One toxic belief related to the body, is that the body is just a dumb lump of matter; Some strange and suspicious physical mass with no intelligence that may very well betray you…
…so you better get control over it.
This underlying belief is so common, you can simply turn the person next to you and ask them what they think it takes to be healthy, and they’ll often answer something along the lines of, “self control.”
It’s no surprise then, that our health and eating strategies reflect this: domination, control, looking at specific “parts” that need fixing, breaking things down into points, calories, or macros, intellectual ideals as all-mighty King, and so on.
A while ago, someone I worked with shared her sincere efforts to try to eat 1,200 calories each day, only to have some other side of her wolf down a 1/2 box of crackers at 3 o’clock.
This is a frustrating symptom of a supposedly helpful eating strategy.
What’s missing?
What’s actually missing is our capacity to feel into the whole of our situation, to slow down, to better relate to ourselves, to listen
and understand ourselves and our bodies. In the example above, the 1,200 calorie plan was not working. Frustrating as it is, it’s good information!
Some encouragement:
On the surface, I know unwanted eating habits seem like problems that need to be eliminated or controlled. But as the nearly platitudinous quote by Pema Chodron states, “Nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know.”
Sometimes we simply need to learn how to feed ourselves properly. Sometimes we are actually outgrowing old ways of *relating* to eating. And still other times, eating and body challenges are pointing to other core lessons in life…
With love & respect,