How to gain powerful insights on your relationship with food
HEIDI’S JOURNAL ENTRY | 008
HOW TO GAIN POWERFUL INSIGHTS on your RELATIONSHIP with FOOD
Whenever “getting healthy” is mentioned, our mind conjures up images of salads, plates full of vegetables, gym gear, and all your other motifs for “health.” We see achieving optimal health as a distinct endeavour that we choose to pursue or neglect. Rarely do we fully consider our health and well-being as factors that are inherently woven into everything we do.
All the elements that make up our self and our life from our own thoughts and emotions to our external world – form one whole, interconnected system.
If we compartmentalise areas in our life, we set ourselves up for imbalance. If we separate our health from our career, or our relationships and other aspects of our life, it’s easy to find ourselves either prioritising one thing over another or completely draining our energy like we’re spinning plates on our fingers with no end in sight.
If we’re happy in one or more areas of our life, but miserable in another, we can only register this as ‘separate’ experiences within our logical brain.
But our body tells a different story.
No matter which area we feel stress and negative emotions in, the body feels it all. We cannot divide those feelings from the parts of our life we feel positive about and persuade our body to process it separately while ignoring what is creating anxiety and stress for us.
Every single experience creates our health and reality. So how can we nurture a lifestyle that also supports our overall well-being? How can we develop all aspects of the self while still focusing on specific areas we particularly want to expand?
It’s all about balance.
This doesn’t mean we have to split our focus and pay attention every little thing, every single moment. It’s about cultivating a lifestyle that recognises that we are multi-faceted beings and that life cannot be squeezed into a set of neatly labelled boxes. It’s about accepting and cherishing that life is more like a garden where plants grow naturally, not a commercial farm where crops are contained within lines and structures.
HOLISTIC HEALTH starts, BUT DOESN'T FINISH WITH the food we eat
Eating is rarely just about fuel. As humans, the food we eat also forms experience, emotions, connections and the way we look at and feel about our body.
It can be a source of comfort and one of shame; one of indifference and one of obsession.
It varies for us all. Why? Because the manner in which we feed ourselves is a form of relationship. It's what I call our fundamental relationship.
What do I mean by this?
The way we engage with food and our body will manifest relationships and experiences that mirror this dynamic.
If we consistently feed ourselves a diet void of nutrition, love and consciousness, and regularly berate and criticise ourselves, we are steadily inputting messages into our body and psyche that tell us we’re not good enough.
This rhetoric can easily play out into every aspect of our life, potentially jeopardising opportunities and relationships and stopping us from reaching our life’s fullest potential.
Conversely, if we are obsessively counting every calorie and never altering from a path of strict health-based regimes, we are signalling to ourselves that control, force and rigid consistency is the recipe for success. This can lead us to seek control in other areas of life and cut us off from fully experiencing support, release and joy.
When we address our food as a powerful relationship that’s connected with everything else, we can go past dieting and short-term fixes. Instead, we get to the core of our eating habits and nurture a positive connection with our self and our body.
If you suspect that your relationship with your food isn’t fully serving you, here’s a simple exercise that you can do to seek more awareness.
Start bringing more consciousness to this area of your life. Whenever you think about food, prepare it or eat it, notice (without judgement) what thoughts and feelings come up.
Note them down. Everything is relevant – whether seemingly positive, negative or indifferent.
After a couple of days or one full week, take a look at what you have written. Map out the key themes that these comments bring up. Now write down how these messages could potentially impact other aspects of your life. Don’t be surprised if you discover parallel patterns in seemingly unrelated areas.
While our relationship with food can bring up negative emotions, awareness is the first step.
Remember, we cannot change what we cannot see. Holding on to guilt or shame will only keep us stuck.
Take a moment to congratulate yourself for seeking deeper insight and consider what steps you can take today to change this relationship for the positive.
Seeing things written down can be a very grounding experience. Let’s explore what surfaces together! I’d love to know what you gained from this exercise.
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