The spiritual beliefs that influence my eating psychology counseling practice

I'm back home after co-teaching a 5-day intensive, Healing the Soul with The Sacred. In the sections I led, we explored the role of the body in our spiritual practice, the metabolic shifts in the presence of The Sacred, authentic and courageous communication with others when in conflict, and resetting hijacked dopamine receptors to create more a more calm and steady physiology.

My proposition was that the body with all its troubles and symptoms and all the other "stuff of life" (like relationship) isn't a distraction or deterrent in healing and awakening awareness, but a doorway to it.

Over the last 16+ years, I have observed some of the deeper invitations that our bodies, our symptoms, and our eating habits point to. I'd like to share some of the themes clients have been confronted with. They are spiritual in nature as many of them have to do with being alive, living in a body, and being entrusted to care for that body.

A lot can get kicked up. (Which is a good thing).

Here are some of the spiritual themes that arise around our eating and diets:

Our unwanted eating habits are teachers. Eating can teach how to get present, how to really FEEL, and the proper place for pleasure and will. Working deeply enough with unwanted eating habits can also invite us to explore any injuries or relational patterns that contribute to unwanted eating habits.

Practicing good nutrition will confront you with any low-grade resentment you have about having a body that has needs. Many people having to grapple with this head on and examine what, up until this point, they feel is more valuable than caring for the body and where this resentment comes from. The undercurrent is cultural and sometimes religious, even if not experienced directly.

Loving energy will transform your eating. Shaming energy will not. Shaming energy might "work" for a short period of time, but consistent self-loving, encouraging, and forgiving energy will take you very far. If being loving is difficult to do, you will need to explore what gets in the way of you bringing in loving energy.

No amount of change you make with your body or eating will "make you" love yourself more. Embody the end result now (feeling worthy of love) and treat yourself as a person worthy of care and dignity.

There's a whole sacred chemistry that gets ignited in the body through self-love, compassion, surrender, forgiveness. These energies will ignite your metabolism and will complement your eating habits beautifully.

The deepest work with body will take you into the body and beyond it, but you have to agree to be in your body before you transcend it (otherwise symptoms will force you back into your body)

You will be invited to learn to let go of the past, and instead, show up for yourself and your body IN THE NOW. Each decade is like a new chapter and a new adventure with your body. Grief may come up. AND you have the opportunity to develop your depth and your character. You also can practice the witnessing consciousness of the passage of time expressed through the temporal body.

Wherever you are with your eating, please know that any sort of struggle with your eating or health, whether its indifference, resentment, fixations, physical symptoms, or unwanted eating habits (like overeating, binge eating, or chronic dieting) can help you learn and grow.

With love & respect,

Laura

[Join me for my next 3-month eating psychology case study group that starts this Fall 2025. Contact me here for more information and/or to secure your place]