Hello everybody,
Join me in this discussion with Dr. Janean Anderson on The Eating Disorder Recovery Podcast about finding meaning in the struggle with eating difficulties and finding joy in the recovery process. This podcast was done in two parts so listen to Part 1 and Part 2
We would love to hear your thoughts, scroll down to leave a comment!
-Anita
Years ago, I learned about the SPIES approach to a balanced lifestyle. SPIES is the science and art of shifting your lifestyle toward a state of optimal health as defined by a balance of Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Emotional and Social health. I reflected on my life at the time and recognized that when I would “crash and burn,” like Wile E. Coyote smashing against the canyon wall and slowly sliding down, I was living in an unbalanced state with one or more of my SPIES elements out of whack. I learned that, instead of panicking and throwing the “baby out with the bathwater,” re-balancing my SPIES would set me back on track.
After working with folks who have struggled with eating difficulties for over 20 years, I tend to notice developing patterns of im-balance. Often times my clientele hyper focus on the physical component (nutrition and joyful body movement), — which is only 1/5 of what makes a person whole and healthy. In those cases I encourage re-focusing on balance by feeding all five areas of SPIES. This re-focus enables them to examine their physical desires relative to the four remaining elements of SPIES and make appropriate adjustments.
According to the American Journal of Health Promotion, “lifestyle change can be facilitated through a combination of efforts to enhance awareness, change behavior, and create environments that support good health practices. Of the three options, supportive environments will probably have the greatest impact in producing lasting change.” Anita and I created a safe supportive environment in the Light of the Moon Café using the SPIES principles. Perhaps that is why so many women are successful in making peace with food using her book and our Café. Every day, […]
Recovery from eating struggles is not unlike a who-done-it mystery. Imagine you are watching a play and the question arises: Who killed the Old Lady? Was it the Maid? The Butler? Or the Chauffer?
Now at first glance, you notice the Maid. She stands out immediately – because her style of dress is strikingly different, her gestures are somewhat dramatic, and her manner is a little suspicious. She moves across the stage like someone who is rather insecure, or like someone who has done something wrong and is constantly looking around to see who is watching her. As the story unfolds, all eyes are on The Maid, but as you follow along deeper into the mystery, there is a sudden twist, and much to your surprise — it was the Butler! All those who were watching the Maid’s every move so closely failed to notice the more discrete activities of the Butler, the real culprit.
Photo by Daniel Levine http://www.etsy.com/people/levineDaniel
The Maid is the Red Herring. The Red Herring is a term from the early 1800’s where those wishing to sabotage a fox hunt would get a red herring from a local fishery (which, because it had been smoked had a very strong smell) and drag it along the route, confusing the hounds by distracting them from the scent of the fox. In 1807, a political journalist wrote a story about how, as a boy, he had used a red herring to deflect hounds chasing after a hare. He used the story as a metaphor to criticize the press for publishing stories that took attention away from more important matters (perhaps some things never change). And the metaphor stuck.
Nowadays we […]
Welcome to SoulStories from the Light of the Moon Café.
In this video blog I tell a story that describes the journey towards recovery from struggles with food and eating — and what it takes to keep from losing our way whenever obstacles present themselves.
What might be the names of some of your hungers? What helps you to remember them? I am curious about your thoughts – please scroll down and leave a comment.
With Love-
Anita
P.S. – If you have a question you’d like answered in a future video blog please send it to: anita@lightofthemooncafe.com
In Hawaii, the eel lives in a hole in the reef in the ocean. The lobster often makes its home at the mouth of this hole. This is a great arrangement for the eel – since it has a lobster at its doorstep with an antenna pointed outward, watching for predators. It’s a much more complicated arrangement for the lobster – because eels eat lobsters. So, what the lobster has to do is keep one antenna pointed outward, scanning for potential predators, while simultaneously keeping the other antenna pointed inward to watch out for the eel.
What I noticed in my experience with women with eating difficulties is that they are like lopsided lobsters.
After years of listening to the stories of their struggles with eating and body image, it became obvious to me that most of them had the most amazing, extraordinarily well-developed outer antennae! They could, more often than not, walk into a room, pick up on the vibes there, notice what others expected of them, and then respond to those expectations – even before the others had become aware of having had them in the first place! That’s how good they were at picking up on cues from their environment, and sensing what was going on with other people in their lives. And this ability often served them well, as it allowed them to anticipate trouble in advance, fly beneath the radar, and get out of harm’s way if needed.
The problem was that they typically had lousy inner antennae. This meant that they were way better at picking up on – and responding to — signals from their outer environment than they were at tuning in to themselves and responding to their own […]
One of my favorite memories from my childhood growing up on the island of Guam was reef walking with my mother, siblings, and assorted friends.
Guam is surrounded by a coral reef that is quite a distance from shore. The water is usually shallow from the shoreline all the way out to the edge of the reef (where the waves break) and then it drops into Deep Ocean. At low tide the water can be even shallower – from ankle to knee deep – except where there are large holes in the coral shelf and it drops into Deep Ocean.
I spent many days as a child and teen walking barefoot on the reef, learning how to move carefully to keep from stepping on spiny sea urchins, gross slimy sea slugs, or on the sharp edges of coral. My mother taught us which seaweeds and sea creatures were edible, which of the cone seashells were so poisonous that they could kill (!), and how to never, ever, stick your hand in a hole lest it be the home of an eel who would bite down with serrated teeth and never let go. There was some truth to all of this – but my siblings and I made much more drama than was called for out of those remote possibilities.
Unfortunately, these days I can only bring forth brief glimmers of those exquisite moments in time. They now reside in a remote dream-like state around the edges of my mind. My mother’s instructions about reef walking, however, have remained fully present in my life today.
She taught us that when a wave broke at the edge of the reef and the white water came rolling in, we were to […]
In this video blog I talk about how to use storytelling to help us understand deeper truths that are often buried beneath the struggle with food and eating.
[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yEGBE5EUpw[/embedyt]
I am curious about what you think about this – please scroll down and leave a comment.
With Love-
Anita
On a trip to New Zealand, I was touring the wine country, and the tour guide pointed out the rose bushes planted at the ends of the rows of grape vines. My initial thought was, “What a lovely idea,” and I asked if they planted white roses for white wine grapes and red roses for red wine grapes. Our guide laughed and said, “Not exactly.” He then went on to explain that the reason for the roses was that if there was a problem with aphids, they would show up on the roses first, giving the farmer ample time to protect the grapes in the vineyard.
Immediately my mind went to all the women and girls I have worked with over the years — who struggled with eating difficulties. They were like the roses in the vineyards. Because they tended to be very emotionally sensitive and highly intuitive, problems in their families, communities, or in their culture, would register in their Being more readily and symptoms of distress would show up in them more quickly.
What if we were as clever as these farmers and recognized their eating/food/body image struggles were a tangible forewarning of a problem within our entire society, our entire culture? What if our media understood that the reason the bodies of models, celebrities, and movie stars have been getting thinner and thinner over the years is not an indication of changing beauty standards or the latest eye candy for the masses – but is, instead, an attempt to alert us to the danger of dieting mentality and emotional illiteracy that exists in our culture — and threatens us all?
And what if those who are struggling with eating and weight could see themselves […]
We would love to hear your thoughts of The Log metaphor. Please leave your comments below.
We would love to hear your thoughts. Please leave your comments below.