In session this week my client, Katy, told me she was having a tough time. She had a stressful work week, she had some COVID concerns, and at the beginning of the week she got off track with her eating. Katy told me that almost immediately she started having thoughts like, “I don’t think I can do this. I’ll never really be able to gain control of my eating.” Once Katy started having these self-defeating thoughts, it made complete sense that her eating stayed off track.
Katy and I discussed that (probably from decades of struggling with her eating) she has a hair-trigger hopeless/helpless mode. Once she makes one eating mistake, or something starts to feel hard, it immediately activates her, “I can’t do this/I’ll never be able to do this” thinking. But, crucially, just because Katy thinks she can’t do it, just because she thinks she’ll never be successful doesn’t mean it’s true!
I spent some time reminding Katy of all the progress she’s made in the past few months. Katy recently had a vacation where she stuck to her eating plan most of the time, which absolutely was the most successful vacation she’s had in years. Katy has been highly successful at changing her old habit of overeating every Friday afternoon as a way to celebrate the end of the work week ending, and instead now does a puzzle or goes for a walk with her daughter. Katy has started bringing her lunch to work most days and relying much less on unhealthy takeout. Even just the prior week Katy had a really stressful work day and stuck to her plan 100%. In short, Katy has made a ton of progress. There is so much evidence that she can do it (and is doing it!).
Katy made a Response Card that reminded her of this idea:
I have a hair-trigger helpless/hopeless mode. The next time those thoughts crop up, remember that they’re just thoughts, they’re not facts, and they’re not true. I can do it, I am doing it, and I will continue to do it.
Katy and I discussed that since it has been her thinking pattern for a very long time to immediately feel overwhelmed and helpless whenever things don’t go exactly as she’d like, it’s likely this will continue to happen for a while. We suspect that over time, her hopeless/helpless mode will become less sensitive, but in the meantime, she’s going to work on identifying it when it does happen, and reminding herself that it’s absolutely not true.