3 women walk into a bakery…

[this is not the start of a lame joke]

Did you know your thinking creates your emotions? Including the emotions that drive you to eat (or not eat).

Let me demonstrate.

3 women walk into a bakery and see a donut. The exact same donut. A ring one with pink icing and sprinkles.

One woman feels disgust, one feels excited, and one feels deprived.

How is this possible? It’s the same donut.

Their thoughts about the donut and what they make it mean create how they feel about it, and then what they do. The donut didn’t do anything, it’s just sitting there.

If this wasn’t true, all 3 women would feel the same about the donut. But they don’t.

Woman 1 sees the donut and thinks “ugh, pink icing is gross.” She feels disgust and goes to the apple pies instead.

Woman 2 sees the donut and thinks “yum, I’m gonna smash that bad boy.” She feels excited and reaches for her purse to buy it.

Woman 3 sees the donut and thinks “I can’t have that, I’m trying to lose weight.” She feels deprived. She thinks about the donut and her deprivation until she’s beyond miserable and goes back and buys 6.

Then she eats them all in one sitting so she can “get it out of her system” and start again tomorrow.

The donut didn’t make her feel deprived. How she thought about it did.