Dysfunctional eating habits weren’t the catalyst for my personal growth and spiritual journey, but they could have been. My first taste (pun intended) of disordered eating occurred at age eight, when my Dad took me to McDonald’s in the mornings before school. My parents had just gotten a divorce and it was one of the only times I got to see my father. Well, when I got a little chubby and was told by my doctor that my cholesterol was high even for an adult, I flipped. I became obsessed with food: reading nutrition labels, counting every single calorie that went into my mouth, making lists of what I could eat each day and when, making my mom buy fat free this and fat free that, and on and on it went.
I would bring frozen juice boxes to school for lunch because it took me the entire lunch period to eat it, so I had an excuse for why I wasn’t eating anything else. I would count the number of baby carrots in a serving and wouldn’t eat even a bite over that number. If I woke up in the middle of the night hungry, I would measure my waist to make sure it was small enough to allow myself to eat a few crackers. Yes, this is the ugly stuff no one likes to talk about. Needless to say, I was borderline anorexic, and super thin, though somehow not frighteningly skinny. I made sure that I ate enough so that I wasn’t physically sick; it just was an extremely unhealthy obsession.
This obsession that started so young came in and out of my life many times. I had times when I was eating what we might call “normally,” but inevitably something would shift and I was right back on the obsession bandwagon. I remember avoiding social events, distancing myself from people, eating in secret and feeling so ashamed that I couldn’t eat like everyone else. All throughout college (though I tried many different diets), my one safe and sturdy fallback plan was the “lettuce with yellow mustard and parmesan cheese” diet, which is literally all that I would eat. (Yes, I’m aware that that is disgusting ) My focus on food was also strong when my mom was sick, and I will even admit that after my mom died and all I was doing was sleeping in bed, I had the thought that at least I was getting skinny. Even today I don’t enjoy going out to eat because it causes a bit of anxiety for me. Though I have healed most of my dysfunctional eating issues, it’s still not 100%.
I am telling you all of this because 1) I get it and I want you to know that all of your dark, ugly food related stories aren’t anything to be ashamed about and 2) it’s almost never just about the food. If I look back on my life story and my relationship to food, it just mirrors my relationship with myself and with my circumstances in life. And it’s the same for many of my clients. It’s so obvious to see that of course I became obsessed with food and my body after my father left, right before a major life transition, when my mom was sick and after my mom died, etc. It’s so obvious to me now that it was an escape, a way to hide from my feelings. I had no clue how to feel my feelings, how to allow them to come up and to release them. They scared the shit out of me, I was ashamed of them, and for most of my life people told me “don’t cry, don’t be angry, don’t be sad, don’t be…” which only made me want to run from my feelings even more. Those people were of course only doing the best they could do, because THEY didn’t know how to deal with feelings either! The thing is, and this is a common misconception.
Feelings aren’t as scary as the stories we tell ourselves about them. Feelings come and go, and even huge emotions like seemingly overwhelming grief or anger don’t last forever. They ebb and flow. The story in your head that tells you that if you start crying you won’t ever stop and then you won’t be able to go to work or walk your dog or see your friends or live your life, is just that- a story. It’s not true, I promise. Going into the feelings can be scary for the first time, yes, but it is the way out of the cycle of a disordered relationship with food. I know that for me, feeling my feelings, challenging my beliefs and stories and then bringing love to those places, have healed my relationship with food immensely.
Whether your challenge is with anorexia, emotional eating, bulimia, binge eating, yo- yo dieting or orthorexia ~ it’s not about the food. (And, just for the record, I don’t believe in labeling anyone because a label doesn’t matter- all that matters is how your relationship with food makes you feel). Underneath the suffering it’s causing you is a perfectly logical reason for whatever your “disordered” eating habit might be; it makes perfect sense to the part of you that is trying to escape your feelings and experiences. It’s so easy for someone to say, “Here, this is what you should be eating for health reasons.
Eat whole foods, eat small portions, eat organic, eat the right oils, eat veggies, eat this, eat that.” And this can work wonders, as food can be used as a very powerful medicine, which is amazing; I use this in my own life and with my clients. But sometimes it is just not that simple. Sometimes there is something standing in the way of eating for the sake of health and vibrancy and life. And that is ok. There is nothing wrong with you if this is the case; it just means that there is some material in your consciousness that can be healed.
Your relationship to food, however that looks for you, is mirroring how you feel on a deeper level; it is mirroring your beliefs in life. And your relationship with food can be used as a pathway to healing. In my opinion, it is through looking at these beliefs, and going through the feelings attached to them, that you begin to find healing and peace. It is possible to go through the feelings and experiences and come up on the other side. Believe me, if I can do it, so can you. It just takes one step.
Love,
Erinn
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Erinn Selkis is a health and wellness counselor who compassionately supports her clients to improve all aspects of their lives through nutrition and personal growth. Check out her coaching website at http://www.erinnselkis.com.
