by Gyl Rae, Teacher, Scotland
I have grown up most of my teenage years and adult life with an eating dis-order. This has not been outwardly obvious to people as in being anorexic, as mainly people commented on how good I looked, how great my body was and how slim I am. I have never physically stuck my fingers down my throat to be sick, nor hidden food to binge eat later, but I did eat in a way that was very obsessive and controlling, and at times worked out how and what to eat and drink in a way that would make me be sick after I ate something I knew wasn’t good for my body.
The reason I had an eating dis-order is because of the lack of self-worth and self-loathing I had for myself. I have come to know that I also eat to not feel all that I do, I eat to fight my sensitivity (awareness). I didn’t and at times still don’t want to feel what’s going on around me, as it means I would have to speak up and be more responsible.
Over the years my body has shared many things I knew and know I shouldn’t be doing. Like being in abusive and un-loving relationships, saying yes to things or people when everything in me was saying no, to not wanting to feel jealousy from others, this is a big one for me. I now know this is all okay to feel as I am learning to respond, observe and not react to what I feel. I now know that what I feel is not wrong and there’s nothing wrong with feeling all that I do. The key is observing it and not absorbing it, to live my truth.
Going back to when I was around 13 years old, I remember eating a bowl of ice cream, normal size, no big deal and running up and down on the stairs afterwards, using it like a step machine to burn off the fat and calories. There was absolutely no intention to love and nourish my body, I was treating it like a machine. A lot of this was influenced by ideals and beliefs in the world and images I saw around me of women in the media, of what a woman’s body should look like to be beautiful or fit in, to be liked and accepted, and hurts I didn’t want to feel. I never felt good enough. Like something was wrong with me.
In my 20’s and 30’s, to other people, on the outside I looked the part, the perfect picture, slim, fit and athletic, eating healthy food, working as a fitness instructor, so really you would think I knew it all. I was training and advising people on health and well-being, yet behind closed doors I was a mess. I ate a so-called good diet, but the truth is, you can still abuse yourself and have an eating dis-order with healthy food. I ate for pure function, not to nourish, love, deeply care for and nurture myself. I didn’t eat to support my body and my being. It wasn’t only what I ate but the way in which I ate, shopped and cooked my food; all from lack of self-worth and self-loathing, not taking the time and care, to lovingly buy, prepare and eat food that nourished me, but rushing and in dis-regard. I also drank alcohol and partied hard, as many people in the fitness industry did at that time, I don’t work in this field anymore so I cannot comment on what it is like now.
For me, any eating dis-order is eating in a way that does not deeply honour, love and support our body’s natural true light and divinity. Eating in any way that does not support us to evolve.
The choice to change
It’s only since attending Universal Medicine presentations, workshops and courses that I have begun to look at my relationship with food. The choice to change didn’t come from being told what to do, or what to eat by Serge Benhayon. I was presented with truth, a choice: I could listen to, nourish, and honour my body; or I could keep on abusing myself. This was something very new to me as I had grown up on a diet of deliberately misleading information through books, magazines, the health industry, media etc, with mis-leading information like the pyramid triangle, and we need to drink milk everyday to get strong bones. I was never truly educated, told the truth, or asked to listen to my body and feel what I needed to eat.
I will be very honest here, even in the past few years I thought I had a very healthy relationship with food and eating, but I was still eating from what and how much I thought I ‘should’ eat based on outside beliefs and comparing myself to other people, so even though, yes, I was eating a healthier diet, and making self-loving steps here, it came from knowledge, a disconnection to my body, not listening to and honouring my body. There is no joy, fun or evolution in knowledge; only in connecting to your body, listening to it, and loving yourself deeply.
Sometimes I eat food which I know doesn’t support my body, but I know it’s not the food that’s the issue. For example, I crave sweet food at times. But, to heal this it’s not about cutting out sweet food, that doesn’t work. I used to use force myself to try and stop eating a certain type of food, but I’d just end up eating it again. Beating myself up doesn’t work either; it just makes it worse, if you saw someone walking around hitting themselves with a big stick, you’d stop them, or at least see how unloving it is, yet this is what we are energetically doing to ourselves when we give ourselves a hard time. Accepting where I am at, understanding and appreciating myself is key.
Last year, I had incredible support from Miranda Benhayon: her support is so simple, deeply understanding and absolute pure love; she is a true inspiration to me. As a result I have come to love myself and my body more, I have a deeper understanding for myself and my body and am far less harsh and regimental with food, and it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks or eats.
She supported me to see that to truly heal from the sweet food I crave at times, is about me appreciating the sweetness and beauty all around me, and inside of me, and the more I appreciate that, my need for sweet food will naturally drop away. She also helped me to realise that if I have no joy in what I eat, I’ve disconnected from my body; instead it’s about connecting to my body, feeling what it needs, as well as how I approach preparing and cooking my food, doing it lovingly.
It’s really simple; the truth always is…the more I love myself and my body, the more loving I will be with the way I eat.
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