(And the Simple, Yet Powerful Solution)
You can analyze and hypothesize over it all day, but the real reason behind overeating and food or body obsession is simple. We’re all familiar with the concept of emotional or compulsive eating as a way to escape uncomfortable feelings. But it goes much deeper than that. I’d like to suggest that the real reason you consume yourself with thoughts of food or weight is todistract yourself from unfulfilled dreams. Now, I write about this in the context of food, but it can show up for people in a number of ways: addictions, shopping, chronic busy-ness… virtually any distraction from being present with yourself. And it’s all to create a barrier between you and your dreams.
There are two ways that I see this show up for my clients:
- You don’t even have (or fear you don’t have) a dream: So many of us have been conditioned to put other’s needs before our own, and to fulfill the societally-prescribed roles of student, wife, mother, career-woman, etc., that we have become totally disconnected from our dreams. And it scares the crap out of us. There’s a deep emptiness that comes with the idea of not having a dream. We all want our lives to have meaning. When you fear that your life may not have meaning, or that you won’t be able to find meaning, you’ll do almost anything to avoid that pain. Unfortunately, continuing the cycle of overeating and restricting and hating your body only prevents you from discovering what that dream might be, and further proves to yourself that you are unworthy of going after it. (And I’ve got a secret for you, you DO have one!)
- You kinda know what your dream is, but you’re afraid to admit it:After all, if you acknowledge it you might have to DO something about it! In this case there is something you’ve always longed to do or be. You probably love to study and observe others who are doing this thing, but somewhere along the way you got the idea that it wasn’t OK for YOU. This is often closely linked to feelings of fear around “putting yourself out there” and fear of failure – or more commonly fear of success! And the longer you deny, postpone or suppress your dream, the more dissatisfied and unfulfilled you become.
In either case, the pain of unfulfilled dreams seems worse than the suffering you experience as a result of your unwanted weight or food habits, so you take the path of least resistance and fool yourself into feeling “safe.”
For years I used my obsession with food to keep me safely separated from my dreams, and it felt like being in prison. And it wasn’t until I started living into my dreams that I saw the purpose of my overeating – and the solution to it – so clearly. (And no, the solution was not forcing away my habit or finding the perfect diet.)
In fact, the solution was ridiculously simple. I decided to place value on myself. I made the decision to invest in myself and to get the support to explore what my dreams might be. And I stopped letting time or money be my excuses.
I had no idea at the time how dramatically this decision would impact my life. But before long I was taking baby steps, and then leaps, and now today am experiencing my dreams coming true, which I fully appreciate every time I work with a client, lead a workshop, or share space with my amazing colleagues. And within a very short period of time of taking that first step, one of my other dreams – to be free of my obsession with food – came true as a side benefit.
And this is exactly what can happen for you too. Because something amazing happens when you invest in yourself: You FREE yourself. You remember how precious you are, and your experience begins to reflect that to you. And you don’t have to wait 20 years like I did. All you need to do is make your own happiness more important than all the “buts” and excuses, starting today.
Isn’t it about time?
