My Relationship with Food
“How we eat is how we live.” ~ Geneen Roth
My relationship with food has been a rocky one. Early on I learned that food = comfort. I watched my parents emotionally eat and I simply mimicked their behavior. Instead of taking time to intentionally talk about our emotions and express our feelings we stuffed and numbed them with food. This is so common in our society as we often try to get away from the pain and discomfort through avoidance patterns. Growing up I relied on food when I felt stressed or emotional. I craved sweets and salty snacks. I tended to overindulge on the sweets and justified my behavior thinking I deserved it after the workout I had or the day I experienced. My relationship with food was unbalanced, dependent, and unconscious. While I did feel shame around eating so many desserts and feared gaining weight, I was unable to moderate my portions as I let my emotional needs take control. Despite how much I ate, I still was left with a lingering hunger, craving something more. Later I realized, I was emotionally and spiritually hungry. I felt empty in those areas and craved meaningful connection with others and, most importantly, with myself and my soul. I needed soul nurturing, not sugar laden foods.
I was sensitive with my body image as my father reinforced the belief that skinny is the only way to be beautiful. He made inappropriate comments about my weight and body. I learned that to be seen as beautiful and considered worthy I had to look and act a certain way. I became more self conscious of my weight and began obsessing about the number on the scale. My freshman year of college my dad would emphasize the importance of exercise in preventing the “Freshman 15,” referring to the common phenomenon of gaining weight the first year away at college. Unfortunately, the school dining center was all you can eat buffet style and the dessert bar was overflowing with alluring sweets. I found dessert to be a common indulgence. I was eating more to cope with the feelings of emptiness inside me. I remember walking through the hallway from the bathroom back to my dorm room. I was wearing shorts and I took a look at myself in a full-length mirror as I passed. To my horror I saw cellulite on the backs of my thighs, more than I’d ever noticed. I went into feeling shameful and swore that I’d minimize my dessert intake, choose healthier meal options, and exercise more. I was so determined to lose that weight so I could become “worthy” and “beautiful” once more.
The summer day after freshman year my dad asked me if I wanted to eat my salad with a two-tined fork. He said “you need to go on a diet” laughingly. Ouch. As if my eating a salad were not enough. It reinforced my belief that nothing I do or say is good enough. I believed that I wasn’t good enough and one way to prove my worth was through my body weight and appearance. Sophomore year I lost a significant amount of weight, so much so that my dad noticed. He then began to say he was worried about me being underweight and that I had better start eating more to put more weight on. I went from being “too heavy” to “too skinny.” This was so confusing. It not only triggered my feelings of unworthiness but also my feeling like I couldn’t get it right.
When I first found Geneen Roth’s work I was hooked. Finally, someone who understood me. I realized the truth in her quote “how we eat is how we live.” I began observing the ways that I ate: hurried, fearful, frantic, disconnected, and removed from the present. Overindulging and restricting. That’s how I lived as well, I would feel tremendous joy and splurge and live life all out and then contract and withdraw and feel too afraid to live. What was it that led me to eat in this way? My conditioning. The belief that I needed to be something else… Filling myself up with food instead of feeling my emotions. Geneen’s work helped me explore the patterns of my binges. I tended to overeat when I feel disconnected from others and, ultimately, myself. I often overate when I felt anxious or stressed, seeking a distraction. Numbing the emotional pain.
With these awarenesses the patterns began to soften and I became more mindful. This didn’t happen overnight. It has been a process of unlearning and relearning new sustainable and healthy patterns with food. So if you find yourself feeling this way with food too, I invite yourself to ask what you’re feeding instead of feeling? What is it you truly desire/crave that you’re looking for in the food?
