Transforming Your Relationship With Food
By Barbara Barnes; Lotus Heart Therapy
Are you always:
- Dieting or overeating?
- Thinking about food?
- Eating when you don't want to and aren't hungry?
- Controlling your emotions by eating?
If you answered yes even one time......................
Everyone has a relationship with food. It's one of our oldest, longest relationships, one we have had since our beginning-since before we had words.
Food is necessary for survival, yet our relationship with food is based both on our physical need for food and how we've learned to use food to regulate our emotions and feelings.
Food, nourishment and oral stimulation are part of human experience. We need food to survive. And, we use food to celebrate, cope, distract, calm down, focus, please others, reward ourselves, avoid conflict, and much more.
Food brings good feelings: ice cream after the winning game, cookies after a long day, special foods for the babysitter, favorite foods at celebrations.
In time, some begin to use food to regulate feelings: Meeting a friend on the street, she mentions she received a promotion. She is very happy. You're happy for her, but later on you find yourself munching through a bag of candy, unaware, until you've almost finished the bag. Or, you have a huge deadline coming-you're feeling scared you won't be able to finish on time. Soon, you're in the kitchen whipping up a batch of your favorite comfort food to help you focus and complete your project.
Two simple examples of using food and eating, not because of hunger or nourishment needs, but because of emotions and feelings.
Babies learn early to self-soothe by putting things in their mouths and that contributes to a long association with food and comfort. Over time, we might become confused and unsure about how to discern between physical hunger and emotional needs. We may forget how to take care of emotional needs appropriately. Perhaps we never learned. We develop patterns and get "locked into" unhealthy nutrition patterns strengthened with repetition. Have you ever tried to calm the butterflies by having something to eat?
These patterns generate shame, anger, despair, depression, anxiety. We begin to struggle with food-controlling and in-take as a way to manage feelings. Some punish the body, burning off calories with extreme fitness. Many develop addictive relationships with food, becoming preoccupied with thoughts of food, and consumption, distracting them from responsibilities affecting relationships with work, friends and family. Our food patterns cause chemical changes and patterns in the body and brain. They cycle is in motion. We beging to feel helpless, hopeless.
You are NOT helpless.
You Can feel better.
You Can change and improve your health.
How? Where do I start?
Through Seattle Metro Woman you can get constant self help through Lotus Heart Therapy's articles. Select two things to change, build your successes. Keep your desire to feel better very clear. Focus on inner strengths. Trust your inner guidance. It's there. And build support with others. The most important relationship in life is the one you have with yourself. When you nurture that relationship, all other relationships improve and change for the better.
Barbara Barnes is a credited RN, LMHC, Advance Hypnotherapist and Reiki Master. Call Today for yoru FREE Reiki Treatment and FREE Consultation 425-483-8463
