Talking to Mum about Nutrition

I’d like some help with this model and situation. My mum is doing a two week personalised health study looking at blood sugar, how the body responses to fat etc with a temporary implant. She’s been talking to me about it. I have some knowledge about this area as I had gestational diabetes in both of my pregnancies and monitored my blood sugar throughout. Post pregnancy my levels are normal again but I am still careful with what I eat and my activity levels although not nearly as careful as I was being during pregnancy.

She didn’t say anything about me directly but did say – ‘the ideal time to do this would be your age rather than mine’ – this annoyed me as we don’t currently have hundreds of pounds to spend on that.

I’d like to be able to talk to her about this stuff without feeling activated and criticised.

UM
C: talking to mum about nutrition and health
T: she thinks I eat to much and am not healthy enough
F: judged
A: feel tense in my jaw and chest, struggle to regulate after the conversation, think about/ do eat less healthy as some kind of rebellion, judge her for controlling how she eats
R: I judge myself for how I eat

I haven’t done and IM as I feel like I need to understand this UM more first

 

 

Answer:

Your model is very well done. You’ve noticed how your thought that she thinks I eat to much and am not healthy enough gives you the result of YOU thinking you eat too much and are not healthy enough. Other people’s words only affect us if we believe them a little (or a lot). In this case her words are open to many interpretations. You’ve chosen to make them mean something about you. You’ve likely practiced this pattern of thinking for a long time. Start with giving yourself a lot of compassion. Drop the part where you judge yourself for feeling judged. Drop the part where you react to your feeling and just let it be what it is. In the Doing Less worshop around minute 50 Maisie walks through processing uncomfortable emotions in 90 seconds. Learning to let that judgement process through quickly would be a great tool to have in your toolbelt. You can love you just the way you are right now. You don’t need to eat better or weight less or do a personalised health study to be worthy.

Your mum is also worthy of love just as she is. As you work on having compassion for you, can you have compassion for her? How could her recommendation be coming from a caring place? It’s powerful thing to do, to decide on purpose that people’s intentions are good and they are doing the best they can with what they know.