Body Image

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May 3, 2008

Intuitive Eating

Posted by Amyra under Body Image, Channah Thailand, Eating Disorders, Presence
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Last night, I watched a film in the centre’s movie room.  As I settled on the couch, I proceeded to eat a Mars Bar and buttered popcorn.  Halfway through the movie, I was struck by how relaxed and free I am about my eating now.  It’s been years since I’d thought anything about it, since I’d obsessed about everything I ate. 

Eating a Mars Bar without calculating the kind of ‘damage’ it could have on my body is so liberating.  I have been on countless diets in the past, obsessively counting calories, carb portions, fat grams, weighing myself, measuring myself, scaring myself with the imagined effects food could have on my body shape - wrecking my sense of self-worth with massive guilt and self-beating, and then neutralising the effects with diet pills, stimulants and appetite suppresants. 

I now allow myself to eat whatever I want, and have found great freedom.  When I was trying to control what and how much I ate, I became out-of-control.  Now I have the most liberating relationship with food where I am able to enjoy the pleasures of eating without feeling guilty or getting out-of-control.  My weight is healthy and stable, and I am totally rid of all stresses around food and eating. 

I call the way I now eat “intuitive eating”.  It requires one to develop the practice of being fully present in the body.  When we’re present in our body, we would intuitively know what our body wants.  The body has an intelligence, and it is giving us information about ourselves all the time.  If we were to tune in to what it is saying to us, we would gain a lot of self-awareness. 

To get to the point of intuitive eating, however, we need to first address the issues that drive us to have an unhealthy relationship with food (see below).  Throughout my struggles with eating disorders, I’d measured my entire self-worth by how I looked.  Since my image of my body was so bad, my self-worth was virtually zero.    

Food was a scapegoat.  If I didn’t have food to focus on and blame for all my insecurities, I’d have to turn my attention onto myself and examine what exactly was going on in me.  That is why attempting to change our habits around food without examining our deeper issues rarely works in the long run. 

My way of intuitive eating extends to the rest of my life.  When we are present and attuned to the needs of our body, that strong connection to ourselves enables us to be guided by our own innate wisdom - through our bodily responses, emotions, inspired thoughts, knowingness, premonitions, visions and spiritual insights.  By relaxing into and trusting the wisdom of our body, life becomes a joyful experience where we are simultaneously in control and in surrender to a greater intelligence.    

An excerpt from my book which examines the psychological motivations behind eating disorders: 

Food is sustenance and nurturance.  As babies, we could not feed ourselves and depended on our parents to feed us.  Feeding times were the times when our parents held us close to their bodies and showed us affection, so we learned to associate food with love.  If by the time we were able to feed ourselves our parents neglected us, we would feel deprived of love and turn to food to evoke feelings of being loved by our parents.  Food has becomes a source of comfort. 

 

Sometimes, as we grew up, our parents continued to use food to express their love.  In some cases, food is used as a substitute for love, especially when the parents have problems expressing their love.  If food is a central theme in the household, it would be assumed that everyone understood that love is being shown when food is shared.  This is fine if it is balanced by some expression of love and affection.  But when the parents show no love and keep shoving food at us, we can develop an unbalanced view of food.   

 

Those who grew up in poor families may end up seeing food as a scarce commodity, and end up either having an inflated value for food or a resentful attitude to food.  If they have an inflated value for food, they may later use food as a substitute for love or eat excessively to make up for not having enough in the past.  If they have a resentful attitude to food, they may later ‘take revenge’ on food by being extremely choosy about the kind of food they would eat, or reject food by undereating, or use food to punish another. 

 

All these dynamics can give rise to eating disorders.  For those who suffer from eating disorders, food is often a shameful subject.  They know they have an abusive relationship with food and feel ashamed of themselves around food.  To begin healing the eating disorders, their relationship with food needs to be explored deeper. 

 

Awareness

 

1.      Begin by asking yourself, what’s your truth?  This is your truth on a conscious level.  What are your eating habits?  

 

Examples: 

My truth is, I don’t want to be overweight anymore.  I love to eat fatty foods and then I neutralise it with stimulants and laxatives. 

Or

I want to be able to enjoy food more.  I cannot seem to put on any weight and I feel sick when I think of food.    

 

2.  Explore the belief you have behind your habits.  Your habits are either to avoid something or to gain something.  Is there anything you are running away from that your habits help to mask?  What do you think you’ll gain from it? 

 

Examples:

Why do I eat foods that make me fat, and why do I tend not to be able to stop eating?  I’m afraid it will run out, so I’m taking in as much as possible while it’s still there. 

Or

Deep down, I feel bad for eating.  If I eat, I’d deprive my siblings of their share. 

 

3.  What does food mean to you?  What does it represent? 

 

Examples:

Abundance, comfort.  As I eat, I’m hating myself, and feeling lonelier and lonelier. 

Or

Food to me is a source of unhappiness.  I hate it. 

 

4.  What thoughts go through your mind as you’re eating?  What emotions go along with those thoughts?

 

Examples:

Inadequacies.  As I’m eating, I’m replaying scenes from the past where I’d been rejected, judged, looked down upon, etc.  Feelings of being unloved and low self-esteem.  These feelings drive me to eat more, and the more I eat the worse I feel. 

Or

Guilt, bitterness.  I’m judging myself angrily as I’m eating.  I feel I shouldn’t need to eat and feel angry that I am eating. 

 

5.  Sum up your relationship with food. 

 

Examples:

I eat to get love.  Food is a substitute for love.

Or

I equate eating with putting unhappiness inside me.    

 

Overeating, Bingeing

 

When we eat more than our body needs to function healthily, we are overeating.  When we overeat excessively and obssessively, we are bingeing on food.  In these cases, food is being used to numb our pain like a drug, or to counter an emptiness inside. 

 

If deep down we feel deprived of love, we may eat as if this is the last time we get to eat, to try to take in as much as we can this time because we hold a belief that there is not enough food, or love, to go around.  We become greedy around food, hoarding food in our body.  Except our body can take only a certain amount of food before we feel uncomfortable or get sick.  If we do this repeatedly, we will likely manifest a variety of symptoms in our body, such as obesity and heart problems. 

 

No matter how much we eat, it won’t leave us satiated.  Our appetite is for something less tangible.  What is it that you need?  When you can see that food is a substitute for something else and understand the irrationality of stuffing yourself with food, you can begin to reverse your habits. 

 

What is the emptiness inside?  What are you deprived of?  People often stuff themselves to fill an emptiness inside – a feeling of loneliness and disconnectedness that creates a vacuum inside.  Food is solid and grounding; it gives us an immediate sensation of being full and the flavours of food stimulate our senses so that we feel more connected to ourselves.  But it cannot fill the emptiness inside, and so we eat more and more.  The more we eat, the more we feel the emptiness, which drives us to eat even more.  This vicious cycle spins with increasing intensity and we become out of control, until our body cannot take any more food. 

 

At the end of a bingeing session, we are often left feeling guilty and shameful.  In an attempt to neutralise the effects of our bingeing, we may make ours throw up or take laxatives to purge what we’ve taken in.  We may isolate ourselves in shame or engage in destructive activities to distract ourselves from our guilt. 

 

Overeating can be a form of self-abuse.  We may know the negative effects overeating can have on our body and somehow want to bring those effects onto ourselves.  Was food used as a punishment in your household when you were growing up?  When food was used as punishment and the person has also been conditioned to feel shameful about himself, it is likely that he will develop the habit of abusing himself with food.  In such cases, we stuff ourselves to get to the pain of having eaten too much, believing that we deserve to have pain inflicted upon us. 

 

In all the cases mentioned, the relationship with food needs to be changed; our attitude towards food and our beliefs around food need to change.  There is nothing wrong with seeing food as love, but not as a substitute for love.  As food is sustenance, when we give sustenance to someone it is an act of love.  So when we feed ourselves, we are loving ourselves.  But when we are operating from a scarce mentality, we may see the value of food in general but unable to appreciate its true value.  Hence, we stuff ourselves with huge amounts of food without deriving its true value.  This is one reason why we are unable to feel truly satiated no matter how much we eat. 

 

The key to changing our attitude to food is to apply the concept of full immersion to eating.  Slow down and appreciate every morsel you take in with more depth.  Instead of putting huge amounts of food quickly into your mouth (stretching across on a two-dimensional platform), increase the depth of the experience by opening up to the depth of the taste and flavours of the food. 

 

Every morsel of food can sustain and nourish us more than we’ve allowed ourselves to recognise.  Reflect on the true value of every morsel - the sensory stimulation from the flavours, its nutritional value and spiritual nourishment.  This way, you can train yourself to derive more out of smaller amounts of food, and eventually cut down the amount of food it takes to satiate you.  Stretch the process of eating by slowing down the time between picking up the food and putting it into your mouth, and between chewing and swallowing. 

 

When you eat mindfully this way, you become more grounded in your body and have body awareness.  With body awareness, you’ll begin to hear what your body is telling you and eat according to what your body needs.  Tune in by noticing the energy of the food in your body as you eat.  This way, you’ll cultivate a habit of listening to your body and knowing intuitively what to feed it.  You’ll begin to choose healthier foods that nourish your body and a balance of various foods that feed your soul.     

 

Undereating, Anorexia, Bullimia

 

People who tend to eat less than their body needs to be strong and healthy do so due to a variety of reasons.  In one of the examples in the awareness exercise above, food was associated with pain.  It triggered unhappy feelings for the person and was therefore a source of pain for her.  She might’ve had been abused around food as a child and developed shame, guilt or anger around food.  On the other hand, a person who associates food with love might be rejecting love by rejecting food.  The underlying issue is a strong belief that he is unworthy and undeserving of love. 

 

Another issue behind undereating is fear of losing control.  Firstly, if you tend to over-eat, you may go to the other extreme in an attempt to control your over-eating: you believe that if you allowed yourself to eat, you would lose control and eat too much; and you end up starving yourself.  Usually, this fear of control goes beyond eating and is prevalent in the person’s life in general.  Not eating, therefore, is a way of gaining control.  This is especially prevalent in those whose childhood environment was chaotic and unpredictable, and the person had no sense of control over his environment.  To counter the fear of losing control, they control the only thing they feel they can, which is eating. 

 

Children who under-eat may do so to manipulate their parents.  They may want attention from their parents, if they’d felt neglected.  It is common for children to ‘act up’ and do things that anger their parents because they don’t feel safe to tell their parents what they really need, which is their love.  They expect that if they caught their parents’ attention, they’d automatically be shown love.  Children may also rebel against eating to get back at their parents.  As kids, we had few options for punishing our parents.  Intuitively though, we knew that our not eating would have an effect.  A lot of our unbringing is centered around being fed and given food – we were constantly reminded to “eat this” or “finish your food’, so much so that we knew how much it mattered to our parents that we ate. 

 

Sometimes, a person avoids eating to avoid facing the feelings she has.  Eating immediately grounds us in our body and make us aware in our body (before we start bingeing, in which case we become numb to our feelings).  The person may have stored a lot of pain inside which she is afraid to face.  She may feel that putting food inside her would rock the boat of ignorance and open a pandora’s box of horrible feelings she would then have to deal with.  At times, a person is simply terrified of gaining weight due to issues with body image. 

 

When undereating is taken to the extreme, a person may develop anorexia, a condition which is also a body image disorder.  People with anorexia see themselves as overweight even when they are obviously underweight.  Somewhere along the process of undereating, we might have developed a distorted image of our bodies – we fear eating so much that we’ve convinced our minds that we don’t need to eat by believing that we are fat.  We wanted to believe this so much that we’ve created a distortion so that we won’t ever see it any other way. 

 

Another form of eating disorder is bullimia, in which a person forces himself to regurgitate the food he had just eaten.  Superficially, it is done to avoid putting on weight, but it has deeper psychological motivations.  It is often preceded by bingeing, which suggests that a bullimic person may be driven by two opposing sets of fears – for example, a desperation for love as well as unworthiness.  Control is a common issue behind bullimia – a person who fears losing control manifests that fear through eating uncontrollably and then ‘proving’ to herself that she can control matters by making herself throw up.  

 

Doing the exercise of applying the concept of full immersion to eating as described in the previous section would change your attitude towards food and help heal your relationship with food.  By recognising the true value of food, you learn to see food as sustenance, nurturance, nourishment and love.  The act of eating mindfully and lovingly would begin to heal feelings of unworthiness that caused you to reject food.  As you heal yourself, you’ll begin to eat more healthfully and adequately. 

 

 

April 1, 2008

The Anti-Beauty Day

Posted by Amyra under Body Image
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I am in a shopping mall, browsing the shelves on a vendor stand lined with beauty products.  I’m intrigued and fascinated by some of the products for sale.  Each product I pick up seems to scream its promise at me:

Lighten Your Nipples!

Flatten Your Tummy! 

Curl/Extend Your Eyelashes! 

Enlarge Your Breasts! 

Slim Your Face! 

I note how I am absorbing this with a detachment that eluded me in the past.  As I recall how in the past I would easily fall victim to such beauty standards and be made to feel inferior, I shudder at what this could do to so many other women who are still struggling with a negative body image.  Being reminded that I wasn’t perfect would’ve gotten me into an obsessive loop of buying hope in bottles, tubes and jars while beating myself up for not being good enough. 

My mind wanders to the role of the media in all this ….

The standard of beauty set by the media has brought a lot of harm to women’s sense of self.  That kind of beauty is not only unrealistic to aspire to, it is ridiculous to say that one form of beauty is superior to another.  Take a good look at what is considered to be beautiful today - how long will these remain desirable?  Come next year, they may all be replaced by the opposites of what are considered to be desirable today. 

Remember when rounded, gravity-defying silicon breasts were considered a beauty ideal in the early ‘90s?  Nowadays, women are going for more natural-looking implants that mimic the natural movement of breasts.  ‘Perfectly’ shaped breasts have given way to natural-looking breasts.  Back in the ‘70s, small breasts were considered attractive, and it’s likely we will see that ideal return in the near future. 

Ideals change, and it’s silly to obsess about changing your looks to fit into a current ideal.  It is much better to accept what you’ve got (who knows, you may have everything that fits into next year’s ideals!).  Set your own standards and ideals.  See yourself as already beautiful without waiting for the rest of the world to validate it.  What you have is uniquely your own beauty. 

The media has such a responsibility in shaping women’s image of themselves.  I don’t know if writers, editors and publishers are really aware of this.  It is just as appalling to consider that they aren’t aware as that they are aware but don’t care enough to do something to change their influence. 

I’m sure you have at some point come across an unflattering photo of a female celebrity featured humiliatingly in a magazine.  The more unflattering the photo against the subject’s usual presentation, the more newsworthy it is (newsworthiness is partly dependent on how far a news item strays from what is usually expected).  Now, this is where the media misuse their power. 

Usually, the caption or headline that accompanies the photo plays up the negative aspects and paints an exaggerated picture of the randomly-shot photo.  Remember, the bigger the gap between what is shown and what is usually expected of the person, the bigger the news and the more money they can make.  To blow up that difference, the writer has to step into his or her lowest, most bitchy self and make the person as far from her usual attractive self as possible.  That action may have destroyed one woman’s sense of self and delivered the subliminal message to maybe millions of other women that failing to fit into what we’ve been programmed to believe is beautiful is disdainful and worthy of humiliation. 

Sure, on the surface, some of us may feel better knowing that the most beautiful celebrities turn out to be just like us after all - but that acknowledgment only anchors our belief that fitting into what is considered to be beautiful by the media’s standard is so important.  In celebrating the humiliating news, we are being taught to judge a woman harshly for failing to fit into the ideals set by the media.  A complimentary caption that celebrates unusual beauty would have a more positive effect on women’s psyche about their bodies. 

Writers, editors, publishers: if a photo of a woman with unplucked eyebrows is published, do you write a complimentary or derogatory caption?  Not only do you have the power to determine what will be considered to be beautiful tomorrow, you have the power to heal the collective females’ perception of themselves.  Imagine that.  Beyond the immediate bottom-line sales of your publication, can you find that place in you where your heart connects to your conscience and make your choice from there.    

The more I think about it, the more incensed I feel about how we’ve allowed the media to dictate what is supposed to be beautiful and what is not.  It triggers a sense of rebelliousness in me to break through the mass programming. 

So I’m walking around with new eyes today, asking myself what is beautiful, really. 

Then something strange happens: I begin to see beauty in those who are considered by society to be unattractive.  The woman with a slightly bulging tummy, the schoolgirl with unplucked eyebrows and flat eye-lashes, the skinny lady with flat chests and bottom, various faces with broad noses, squinty eyes, jutty chins and toothy smiles.  As I see these features as possible beauty ideals, something shifts in me.  I had only judged them to be unattractive because an institution had said so.  It is not the truth! 

By now, I am moving through the shopping mall feeling slightly dazed yet clear and present, as if time has slowed somewhat and I’m able to perceive certain things that I wasn’t able to before. 

A young woman who looks as if she’s just stepped out of a magazine cover walks past me.  Instead of feeling intimidated or inferior, I see a certain cakiness about her looks, as if she’s trying too hard to fit into a set of ideals that have been imposed upon all of us and she does so with great competitiveness which unfortunately is taking a toll on her.  It’s as if the glue under her mask has peeled off, raising the mask several inches above her skin.  That illusion - the illusion of beauty embodied by this walking covergirl - is starting to crack.

I am struck by a realisation that my previous sense of what’s beautiful and what’s not - the way it’s all been programmed into us to judge beauty in a woman - had been so limited and even distorted.  For a moment, I am unable to keep walking.  The profoundness of it washes over me.  I have broken through the mass programming that permeates our society, and I can perceive people without the lens constructed by the media.  My vision, free from this programming, is more far-reaching, and as I see more possibilities for beauty, my world becomes filled with more beauty. 

 

April 1, 2008

“Something About Your Face …”

Posted by Amyra under Body Image
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Yesterday, I was sitting in an ice-cream shop with a friend, sipping a smoothie, when he looked puzzlingly at me and said, “We need to do something about your face.” 

“What, like plastic surgery?” I asked.

“No, nothing that serious… I don’t know, there’s something not quite right about your face.”  Then he asked what I would do if I had gone to a plastic surgeon.  I couldn’t think of anything.  He was sceptical.  “Come on,” he pressed, “you know.”  I told him that I’d wanted a boob job in my 20’s, but not anymore.  He tried to help: “Maybe your nose?” 

That short exchange was a powerful confirmation and reminder of how far I have come in healing my body image issues.  Had he asked me the same question 10 years ago, I would have come up with a dozen things that I would want to change about my appearance: my eyes are too droopy, my nose is too broad, my mouth is too big …… and this is not counting from my neck down. 

I remember when I hated almost every part of my body, and by extension my whole self.  Had that conversation taken place 10 years ago, I would have immediately plunged into depression and locked myself in my house for weeks, even months, replaying that ‘criticism’ over and again, spiralling into a dark hole of self-loathe.  In contrast, I felt no self-judgement or negativity yesterday.  Ah, what freedom to be so at peace with my body now, that I can’t think of anything I would want to change about it. 

Oh, I still have little judgements about my appearance.  On ‘bad hair days’ (hair = any part of the body) my self-confidence can be compromised.  Yet there’s a general serenity about my relationship with my body these days which makes it not such a big deal.  These days, looking good for me is an expanded, celebratory energy - a respectful attitude towards my body as I enhance my beauty.  In the past, every time I thought about my body I would contract into a self-hating obsession to change the way I looked. 

If you’ve ever suffered from a negative body image, you might relate to the anguish of judging yourself harshly and finding various ways to abuse yourself to punish who you judge yourself to be.  When I look back at my history of self-abuse, it’s almost as if I was systematically hacking myself to death, this detested body which represented what must be a despicable person. 

The years of wrecking my body with diet pills, tranquilisers (painkillers, sleeping pills, hypnotics), alchohol etc - dangerously combined, at times to the point of convulsing and being rushed to hospital - each act of abuse confirming in me how despicable I was, believing that abuse was the only thing I deserved.  Yet it was the endless stream of mental self-abuse, which preceded and accompanied these acts of abuse, that delivered the most poison, locking me in a state of perpetual disdain for myself. 

I share this not to indulge in self-pity or wear my past pain as a badge of honour but to let those of you, who are still tormented with a negative image of your body, know that freeing yourself from the grips of such self-judgements is not only possible but can be easily reached. 

Healing your body image requires substantial work.  You’re unlikely to wake up one day and start loving your body if you’d spent the past 30 years hating it.  Yet the process of facing yourself full-on and honestly to heal the way you see yourself is such a dignified act of honouring yourself that you’ll be rewarded with a sense of peace and comfort within yourself, leaving no place or desire for anymore self-abusive acts and thoughts.  In this freedom from self-judgement, you are free to express yourself authentically and the world becomes a richer place because of that.   

One way to start healing your body image is by observing the general movement of your energy.  Being trapped in mental torment of constantly judging yourself harshly and needing to punish yourself is a contractive movement.  It sucks you downward into a deteriorating sense of self until you feel powerless against your own self-created hell.  In contrast, having a healthy body image - seeing yourself as beautiful, radiant and sacred - is an expansive movement.  It opens you up to expressing more of your true, magnificent self as you recognise your beauty and worth.  

Observe the general movement of your energy to see if you are contracting or expanding. 

Take a prolonged breath to slow yourself down and get more present in your body. 

Get clear of what is taking place in your head.  Are your thoughts causing you to contract or expand?  What is the tone of your thoughts?  Is it loving, nurturing, supportive, inspiring?  Or is it berating, disparaging, punishing? 

How are they making you feel? 

How is your body, and face, reflecting your internal dialogue? 

Now, how can you change the direction of your general movement of energy from being contractive to expansive?  Are your thoughts making you grow, expand outwards? 

Where can you spot the resistance?  Which thoughts can’t you carry through to completion?  Which thoughts trigger fear and pain? 

The practice of observing the general movement of your energy will train you to be more aware of what you are telling yourself about you.  It may feel unnatural to deliberately make your energy expansive when you’ve been in a contracted state for a long time.  Yet taking that step can tell you so much about yourself.  See, we are naturally-expansive beings.  Fear makes us contract.  When we make ourselves expand, we come face-to-face with the fear that stops us.  Isolating your fear has the effect of energetically drawing a border around it and making it easier to tackle. 

For now, relax into the knowledge of whatever you’ve found in this small exercise.  Even if it is more pain you’ve found, you are one step closer to healing your relationship with your body - one notch above the level of your struggles.  The course of things has been changed.  Keep moving, keep trying new ideas to shake yourself out of your body image hell.  Plant the seed of doubt in your mind about how you’re seeing yourself.  What if …..?