The mind body connection is no more visible than in our relationship to food and eating. I remember my first job out of college, I worked for a national health non-profit. We had a nurse on staff who worked out of our office a few days a week. I remember going to her one day to inquire about food. I was still in denial that I used food to numb out, I just believed, like so many of us do, that it was me that was the problem, I believed I just liked food too much and needed to get myself under control (oh how the patriarchal diet culture had brainwashed me!)
So there I sat in her office, trying to convince her that something was wrong with me, that I simply wasn’t satiated unless I had eaten carbs. I asked if there was a physiological response that would have me feel fuller when I ate carbs versus protein or fat. No, she responded, in fact the inverse is true. What?!?! that couldn’t possibly be true, could it? I mean, my stomach *actually* still growled and ached for carbs if I didn’t have any at a meal, surely that was physiological and not my emotions talking, right?!?
I wanted any way out I could find. Any way to be able to justify eating foods that numbed me and continued to allow me to ignore my feelings and the discomfort that life naturally brings with it. But as I sat in this nurses office that day, the fabric of hiding behind food began to crumble.
It would take another 10 years before the wall finally fell and my emotional experience got the rightful place it deserved in my life, but it all started with this one conversation. With this one realization that my mind and body were more connected than I wanted to admit. That my physical craving for carbs was a mentally created one and that integrating the mind body connection would be my lifelong work, not only for myself but for the hundreds of clients I’ve worked with over the years.
So if you have that niggling feeling that maybe there is more to this food and body thing than just your own lack of willpower (which doesn’t really exist anyway), trust that feeling. Although I wasn't able to fully admit it then, I had the feeling something more was at play that day I walked into her office. Trust that something else is possible for you. Believe that you can be the woman you dream of being, with the life you desire, so you can fully step into live your purpose on the planet.