Letter to my sister

As usual, on my never ending quest for love, lightness (of being) and pursuit of personal happiness, I have finally ventured into an area of my life I should have entered into, perhaps 10 years ago. But everything happens for a reason, and I am exactly where I am supposed to be, on the journey I was chosen to be on.
In the struggle with weight, the understanding of self, the reasoning for these pursuits I have realized that I am not possessing the correct combination of skills to venture into this place I call my mind.
So I have enlisted the help of a nutritionist and a psychologist. Together the three of us are going on a journey into my personal space, of physical and it’s link to past mental programming, past experience and future implications.
I am hoping that through this journey I can learn new coping skills, program new stimuli, reengage the senses, and become my “own” person. Free of any past coaching into behaving in a particular way and being the true me, I was born to be.

We have already discovered some revealing program stimuli, i.e. food and it‘s association to love, feeling love, experiencing love, being loved. It appears that in our lives, as we grew up, we associated food with love. (I speak of “our” it could very well be only me, but the Dr thinks that we would all have picked up this programming, very seldom only one child picks up a collective behavioural stimuli) anyway – this is why I’m writing to you. If you are up to it, I’d like to share the insights that come up in these sessions, as they may help you as well. If of course you’re not up for it, fair enough. Just tell me.

None of this is good or bad or meant in judgement, they are observations and working towards changing the programmed emphasis of association. I started with food. In numerous consultations the psychologist and nutritionist agree on the following: Food was moms way of loving. Giving love, showing love, expression of love. So in adulthood we/I associate food with ‘Love’. If we want to feel loved, of just be in that place of acceptance, we turn to food. What was really interesting, is that the nutritionist did not what to know what I ate, she wanted to know, “under what circumstances I ate!” The psychologist asked me to describe the texture of the food, what textures “did it for me”. Suddenly all the stuff mom use to make flooded into my mind. The milk tarts, fridge tarts, cheesecakes, crumpets, savoury tarts....... I was describing those textures and feelings and associations that eating that had for me, how it made me feel.

When I ate, was on my own, not in ‘secret’ just when my mind what not activated. When I craved for attention. So plenty more information, but to cut it short the basic outcome was that I needed to change that stimuli. The Dr assured me that it was going to be tough, and complex..... changing your programming is very difficult, after all it comes with you for your entire life time. So this week’s work on self, is to find something that makes me happy, and induces that feeling of ‘happiness & love’ (it may not involve food). I have to break routines that traditionally lead to “comfort” eating. Of course just knowing why I do it has helped tremendously. I think why I am buying food..... what do I expect to be doing when I am eating it. I.e. if I take it to the beach, or eat while sitting on my couch. So the challenge now is to find associations that evoke the feeling of love that do not involve food