3 Signs That You Need To Stop Focusing On What You're Eating

When I was 21 years old, I was sick and tired of being in severe digestive pain. Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis runs in my family. To make sure I wasn't going down the same path I went in for a colonoscopy and endoscopy to check out what might be going on inside. The great news was that everything looked perfect. The confusing news was being diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome and given no guidance whatsoever about what to do with the symptoms I was experiencing.

My first go-to was diving into explorations around what I was eating and how I was moving. I ended up studying yoga, Ayurveda, Chinese Medicine, the gut brain, astrology, herbs, supplements, and different food healing diets. Any gut healing protocol you might have ever heard, I've experimented with it. Attending to what I was eating and discovering possible food sensitivities was effective, at first....

After following one way of eating to heal my gut for a period of time, something felt like it wasn't working and so I would move on to another eating healing protocol. For awhile, I just kept focusing on what I was eating. There were signs though that I actually needed to move on to what else my gut was emotionally holding onto. Now, over the past decade of supporting others in healing their relationship with their food and body, I have seen again and again that if you continue to focus on the food, you may miss what your habits, patterns, and symptoms may be here to teach you. Focusing too much on what you're eating and how you look can be a protective mechanism from attending to the emotions your body is holding onto and past experiences waiting to be digested and assimilated into your being. Food cannot heal your emotional body.

Here are 3 signs to look out for when it's time to stop focusing on the food you're eating.

1. No Matter What You Eat, Something Feels Off.

Yes, food can be medicine and if you have been on a healing path and you have ONLY been focusing on what you're eating, it's time to focus on your emotional body. If you're eating all of the healing foods you've been told to eat in a stress response, the body is in a physiological state that is not optimal to digest any food coming in. For the body to engage in deeper healing, it has to feel relaxed. This means that attending to your emotions needs to occur so that all the physical healing you're engaging in is actually effective.

2. Your Entire Focus Is External.

Being aware of what you're eating and how you're moving can be an external focus. Constantly looking outside of oneself can feel disempowering and disconnecting. Others recommending certain ways of eating don't live in your body. They don't know your history. They don't know what traumatic experiences you have navigated, wounds you're processing, and the environment you grew up in. This is why food can only take you so far on any healing path. The focus needs to shift internally addressing your relationship with your emotions, the beliefs you're operating from, your sense of safety in the world, and what parts of you, like your inner child, is needing to be held and seen in new ways.

3. You Feel Disconnected.

Food can feel incredibly grounding and connecting while you're eating. If you're solely relying on food to support you in feeling connected that would mean that you would need to keep eating or keep focusing on food all day to provide that sense of attunement you're desiring. Food can never provide the safety, connection, and calm you're looking to feel long term. Feeling embodied is facilitated by tuning in and acknowledging your emotions and sensations, by calling up a friend or a family member to feel seen and understood, and by stepping into acceptance of what is moment by moment. To feel more connected, food needs to be focused on less to create space for other decisions to be made.

Wherever you're at in your journey of evolving your relationship with your food and body, trust you're exactly where you're meant to be. You may need your focus on food for awhile before you feel ready to address what your body is holding onto emotionally and that is alright. You get to embrace the protection you're receiving from focusing on your food and body image. We can always count on change and change happens in its own timing.

To discover what your current relationship status is with food, you can go take my free What Is Your Relationship Status With Food Quiz at stephaniemara.com/foodrelationshipquiz. You will find out what your current food relationship status is and your food relationship red flags to let you know when it might be time to transition into a new relationship with your food.