Have you ever had the feeling that you cannot stop eating? That there is never enough? What are you a bottomless pit? These experiences are an opportunity to look deeper, to discover what may be happening behind them.
Don’t blame your food or your weight. Allow yourself to look more deeply. You may find that this feeling of not getting enough permeates your life.
You may find that you live life from an inner sense of poverty, a deep sense of lack that virtually guarantees that no amount of food will satisfy you. That no amount of friends, sex, clothes or money will satisfy you.
When you take a closer look, you may find that feeling deprived today can be based on a very real experience of being deprived in the past.
Think of a little girl who couldn’t get enough of her mother’s love. There is nothing the child can do about it. But as an adult, she is in control of how much food she can eat. So eat more to make up for not having enough of something vital in your past, in this case, love.
Feeling deprived of love can also have the opposite effect when the desire to feel loved is so overwhelming that a person closes in and ends up restricting food intake. In effect, they are taking drastic measures with food to keep the overwhelming desire for love and connection in check.
To heal this emotional overfeeding (or undernourishment) start looking for evidence in your life that there is enough. We all have places in our lives where we experience enough.
We all have signs in our lives that there is enough. How does your body indicate that you’ve had a pretty good time at a party and that it’s time to go? How does your body tell me that I’ve had enough shopping and that I need a break? How does your body tell you: “Enough with the computer, let’s do something else!”?
As you can notice the “enough” signals from your body, start tuning in to those signals related to food and eating. For example, the body indicates that it has eaten enough food through feelings of satisfaction or satiety. Slow down while eating and look for those signs.
Remember, if you are distracted, for example watching TV or playing computer games while eating, it will be difficult to notice the signal. Also, if you are limiting your food intake or judging yourself, it will be very difficult to notice the sign.
When you allow yourself free access to food without judgment and tune in to yourself, you can begin to overcome deprivation. And while that may seem scary, as you learn to reconnect with your hunger and satiety signals, you will learn that you are not insatiable. That there is enough.
Surprisingly, pay attention to self-care around food and the powerful benefits. As you reconnect with hunger and satiety, you will separate the food from the emptiness of not feeling loved. Then you will have a chance to recover from not feeling loved. When you stop blaming your food and your body, you discover that you are enough.