Food, Fat & Body-love
Imagine yourself on a walk that ends with a bad blister — or sitting in beautiful golden sunlight, soon to become hot and sweaty. So it is with emotional eating or starving ourselves; the immediate idea seems brilliant. As you prep for the diet, or nab the cheese and crackers then the sweet gooey food for the graze or binge, initially it is the “solution”, then gradually it stops working and may even begins to hurt.
In our therapy journey, we work to to neutralize value judgments on body and emotional states. We re-learn moments of mindful body knowledge, re-claiming the childhood 'body-love' with which each of us was born.
cubist woman, 1949; anonymous artist
As cliche as this may sound, you can learn to accept your body and what it truly needs to eat, for pleasure and for nourishment. This acceptance replaces thin-obsession, and replaces your confusion of food with a feeling of 'love'. If this is your deep desire, then gradually over time, perhaps over a few years: you will want to eat the amount and type of food that keeps you at a weight that feels not too thin, and not too fat. You will begin to accept what your body thrives on.
What is the value of meditation in the context of emotional eating? Meditation and slowing down, around food and our image of being too fat or too skinny, is the highway to mindfulness; it reminds you that you need not take every minuscule food or diet thought seriously. You begin to digest — as a whole person — that you are not defined by your cellulite, or by the flatness of your belly. You learn to see your life and your body from a broader perspective. You notice the self-attacks, negative beliefs and behaviors that you have stalwartly followed from your past, which is a huge step in turning them around.
Body movement and grounding, in a context of closeness and experiential psychotherapy, allows you to authentically feel the messages your body speaks in those moments when your head beckons you to eat, or screams at you to diet. Perhaps you can imagine being in the moment-by-moment body knowledge of what feels good, what feels healthy, what feels bad.
No one has invented one pre-ordained way of eating that makes every single body feel 'right'. There is no such thing as 'bad food', or 'good food', whether you are a gourmet foodie or a 'good 'n plenty’ junkie. What to eat and how you feel about your body comes from a truthful view of your own unique body-chemistry, and individual circumstances within the context of your life’s ups and downs, traumas and resiliencies.
Believe it or not, you will eventually slow your food obsession and body-hatred down--to a manageable pitch. You may even find the doorway through to loving yourself and embracing your unique body, and this can become your 'absolute truth'.