128 Quotes by Geneen Roth

I tell them that if compulsive eating is anything, it’s a way we leave ourselves when life gets hard. When we don’t want to notice what is going on. Compulsive eating is a way we distance ourselves from the way things are when they are not how we want them to be.

The problem with fantasy is the greatest benefit of fantasy: it prevents us from living in the present moment. But the present now is different from the present then.

Awareness is learning to keep yourself company.

You are not a mistake. You are not a problem to be solved. But you won’t discover this until you are willing to stop banging your head against the wall of shaming and caging and fearing yourself.

It’s the nature of hearts to break. It’s in their job description. When a heart is doing what it’s supposed to be doing, it holds nothing back. And sometimes it gets broken.

But staying with the emptiness – entering it, welcoming it, using it to get to know ourselves better, being able to distinguish the stories we tell ourselves about it from the actual feeling itself – that’s radical.

Hell is wanting to be somewhere different from where you are.

It’s not about food. It’s never about food. And it’s not even about feelings. It’s about what’s below them. What’s in between them. What’s beyond them”.

After you’ve looked at normal women’s bodies, look at yourself in the mirror. Stand there for at least three minutes, once a week, for six weeks. Every time you notice a stretch mark, a sag, a wrinkle, say to yourself, “This is what living looks like. This is what loving looks like.” And you will be telling the truth.