We all think a lot about food.
We all talk a lot about food.
We all have real strong feelings about food!
Yes…
Us and food…
We have an intimate relationship.
For some of us, it’s the only intimate relationship we have.
For others, it’s an affair we carry on guiltily
behind our partner’s back.
Teenage me
I know just how painful our relationship with food can be.
I was miserably unhappy in my teens
and I developed bulimia.
I used to scarf down dozens of chocolate chip cookies
while hiding away alone in my bedroom.
Once I started, I couldn’t stop.
When I got to the point that I couldn’t stuff even one more in
I’d make myself throw up.
I repeated this sad scenario over and over,
crying after each painful disaster.
I had an intimate relationship with food all right.
And it was totally sick.
It was an abusive relationship.
I was both the abuser and the victim.
The victim of self torture.
Developing insight
But eventually I found psychoanalysis
and began to understand what was going on.
I began to understand that I needed to strengthen my ego
so that I could stand up to the lies telling me:
“Go ahead. Have a cookie.
Just one. You can handle it!”
I began to understand that these lies were coming
from the destructive part of my mind.
(Alas, we all have one.)
That destructive part would tempt me
by assuring me that I could have just one…
and that I would stop there…
Like hell I would.
Eating one was the turning point.
It meant I had failed in my resolve
to stop eating cookies.
And since I was already a failure,
I might as well just keep going.
I was then destroyed by so much guilt and self hatred
that I no longer cared HOW many cookies I ate
nor HOW much weight I gained.
I stopped even bothering to throw up.
It didn’t matter.
I had surrendered to the destructive part of my mind.
I was a fat ugly failure.
It was only when I dared to look closely at the whole scenario
that I began to see through how it worked.
I saw the lies.
I saw the surrender.
And I began to realize that surrender was not my only choice.
I saw that I was being duped.
I was being passive.
I was allowing my own destruction.
Shifting the balance of power
It took a lot of work to get to the point
where I was able to stop playing the victim.
I had a lot of self pity to let go of!
I did it by building up my mental strength.
I built up my ego the way body builders build up their muscles.
Eventually my ego became stronger than my inner torturer.
I turned the tables on the b________.
I shifted the inner balance of power
and that made all the difference.
I was able to stop listening
to the destructive part of my mind.
My liberation gave me the freedom
to begin to build a healthy relationship with food.
I made friends with healthy food.
We have been the best of buddies for many years now.
If you would like to move in this direction, too,
let’s see what we can do…