What to do when someone gifts you food you don’t want to eat

Continued happy holidays! This is the last call for ordering things off the internet to be here in time for Christmas morning without paying a billion dollars for overnight shipping!

Speaking of gifts, I was watching a funny show on Netflix of an Indian family living in California, where a family rule is to always gift your host with a box of See’s candy when you visit as a sign of respect.  They had a little cabinet near the front door full of See’s candy boxes to grab on the way out.

In one scene the mother shows up at her daughter’s friend's house and hands the host mom a box of See’s candy and the host mom promptly says, “Oh no, I can’t accept that, I don’t allow any sugar in the house, I’m strictly keto.”

The Indian mother, doesn’t miss a beat and shoves the box of chocolates at her host and says, “just take it, I don’t care what you do with it” and moves on to find her daughter, leaving the keto host stunned and holding the box of chocolates, completely baffled about what just happened.

I just about died laughing.  There are so many places we could go with this scene.

But where I want to go today is not bashing keto and how unsustainable it is, but something more important, which is what to do when someone gifts you food you don’t want to eat.

Let’s look at the scene again.

The host mom has decided to eat no sugar for a given amount of time and the guest's mom gifts her sugar. We instantly side with the guest's mom and think, how rude of the host mom.  

Is the host mom horrible for not wanting to eat sugar?  

Is it rude to eat differently than other people when you have a health or weight goal in mind?

Is it awful to make food choices that go against societal norms and possibly make other people uncomfortable?

No, it’s not.  It’s totally fine to eat what you want.

What was terrible was the host mom actually made the gesture about food.

It’s not about the food. She totally missed it.

What was it about?

It was about respect. It was a feeling.

It was a gesture of respect, not a demand on dietary preferences.

We make it about ourselves, we make the situation about food, and we make the situation all sorts of things when we don’t need to.

If you are in this group and trying to lose weight and following the free guide and the helpful tips and information in this group, I would expect that you would be trying to eliminate sugar and flour to the best of your ability.

And it’s the holiday season with coworkers, neighbors, and friends possibly bringing you food gifts, like cookies, hot chocolate mixes in cute mason jars, bread, pies, and other desserts.

I read somewhere that the favorite gift that people like to give is food and the most disliked gift people like to receive is food.

If you are trying to not eat sugar and your neighbor brings you sugar cookies, what is really happening?

Are they trying to sabotage you?

Are they uneducated about the terrors of sugar?

Are they tempting you?

No, they are not.

In fact, it has nothing to do with you.

They are doing it because it makes them feel good inside.

The cookies are irrelevant.

You can’t make someone feel your love. When you love someone, that love is felt by you.  It makes you feel good.  You can’t transpose your love onto someone else, no matter how hard you try. No matter what you do.

Your actions can’t make people feel things.

It feels like it can, but it cannot.  You and every other person on the planet only feel things because of how you are thinking about the action that the other person did.

Your feelings come from your thoughts. Not other people's actions, ever.

This is a little mind-blowing and deeper than we need to go for this session, but I want you to know that the person handing you cookies, handing you hot chocolate, and handing you See’s candy is not doing it for you.

They are doing it for themselves.  When they give you the food, they get think happy thoughts like, “I’m a nice person.”  “I do nice things.”  “I’m generous.” “I’m a giver.” But basically, their core thoughts are about them being good and nice.  That creates nice, warm, happy feelings inside them.

The reason they cook and bake for others is because of how it makes them feel about themselves.

Humans only do anything because of how they think it will make them feel.

So, back to the sugar cookies.  Your neighbor hands you the cookies and smiles and says, merry Christmas, you’re the best neighbor, I enjoy being your neighbor, here are some cookies.

Now, who is this about? Is it about you?

No.

It’s about them.

Seriously, this is so important, because this helps you do the next thing with a loving and guilt-free heart.

What do you do next?  You accept the cookies.

Yes, you accept the cookies and you say thank you.  You are gracious and polite.  

You make some small talk and then close the door and now what?

Well, I think it’s pretty clear, that if it’s me, I would decide whether I wanted to have a bit or go ahead and throw it away.

Who is it about now? 

Me, or you!  Not the neighbor.

The neighbor has now received all the benefits from her gift that she could.  

You don’t have to eat it in order for your neighbor to feel good.

You don’t have to try it. You don’t have to touch it. You don’t have to taste it.

We think we do.  We think thoughts like, “well, they went to so much work, it’ll be rude if I don’t eat it.”

Listen, this is not true.  This is you telling yourself a story that isn’t serving you.

Maybe you think, “well I don’t want to waste the money she spent on this…”  that is not true.  You didn’t buy the cookies, she spent the money to feel good. That is what her money bought. It bought her a feeling, regardless of if you eat it.  To her, the transaction is done.

When you accepted and thanked her, she spent her money and it was money well spent.  That was what she bought. She bought her thought, “I’m nice.”  You don’t owe her anything.

As much as we would like to believe, we can’t make other people happy.  We can’t make other people feel a certain way.  So eating the cookies because you don’t want to be rude or waste money or whatever sounds righteous and positive, but it is a shallow lie because that’s not how the world works. 

You are not and cannot be in charge of other people’s feelings.

You can accept the cookies, thank her for the cookies, and then never eat one if you don’t want to.  You are not obligated to eat the cookies. Ever.

Think of it this way, if someone gifted you cigarettes, let’s say someone hand-rolled expensive little cigarettes for you but you don’t smoke.  Do you feel obligated to smoke one?  No!

But she made them for you?  Still no!

But they were expensive?  Still no!

The cost spent on something doesn’t have power over what action you take.  You are in charge.

You’re not going to smoke the cigarettes because it might make her feel bad and she spent time and money on it. It’s a clear no.

But we tend not to think as clearly about these things when it comes to food.  We are clouded by our belief systems about what is the right way to handle this.

I want you to know, that there are other belief systems about accepting food gifts that are just as true, if not truer, that don’t create metabolic damage and weight gain and guilt.

Marie Kondo is the perfect teacher for this concept when she teaches us about clutter and letting things go.  You go through your old clothes, you thank them respectfully for their service to you and then you give them away or throw them away.  You don’t think about how much money you spent on them or any other emotional baggage. You are trying to clean out your closet.

So when you are holding on to the plate of cookies, you can look down thoughtfully at them, take a deep breath and say, “thank you cookies, for letting me connect with my neighbor today.  You brought her so much joy and happiness.  You have fulfilled your destiny in creating connection and happiness today.  I ask nothing more of you. Goodbye.”

And then throw it away.

This is a higher consciousness skill that takes practice.  It takes time to replace unhelpful belief systems about food with higher-level, more productive thoughts. 

If you are ready to understand more about better ways to think and deal with food, it’s time to get your spot for the January group of the Freese Method.  I encourage you to come to my Live Masterclass on January 4th to grab your spot and start getting the life you want.  

Remember, you have what it takes to lose weight, achieve glowing health, and think better thoughts about food, we just need to repair your metabolism with the Freese Method first.