When I was a compulsive over-eater, I became very good at hiding.

Hiding that I was eating, hiding that I was binging, hiding that I was in pain, and suffering on the inside.

I became an expert at putting on a mask of a happy face to the world, and saving my misery for my alone time, shared only with the comfort of food.

And if ever I was caught and confronted about my over-eating, I’d draw on another skill-set–lying. Oh yes, I’d put on the most angelic expression and lie through my teeth if necessary to avoid admitting the truth…

That I felt sad, unlovable, angry, and that I hated my body…

And importantly to hide that food, my refuge and solace, pre-occupied my mind almost 24 hours a day.

Years later, though I’ve healed my relationship with food, and my weight struggles are a thing of the past, I notice that my expertise in hiding still remains.

It’s easy for me to hide. Some part of me gets a kick out of it. I notice the impulse to hide even (or maybe especially) from the ones I trust the most–my husband and my closest friends. Sometimes I think I do things, just so I can experience the rush of I get from hiding them.

Maybe you can relate. If you’re struggling with compulsive eating, chances are you’re a pro at hiding too.

The problem with this is that you only hide what shames you. And when shame becomes chronic, it puts your body, or as I like to say, your female animal, into a low-level stress state, in which she thinks there’s a pressing danger at hand, a war to be waged, an impending attack to protect against.

Why this matters, if you’re trying to lose weight, is that when your female body thinks its survival is at risk, she doesn’t give a damn about your weight loss goals. On the contrary, in fight-or-flight mode, your body’s instinct is to bulk up as a form of protection, and to prevent slimming down.

In this mode your vision of life becomes narrowed. You become unaware of all the helpful options that lie within arms reach, waiting in your periphery. Options that could satisfying your endless hunger in a healthy way. Options that can give you the sensation of pleasure and satisfaction that food is being relied upon to provide.

The solution, for this downward spiral of hiding, (and then hiding that you’re hiding,) terrifying though it may sound, is a medicine called transparency.

Transparency interrupts the cycle of hiding, by instead *revealing* that which feels so dark and shameful that you hope it will remain a secret forever.

You may think that exposing your pain, your compulsions and your bad habits, isn’t going to help, but after more than 10 years of practical research, I’ve found nothing else that works better.

Shame is so painful, it is rarely spoken of. And in that silence it feeds upon itself. Shame breeds in the dark. However, as soon as you bring your shame out into the light, it starts to wither, and as it wanes, the habits that were keeping it alive start to fall away, too.

So here’s my call to action for you. Come out of hiding. Speak out. Reveal what’s troubling you. I know it’s scary, but I promise you, in the long run, the hiding game has much more terrifying consequences.

And if you’re looking for a safe port to bring your shame, your secrets, your private pain and self-loathing, as the first step towards the body of your dreams, I am here for you, along with the rest of the Pleasurable Weight Loss community.

What have you been hiding that you are ready to reveal?

Leave me a comment below and let me know.

May 2013 Issue