I’m thinking today about how scary and demoralizing it can be to break your Bright Lines. I’ve broken my Lines more times than I can count, though thankfully not in years. I’ve been in food addiction recovery for thirty years now. Relapse has been a common theme of those thirty years.
A hallmark of Bright Line Eating is how we orient to a break. It’s important to work a program that is stronger than temptations and challenges. Breaks, for many of us, are part of the journey.
In the book Bright Line Eating, on page 237, is a roadmap for what to do when you break your lines. We call it the 4 S’s. They’re like having an emergency kit in the car, with water, a first aid kit, and flares. So let’s go through them.
First is Speed. You’re going to get back on track quickly. Not on Monday, not January 1, not later this week. Being a Bright Lifer means that every breath of being Bright is precious and preferable to yet more breaths gulped down while you’re shoveling in food. The moment you become aware that a break has happened, that first S should come to mind. Put down the fork, mid-bite, and say no.
This is why we started to spell “resume” as “Rezoom,” at the suggestion of a Bright Lifer. It is foundational to build in speed.
The second S is Self-Compassion. Our tendency is to start a shame spiral. The food controller comes in, we’ve blown it, we’re awful. You need the self-compassion to say, “It’s all right, sweetheart. You’re not alone, you’re not bad.”
Self-compassion partners with the next S, which is Social Support. We might find it hard to be self-compassionate without help. When we share, in detail, what we’ve done with our food with someone else, it drains the shame away because we’re no longer hiding it. Inevitably, they share how they’ve done the same thing. And suddenly we feel not so alone. Social support facilitates self-compassion. They become reciprocal.
The fourth S is to Seek the Lesson. Fundamentally, a break is information. It’s a red light coming up on the instrument panel as you’re flying your plane. Curiosity and proactivity are the correct responses. What made that light go on? This is where the Permission to Be Human Action Plan comes in.
The Permission to Be Human Action Plan is in Bright Line Eating and it’s also posted in the resources in both Bright Lifers and the Boot Camp Hub. I encourage you to answer those ten questions in writing every time you break your Lines. That’s how you turn your break into a breakthrough.
If you’re breaking your lines and not going through this process, you’re leaving a lot of opportunity on the table. Utilize the information you can take from the break to inform your journey. The goal is peace, personal growth, and flourishing.
For those of us who are drawn to Bright Line Eating, our food is the litmus test. It lights up our instrument panel to let us know what we need to do. It’s not like drugs or alcohol, which you can put down and be done with. We have to eat, and that means food is in our face as a reminder of the nature of our emotional sobriety, our spiritual condition, our mental fitness.
Food always lets us know how we’re doing. With each wobble in our Lines, we have the opportunity to go inside and see what our system is trying to tell us. There is information there. Maybe it’s that you need to garden more, or leave your job, or you’re lonely—whatever. But the red light means something.
Maybe the reality is that you picked up that piece of cucumber off the cutting board and ate it, and the only thing is that you were moving too fast and had a moment of non-consciousness. Then, with some social support and self-compassion, having done your best to seek the lesson all the way through, the reality is that very quickly, you can Rezoom. And you’re clean and clear.
You won’t know that, though, without going through the four S’s. Speed, Self-compassion, Social Support, and Seek the Lesson. So powerful.
