No one ever died from an itch
In one of my favorite podcasts, Zencast, the host, Gil Fronsdal made a comment when speaking about meditation: “No one ever died from an itch”. He was talking about living with an itch while meditating, rather than scratching it. Not only to preserve your posture while meditating, but also to train your mind and your awareness, that you can deal with an itch or a compulsion without giving in. He brought up the value of that in the context of an addict-you can learn to observe your compulsive thoughts without having to act on them. Keeping this in mind has really helped me this last week with resisting the temptation to eat to deal with the stress I’ve been under. I’ve been trying to stay focused on work, but financial and work stress have brought on the compulsion to eat rather than deal with those issues. Instead of caving in, I’ve been focused on using the Beck Diet Solution to stay aware of why I want to lose weight, and I keep repeating “No one ever died from an itch” whenever I feel the compulsion to go stuff my face. So far, it’s really been helpful, along with meditation and exercise in management of my stress.
Posted by Matt on 02/28 at 10:06 AM
Zen •
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