Guess what? Your body is for you. Your life is for you too. If the word, "selfish" is flashing in your mind? Brush it away. Don't let it distract you from what I'm about to say.
My friend and fellow therapist, Valerie Torres, posted this article on Facebook today:
Waxing: Damned if you Do an Damned if you Don't: How Pubic Hair Became Political
Which then launched us into a conversation about how sad it is that teenagers are still being indoctrinated into self-mutilation in one form or another to conform to an artificial standard of beauty that is neither healthy nor in their best interest.
This is true of a host of culturally encouraged behaviors from crazy diets, to walking in torturous shoes, to plastic surgery, to hair removal (which often results in cuts, ingrown hairs, and weirdly unattractive 5pm shadow - akin to plucked chicken skin). Pain is not sexy. Neither are sexual partners that objectify us or our body parts.
What I find most painful about this ongoing historical and multi-cultural phenomenon is how sad it is that anyone has to choose between feeling valued, wanted, included, etc. and feeling like who they are is just fine without one iota of alteration.
When one person is deemed "less than" based on appearance, taste, beliefs, choices, etc., we all suffer. We could be next. And the mammalian drive to be part of a pair, a family, a group is powerful. It's evolved over millions of years to ensure our safety. So we will betray ourselves to be part of the larger social structure - especially to be sexy, and pass our genes down to the next generation.
Yet, changing your appearance (or really anything about you) to please other people is a betrayal of your very own self. Do you really want to live inside the body of someone who will sell you out to fit in? It's a crazy making thing. I'm sure there's a German word to describe the dilemma. If anyone knows what it is, please post it in the comments.
Our only recourse is to commit to each others' safety by practicing acceptance and teaching acceptance. Don't get all hyperbolic and ask if this means we have to accept axe murderers. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying we all need to be loved and accepted, hairy or smooth, tall or short, fat or thin.
Your body is for YOU. Your life is for YOU. If the people in your circles need you to be different from who you are, please find new people.
Showing posts with label emotional abandonment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label emotional abandonment. Show all posts
Saturday, April 12, 2014
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Overeating: A Response to Dangerous Needs
Today we have a guest post from Ben Ringler who is working toward his license as a Marriage and Family Therapist in the San Francisco Bay Area. It's always great to find new therapists who understand the roots of emotional eating. Ben offers us insight into how we may be eating in response to needs that feel dangerous...
Overeating: A Response to Dangerous Needs
Generally speaking, we live in a culture of addiction. Many of us make efforts to simultaneously avoid and fill ourselves because we are afraid to feel any emptiness, pain, anger or even pleasure. Anything can serve our addictions, drugs, television, sex, relationships, work and, commonly, food. Especially in our country, where we have abundant amounts of food, fast food restaurants on many street corners, supermarkets the size of small cities, eating beyond our body’s needs is common.
Challenge and Opportunity
Because food addresses some of our need for nourishment and pleasure, overeating is both challenging to overcome and an amazing opportunity for growth and self-acceptance. Challenging because we cannot avoid food like we can alcohol or drugs. We need to eat to food to survive. So, those who tend to overeat are consistently faced with their impulse to eat greater amounts of food (and types) than necessary. Opportunity because there are plenty of chances to become aware of the dynamic associated with overeating.
Eating Away Our Own Needs
How we eat often reflects how we relate to ourselves. Specifically, the way we eat is a mirror for how we feel about our own needs and how we go about getting our needs met. For many, having needs is (perceived as) dangerous. As such, the need to eat (or any other need that arises) is going to be anxiety producing and perhaps rattle the sense of inner safety. In response, overeating is one way that many have discovered to maintain a sense of safety from an inner world of unsatisfied and dangerous needs. For some, eating in large quantities may be a welcome pause from the anxiety of experiencing needs as dangerous.
Dangerous Needs
On an unconscious level, there are many who feel that their needs are dangerous. When those needs begin to arise, a sense of safety is rattled. As a result, one shoves those needs (and the fear of them) way down, often with food. Those who experience this were most likely either shamed and/or attacked or neglected and/or abandoned when they needed someone or something as a child. Their caretakers were unable to be with their own unmet needs while attending to a child’s. A chain of perceived dangerous needs is created. The unfortunate by-product is the association of needs arising with either attack or abandonment. As a survival mechanism, their needs (and the pain associated with them) were hidden from view.
Transformation through Inquiry
Food gives us a sense of substance, grounding, so there is some energetic basis for eating as providing a sense of inner safety. The question is, are our needs really dangerous? We can change our patterns over time when we begin to accept our behavior and face the truth of what drives these urges to overeat. From this perspective, if we begin to get in touch with our own needs, and the feelings we have associated with them, we can begin to break the chain of overeating as compensation.
Think about how you eat. First, bring awareness to the chain of thoughts, feelings and actions that lead up to a meal. Are you in need of food or is there something else? When you feel hungry, do you feel anxiety? Are there a lot of thoughts about what to eat? Do you fight yourself about what to eat? When you finally choose and sit down (or drive thru) for a meal, become aware of this process; can you taste the food? Are you anxious? Do you beat yourself up? How does your body feel? When you are complete, do you beat yourself up? Do you regret? How is your body now? Do you vow to do it differently the next time? Notice the repetition of these thoughts and feelings around eating.
Continue to notice each time you eat. Notice how you might resist noticing. You can begin at any time, anywhere. At one time, you adeptly learned to use food to keep yourself in tact and safe. You did the best you could and continue to. Keep that as a mantra as you simply notice how you relate to the overeating process now. This increased awareness will undoubtedly, over time, change you. New choices will emerge. It is not a question of will. Rather it is accepting the lessons that the behavior of overeating have to show you. Overeating is a doorway.
Ben Ringler is a registered MFT intern #52936, supervised by Patricia Herrera, MFT #37738
He can be reached at (510) 848-8899 or on the web at www.BenRingler.com
Ben brings up some ideas that are rich with opportunities to explore. How has it felt wrong, bad or unsafe to be "needy?" I'd love to see your comments!
Overeating: A Response to Dangerous Needs
Generally speaking, we live in a culture of addiction. Many of us make efforts to simultaneously avoid and fill ourselves because we are afraid to feel any emptiness, pain, anger or even pleasure. Anything can serve our addictions, drugs, television, sex, relationships, work and, commonly, food. Especially in our country, where we have abundant amounts of food, fast food restaurants on many street corners, supermarkets the size of small cities, eating beyond our body’s needs is common.
Challenge and Opportunity
Because food addresses some of our need for nourishment and pleasure, overeating is both challenging to overcome and an amazing opportunity for growth and self-acceptance. Challenging because we cannot avoid food like we can alcohol or drugs. We need to eat to food to survive. So, those who tend to overeat are consistently faced with their impulse to eat greater amounts of food (and types) than necessary. Opportunity because there are plenty of chances to become aware of the dynamic associated with overeating.
Eating Away Our Own Needs
How we eat often reflects how we relate to ourselves. Specifically, the way we eat is a mirror for how we feel about our own needs and how we go about getting our needs met. For many, having needs is (perceived as) dangerous. As such, the need to eat (or any other need that arises) is going to be anxiety producing and perhaps rattle the sense of inner safety. In response, overeating is one way that many have discovered to maintain a sense of safety from an inner world of unsatisfied and dangerous needs. For some, eating in large quantities may be a welcome pause from the anxiety of experiencing needs as dangerous.
Dangerous Needs
On an unconscious level, there are many who feel that their needs are dangerous. When those needs begin to arise, a sense of safety is rattled. As a result, one shoves those needs (and the fear of them) way down, often with food. Those who experience this were most likely either shamed and/or attacked or neglected and/or abandoned when they needed someone or something as a child. Their caretakers were unable to be with their own unmet needs while attending to a child’s. A chain of perceived dangerous needs is created. The unfortunate by-product is the association of needs arising with either attack or abandonment. As a survival mechanism, their needs (and the pain associated with them) were hidden from view.
Transformation through Inquiry
Food gives us a sense of substance, grounding, so there is some energetic basis for eating as providing a sense of inner safety. The question is, are our needs really dangerous? We can change our patterns over time when we begin to accept our behavior and face the truth of what drives these urges to overeat. From this perspective, if we begin to get in touch with our own needs, and the feelings we have associated with them, we can begin to break the chain of overeating as compensation.
Think about how you eat. First, bring awareness to the chain of thoughts, feelings and actions that lead up to a meal. Are you in need of food or is there something else? When you feel hungry, do you feel anxiety? Are there a lot of thoughts about what to eat? Do you fight yourself about what to eat? When you finally choose and sit down (or drive thru) for a meal, become aware of this process; can you taste the food? Are you anxious? Do you beat yourself up? How does your body feel? When you are complete, do you beat yourself up? Do you regret? How is your body now? Do you vow to do it differently the next time? Notice the repetition of these thoughts and feelings around eating.
Continue to notice each time you eat. Notice how you might resist noticing. You can begin at any time, anywhere. At one time, you adeptly learned to use food to keep yourself in tact and safe. You did the best you could and continue to. Keep that as a mantra as you simply notice how you relate to the overeating process now. This increased awareness will undoubtedly, over time, change you. New choices will emerge. It is not a question of will. Rather it is accepting the lessons that the behavior of overeating have to show you. Overeating is a doorway.
Ben Ringler is a registered MFT intern #52936, supervised by Patricia Herrera, MFT #37738
He can be reached at (510) 848-8899 or on the web at www.BenRingler.com
Ben brings up some ideas that are rich with opportunities to explore. How has it felt wrong, bad or unsafe to be "needy?" I'd love to see your comments!
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Eating is not a Moral Issue
How often have you heard someone (maybe yourself) say, "I was so bad today, I ate a bag of cookies." Or conversely, "I've been good all day, I only had 1200 calories."
When we make food about goodness or badness, we take away our power to really know and understand our RELATIONSHIP with food, our bodies, and ultimately ourselves.
When we are "good," we give ourselves approval, possibly rewards, and perhaps, unconsciously allow ourselves to bathe in the invisible approval of a parent or other authority figure. When we are "bad" we shame and blame ourselves, punish ourselves, and bathe in imagined rejection or disapproval.
This whole process - whether "good" or "bad" really serves to distance us from the important question... Am I hungry?
If you are hungry, but not eating (or not eating enough) in order to be "good," then you are abandoning yourself - punishing yourself for past eating or potential future eating.
If you are not hungry, but are eating, then maybe you're not just being "bad." Maybe you are feeling empty, hungry for love, sleep, time, freedom...
When you make food a moral issue, you never allow yourself to get to the heart of the problem. Instead you get consumed with feelings of shame or avoidance of shame.
So for a day (longer if you like), try legalizing food. Eat when you're hungry. Eat what you're craving. And if you eat more than your body is hungry for, use that experience as an opportunity to be CURIOUS rather than ashamed. "I wonder what I'm really hungry for," will open you up to a kinder, more nurturing relationship with yourself. And if you're hungry for more kindness and nurturing, then this process may lessen the times when you eat to fill emotional emptiness!
When we make food about goodness or badness, we take away our power to really know and understand our RELATIONSHIP with food, our bodies, and ultimately ourselves.
When we are "good," we give ourselves approval, possibly rewards, and perhaps, unconsciously allow ourselves to bathe in the invisible approval of a parent or other authority figure. When we are "bad" we shame and blame ourselves, punish ourselves, and bathe in imagined rejection or disapproval.
This whole process - whether "good" or "bad" really serves to distance us from the important question... Am I hungry?
If you are hungry, but not eating (or not eating enough) in order to be "good," then you are abandoning yourself - punishing yourself for past eating or potential future eating.
If you are not hungry, but are eating, then maybe you're not just being "bad." Maybe you are feeling empty, hungry for love, sleep, time, freedom...
When you make food a moral issue, you never allow yourself to get to the heart of the problem. Instead you get consumed with feelings of shame or avoidance of shame.
So for a day (longer if you like), try legalizing food. Eat when you're hungry. Eat what you're craving. And if you eat more than your body is hungry for, use that experience as an opportunity to be CURIOUS rather than ashamed. "I wonder what I'm really hungry for," will open you up to a kinder, more nurturing relationship with yourself. And if you're hungry for more kindness and nurturing, then this process may lessen the times when you eat to fill emotional emptiness!
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