I want to write a little about the subject: Food stress and food calmness, as it is something that a lot of people deal with.
Food and having to deal with bodies, weight and calories, is something we are introduced to at an early age and today perhaps even earlier than before. Our culture of comparison has become more visible, along with our lives on social media.
You can at any time, follow how others share their lives, their bodies, their eating habits, their thoughts, etc. We are constantly being informed with different opinions, attitudes, advice, hypotheses about what is right and therefore also what is wrong. What is healthy and good for you one day, is wrong for you the next day.
I can understand if you can feel totally confused and overwhelmed by this. Because we now can get more information and from different sources. It also means, that with all the knowledge that is available, there is also a major mental sorting job going on trying to figure it all out.
When I had to write this blog feature, I wanted to research what information I could find about food stress and food calmness. There were a lot of podcast you can listen to and various blogs, posts and books. If you are curious about the subject, I would encourage you to surf around and listen to the different ones and take with you what speaks to you.
If you start here, I would like to offer you a few words about my thoughts on food stress and food calmness. I'm a certified foodmentor from Foodmentor Education, Madmentor | Uddannelsen i sundhedspsykologi (mariesteenberger.dk) where Marie Steenberger is behind. She has therefore helped shape my thoughts and it has been very rewarding to receive teaching from her and all the knowledge she has gathered over the years. She talks about many different topics on her podcast "Det Blinde Punkt".
Food stress wasn't really a word that I used about my relationship with food. It had something to do with the fact, that the food didn't actually have a language in that way. It was an action that took place, that I carried out almost unconsciously and involuntarily and therefore not something I verbalized. But on my personal growth journey and having to work with food more directily and consciously, I suddenly met others who were in the same situation. People who were in various stages of food stress and food calmness, who offered words and a language, to be able to describe the actions and thoughts that took place.
Being able to have a "food language" is a great way, to help the process. By moving something outside of yourself and distancing yourself from it, you can be helped to separate yourself from the situation and view it with new eyes. This gives you access to look at your actions as actions and what they do for and about you.
Food stress can be shown by:
That you have many thoughts constantly circulating around food.
> Prohibition thoughts
> Permissive thoughts
> All or nothing thoughts
> Shameful thoughts
> Should & have to thoughts
> Judgmental thoughts
> Balck/white thoughts
> Right/wrong thoughts
This means, that you are often in a discussion with yourself and spend an enormous amount of energy constantly debating with yourself about your choices. This can make you feel guilty and lead to compensatory behavior, that starts the avalanche all over again. It all turns into a spiral, that goes round and round with you.
When food takes up so much of your mind, it starts to take over your life more and more. It can therefore also exclude you from participating in social events, because all the thoughts and stress around food will take up even more space. You may not feel like, you can have control over it when you're out and therefore many will have a tendency to isolate themselves.
This doesn't sound very nice, and often you may not even know, that you're in that situation. Maybe because you have felt this way for a long time, it has almost become your normal way of living. That you may not even notice that, this is what you are doing.
But you can feel the pain. So if you are reading this and you can recognize yourself in it, know that you are not alone. You can also learn another food language and get some other strategies, that help you get away from your food stress and towards more food calmness.
So what is food calmness? I wouldn't describe food calmness as total absence of thoughts about food. I think of it more, as a place where you have worked with your food thoughts and feelings. Where the thoughts therefore require less energy and work. It is a place, where you have worked on yourself, your patterns and strategies. Where your experience of your food thoughts, takes up so little space, that it doesn't prevent you from living the life you want and where you can be present in your life.
Food calmness can therefore be experienced as more freedom.
> Freedom to be able to participate and be present in various social events
> Freedom in not being inside your head and thinking about the food and what it could do
> Freedom to be able to taste and enjoy the food
> Freedom to be curious
> Freedom to notice and pay attention to what you feel
> Freedom to be in your body and listen to it
For me food calmness is also about being able to let go. About trusting yourself, your body and knowing that, it is there for you. It is there to guide you, if you let it.
If you would like a course where we can turn your food stress into food calmness, please reach out and contact me.
And as always remenber:
"That you have all the strength in you that you need!"
De bedste hilsner Malene Summer Stougaard