears course through your body, your boundaries become weaker and kaboom! You’re in Chubbyville.
    If you look at your life tapestry and focus on increments of time, you discover how empathy has affected you as you began to be aware of your surroundings, you piled the emotions of others on top of your own feelings, and as a consequence, you isolated yourself or found other detours to avoid the intensity of what you were experiencing. Look closely, and you also begin to see the patterns that connect your emotional issues and your unique relationships to food and weight.
    ARE WE ALL GETTING MORE EMPATHIC?
    You and I are not alone in feeling too much and in struggling with the discomfort of being overly sensitive and empathetic. Elaine Aron, author of The Highly Sensitive Person, estimates the number of highly sensitive people to be around 20 percent of the population. I believe the number may have grown larger since she did her research because, as Jeremy Rifkin, expert in economics and international affairs, explained in his book The Empathic Civilization, we’re experiencing a far greater and more intense sense of connection to other people at this stage of human evolution. Globally, 845 million (that’s 1 in 8) people are on Facebook, and software and applications are allowing them to connect Facebook to other social media on a variety of telecommunications devices at the touch of a button. The Arab Spring came about because of a passionate message and cry that spread virally, person to person, through Twitter and on smartphones. Technology communications are changing the human experience rapidly. Are we really up for this?
    How are you supposed to feel when we’re in a world that’s more connected than ever? How do you constantly confront information you need to process not just intellectually but emotionally? You can be standing in line for coffee, checking a social media site or your e-mail on your smartphone, and find out that a former schoolmate or your cousin’s husband just got diagnosed with cancer. Or, you’re home, bored, and you pick up the television remote and start clicking your way to your favorite channel, then suddenly see graphic crime photos of a murder victim. Some people aren’t emotionally affected by these experiences, but you sure are.
    Around the world, unemployment rates are high and people are worried about finances more than ever before. Our institutions are dysfunctional, we have no idea how to fix them or where we’re headed, and everyone seems to be arguing and hurling insults at each other. Every day there are stories to trigger you, from the implication of nuclear war to the looming threat of currency devaluation, recession, and more. Then, when you decide you can’t take