A Powerful Tool for Boredom Eating

Do you eat when you’re bored?

I could write a really long post about all of this, but it boils down to one thing:

If you think about it, boredom is caused by a thought or thoughts that the present moment should be different.

It should be more exciting.

It should be more interesting.

It should be less tiring.

You should be occupied.

You want life at that moment, to be different. Yes?

So here’s my suggestion:

• Notice what you’re thinking about the moment in which the sense of boredom arises. How are you judging your experience? What unnoticed demands and expectations do you have about that moment?
• The way I see it, you have 2 choices: you can hold on to those thoughts as though they were true and feel dissatisfied – and bored.
• Or you can choose to let them go, along with the boredom and dissatisfaction. Consider this: are they genuinely and objectively true statements?
• When you let go of the judgements and expectations about the present moment, you can then become fascinated with it instead!

Right now I’m fascinated with the itchy feeling on my cheek; now it’s that the sun has just come out after a sprinkle of rain. And now I’ve become fascinated by the pile of receipts that is next to my computer, waiting for me to input the spending onto our budgeting programme – and the fascination now is with how come I’ve been avoiding that!

Those moments were not at all boring – because I was acutely aware of what I was thinking, how my attention was shifting from one thing to another – and I was observing it all (including myself) in a detached way.

When you can become really present in THIS precious moment, that will never again be, boredom vanishes, and with it, the need to ‘do’ something about it, like eat, or shop, or go on Facebook – or anything else.

If you ever want any help figuring this all out, ping me and we’ll chat.