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 ...

Dressing our Selves

I’m in the middle of a transition in my life and recently, I went out and bought some new clothes. Clothes which are more suited to the person I know I’m becoming. But I bought them, and then didn’t wear them. They went in the wardrobe … and stayed there. It was almost like I’d taken a step out into the new me, bought the clothes that the ‘new’ me would wear, and then got scared. The clothes went into the wardrobe, and I retreated into old ways of being, and wearing the comfortable, safe old clothes.


On some occasions over the last few weeks and months, those new clothes have been worn, but not for long. It’s like I’ve been trying out the ‘new’ me, trying it on for size for a day or two and seeing what it’s like to be out there in my new skin. And it’s been comfortable … at times. At other times, I’ve retreated and slipped back into the safety of the known.



I realised though that I was hiding both myself and the new clothes away … locking both away in the closet. So yesterday, I cleared out my wardrobe. I threw away lots of old clothes … including things I’d bought in the past and never worn … other ‘new’ Selves that never saw the light of day possibly? It was quite difficult to do. I wanted to hold on to many of them, but I decided, ‘no.’ I stepped into my idea of who I feel myself becoming, and any clothes, that that Self wouldn’t wear, were thrown away!

I got up this morning and laid out new clothes … and am wearing them today. And I’m now wondering if wearing the new clothes will help my new Self make its way into the world; a kind of unconscious encouragement.

I’m aware that the clothes I wear have changed significantly over the last few years, from hiding away in jeans and jumpers so as not to be noticed, to wearing skirts, leggings, bright colours and more shapely items; no longer feeling the need to keep my body under wraps and out of sight. No longer feeling the need to keep my Self hidden away. From trainers to wearing boots and heels … shoes that draw attention to me by the way they look or the noise they make when I walk.

And very often, with clients, I notice a change in the clothes that they wear during their counselling journey. Again, it’s often that transition from unremarkable clothes to brighter, more fitted styles as the individual’s Self comes to life and they feel more comfortable and confident about being visible and being seen in the world. Sometimes this is a slow process; for other clients, the change happens suddenly. I’ve had clients who, one week were wearing dowdy jeans or tracksuits, and no make up, and the next week, they’ve walked in with head held high, hair done, full make up and bright new clothes. And it’s always amazing, and such a privilege to see that change.

Although our clothes by no means make us who we are, it seems that they are a hugely important part of how we present ourselves to the world. The clothes we wear are an external expression of who and how, we feel inside. Often, when people are feeling bad about themselves, they don’t take as much care with their outward presentation; they don’t care enough about themselves to make the effort.

But it’s important not to make too many judgements about who a person is from the clothes that they wear as clothes can also be worn as a kind of mask to hide behind. I’ve worked with people with low self-esteem who don’t like the way they look, but they dress in a way which suggests confidence. Or they always ensure their hair, make up, nails, etc are perfect so as to present what they perceive as a positive image to the outside world. Other people are so comfortable with the person that they are, that their clothes and external appearance make no difference, and they never give their clothes a second thought.



And sometimes, we simply wear the clothes that are suitable for the task in hand … it would be no good wearing heels and a ball gown for hiking through the countryside!





It’s interesting to consider though the clothes we wear, and how those clothes change at different times of our lives. And also the types of clothes we wear for different occasions. Social etiquette tells us, for example, that we should dress smartly for weddings, wear black for funerals, suits and smart clothes for interviews and important meetings, etc., etc. I often wonder where those ‘rules’ came from, who wrote them, and why the majority of us choose to follow them.

But why should clothes be so important? It does seem that we judge each other on the clothes that we wear … but the clothes aren’t always a true mirror of the individual inside …although sometimes, and I guess more often than not, they are.

Me, Myself, My Self and I

Who am I? Maybe one of the easiest, and paradoxically, most difficult questions to answer.

I’ve been thinking about the linguistic labels I use to describe myself recently. What words do I use to talk about myself, and when I use the 4 words / labels (?) of the title, am I talking about the same person?

We all have lots of ‘parts’ of ourselves, and I’ve been aware of many of my parts for some time. For example, there’s the counsellor in private practice, the counsellor in employment, the PhD student, workshop facilitator, and many, many more. We change our behaviours and ways of being depending on the people we’re with or the situation we’re in, and all of these differing ways of being can be different parts of our overall Self.

Until recently, I’d thought of “Me, Myself, My Self and I” as the same thing. I’d not even given it much conscious thought … until a friend of mine made me aware of my using these different ‘labels.’

My unconscious has still been working with, and for me, and shortly after 3am this morning, I woke up realising that ‘I’ is my persona. ‘I’ is who I present to the world. ‘I’ is the part of me that is often in conflict with my true way of being, the part of me which creates inner, and sometimes outer, conflict. It is the part of me with old introjected beliefs still present from my past; the beliefs I learned from others and made part of me. Swallowing those beliefs suffocated parts of my own belief system and caused them to retreat into my ‘Shadow Self’; a part of me separated and not in my conscious awareness.


('Shadow Self' ... taken March 2011)

‘Me’ is who I ‘truly’ am. ‘Me’ is my way of being when I’m living according to my own beliefs and am responding freely and spontaneously to my own experiencing. ‘Me’ is when I feel most at ease within myself, when I’m allowing myself to simply be. My Shadow Self is opening up and allowing consciousness to shine on all of the hidden aspects of me, enabling me to become a much more expansive, congruent individual.

My Self …. I’ve often broken down the word ‘myself’ like this. For me, this was in response to Carl Rogers’ writings around self, awareness of self, self-concept and the process of self-actualization. Seeing it written down now though, I’m wondering if I’ve actually caused ‘me’ to see ‘Self’ as a separate entity. Something which existed inside of ‘me’ & which I was striving to un-cover & dis-cover. I’ve created a dualism for myself, so reminiscent of dualistic Western thinking with its mind-body split.

I’m now realising though that I want to integrate ‘My Self’ and enable it to simply be ‘myself’. It’s time to stop searching for an entity labelled ‘My Self’ and accept that ‘My Self’ is actually ‘Me’!

And when I reach a point where ‘I’ is the same as ‘me’, then I’ll know that I’m fully integrated and connected with ‘myself’…. I’m not sure that’s a state that anyone can ever fully achieve, but I do believe we can experience times when we’re fully integrated and living as one. Our experience of living and being is constantly changing and we need to be free to move around and between our different parts.

Reflections on Eating Distress

I’ve spent most of this weekend transcribing interviews I’ve conducted with experienced therapists who work solely with clients presenting with eating disorders. Listening to their experiences and reflecting on my own, both with clients I’ve worked with, and my own history, has left me feeling really sad at the depths of despair that some people using eating disordered behaviour are experiencing.

As someone with past experience of both Anorexia and Bulimia, I’m also left feeling full of gratitude, that although I did spend many years lost in the despair associated with disordered eating, I was one of the lucky ones. Psychologically, and emotionally, I suffered deeply for a number of years, but my physical health was never compromised to any dangerous extent. When I hear, or read about, some of the extreme practices that some people with eating distress are driven to use, I feel thankful, that although I did self-starve, I did binge and purge, I never did so to a point where my life was in imminent danger … many people do. Indeed, many people lose their lives to eating distress; how sad that the very substance that nurtures us and keeps us alive, can, when an individual develops a complex relationship with it, lead to some peoples’ death.

I find it desperately sad to reflect on the individual with Anorexia, who, although she is starving, feels she has to deny herself food, has to deny her own bodily hunger, because she feels unworthy of food. Because she feels so worthless that her bodily needs don’t deserve to be satisfied. Because she feels so worthless, she feels that she doesn’t deserve to exist. I remember the absolute terror and fear associated with food and eating … of being hungry, of wanting to eat, but of an overwhelming fear, a sense of terror, that wouldn’t allow me to.

And then I read and hear about some of the extremes some people with Bulimia go to, the huge amounts of food they can binge on, stealing to get that food, eating raw, or frozen food because they’re so desperate. And again, yes, I binged, but never to those extremes. It makes me reflect though on the absolute despair, self-disgust, shame and fear I used to experience before, during and after a binge / purge. And the inability to control it … not wanting to binge, knowing it would just lead to me feeling bad about myself, to feeling disgusted, and knowing I’d have to ‘get rid’ of that food before it became visible on my body as increased weight. Not wanting to purge and make myself sick, because I was aware of the disgust and shame I’d feel afterwards, and the fear (again, sometimes terror) as to the potential damage I was doing to my body and my health.

And yet, although eating distress seems to focus on food, that’s not what it’s really about. Eating Disorders are coping mechanisms individuals develop in order to survive. They are complex conditions with many factors leading to their development and maintenance … and consequently, this makes them so difficult to treat. Every individual experiencing eating distress has their own individual story … and hence every individual needs help to understand their own unique and personal meaning behind, and need for, their behaviour. Everyone’s path through, and out of an eating disorder will be different. It won’t always be easy, but for many people (sadly not all), there is a way out. And it’s about understanding the symbolic meaning of their use of food, and their behaviour. What purpose is it serving? What more effective ways can they find of coping with life, coping with their Self and their feelings, so that they now longer need to rely on food …

And speaking from personal experience … there is a way forward, free from eating distress…

Moving on

I’ve been thinking a lot about ‘moving on’ this weekend. It’s something we often talk about, but I’m now wondering what exactly we mean by it … & like everything else, I’m sure it will have different meanings for different people, or even different meanings for each of us at different times in our lives.

But for me, right now, this is where I, and my thoughts are with ‘moving on’…

Up until now, I’ve considered ‘moving on’ to be about ‘letting go’ of relationships, events, life stages and other experiences that are over, or no longer serving any positive purpose. And ‘letting go’ has meant that I no longer constantly think about that person or experience. I’m not reliving the experience in my mind, either exactly as it was, or trying to change things. The person I was in relationship with is no longer constantly on my mind; I’m no longer making mental connections to them or experiencing an emotional reaction to hearing their name.

I’ve spent a lot of time this weekend remembering past relationships, experiences and life-stages I’ve struggled to move through, let go of, and move on from … love relationships, leaving a job I felt safe in, the transition through adolescence, losing my first cat when I was 9 years old. In all of those situations, I spent a lot of time and energy clinging onto the memories & feelings relating to those past things. And in that clinging on, that refusing to let go, that refusal to accept what had happened or changed, I wasted a lot of energy and ended up feeling unhappy.

Recently I’ve struggled with, what in Jungian Psychology would be referred to as the transition into the second adulthood; leaving go of early adulthood where we live according to our Ego, and moving more into the inner self, and touching the Soul. (this is an interesting article related to this idea: Myth - Myth And Psychology ). I also took a long time to let go of a relationship, which intellectually I knew left no room for my ‘soul growth’, but which was safe and comfortable because we connected so well on the Ego level.

And what I’ve realised this weekend is that my recent difficulty in moving on has been because I was reluctant to let go of who I was … reluctant to let go of the me that has lived my life up until now; that Ego level me. I’ve been fighting with myself … or rather the ‘old’ Ego me has been fighting with the ‘new’ Soul / Real me. And up until now, my Ego has been putting up a strong fight … I think the balance might have shifted this weekend though…

And in some ways that shift is scary. Any big change an individual goes through can be threatening for themselves, but also for the people around them. To make a personal shift means relating to oneself differently, experiencing a different way of being-in-the-world and consequently, relating to other people differently. When an individual makes such a shift, it’s not unusual for their relationships with family and friends to change, often for the better, but not always. And I think that’s maybe been one of the things that’s been holding me back, preventing me from ‘moving on’ … if I change, how will that affect my current relationships? If I allow myself to change, that finally closes the door on the past relationship I mentioned above; it potentially means me being different in the friendships I currently have … & it means me having a better relationship with my Self.

And for me now, that’s what needs to take priority … my relationship with my Self; the Soul level / Real Self, not the Ego level Self. And I believe that for most people, connecting to the real Self inside is vital to allow you to live a truly authentic life. And from that level of authenticity, all relationships and experiences in life are lived at a deeper level allowing for greater and more honest connection.

So for me, ‘moving on’ is no longer about ‘letting go’ of the people, experiences, events etc., it’s about a moving on from the me that I was during those experiences & allowing myself to learn from them, to take that learning forward and allow myself to become more true to my authentic self.