From Dieting & Disembodying to Deeper Nourishment - Part 1
On Dieting as a Distraction
Diet culture is sneaky. Weight stigma is concerning. We used to stand in line to weigh at Weight Watchers stripmall stores. Now, Noom ads and macro-counting apps tempt us to count points, portions and protein on-the-go, privately, conveniently, all day long. Plus, elimination diets, intermittent fasting and GLP-1 medications (the medicalization of weight loss rather than blood sugar management) could feel like more to consider, but conflicting messaging from various providers about side effects, long-term effectiveness and for whom can feel confusing, even shaming, like yet another distraction, another roadblock to body attunement.
If you struggle with body appreciation and diet culture, it is not your fault. To be responsive to your body’s cues, to be flexible in your thinking, to move in exploratory rather than anxious-ridden or frozen ways are all experiences we learn in relationships along the way. If we are chronically starved for connection, for deeper nourishment, our body receives these imprints, and we become physiologically and psychologically conditioned to survive until we have support to explore new ways of living, of eating, of relating, of moving into the world.
On Disembodying as a Dis-Ease
Focusing on quick fixes, fearing fat, and fawning to fit in (into clothes and with people and systems who consume you) cause disembodying, fading away from life, a dissociative but perhaps performative or passable quality of living, rather than moving into your body, into your life.
“Living in a female body, a Black body, an aging body, a fat body, a body with mental illness is to awaken daily to a planet that expects a certain set of apologies to already live on our tongues. There is a level of ‘not enough’ or ‘too much’ sewn into these strands of difference.” Sonya Renee Taylor, The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love
Those insidious “not enough” or “too much” flares of self suspicion are really not about fat or weight or body perfection or performance otherwise. Our capitalistic culture and longtime systems of oppression want you to think your problem is about body image and food, your problem, your fault, your defect, so you keep spinning and spending, blaming yourself, keep running toward the next golden ticket of weight loss and perfection. But, the dis-ease, the lack of ease, the dis-order, the lack of order, the inhibition of life energy, that present as food and body wars, that take up too much space in your mind, is largely a result of early, longtime patterning of survival.
From Blaming to Biting into Life
Rather than blaming the mother, or the father, we get to examine the limitations and toxic expectations of our many modern systems as well as past generations. With curiosity and compassion, we get to ask if those old messages serve us. Do they provide a somatic knowing, a systemic foundation in our bones and cells, of support? Or do the old messages devour our potential for living with more possibility, authenticity and aliveness?
“Trauma is routinely passed on from person to person—and generation to generation—through genetics, culture, family structures and the biochemistry of the egg, sperm, and womb. Trauma is literally in our blood…. All of us need to metabolize the trauma, work through it, and grow up out of it with our bodies, not just our thinking brains. Healing radiates outward to other people and to the world, and reminds us of what we already are and what we always have been part of.” - Dr. Resmaa Menakem, MSW, LICSW, SEP
What if, instead, your body holds more wisdom, more guidance for your appetite for your life? What if the inward time you spent squeezing your belly or scrolling recipes and before-and-after photos could be better spent moving outward, by accessing and sharing your unique energy, sensitivities and passions? What if, instead of biting at yourself, you get to bite into what sustains you, what lights you up, what interests and fuels you, what sparks aliveness throughout your body?
(Interested in Part 2? Click here )