In actuality, I’ve by no means truly responded with that query, however I’d guess that, for many individuals, the reply isn’t any. We’re so used to implementing outdoors suggestions and becoming ourselves into formulation that prioritizing our interior realizing is understandably intimidating. Listening inside and responding with love requires you to belief your self and to know your self with a degree of intimacy that isn’t usually modeled. Increase that belief takes time, particularly in the event you’ve been taught that you may’t be trusted with issues that really feel good.
I suppose that a technique I may reply the query about overindulgence is that, sure, you may overindulge. Not as a norm, however extra as a brief circumstance as you deepen your relationship to your self. For instance, it’s widespread for individuals who transition into intuitive consuming after following restrictive diets to have a little bit of a wild-child part with meals. Weight loss program tradition fed them lie after lie, telling them that some meals had been unhealthy and others had been good, encouraging them to not belief their very own starvation cues. It takes some time to kind by means of these lies and return to their very own fact. They need to relearn tips on how to hearken to themselves and to lovingly reply. Finally, the bouts of overindulgence flip right into a rhythm of perpetual care.
Whereas I feel that self-trust is the core problem behind the concern of overindulging, there’s additionally a dimensional strategy to answering this query. As soon as I obtained into the behavior of listening inside and responding with love, I observed that a few of my loving responses didn’t give me the specified end result. Was my definition of self-care damaged? Nope. It’s simply that each one loving responses aren’t created equal.
A therapeutic massage may very well be precisely what I want if my physique tells me it’s tight. However, if I’m feeling disconnected from my buddy group, a therapeutic massage is an act of care that doesn’t get to the basis problem.
It’d really feel superb within the brief time period, however I’ll nonetheless be craving care when the post-massage euphoria fades. And that’s the place the sensation of overindulgence can come up. Most of the time, it’s not really overindulgence—it’s misdirection. You’re not taking an excessive amount of loving motion. You’re taking motion that doesn’t meet your wants within the current second.