Somatically Navigating Halloween Candy by Listening for Your Body's Story
For those that have struggled in their relationship with food, Halloween can be truly a nightmare.
A holiday that is originally a Celtic festival, has become synonymous with candy and trick or treating. Trick or treating didn't start until the 1930's and candy manufacturers capitalized on the growing tradition in the 1950's by promoting their products. In the 1970's, candy being wrapped and packaged became the only acceptable thing to give out. Already, we can see in our history how a holiday that has nothing to do with candy has been shaped by the food industry.
So, now everyone is eating candy around this time of year and your mirror neurons kick in. You see someone else eating candy and because you have these neurons that want to imitate what you see externally, cravings for candy also increase. Just how there is coregulation, there is also co-dysregulation. If you're around a lot of dysregulated people during Halloween, candy becomes more and more the answer to help you feel safe. You'll be eating with others and feeling the community in that, you'll be teaming up with the other bodies around you, and you'll be getting some quality dopamine from the act of eating.
When I was in Graduate School, I worked at Target for a period of time. I can't tell you how many times a person would walk up to be checked out looking overwhelmed and grab a candy bar and say something like, "I just can't help myself." or "I really need this right now." I would just smile, nod, and offer that I completely understand. Looking back, I can see now how planning for Halloween, buying candy to make sure you have something to give out, making sure you or your kids have a costume, can all put your nervous system into a fight or flight state and the candy is abundantly available to give you the energy to keep going.
I relay all of this to you to hopefully spark even a microscopic amount of compassion for yourself that if you've ever found yourself at the bottom of a bag of mini candy bars, that was you doing the best you could to navigate dysregulation, activation of your sympathetic nervous system, and your mirror neurons.
If you're already noticing some fear arising with Halloween coming up next week, here are some somatic explorations you can engage in to practice being in a regulated relationship with your body and candy.
1. Your body needs support feeling safe.
If you're going to be around a lot of candy or people, your body is going to need support in feeling safe. If you've experienced trauma in your past, your body more easily picks up on cues of threat. It's constantly scanning your environment to make sure it's not in danger. This constant hypervigilance can be exhausting where you find yourself feeling a growing urge to binge on candy. While you're around all the candy and all the people, take some time to shift your attention away from the cues of danger to cues of safety. This could be looking at the smiles on people's faces. This could be noticing the beauty of Fall leaves around you. This could be feeling the crisp night air on your skin. This could be the sounds of laughter. Attend to anything that gives your body the message that you're not in danger.
2. If you want to eat candy, bring your body into the conversation.
Often there's all these internal voices that say things like,
"It's just candy, eat it."
"You deserve to eat this."
"Shouldn't I be able to eat this?"
"If I don't eat this, am I restricting?"
It can feel so confusing what the most aligned decision can be when you have conflicting dialogues in your head. Your mind's story can be quite loud that, one it's informing you of just how hyperaroused your body is around candy, and two makes it difficult to listen for how your body is feeling. When you start to hear these inner voices, practice pausing. Name the emotion that is present. This might be fear, anger, sadness, anxiety, or stress. When you put the candy in your hand, how does your body respond to it? Does it get more fearful? Does it feel excited? Does it feel hopeful? Do you notice sensations of expansion, contraction, tightness, ease?
Your body is already relaying a story to you about how it perceives this piece of candy in your hand. You get to make an embodied decision. Do you sense you could continue interacting with this piece of candy and be with what's showing up in your body or do you sense that continuing on would further dysregulate you? You see how it's not really about the candy. You will have different kinds of interactions with candy based on how you feel and where your nervous system is at. There's no right or wrong choice.
Ultimately, it gets to be your choice that will send you down a particular path where you will learn more about yourself.
If you decide to say no to the candy and walk away, continue to notice how that feels in your body. You may need to go back to step one here and find other ways to support yourself in feeling safe.
If you decide to say yes to the candy and move forward, continue to stay connected to your body's feedback. As you unwrap the candy and place the candy in your mouth, notice your sensations, emotions, and thoughts. Bring in an abundant amount of curiosity. If you hear a voice that says, "I want more!" who is that voice? Where is that coming from? If you don't know what part of you is speaking, you might continue to practice being with the sensations of wanting more and describe it to yourself. This is your body's story while eating candy. You might take a moment to look around the room and show your body that, even within the intensity you're flowing with, you are safe.
No matter how much candy you end up eating, you can continue to check in with yourself and notice how you feel an hour, two hours, three hours later or even how you feel the next day. It's all just information that you get to collect on your body to build your interoceptive awareness, which is knowing the felt sense of your body. Taking your body's story into account knowing that it feels a certain way when you feed it specific foods or certain amounts of a food can guide you in your food decision making processes. And, it's never too late to check in with your body and how it's feeling. So even if you find yourself completely overwhelmed, stressed out, and dysregulated and binge on a bunch of Halloween candy, you get to meet yourself with gentleness and learn what were the cues of threat your body was reacting to, how did it feel to eat that much candy, and what resources you may need the next time you find yourself in a similar situation.
If you want to learn more about how to hear and interpret your body's story, the Somatic Eating® Program starts on Monday, October 30th. You will be able to get one on one support from me to navigate Halloween perhaps differently this year as every live class ends with time for Q&A where you can receive individualized support. The classes will go through this entire holiday season so I will be there for you every step of the way through all the parties, gatherings, festivities, family, and food. Go to somaticeating.com to learn more and sign up today so that you're able to catch the first class live. If you have any questions, email me at support@stephaniemara.com or you can DM me on Instagram. Lastly, if you try out today's somatic suggestions through your Halloween, reach out and let me know how it goes!