Essentially your food and body story reveals itself EVERY SINGLE TIME you have a food or body thought. You know. “I feel fat”, “I shouldn’t eat that”, “My arm is too soft”, “My co-worker is going to say something about my lunch”.
Many people advise those struggling with eating concerns to ignore these thoughts. While I think that we need to ignore these thoughts somewhat in the beginning of eating disorder and diet recovery, I do not like the idea of you becoming good at ignoring the call of your subconscious.
I ask you to be curious every time you hear these rather negative, fearful, sad or angry thoughts about your food or body and suggest, “hey, I wonder what is making me feel so uncomfortable right now” and follow that story. If you keep asking, you will curve away from food and weight/shape and end up with the story and the root of the fear, sadness or anger.
Be hypothetical. Pretend like “if someone else where experiencing my thoughts, how might they feel” and see if your compassion shifts back to you.
It takes practice to get good at decoding food and body thoughts. I would love to hear your examples of food and body story decoding. Keep curious, compassionate and courageous!
xo
Tracy
