As you might have guessed, this is a going to be an emotional/spiritual post. Our physical bodies don’t refuse nutrition. However, we are not always able to allow, digest or metabolize the nourishment we need are many levels.
Why do we deny ourselves the physical, emotional, mental, social, spiritual food we need?
Because there is a function to the denial, ignoring, disdain or arrogance towards and disassociating away from what we need to be well-nourished. It was intelligent to not be fully “you” for survival physically or emotionally otherwise you wouldn’t have done it, even if only served for 30 seconds.
It may have been unsafe to be so fed that your light is too bright for others in their darkness. You may have been threatening and you were “put in your place”
Being too bright and shiny may have gotten you unwanted attention and without adequate protection, you got hurt.
We may have internalized others’ nourishment barrier with aligning with “working to the bone” and only feeling relaxed when you drop at the end of every day with constant work and “over-functioning”.
You may have denied your true needs because the satisfying needs you craved were just not available or didn’t seem so, and used eating to first feel good then til numb or stuffed to feel something painful as opposed to the “real” pain.
So you see, you really can’t let yourself have the foods you need in the amount you need in any given moment until you see that you got here by doing the best you could. And now that you know, it’s time to build a new neuropathway that says, “yes, I get my needs met”. ” I deserve to get my needs met”.
For you that might mean, letting yourself feel the guilt associated with the belief that you having needs is selfish, greedy or needy. I am calling BS on that one because that was one of my nourishment barriers for the first 30 years of my life. And I know that can be shifted, but it will take allowing yourself to first be honest with what you want, allow yourself to have it and not abandon yourself in the grief you might feel as you let go of the stories you have believed about yourself that you are only worthy of sustanance if you earn it.
Your nourishment barrier might be that you getting your needs met makes your vulnerable. Well yeah. Vulnerability doesn’t mean weakness, it means living in the integrity of the moment. You don’t need to prove your toughness. We need you to be real and approachable. We like you like that.
Your barrier might be that you believe, based on programming or experience, that you don’t matter, so why try? Again, You Are Here Right Now and that is a lot to someone, especially if that someone is you. Fatalism doesn’t require action and action is what you need to get momentum in remembering how much your presence brings peace to the world.
If anxiety is your barrier, I would suggest that your pathway is one of learning to feel, in your body, your inner authority. This is the courageous you that trusts that life is supportive and you can be competent in it,
even if life isn’t always nice. Have faith in yourself and that you feeding all your hungers will give you the strength to live your life fully.
There are other barriers for sure. What I have learned is that we have stories, we have stored emotions and protections in our bodies that don’t make sense when we try to process healing the relationship with food from the cognitive level. We have to get in there, with courage, curiosity and compassion, be with it and replace this protection with safety and nourishment from not just the head level, but the heart, body and soul level.
That is true nourishment. That is freedom.
I’ve been there. The journey in is priceless and has led to clarity and peace I never knew was possible. If you need a traveler on your journey with you, reach out here or somewhere. But do dissolve, move and transform those barriers to the nourishment you can’t live fully without.
With Love
Tracy
