"It's just emotion taking me over
Caught up in sandwich
Lost in the snack"
Over the past few years I have been focusing much of my energy and attention to the spiritual side of myself. Airy fairy connotations aside, when I say 'spiritual' I mean those VERY real, non-physical (and therefore somewhat frightening) aspects of ourselves that we tend to neglect. In fact, due to neglect of our non-physical, specifically emotional, selves Western society is in a daisy chain of emotional dysfunction, but that's another post for another day! Today's blog is about emotional trauma in relationship to food.
I prefer the term compulsive eating to emotional eating. Emotional eating suggests that I am emotional when you are doing it(which defeats the purpose), when in actuality, it is compulsive behaviour to prevent or protect myself from feeling painful emotion(s). I do it in order to NOT feel. After much self examination and internal work, I think I can sum up how it is that I personally subconsciously use food as a defense mechanism. It's literally like stuffing your feelings into your face and down into the core of you then subconsciously creating a protective barrier (fat) around yourself as protection from further injury. Concurrently, the behaviour is also a display of self harm and lack of self worth (Woah. This shit's getting real!). I neeeeever talk about this, but I feel that getting it out in the open is vital to my Wellness. Usually, the things that we find the most difficult to do initially are also the most important.
The truth is that we all have compulsive behaviours that are subconsciously displayed as mechanisms of self defense. As much as I wish that my method of self defense consisted of compulsive exercise or compulsive attractiveness, that is simply not the case. (I tend to spend far too much time living in the ideal reality of my day dreams). At the end of the day, regardless of how it is that my emotional injuries manifest, they are still injuries that need to be taken care of. I suppose that if these injuries did manifest as compulsive exercise I likely would have no motivation to investigate and alleviate the problem.
So how does one investigate and alleviate one's compulsions, pray tell? All I can say is, work is still in progress! Lol. (I'm so thankful that I'm able to laugh about this process because seriously, dealing with past trauma is the worst!) Basically there are two parts to the process: 1) calling up your past emotional traumas (one at a time, not everything at once, keener), examining the trauma from your current perspective and then completely being present in those emotions and 2) allowing yourself to completely be present with emotions that you would consider to be negative as those emotions are expressed in current and future situations. Part 2 is muuuuuch easier than Part 1; however, I found that I needed to practice feeling my emotions with compassion for myself through examination of my past traumas before I was really able to completely be present with my emotions in the moment. I hope that explanation is clear, I'm having trouble putting this process into words.
Once I began the examination of my past traumas, I began to see ways in which those traumas would appear as recurring themes throughout my life. For example, I may have discovered some repressed feelings of abandonement in my childhood that I was never able to come to terms with. Then I would notices various situations where the feeling of abandonement recurred later in my life, this time examining my reactions to those feelings.
This is an extensive topic and I really don't feel like I've scratched the surface on it yet. Just when I feel like I've dug up every emotional trench that I could, I still have very strong emotions attached to certain past events. I have found that I am less reactive when triggers occur, so that's a bonus ... for everyone around me. :p I just have to remember that it is equally as important to consistently take care of the emotional body as it is to take care of the physical.
I wish you good feelings.
Love,
Rachael
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