How yoga can transform your relationship with food
Yoga can help you understand why you eat foods that make you feel crap. Yoga can also help you with emotional eating. And yoga can help with the shift from losing weight to being compassionate about the weight you are carrying. One is aggressive and will not last. One is kind and is forever.
I’ve just finished my two poached eggs, and I want two of Dean’s chocolate biscuits. I pause. I used to regularly work with chronic fatigue. Some days my body just craved quick energy. So one day I ate two of Dean’s chocolate biscuits after my two poached eggs. The next day as I finished my last poached egg mouthful, the thought popped into my mind – Dean’s chocolate biscuits. The third day, same thought but I did not feel tired.
I knew it had to stop. I knew the part of my mind that chooses routine and order over depth and love was in the driving seat. The craving for instant gratification is just a thought. It is not real. It is not wanted. So today, six months later, I notice the thought and take it for what it is – just a thought. This thought does not need to be attached to destructive action.
There is something else that I am feeling that I need to take notice of.
Instead, I focus on how I feel in this exact moment. I understand that I do not really want to assault my body with the feeling of sugar causing havoc. I am not hungry. I know this because I have learnt to slow down and be subtle enough to feel this. I do regular restorative yoga to get my mind out of the way. This is what restorative yoga, yoga nidra and meditation does. This I feel, sense and imagine – all the subtle ways in which we exist if we slow down enough to notice. It takes courage. Sometimes I sense anger, sadness, unease, despair when I create space. These emotions are based on the past. They do not exist in my future. I do not need to feed them anymore.
The next time you are hungry, feel the feeling first. Don’t think it: Sense it, in all its guises. Be kind to yourself and observe the things you tell yourself. They may not all be true. Take a deep breath. Stop being in such a hurry. See what you’re covering up. And give yourself a hug (then take a big glass of water!) The notice how the craving or urge has gone.
I’ll never look like I did when I was 20. This is my shape. I have a photo of me when I was six, tipping a billy of water into a river in the Abel Tasman National Park Then I had a shapely bum and big thighs. Strong little me. Built for endurance.
Be lovingly curious about the weight you carry and what that weight may be protecting you from. If you have unresolved trauma you will need support from a medical professional. It’s too hard to shift on your own. It will also continue to be in the driving seat unless you take another approach to how it still shows up. The event that caused the trigger has gone, but your nervous system response hasn’t.
Feel great compassion for your experiences and your triggers.
Your triggers are your past that hurl themselves into the present moment because there is part of you that thinks it still needs protecting. Experience the present moment differently. Observe. Breathe. Breathe. And watch thoughts come up to go. Detach food cravings with action.
Spend time imagining who you really want to be. Your body will follow your attention. Have great compassion for you and your experiences and your triggers.
Or, just have the bloody biscuits and see how you feel, how you really feel! Try your best to not give yourself a hard time. You’ll get another go.
How you feel in the moment you must have those chocolate biscuits is called a karmic burn. One way to look at karmic burn is that it brings the past into the present moment to see if there is still danger. You have the power to give in to it, or to let it go.
I pick up my plate and take it to the sink. I feel sad as if I have lost something. I put one hand on my chest, and the other hand over that, and feel that as a sensation. I bring a little smile to my lips. I am here.
Shift from going without to going within. Shift from loosing weight to letting weight go.
How to leave the biscuit tin shut with great compassion:
Stop and take three big, belly breaths.
Close your eyes and bring a slight smile to your lips. This tells your nervous system that everything is okay.
Create your own little mantra. I use ‘I eat well’. Repeat it three times.
Turn your back on the biscuits and turn towards something small that makes you feel good: Look out the window, massage your temples and pull your ear lobes down (activates your vagal nerve), lie on the floor and feel how the ground supports you.
Or find your own little ritual.
Tell yourself there is nothing you need. Believe it. Or fake it till you feel it.
Restorative yoga could help you shift your nervous system so that you have access to a whole new way of being with yourself and the world.