Does your eating or weight concerns effect your relationships? One week ago a relationship expert contacted me regarding the work I am doing and I began thinking of the correlation between food & relationships, and the connection in my life.
When I was overly invested in my need to change my body, lose weight, control my food I was also struggling in relationships. I used to use food to mask the feelings I was experiencing. I wasn't able to express myself easily, I kept most of my needs and desires to myself, with food anesthetizing me, it was easier to do. I sunk deeper into myself, offering less and less of my true self to relationships because I was too afraid to admit I had needs, desires or thoughts that may be in conflict with the person or persons I was interacting with. So very few if anyone new my true needs, diligently I buried them within myself so I wouldn't have to handle uncomfortable situations. Food was what I used to keep my life running "smoothly" free of conflict and difficult encounters. But that wasn't really true because I was in turmoil inside which I didn't share with anyone else. My goal was to portray everything as being FINE! And that was what it was, a portrayal, masking the truth. The more I hid from others the deeper my internal withholding.
My experience of food + relationships, was that my main relationship was with food. I nurtured it, I protected it, I confided in it, I took comfort in it, I depended on it, I felt safe in it, I felt cared for by it.
So when I hear my clients say I don't know why I can't get this food thing, I know it is "just food" I get it, because I know it is so much more then that! Food is intended to nourish our body, our cells our tissues. For someone who has used food all of their life food takes on a very different intention, it is no longer about nourishment it is about comfort, it becomes a drug, taking off the edge, where feelings are a bit too raw, uncomfortable, close to the surface. Mom's know it with babies, or kids, food is frequently used as a distracter from what is making their child upset, sad, lonely, they know if they offer a treat the child can change their focus. Too many years of that practice creates a numbing of feelings and a way of turning to food to handle life and a way to avoid being authentic in relationships, with one self and then other.s
I know and believe the way to change is the way to personal freedom, from Food and to claiming ones whole self you are needed in the world the time is, NOW, as Hillel says.
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