Is it really a treat?


My previous food experiences were usually to override my body’s resistance by shoving more of what was harming me into my mouth so I couldn’t feel. Ouch. You may have different experiences and I would love to hear them. We are all so different and yet so alike!

I used to totally justify my overeating because it tasted so good, or it was Christmas, or it was such-and-such birthday dinner or whatever it was, I made excuses to eat food that I absolutely knew harmed my body. Not to mention the drinking binges that meant that the following day I was crippled with a thumping crippling headache, nausea, vomiting and dizziness. Those symptoms are not really showing me I have loved and caring to my body are they?

Now I know I will have a few comments ranting at these words, but we all know that we have done it before and will probably do it again. I am certainly far from perfect! We all have our Achilles Heel.

While at work last week I was chatting about food with a friend – always on the agenda – and he was describing how ill and bloated he feels after eating pasta. He went on to say that even though he feels sick every single time, he still eats it regularly because “It’s a treat”. It literally takes days for his body to recover.

And another friend today was telling me that she was unhappy at work and started to eat food she knows is not right for her. She would feel sick afterwards and now, after months of that pattern, her jeans are tight and she feels uncomfortable. The conversation went deeper when we started talking about how we absolutely know we are eating for comfort.

Eating the food we know is harming for our body because it’s tasty, or we just want to, just because! And I for one know that when the gluten, dairy and sugar free cake is in front of me, not matter how hard I try, sometimes it’s going to be eaten!

My last blog was starting to explore the concept, just a concept that we need to only really need to eat when we are hungry. Now there’s a concept! There are plenty of reasons why to only eat when we are hungry … but we are over-ruled by our mind that listens to all the advice we are given by research papers, diets and professional people in the field of food. There are a myriad of documents that say we are to have everything in moderation. But what if that moderation, as my friends are experiencing, is harming? Are we simply overriding our body’s natural resistance to that which is harming us? If the ‘treat’ is harming us, then is it really a treat after all?

2 thoughts on “Is it really a treat?

  1. To get to the bottom of a situation which was harm-full to the extreme, I have been working closely with my soul and practitioner of clarity and integrity here where I live. Recently I accepted a huge reason that these events came to pass was because I chose them, and allowed myself to open to the possibility of becoming conscious of what was underpinning it all. So yesterday, I mentally realised what it was that had set my trajectory off course – one that had sent me scuttling for cover under the pretence, the illusion, the nightmare of pretending to have your life together but harbouring deeply the hurts inside you. And hurt it did. So afraid was I to really feel it (despite the conscious opening to do just that), that as soon as I got home, I crammed 6 pieces of GF DF bread down my throat as quickly as I could. Then, as I realised this would likely constipate me significantly, rather than the old bashing pattern, I realised how much this issue hurt me, how I had buried it, and how this activity of bread-eating was just trying to do the same, all over again.

    I also realised how we can push our issues ‘off our plate’ and enter them back into the body by pushing them through the bowel wall. But I digress.

    I remain open to the knowledge of events a few years ago that caused me such deep hurt that even now I can actively choose not to face up to. There must be a huge force of rejection of myself for this to be so strong.

    So yeah, I get the eating for a treat. It wasn’t a treat last night, no matter how hard I might try and justify it. I had not provided adequate food for my day at work and I had a headache as a result. I knew I had had enough after the second (fully loaded) BLT, and even that this was the closely thing to fast food I have eaten for quite a while (hamburger, anyone?). As a consequence, I was not supported to feel what my soul has been delivering in ‘bite-sized pieces’ for me to deal with and digest.

    We are never given anything we can’t deal with. Why is it that we don’t trust that our heart has it all under its graceful eye? And how do we think we can get away with it – because we MINDFULLY know what we are doing…and willingly overstep the mark we know is self-loving.

  2. Oh, the treat! Also my Achilles heel. So many times I have eaten something, knowing what I was going to feel like afterwards, but over-riding this for the sake of “treating” myself, because I “deserved” it. What if I did not really deserve a tummy-ache, a headache, bloating, diarrhoea, constipation, blocked sinuses, runny nose, the shakes, etc, all for the sake of momentary satisfaction of my senses? What if I truly deserve to feel lovely, every single moment of every day, and what if food is there to nourish me, sustain me, support me? And what if a real treat is just to be with myself, to breathe my own breath, and to live every day in such a way that I feel enough, just as I am, without the need for a particular type of food? That would be an amazing way to live!

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