What Are Your Food Habits Protecting You From?

Binge eating, emotional eating, restrictive eating, overly focusing on food and body are all serving and protecting you in some way. I know that is a very different way to look at a pattern that you perhaps want to get rid of, be done with, and are frustrated with.

All the habits and patterns we have around food were cultivated at a time when we needed them.

I want you to think of how old you were when you first judged your body.

What was happening at that time of your life?

Was there something happening that felt like it was out of your control? Perhaps there was drama at home, or bullies at school, or the way you observed your parents interact with their body became your role model for how you were supposed to interact with yours.

When you think back to these moments, how do you feel in your body now? Do you notice fear? Anxiety? Worry? Concern? Where does it feel tight or tense or constricted in your body?

How does it feel to acknowledge these sensations? Is there are a part of you that wants to numb out, runaway, or ignore what is present?

These moments from our past can stick with us. These situations potentially felt so painful or overwhelming to process that if we were too young to know how to digest these situations on our own or if no one was there to support us in assimilating and understanding that experience, then our mind does the only thing it knows how. It assesses that something feels like it is a perceived danger in the environment, and to protect you supports you in figuring out what is within your control to navigate what is happening with more ease.

In comes a focus on what, when, and how you're eating and moving your body. We have to eat to live so it feels like a natural thing to focus on and when you're not eating then you can focus on how you're moving your body to never have to feel the overwhelming sadness, pain, disappointment, and anger. This is why you can release any judgment, shame, or guilt around how you have relied on food and your body image to help you navigate a moment in time that you just didn't know how to digest and release from your system.

Your focus on food and body has been protecting you for potentially years and years.

Your mind is still perceiving those emotions and sensations as a threat and is trying to support you in staying alive. And, what we resist persists. So the longer we focus on food and body, the more what we are ignoring grows in its desire to have our attention, to be healed, and to move through us so that the body is not holding onto these emotions any longer.

To heal one's relationship with food and body often needs to include attending to that moment or moments so many years ago that felt like a threat to your being. If our body senses that it is no longer in danger, then we won't need to use a focus on food and body as a strategy to navigate life any longer.

I understand how much resistance and how many emotions can arise when thinking about taking this baby step into healing this part of your life. Food has been there as your friend and ally for so long and it will continue to be there for you as you heal as well. You get to take as many baby steps as you need on this path and I'll be here for you every step of the way.