Overcoming cycles of binge eating and learning to trust my body

“Stuff yourself” the two words that have sounded like guidance for as long as I can remember, that appear from nowhere and lead me straight to a feeling of “yup, I was right, everything sucks”

Something clicked in me last night though. I finally “got” myself in a way I have never understood before.

I’d  spent the morning smiling at the sun, toes in the sand, in connection with spirit and truly feeling into the magic and madness of life on this earth .. how did my day end standing at the sink eating what I can only describe as absolute garbage?

This is what clicked in a new way.

I’ve thought binge eating was about regaining control when I felt out of control. I’ve thought it was about meeting my own needs when I felt denied in some area of my life.

Here’s what I was aware of yesterday.

My body was in a state of overflow. My daily practices really do support me in being in a state of appreciation and anticipation. The energetic signature of my being, my body is one of deep gratitude, connection, acceptance and joy.

.. my mind could not get on board with that yesterday.

My mind was racing around busily creating thought forms in response to things I was seeing, hearing, absorbing and noticing.

A conversation with an uber driver who was angry with the world and grateful for my listening ear to vent his frustrations.

An email from my sons daycare declaring immediate closure and conditions for the return of students this week. Apologising for the “inconvenience” neglecting to recognise the impact this has.

Reflecting, I realise there was so much more that set me off .. but for the sake of sharing here, it feels like those two things alone, back to back demonstrate how the day can get the best of us.

 

Here’s the thing - my body is benefiting from a decade of priming, conditioning, orienting towards the energy of devotion, faith, love and the “uplift” of vibrating at a frequency that won’t allow outside influence to control how it feels.

 

I feel good. My body feels good. My energy feels good. It’s all good.

 

Except my thought forms are being shaped and formed to contradict the way I feel.

*cue binge eating*

 

My mind wants my body to join it in feeling like crap. My mind wants to be right. My mind wants to be reconciled with my body - and my body actually doesn’t hold space for pessimism, doubt, worry, anxiety.

 

So my mind manipulates my body.

 

My mind says “stuff yourself” and in the moments that I believe my thoughts.. I follow through on the impulse.

 

My body has never had a “voice” because I have shamed it, judged it, held it as something that needed fixing, shaping, moulding.

 

I didn’t trust my body. I didn’t own my body. How can we if we are constantly trying to make it better in some way?

 

Two things have changed for me over the last few years:

 

1. I have renounced any conditioning that would have me believe that judging my body is helpful, healthy or natural. I see the desire to look a certain way as a reflection of conditioning and I have worked to rebuild my relationship with my body. I witness and marvel it’s magic, it’s mystery. I support and love it through being in connection with it and honouring the perfection innately found in its very being. I bow down in respect to the way it operates for me, as me, without me even having to “do” anything.

 

2. I am aware that I have thoughts but that I am not my thoughts. My consciousness has arisen to wipe my slate clean & I offer myself to the present moment again and again each and every time I realise I’ve slipped into delusion, believing the stories of my own mind and disconnected from what’s available to me outside of what I’m thinking and believing.

So as I stood at the sink eating yesterday I had a moment of clarity. I witnessed the way it was my mind trying to bring my body’s energetic signature down to a miserable, apathetic, flat line.

 

I had a moment of complete love and gratitude for the way my body has constantly fought with my mind. I recognised the way my body had suffered the consequences of my own mismanaged mind .. and felt the way it had always refused to give up.

 

The rise within me has always come from a place I cannot articulate. My drive, my determination, my devotion has never been a conscious decision or a reflection of any logical goal I have set.

 

It’s always just been an energy within me that refuses to die.

 

My own life support given and gifted and amplified anytime I let my body take the lead.

My body has a voice. My body knows of it’s magic and it’s mystery. My body holds the memory of every experience I have encountered and finds a way to transmute even the most painful lessons into an embodied wisdom that serves me.

 

My mind?

 

The thought forms that come from my mind are not mine to keep. To continue to learn to be the observer of thoughts and to allow them to simply be, until they do not is a process and a path I am walking. I am learning day after day.

 

Yesterday I learned that my body has a voice. My body asked me to put down the food and to cry. To feel the fear in my chest. To release the grief trapped in my throat. To shake the frustration from my wrists and take deep belly breaths to calm myself down.

 

My body whispered to me - this is sadness, this is fear, this is not who you are it’s just what you are experiencing.

 

I stopped trying to make sense of how I was feeling. I stopped trying to deny it. I stopped.

I fell into bed sad. I woke up feeling even sadder. My body moved me to movement - and here I am.

 

I feel compelled to nourish myself today.

 

To drink water. To eat well. To sweat and stretch and smile.

 

My body has a voice and this morning it’s saying “thank you”

 

My body has a voice and this morning it’s saying “I’m so glad we can finally work together”

 

My body has a voice and this morning it’s saying “let me transmute pleasures for you - let your senses be tuned into all that has been made for you today”

 

I’m ready to see the world again today.