When You Reach The End Of A Meal
Living nomadically taught me a lot about eating disorders. This is what I learnt…
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coming home after eight months of travelling has left me feeling like I’ve reached the end of big meal. I can finally lie down by the fire and rest - and let the food digest.
And whilst I’m digesting my experiences from Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, the States, and the UK, there is also certainly a lot to digest on a collective level from this year which I am sure many of you acknowledge, sense, and feel.
The ability to digest our food, emotions, and experiences is a deep and complex process.
Our digestive system is governed by our autonomic nervous system which is like our inner surveillance that oversees of all of the automatic processes in our body, including our ability to perceive and scan for safety and threat.
Being on the lookout safety and danger is something our nervous system does behind the scenes and influences what we move towards or move away from, or if we stay neutral.
The ability to do this is essential for our survival. It is quite mind-blowing when you think about it!
If there’s a history of developmental trauma and chronic daily stress, what we perceive as safe or dangerous isn’t always accurate. It’s like the dial is tuned into the wrong station.
Stored trauma energies (aka fight, flight, freeze) and accumulated stress send constant signals to the body that it needs to be on guard and in protection mode.
We might feel afraid to face the stored stress survival energies (they are indeed powerful energies - they are here to keep us alive after all!) within us and as such, put up walls and armour to ensure these feelings stay hidden out of sight - from ourselves and others.
And if we internally feel fear, we begin to see the world through a similar lens as a scary place. As within so without.
This occurs because we always looking to establish and maintain a coherent sense of self. If our internal world is filled with fear, we will find evidence and data from the outside world to keep this inner narrative of self coherent.
It is very discombobulating when our internal narratives of who we are and what the world is like are shaken up - either through big life transitions, psychedelic journeys, or confronting changes - because we are forced to find new information as a way to update our story of self, along with rewiring the nervous system to reflect this new version of reality.
This is embodied change from the inside out.
Polyvagal Theory points to the neurological link between regulated eating with our sense of safety. We now know from a physiological standpoint that to effectively take in food, we have to feel safe.
So, it makes sense why we can’t really sit down and have a meal whilst trying to run from a bear!
But for many of us, experiencing urgency, anxiety, or armoring (aka running from the bear) is often the state we find ourselves in when we eat, and which later leads to issues like IBS, constipation, or inhibited digestive functioning.
This occurs when survival energies of flight, fight and freeze from past traumatic experiences accumulate and get stuck in the body causing dysregulation - which shows up as rigidity, narrow perspective, anxiety, depression, chronic pain, addiction, and eating disorders.
Over time, this dysregulation becomes the baseline or the new normal. We simply get used to it even if it doesn’t feel all that great.
And it’s from this (dysregulated) baseline of how we feel on the inside that influences how and what we perceive the world around us, how we engage with the others, the decisions we make, and the choices we take.
As such, Polyvagal Theory states that when we feel safe we can effectively digest our food when we reach the end of a meal.
Me looking out to the sunrise in Tulum, Mexico
So what we do to begin to quiet the inner storm, put down the armour, widen our perspective, and Notice Safety that is around us? How about we practice together:
First, let’s take a breath.
Feel your feet on the ground, allowing roots to grow from the soles of your feet into the soul of the Earth.
Orient to your surroundings, taking in light, shadows, colours, shapes, sights and sounds in and around your space.
Notice where you are, right now, right here, in this present moment.
I’m going to assume that if you’re reading this right now that your environment is safe, your body is safe, and you are safe.
Recognize the safety there is here right now by attuning to yourself and yourself in your environment and check in with your body and see if there’s any part of you that wants to soften in this recognition.
Perhaps your eyes, jaw, chest, shoulders, fingers, or lower belly can release a little bit of tension by leaning into and receiving the support of the ground and the containment from your environment.
This ground that is underneath you isn’t going anywhere, and it has the capacity to hold all of you, including mixed feelings, contradicting thoughts, and opposing parts. All of you is held.
There is nothing to prove, achieve, fix, or get right. You are enough as you are and you are held in that.
Check in again. Is there anything else within you that can drop, release, or open into this support - this support that is right underneath you?
Notice how your ability to soften and put down a little bit of armour (aka tension) is relational. It is through relationship - in this case, with the stable, unwavering support of the ground and the holding container of your space - that we have the space to shift from protection to safety.
And one last time, notice your breath.
Our sense of safety doesn’t come from just the absence of threat, but when we land in the presence of a trusted, accepting other.
On a nervous system level, safety comes from sensing that there is something reliable and trustworthy with us. This is something we can play with by noticing the ground underneath and connecting to the environment around us.
as mammals we are hardwired for connection, and our sense safety and ability to establish self-regulation comes through co-regulating - which is the process of grounding, balancing, and centering ourselves through having the presence of someone else with us.
When we are with another human who we trust, our body can finally let out a big sigh.
The armour can be put down. On a nervous system level, we move from dorsal vagal parasympathetic shutdown (freeze) and sympathetic arousal (flight or fight) into ventral vagal connection (social engagement).
When we are in ventral, we feel expansive and grounded, connected within and to the world around us, curious and creative, present and regulated.
Internally, the chaos subsides, and we can perceive the world as more welcoming and inviting.
How we feel in our bodies improves and we feel less of an urge to critique, harm, or judge our bodies.
As we feel more regulated inside, our capacity to eat widens naturally. Our digestive system also smooths out, leading to better nutrient absorption and excretion.
Emotions can flow more easily, and we can let go with greater trust.
The pervasive narrative of “I don’t know who I am without this eating disorder” has less grip and we begin to explore and embody a more aligned story of self.
As we start recognizing moments of safety, noticing how it feels in the body, and orienting to those people, places, and things that support our nervous system, the eating disorder can naturally let go of us.
This, for me, is the true process of recovery, that is sustainable, long-lasting, and deeply authentic. Recovery is a natural process that works with the capacity of the nervous system. It doesn’t require fear tactics, will, grit, or more sympathetic force or rigidity. It is an organic unfolding.
Recovery is a practice, not perfect.
Making my way back to South Africa, I am filled with appreciation. These eight months weren’t always easy. There were ebbs and flows, ups and downs, shadows and light. There were several hard-to-swallow moments and digestive challenges, so to speak, and also a lot of beauty, expansion, and discovery. And through it all, it was all held.
I am now sitting at my metaphorical dinner table and looking at my plate. I feel complete. My tummy communicates to my brain, “we have had enough”. And with that, I wash the plates and cutlery. I go sit by the fire and let my body rest so it can process this eighth-month meal. Patience and gentleness are my allies right now as I digest and integrate.
By the warmth of the fire, I remember that there is enough for me, I have done enough, and I am enough.
I invite you feel into and explore your own sense of enoughness.
There is enough for you, there is enough for everyone, you have done enough, and you are enough.
This is the pinnacle expression of the digestive system.
I am wishing you all a smooth and nourishing last month of 2023. May this year and all that it contained integrate with ease so that you can step into the new meal that is 2024 with refined clarity.