17/07/2024
Letting go of old ways
Over cups of tea and chats, I’ve been in deep discussion as to why our food habits can be so hard to break, even when you know deep down, or even on the surface, that a particular way of doing is not serving you. My own experience of this is that our attachments to food run deep - food is mother, nourishment, intimacy and survival, and the foods or eating patterns we find hardest to let go of are the ones that keep us held together, so to speak. When you begin to change the food and eating habits, suddenly it can bring to the surface feelings you might not want to feel, memories of old, trauma, and a sense that your very survival is being threatened.
In energetic terms, foods sit on a scale of yin to yang, expansive to contractive, with foods / drinks such as sugar, coffee and alcohol being the most expansive. These substances keep us lifted and high, while on the other side of the scale are the contractive foods like eggs, cheese, salt and meat. These foods are great at keeping the body in a contracted state. In our modern world, most people swing between these two extremes, keeping themselves stuck and high at the same time.
When you begin to eat in the middle, consuming fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices, wild foods, pulses, whole grains and small amounts of animal foods, the body begins to loosen, but with the loosening can come a torrent of emotion and cravings that many people find hard to handle.
In this way, food is so powerful. It is a signpost to where we hold on emotionally, and to where our imbalances lie.
When I’m working with clients, looking at how and what they eat is a doorway into knowing them on a deeper level. And by presencing this to them, it helps them to see too.
Food is a doorway to much deeper layers of healing when we allow it to be ❤️
