Weight Loss Ten: Setting Healthy Boundaries

Comfort eating is caused by an essential disharmony in your life, a reflection of the disharmony within yourself, your attitudes, and behavior. Often this disharmony is caused by a lack of know-how or a lack of willingness to set boundaries that are healthy. As a therapist I have seen over the years countless people suffering from chronic unhappiness as a result of the drama in their lives. This drama is often caused by a lack of healthy boundaries. The most common cause of poor-boundary-drama and stress is allowing for inappropriate interaction in relationships. For example, marrying the wrong person, allowing for alcohol or drug addiction, depending on unreliable or “flaky”  people, allowing for verbal and/or physical abuse, allowing yourself to be manipulated in negative ways, or trusting the wrong people to do the right thing. This list could go on but you get the idea. Whenever and whomever you allow in your life is going to have a significant influence on you. Pay attention to the people in your life and pay attention to how you feel around them. What does your gut or your intuition say? What red flags are flying telling you of potential problems? Start setting boundaries with those who you realize have a negative influence on you. This may be a huge challenge. But consider that your addictive behavior including comfort eating is a result of the disharmony in your outer and inner life. Start to correct the disharmony, even a little, and you will feel the difference.