What Energy is Behind Your Food Behaviors?
/I often share with clients, it's not the action you take that's important, it's the energy you are coming from.
Lately I am getting more interested in internal family systems (IFS) as a therapeutic tool for healing.
IFS has a way of helping us understand our behaviors and energy that I thought you might find helpful.
Let me give some you examples with regard to food and body.
Diet Culture Back Lash
Over the past several years, there has been a lot of back lash towards tools or behaviors that might be related to weight control.
Behaviors like using a scale, counting calories, eating "healthy" or "clean" or tracking data with regard to your food and body have all come under scrutiny. These have been attributed to "diet culture" and demonized.
Many coaches, therapists, and health advocates have shared that these behaviors are damaging and are responsible for making us feel bad about our bodies.
I believed this when I started my journey away from diets too. It made so much sense.
If getting on the scale made me feel like crap every day, then why should I get on the scale?
But smashing the scale is only one way to change the dynamic of feeling like crap on the scale.
The other way is to change my mindset about how I feel when I get on the scale.
In other words, it's not the tool or the behavior that is the thing that is making us feel like crap. It's the mindset and the meaning that we give the tool or behavior. It's the energy we are coming from.
Using the Language of Energy
If you are doing a behavior or using a tool and you are coming from a place of fear or self-loathing, then the tool or behavior is not serving you. Not because it is a bad tool or behavior but because your energy is catabolic. (Negative, harmful, causing suffering)
If you are doing a behavior or using a tool and coming from a place of peace and joy, then that tool or behavior is going to serve you better. Not because the tool or behavior is unique or special but because your energy is anabolic. (High energy, healing, vibrant).
It's not the tool or the behavior, it's the energy.
IFS and Energy
IFS supports this idea when you look at the parts of us that are working so hard to protect us.
(For more on IFS and eating, click here and listen to Dr. Kim Daniels The Emotional Eating (and Everything Else) podcast. I appear in the Nov. 1, 2022 episode about finding a middle ground between diet and non-diet extremes. )
In IFS language, we have parts that are doing their best to protect the hidden places in us that feel painful emotions like fear and shame. These hidden parts are called our exiles.
If an exile is feeling shame and unworthiness, we may use a protector like a diet or work out plan to try and feel better. We might also use"managers" (a form of protector) that count calories or weigh ourselves to help collect data along the way.
We might even turn to an extreme protector called a firefighter and stop eating or inject ourselves with hormones or take drugs to lose weight. If these actions are coming from protectors, they are trying to avoid the pain of feeling shame or unworthiness.
It's essentially a spiritual bypass of our pain. And these behaviors are never going to heal the root issue which is the pain that is making us feel unworthy. This is why you have people who diet and even lose weight but then say they don't feel any better or different. They never healed their exile.
However, if we are connected to “Self” when we choose our behaviors, we are coming from a place of alignment and congruence.
Self energy is defined by the 8 C's - curiosity, confidence, clarity, compassion, creativity, calmness, courage, connectedness.
When we choose any behavior from that energy, it's going to be supportive and beneficial.
If we love technology, for example, and get all geeked out about some new tracking app, we are likely to get benefit from that tracking behavior.
In that case, we are coming from the energy of the 8 C's: creativity and curiosity for example. We are not coming from a desire to change our body from a place of fear and self-loathing.
Let’s not reject any behaviors or tools without considering the bigger and deeper picture.
Some tools and behaviors can be incredibly helpful and supportive if they are coming from the right energy.
Another Example: Ice Cream and Energy
Let's say you just ate some ice cream.
Eating it in a way that will NOT benefit you looks like this:
feeling compulsive about eating it,
feeling guilt and shame about eating it,
telling yourself you shouldn't eat it,
eating too much of it as you keep telling yourself to stop, vowing to never eat it again when you are done,
berating yourself and criticizing yourself for your weakness,
feeling disgust for yourself.
Chances are you will not feel very good in your body after an experience like this. When we put ourselves into a stress state with all these negative thoughts, our bodies will not process foods as well. The digestive function is shut down due to the nervous system reactivity. And behaviors consistently made from that energy can indeed impact our weight and definitely impact the way we feel about ourselves.
In this case, our protector does not want us to feel the shame of our unworthiness so it directs us to ice cream as a way to distract. The irony is, it's trying to help us feel better and we only feel worse.
Now let's say you eat that ice cream from a place that is connected to Self. In that scenario, you are excited and delighted to be having the experience of eating ice cream. You may be eager to try a new flavor or topping. You are connected to a sense of love and well being for your body and happy to be sharing a fun experience with it.
You eat the ice cream leisurely and peacefully. You enjoy the way it feels on your tongue and notice the way the flavors meld in your mouth. You appreciate the temperature of the ice cream and eat the exact amount that makes you feel satisfied.
In this case, our bodies are in alignment with our choice. Our digestion can get to work and do it's job. Our thoughts are not telling our cells that this is "bad"for us and setting up barriers for us to integrate that food optimally. Our bodies know exactly what to do - what nutrient to harvest and what toxins to flush out.
It's not eating the ice cream that is the issue, it's the way we eat it and our thoughts about it. It's our energy toward the ice cream.
What Energy Are You Bringing to Your Food Experience?
Are you coming from the compassionate Self? Or are you coming from a misguided protector who wants to eat all the ice cream quick in order to avoid pain?
When improving your relationship with food, understanding your “Self” and your energy is key.
To understand your energy, it's important to know when you are connected to Self and when you are using a behavior for protection.
Do you have any questions about your energy, your food or your relationship to “Self”? Hit reply and let me know!