What is The Energetic Signature of an Eating Disorder?
Eating disorders are a response to some form of a dysregulating foundational experience where there was inadequate support (this is what we call trauma).
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When trauma happens there is a shift of energy that occurs inside of us - we move from our essential selves to a fragmented version of who we are. The eating disorder then becomes the external manifestation of that internal shift that emanated from that dysregulating root experience.
The result of recovery is a deeper embodiment of our attachment systems, our defense systems and our sensory processing systems.
This means that in recovery, we learn how to connect and bond with others safely, by grounding into and reembodying our own divine, essential energetic signature that is underneath all of the layers of the eating disorder. In recovery, we learn how to manage overwhelm, and stress, and create boundaries.
We come to understand what it takes to protect our energy, stand up for ourselves, and defend what is important to us. In recovery, we learn how to connect with our five senses, and to listen to how the body communicates.
The eating disorder behaviors reflect how the body speaks about how a person makes sense of life. As such, the eating disorder behaviors indicate to us that something has gone astray. Usually, someone with an eating disorder has had a moment (or many moments) of feeling unsafe, of not being recognized, feeling unsupported, not being seen, or feeling undervalued.
These potent experiences result in a tightening or contraction of energy. And the individual then goes through a process (often very unconsciously) of rejecting their essential energetic signature. For many of us, it hasn't felt safe to move out of that contraction - it hasn't felt safe for us to step into our true selves.
This is because our true selves weren't recognized. Our energetic signature's were unsupported. They weren't seen.
That contraction, and that energetic state, and all of the behaviors that come along with it, get absorbed into our system and imprinted into our brain and becomes the foundation from which everything else grows. The eating disorders are therefore showing us what it takes to stay alive, and on the flip side, showing us what the soul needs to thrive and to fully exist in the world.
When we hear the word contraction, or tightening, that may bring up a specific image, a feeling, or memory. On the other hand, when we think of expansion and flow, that causes a completely different feeling, memory, or thought to arise.
And this is the foundation of nervous system regulation.
Nervous system regulation is the mastery of energy.
Nervous system regulation is foundational for eating disorder recovery. And eating disorders are a form of trying to manage energy.
Eating disorders block feelings of overwhelm (which is energy). They block feelings of pain or discomfort (also energy) through all the many eating disorder related-strategies.
For example, an individual experiences a feeling of blocked energy that causes discomfort. In response, they start to calorie count, or go into meal planning, or over-exercise, or there's a binge or a purge - all of these things distract the person from that blocked energy.
These tactics are helpful in distracting us, but we are still avoiding the pain and the discomfort that is underneath. Ultimately that energy is asking to be released or transmuted. It doesn't want to remain blocked because blocked energy leads to many kinds of physical and mental challenges, like eating disorders.
As such, recovery includes awareness, courage, strength, and commitment to notice when some kind of discomfort arises. Rather than running to the eating disorder behaviors, we can learn how to be with it.
how would you represent or describe the energetic frequency of an eating disorder?
It is important to note here that we don't have to do this alone. The support of being with others is crucial, because we can connect with other people's energy fields, and through mirroring, copying, or borrowing their nervous system/energy state, we learn how to regulate and balance our own energy in empowered ways.
Recovery is about recognizing that there will always be ups and downs, whilst at the same time developing capacity to be with what is arising and utilizing sustainable, life-supporting tools to move through these waves. It is about learning how to come back to a place of grounded, centered connection throughout the day rather than spiking into anxious energetic states and then crashing into shutdown or collapsed energies.
Perhaps we never had a role model in our youth who demonstrated the ability to self-calm, or self-soothe. Maybe we didn't have a role model who demonstrated how to reach out for help in a healthy way, who couldn't affirm their boundaries, or didn't model how to connect and bond with ease.
Perhaps we had role models who also used food to soothe, numb or relieve, which we then picked up on - and maybe not. Perhaps we were just picking up on their dysregulated energetic states and that resulted in us finding food on our by ourselves as our own strategy to cope.
It seems then that root causes of eating disorders often can stem from the attachment system: how we were cared for, seen, and looked after, how co-regulation was shared or not, and how we were raised in the home, at school, or in any prominent space we frequented in those developmental years.
How our attachment figure was energetically organized affected us in some way. If they were energetically overbounded (rigid, tightly curled up, protection mode), or unbounded (lose, energy spilling, unaware of boundaries), we may try protect ourselves against the over or unbounded energy by doing the complete opposite or copying that energetic signature.
For example, if the caregiver was very overbounded state, we may do the opposite by becoming rebellious, breaking the rules. and being impulsive. On the other hand, we may mirror that same rigidity in ourselves.
How our bodies and how our caregivers bodies are organized somatically can impact our feelings, thoughts, actions, relationships, beliefs and worldviews, and can lead to any kind of eating disorder behavior.
For example, someone may come to believe that there's no place for them in the world because their caregiver didn't attune to them properly or connect with them in a way that they needed.
This means that their essential energetic signature was not received because they were not seen or attuned to.
This may lead the individual to make themselves small, by crossing their arms, holding their head down, sitting in the back of the room, not speaking up in class, or being unable to make decisions because at their core they don't have a sense of self.
Thus, eating disorder can manifest in many ways. It can manifest in restriction by trying to become physically small. Maybe it ends up in bingeing because they can't identify fullness or hunger cues (as there isn't a sense of self). It could manifest in being unsure about what to eat and feeling of overwhelm at the thought of making a decision. The eating disorder may manifest as over-exercise, such as using heavy weights or running, in an attempt to feel the body and that sense of existing. Or it may end up as purging because when the food comes into the body, the person feels more alive, that they exist, that their body takes up space, and thus have to get it out through a purge.
When we look at root causes, it is less about what the eating disordered behavior or symptom is, and more about how we've come to understand life through our connection with others - which the eating disorder symbolizes.
As we come into deeper embodiment and eating disorder recovery, what we will see and experience is more of a relaxed and alert energy, being able to be present, being able to access tools to stabilize, and there's a sense of more connectedness, awareness, and feeling resourced.
In recovery, there's an ability to reach out for support, and the belief that we are deserving of support. There a sense of being empowered to make choices and feel that there are options. There is the capacity to metabolize feelings, a sense of resilience, and the belief that we can be with what is here.
Recovery is a particular energetic state compared to the eating disorder. I am sure I don't have to go into the details here - I'm sure many of you have felt it and have been in the energetic frequency of an active eating disorder. It is tight and contracted, miles apart from expansion and flow.
Recovery is about creating little pockets of time, with the support of others, to feel the energetic quality of recovery for a moment, to test it out, to feel its potency, and to trust this state, one breath and one step at a time. This is the road of recovery.
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