A snack sized hole ...

Since embarking on my new way of eating, I've been thinking about the role ritual and habit play in our food choices.

I began writing this post during my mid-morning break; a time when I would usually be eating a snack.  I've always eaten breakfast and tended to eat 'stereotypical' breakfast foods such as cereal, porridge or toast, and yet by around 10.30am I'd be feeling really hungry and my stomach would be rumbling.

Over the last couple of weeks I've changed what I eat for breakfast and have been having higher protein foods like meat, fish or eggs alongside some fat and a vegetable like spinach.  

Some people have turned their noses up when I've told them because they can't imagine eating these kinds of food for breakfast. And yet, it's not that far off the continental style breakfast of meats, cheeses and salad stuff that people readily accept.  I think my breakfast transition was made easier by my having been abroad just before I began my plan and eating this kind of breakfast whilst there.  And also, the experience of being somewhere different and presented with a buffet-style breakfast with many choices led to me beginning to think more about what I wanted to eat for breakfast.

It seems that in many peoples' minds, breakfast equals cereal or toast.  Or on special occasions or as a treat, a fried breakfast.  It's interesting to notice the beliefs we hold around food and the kinds of foods which 'should' be eaten at particular times.  And yet the reality is, there are no rules!  We can choose to eat whatever we want whenever we want to!  But cultural conditioning seems to play a role here for many people.

For me, changing what I'm eating for breakfast has had a big impact.  I find that these foods satisfy my body and my mid-morning hunger pangs have vanished.  I reach my mid-morning break and I still feel satiated.  It's not that I can't have a snack, it's simply that I don't want or need one.  And that's slightly unsettling and it almost feels like something is missing!  It's interesting to experience a sense of feeling cheated of something that I no longer need or want.  And I can only assume that it's the ritual and habit of eating something at that time that I'm missing.  

Having to think about what I'm going to eat for breakfast has had an impact too.  Up until recently, I would simply reach for the toast or cereal without thought and mindlessly drift into my day.  Now, I have to put more thought into what I'm going to eat and it takes more time to prepare.  But by connecting to my breakfast and thinking about what I'm going to put into my body, I'm encouraged to connect more to myself and therefore to my day.  And I enter my day feeling satiated and aware of the feeling of the food inside me and the nourishment it's providing, rather than just engaging in a mindless habit.

And yet despite all of these positives, I still feel like I'm left with a snack sized hole in my morning ...

Feeling adrift and at sea ...

Entering week 3 of my eating plan, I'm recognising just how strongly how one eats and thinks about food / eating provides a foundation for how one feels about oneself in the world.  I already knew this intellectually, but my experience over the last week has enabled me to embody this and experience it at depth.


Over the last week, there have been times when I've felt very ungrounded and uncertain about myself and things I was doing.  It felt like a loss of confidence.  Not completely, in that I still had a firm hold on, and confidence in, my counselling skills and academic work; they were my only internal anchors.  But outside of these two parts of myself, I felt on very shaky ground.  I carried an image in my head for a good few days of me being a little boat adrift on the sea.  

I began doubting things about my experience and tapping into a fear of "getting it wrong."  At first I couldn't work out where this 'fear' was coming from, but then it came to me ... because I've been eating in a different way with 'rules' to remember, I had a sense of uncertainty around this.  The 'good little girl' part of me desperately wanted to get it right and make no mistakes ... both for myself and also for the person who's supporting me.  For myself, I want to ensure I receive maximum benefit from the experience and hence have a strong sense of 'wanting to get it right.'  Having made a commitment to another person, I have a sense of not want to disappoint or let them down.  

Highlighting the importance of ensuring external support for oneself through times of change, it also helped me to know that this person was always there, available via a text message, which helped keep me anchored to the eating plan.  If I was unsure about anything I was going to eat, I knew I could always check it out. Trusting that someone else has the answers is hugely reassuring; knowing that someone is there takes away any sense of isolation and provides a sense of security in which to ground oneself.

I hadn't appreciated just how strongly I felt these pressures until I dreamed last night about disappointing, and letting down, someone I love.  On waking this morning, my shaky self-experiences of last week suddenly made complete sense ...

Because food is so central to life and living, having a 'fear' of getting things wrong with my eating left me with that same fear of getting things wrong across my life and how I was living it.

Another reminder of just how intimately our relationship with food / eating entwines with our sense of self and way-of-being in the world ...

Eating reflecting subjective experiencing ...

Over a week into my new eating plan, and I've found it relatively easy to stick with.  The most difficult thing for me was getting myself organised enough to buy the 'right' foods; planning ahead, and thinking differently about the food choices I made.

It helps that I like all of the natural and unprocessed foods I'm eating and I'm feeling satisfied by them  I can also honestly say that I've not missed red wine or chocolate; the two things which created panic in me the day before I embarked on the plan.  A couple of times, I thought about a glass of wine, but what I've recognised is that each of those times were following stressful situations.  My default mode had become to have a glass of wine to relax or reward myself.  And yet each time, I knew I couldn't have that glass of wine, and I was okay with it.  The thought entered my head, I turned it away, and got on with other things ... not even thinking about that wine again.

I've had an interesting experience over the last few days though.  I attended a workshop over the weekend which was outside of my comfort zone and left me feeling unsettled.  My cat has also needed to have treatment at the vets which has added stress and upheaval in my home.  And although I've continued to stick to the plan easily, what I realised is that I'd stopped planning ahead.  I got to Monday morning, and realised I had nothing 'proper' in for breakfast.  I got up this morning & realised I didn't have anything to go with my salad to take to work.  

Feeling unsettled and out of my comfort zone had left me feeling disorganised and out of control.  And because I felt this way within myself,  I let go of the control around my eating plan and gave no thought to the organisation it requires.

For me this has parallels to eating disordered experiences.  An individual feeling unsettled and out of control within themselves and their lives, often turns to food as a way to feel in control of something.  When we can't control our external circumstances or inner feelings, we can control the food we allow into our bodies, & consequently control our bodies.  Alternatively, feeling out of control can be mirrored in out of control eating behaviours; resorting to unhealthy foods, bingeing, purging, etc.  

And although I no longer resort to eating disordered behaviours, I see that I still experience connections between how I feel within / about myself and my eating practices.  Feeling unsettled within myself led to me letting go of the organisation and forethought needed for my plan.  And although I've still been able to stick with it, I recognise that previously, times like the last few days would have been the times when I reached for the comfort foods, for the easy, quick options, giving no real thought to the foods I was eating.

Subjective experiencing of self can be mirrored in eating practices ...

Auschwitz as a dream metaphor ...

I've always been a very prolific and vivid dreamer and have been able to harness my dreams to help me with my self awareness and personal development.  Even before I began my counselling training and all of the self-exploration work which has come with that, I used to love my dreams and would often find the answers to life or study questions in them.

The unconscious mind tends to work in metaphor or very literal meanings, so uncovering the messages in dreams can be challenging, but also fun and hugely enlightening.  I love working with dreams that clients bring to our sessions; it never ceases to amaze me the messages the unconscious can leave behind in a seemingly random dream.

Last night, I dreamt I was on a camping trip and I was sleeping in one of the male barracks at Auschwitz-Birkenhau.

I knew immediately that the dream related to my experience of my new eating plan, but I wasn't sure just how.  I thought of all of the seemingly obvious connections between an eating plan and concentration camps.  I thought about the idea of the plan instilling a sense of deprivation, hunger, terror or torture.  

But that just didn't sit comfortably with me; that's not my experience of the plan.

I smiled to myself throughout my drive to work at my unconscious connections to Auschwitz.  And then because of the positive feelings, I'd been left with following the dream, it suddenly became clear to me ...

My dream was actually about choice, freedom and relief. 

I 'm choosing to take part in this eating plan.  I'm in complete control of it and if I decide I don't like it, I can stop it at any time.  The choice of what to eat is always mine.  

I'm free in a way in which the victims of Auschwitz and other concentration camps weren't.  I have the freedom to stop and walk away at any time I choose.

And this then linked to my past eating disorders.  The relief comes from the recognition that I am not controlled by this plan in the way in which I was controlled by food when I was experiencing anorexia or bulimia.  The Auschwitz of my dream was symbolic of my relationship to my own eating disorders.  


And I've walked away, I'm free ... and that's a hugely empowering confirmation; even my unconscious agrees that my eating disorders are history ...

Which is what I believe leaves me in a good place from which to be researching the subject and working with people who are currently still experiencing the torture, deprivation, dread and hunger of their own Auschwitz ...

The food we eat becomes who we are ...

Once again, I find myself embarking on something new as a result of where my research has led me.  This time, an eating plan which has the potential to permanently change my way of eating.  I embark on this as a personal experiment to verify the conclusions I've been reaching.

As someone who works with clients with eating disorders / difficulties, I've thought long and hard about sharing this experience. I don't want it being misinterpreted as my way of returning to a way of controlling food or my body shape.  Nor do I want my clients seeing it as me condoning diets or controlled eating practices.

However, the reality is that I have embarked on a 28 day eating / nutrition plan.  Where this differs from any past diets or controlled eating behaviours is that this is in no way about controlling my eating or my body.  And I feel that I've only been able to embark on this plan because I am confident in the fact that my own eating disorders are firmly in my past.  I'm not detailing the plan here, but it does feel important to say that I am being supported by someone who has vast knowledge and experience of nutrition and foods' physiological affects on the body.  I am also being supported psychologically throughout the process.

The plan I have embarked upon is, for me, about making even deeper connections with my own body.  My research has led me to the point of understanding the idea of being more fully connected with one's body as corresponding to being more fully connected with one's Self and life.  Taking care of one's body equates to taking care of one's Self.  How we feel about, and treat, our bodies is a reflection of how we feel about, and treat, our Selves.

As a result of engaging with the plan, I aim to learn to listen ever more closely to my body; to hear its specific nutritional needs, wants and demands.  And of course, this becomes the metaphor for listening ever more closely to my own Self.  To hear more accurately, my own psychological inner needs, yearnings and wants and to find effective ways of satisfying these.  Of taking better care of my Self.

For someone with a past history of eating disorders and who works with this client group, I've given a lot of thought to the prudence of embarking on this process.  Removing food groups from my diet and having rules imposed on my eating is very reminiscent of historic disordered patterns around eating.

But what I am very clear about is that I'm approaching this eating plan from a very different perspective; one which is only possible because my eating disorders are so distant in my past.  For me this time, there is no focus on weight loss or changing body shape.  It was suggested to me before I started the plan that I take photos of myself, as a changing nutritional input may lead to a change in body composition and hence shape.  I refused though.  So sure am I that this isn't about appearance for me, and nor do I want to make it that way.  This is instead, about my own inner subjective experiencing and an experiment with the foods I feed my body and my Self.

From my research, I have an appreciation of the meanings we attach to different foods and ways of eating.  Our relationship with food can be viewed as an analogy of our relationship with our Selves and how we engage with life.

Before I committed to the plan, I was therefore aware that it would potentially tap into emotional experiences and beliefs. Indeed, part of my motivation for embarking on it was to experiment with just how much a change in diet might affect my moods, thinking and subjective experiencing.

I have no doubt that the kinds of food we eat affect us, not just nutritionally and physiologically, but also emotionally and psychologically.  I believe we all have foods which we attach emotional meanings to.  And those foods tend to be the ones which aren't necessarily nutritionally good for us.  It's interesting to me to think about the fact that we often try to nurture ourselves with foods / drinks that aren't good for our bodies.  And although in the short term, they do provide both a physiological and emotional boost, in the long term, they don't resolve things.  Quite often, they instead lead to further cravings and remorse.

So with all of this in mind, I'd given a lot of thought to the idea of changing my eating, and in the week or so leading up to its commencement, I thought I'd prepared myself psychologically for the experience.  I found myself laughing as I felt the need to eat the packet of Giant Chocolate Buttons that was in my house; that feeling of needing to eat them because I'd never be able to eat chocolate ever again in my whole entire life! Of course, I knew this wasn't the case, but it made me smile to catch myself thinking like this!  

Despite this preparation however, the day before I was due to begin, I found myself unexpectedly caught out.  Quite happily walking around my local supermarket with a trolley-full of nutritious foods, I was suddenly overwhelmed by a deep sense of sadness.  Mixed in with this was a deep sense of compassion towards myself for taking care of me and my body.  There was also a sense of loss towards all the foods which weren't in my trolley and which wouldn't be part of my life for the coming 4 weeks.  And probably most significantly, was an overwhelming sadness for my historic eating disordered self.

Later that same evening, my sadness shifted into fear.  Allowing myself to experience that fear led me into a deeper understanding of some of the meanings I've attached to particular foodstuffs.  Knowing that, for the next 28 days, I wouldn't have them in my life felt very frightening and I felt very alone with that fear.

Knowing about the emotional attachments people can have to food, especially in Western society, where we do tend to use food as a reward, a treat, a comfort, etc., I did expect to have some kind of reaction to the 'loss' of my own consumable comforts; chocolate and a glass of red wine.  However, I wasn't prepared for the intensity of my reaction simply to knowing that I wouldn't be able to rely on them for the coming 4 weeks.  And it was from this place of fear and of feeling utterly bereft that I was able to fully appreciate just how much emotional significance I'd invested in that bar of chocolate or glass of red wine.

I'm interested to see what other discoveries I make over the coming days and weeks about myself and my own relationship with food and eating.  Despite the years of self-awareness work I've engaged in, and especially over the last 5 years or so in relation to my PhD, it amazes me how much I still have to learn about myself.  My experience of this new way of eating to date has already confirmed the powerful and entwined nature of eating and subjective experiencing.  Food is, after all, the only substance which crosses our bodily boundaries; taken in, digested and used for energy and body composition.  In that sense, food literally becomes part of us, which is one of the reasons people develop such complex relationships with it.

I look forward with excitement and trepidation to the coming few weeks ... & to further deepening my understandings of the connections between our relationships with food and eating, and how we experience ourselves ...

Yoga assists & attachment theory ...

Following from my last entry I've been reflecting further on my recent experiences of "assists" in yoga classes ...

It seems that for me, they've helped me connect to some early attachment experiences. "Attachment" is a psychological concept which explores how people develop emotional bonds & ways of relating to others; and I would also say of relating to oneself, one's body & one's life.  Babies learn how to attach and relate to others (and self, body and life) through their early relational experiences with their caregivers.

From the infant's pre-verbal development stage, much of that relating and experiencing is situated in the body.  Mother (or other caregiver) responds to her baby's bodily needs for food and attention and the baby begins to form ideas about itself and its self-efficacy through these responses.  How well attuned mother is to her baby and its needs can have a significant impact on how that baby's sense of itself and confidence in the world develops.

Over the last year or so I've read quite a bit about attachment theory for my research; looking at how those early relating experiences contribute to an individual's sense of self, to their relationships with food, eating and their body, and to their way of being in the world.  And this is why I guess the concept has been (unconsciously) on my mind in my yoga practice.

From this place I've experienced many yoga assists as extremely nurturing and holding. Trusting the teachers / assistants and feeling safe in their hands has enabled me to relax into my body and allow them to manoeuvre my body wherever they could see it needed to go.

My first recognition of the connection between these assists and attachment ideas (and embodied memory) happened during Savanasa one evening.  Having my head and neck held and massaged felt hugely comforting and nurturing, and brought to mind an embodied memory of being held as a baby; feeling safe, held and nurtured by my original caregivers.  Being able to let go and be free of all adult responsibilities, thoughts and tensions, and reconnect with the innocence and "just being-ness" of infancy.

Since then, I've re-connected to that infant experience in other assists; especially those where my teacher / assistant has their body wrapped around mine in some way in order to manipulate my body.  And again, I've experienced a sense of absolute trust and safety.  I've been able to step out of my head with all of its adult / learned responsibilities, beliefs and tensions and fully immerse myself in my body and its experiencing; knowing that the assistant has hold of me and I'm safe.

It's very rare in western culture to have such close, intimate bodily contact with anyone outside a sexual context; we're taught that it's somehow "wrong" or inappropriate.  And yet with body psychotherapy and other body based therapies, touch is key to their effectiveness.  And in terms of enabling me to reconnect with the embodied memories of early attachment experiences, it no longer surprises me that such close bodily contact can trigger those memories.  Most relating and caring in infancy occurs at the bodily level; the body contact in the yoga assists are symbolically reminiscent of that time.

This connection between yoga assists and attachment interests me as I begin to explore more deeply how yoga might be helpful for people with eating disorders and other troubled relationships with food and their body.  I feel it's important to find ways of enabling people to re-establish a comfortable, enjoyable, safe and self-nurturing connection with, and way of being in, their body.

I've been fortunate to have experienced safe holding in infancy, so I do wonder, for those people who maybe weren't held so securely, what the experience would be like.  But I guess that to be getting in touch with one's early attachment experiences, an individual would have had to have done a lot of Self exploration to peel back the layers to that extent.  Or the enabling of that connection would need to be done in a very safe and trusting environment.

I appreciate that for many people, the assist will be experienced purely as a helpful physical manipulation; and from that perspective they're hugely beneficial too.  It can be amazing to experience what my body is capable of and to experience it move more fully into a pose.  But from my current place of interest in the idea of the body as a reflection and container of my Self and embodied memories, I'm interested in what I can learn from my body about my Self and my way of being in the world.

Allowing myself to immerse myself in the embodied experience of the assists seemed to enable me to connect with embodied memories of infancy.  And from that place, I've come to a state of "remembering" and "knowing" how I was related to as an infant.  I have a strong sense of "knowing" how my body's (and hence my) needs for food and nurture were responded to.  Of "knowing" how my caregivers responded to, and touched and held me and my body.  Of "knowing" how those caregivers felt towards me and their experiences of caring for that infant me.

And with these new knowledges. I've been able to further deepen my understanding of mySelf and how I became who I am.  As our relationships with food,especially in relation to eating disorders, are intimately connected with early nurturing experiences, I've also unpeeled another layer of understanding of my own disordered eating history.

I just wonder if, after reading this, the yoga teachers & assistants I've had in

 mind as I've written it, will offer me more assists in future ... 

or avoid me ... !!?!