Namaste everybody.
So today we're talking about eating disorders and the possible unhealed wounds beneath them.
So I wanted to talk about this issue today because this is something that I'm often asked a lot about,
And I'm someone who's actually recovered myself.
It's a tender topic,
And I want to hold it with care,
Because that's what it deserves.
And we're going to be talking about disordered eating.
And I want you to hear something that's super,
Super important.
If you struggle with your relationship with food,
You're not broken,
And you're not weak,
And you're not vain.
A lot of people misunderstand.
What is really running an eating disorder.
And beneath almost every struggle with food is a child who is trying to survive something.
And even though it's invisible,
We're trying to survive something.
And before I say anything else,
Please know that this conversation is not a substitute for professional treatment.
You deserve that if you need that.
So this is for educational purposes,
And I'm just sharing some of my ideas.
So if you're currently struggling working with a therapist or a treatment plan or treatment team,
Just know that this is an act of self-love,
Dear one.
This is not a failure.
This is something that we actually need to do for the self to resurrect and save the self.
So let's pull back the veil a little bit.
Food struggles are almost never about food.
Food is the surface.
The wound lives underneath.
And I'm going to offer you three possible links to the past to help raise your metacognition and raise your self-awareness around what might be lurking below the surface.
The first is the wound of chaos.
If you came from an unpredictable home where a parent raged or drank or disappeared emotionally,
Then you grew up in a world that you could not control.
And a child who cannot control his or her world.
Will look for one small territory that belongs to him or her.
And for many of us,
That territory became the body.
And what goes into it.
Controlling food can sometimes be a symbolic way of saying,
At least here,
I have a say.
And this is not madness.
It's a child's brilliant attempt to create order inside the child.
Disorder.
Now,
The second potential possible wound is the wound of emotional starvation.
Some of us were fed three meals a day.
But we were starved of that maternal attunement.
No one ever asked us how we felt.
No one noticed when we were hurting.
And so we learned to soothe ourselves the only way available.
Food never made fun of us,
It never criticized us,
And food never left.
When comfort was scarce,
Food became the stand-in for the nurturing we needed that we never received.
If you eat your feelings like I did,
Dear one,
It may be because once upon a time,
No one helped you.
Feel your feelings.
Now the third is the wound of conditional worth.
Maybe you grew up being appraised.
Maybe your body was commented on.
Maybe your body was compared to someone else's.
Maybe your body was criticized.
Maybe love in your home was tied to performance,
To being pleasing and accommodating,
To even looking a certain way.
A child raised on conditional worth learns that his or her body isn't really her home.
It is her application for love.
And he or she can spend decades either perfecting that application or rebelling against it.
And both paths lead away from the divine self,
Away from the inner child.
Now,
I want to talk about the nervous system because this is where it all comes tied together.
This is the mind-body entanglement.
Research suggests that children raised in chronic stress Develop nervous systems that are wired for survival.
Rather than safety.
Amy,
Our little amygdala,
Becomes hypervigilant.
Sounding the alarm long after the danger has passed.
And when the body is flooded with that alarm,
It's going to reach for whatever brings the fastest relief.
Whatever our nervous system has learned brings us the fastest relief.
That's what we reach for.
Restricting can create a feeling of control that quiets that alarm.
Eating can create a wave of soothing that numbs that alarm.
And either way,
The behavior is not the disease.
The behavior is the,
I would say,
The manifestation of the nervous system's attempt at medicating itself and you've not been sabotaging yourself even though that's what you believe.
You have been regulating yourself with the only tools your childhood made available to you.
And you're living below the veil of consciousness regarding the root causes,
Possibly,
And how your nervous system has been wired.
I want to leave you with one key idea,
And it's this.
Try to stop going to war with the behavior.
And start getting more curious about the alarm that lives underneath it.
So the next time you feel the pull,
Whether it's toward food or away from it,
I want you to pause and ask yourself one beautiful,
Gentle question.
What am I actually feeling right now?
Not what I'm craving,
But what I'm feeling.
Are you feeling lonely,
Unseen,
Afraid,
Or not enough,
Or anxious?
Because every time you name the feeling instead of numbing it,
You give your inner child what they never received.
A witness.
We don't heal wounds.
By silencing them.
But a real wound that is witnessed.
Can finally begin to close.
It can finally begin to heal.
So dear one,
If you're struggling with food,
Understand it's not evidence that something's wrong with you.
It's evidence that something happened to you that you may be unaware of.
And what happened to you can be healed.
And you can break through and break free so long as you become conscious of what Those unmet needs might be that are fueling these issues with food.
It was never you.
It was only programming.
And programming can be rewritten.
I so hope that this has been helpful.
Until next time.
