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It’s understandable that people who struggle with food, exercise or body image might want to steer clear of considering their body as a pathway to finding peace with food, exercise and body image. Why go to the source if that’s where the battleground continues to wage war?
Coping Mechanisms as Breadcrumbs to Deeper Hungers
When we understand more about nervous system science and how our autonomic nervous system really, really, really wants to us to survive overwhelm by fighting, fleeing or freezing, we can then start to make a little more meaning and perhaps have a little more compassion for our innate coping mechanisms. Instead of looking at chronic dieting, compulsive eating or exercise, or body image blues as fixed states of distress to be swallowed or consumed with another quick fix, what if we reframe them as unsustainable reaches for one’s deeper hungers? What if we also consider them as clues to discovering those deeper hungers?
If coping mechanisms or compulsive patterns of disordered eating leave breadcrumbs to deeper answers, how does one begin to stop or reduce their tendency count, weigh, binge, restrict? Because the coping mechanism(s) of manipulating food and exercise helps one to survive overwhelming feelings by not experiencing them, then we know that just “stopping” a behavior or urge or compulsion is really darn hard. That’s why disordered eating patterns can be so tricky and chronic.
Relational Safety and Small Bites
In order to move from the trauma responses of fight/flight and freeze (and however one’s food/exercise behaviors or patterns are played out in those states), their nervous system craves relational safety. This takes a supportive, reparative relational experience to help move through (not over or under) feelings that need to be felt one bite at a time. When one can practice moving back into their bodily experiences (urges, feelings, awareness) with the support of a trauma-informed helper, they eventually create a greater capacity to feel what they need to feel and eventually are more capable of self-regulation and handling what needs to be felt, experienced and fully tasted to thrive.
Somatic practices as symbolic nourishment
People often struggle with conflicting food/exercise dynamics that show up as deprivation/binge patterns, feelings of emptiness or being “too much,” cycles of depression and anxiety, or push/pull relational dances. These can all be compared to early developmental needs for connection and separation, which are ideally supported within a secure attachment relationship throughout childhood. When things don’t go so well in these developmental years, *and/or due to multi-generational trauma patterning, food/body wars and other compulsive or maladaptive coping behaviors can present as an attempt for nourishment instead of gaining sustenance through supportive relationships and an eventual robust sense of self.
To help offer nervous system repatterning and regulation using a reparative somatic approach that is trauma-informed, I offer specific early relational co-regulation practices based on developmental patterns and stages. When a person’s reach for coping mechanisms is re-experienced as a symbolic reach for healthy relational connection, over time they are better equipped to embody all of their feelings and urges in more sustainable and nourishing ways.
Interested in learning more? I am licensed in Georgia for psychotherapy and offer trauma-informed embodiment coaching worldwide. Visit www.MBodiedTherapy.com to learn more or schedule a 15-min phone consultation to explore fit.
