Cherishing How We Are Made

"Have compassion...You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone." - from Compassion, a poem by Miller Williams

A drawing that I made during a wee session of Gathering Ourselves.

We live in a world that’s saturated with information, a quest for ‘wellness,’ and a drive for optimization. We can scroll our phones and computers and have a wealth of knowledge that would’ve stunned our ancestors.

But with this abundance, an insidious expectation can creep in - a belief that if we implement X, Y, Z, and eliminate A, B, C we’d have the ideal health and well being that we’re striving for. This can lead to unending pressure, a feeling of no rest, and a drive for optimization that becomes a subtle way of trying to eradicate the vulnerability of being human.

I’m all for supporting ourselves, for nurturing the practices and ways of being that nourish our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health. That’s not what I’m speaking to here. I’m speaking to the essence of the Serenity Prayer: what’s within our control, and what’s not?

And how do we relate to what’s not, what’s difficult in our lives? How do we relate to the challenging areas of our lives that ‘aren’t working’ – places that can bring up vulnerability, confusion, or shame?

In my life, my relationship with food and caring for chronic anxiety and depression have been my greatest challenges.

For most of my adult life my relationship with food has been filled with alarm. In truth I was alarmed about other things, and it took time, maturity, and support for me to see this.

But once I began using food to soothe my alarm, I also became alarmed about my overeating, and solving my “food problem” became my primary focus.

In my fear about my overeating, I’d swing from overrestriction to overcontrol, from abstinence to indulgence, trying to care for my body with more wisdom while also trying to have some sense of containment around the eating that frightened me.

But underneath, no matter where I was on the spectrum, I felt tremendous pressure to ‘manage my problem.’ And this pressure meant that food, my body, and mealtime nearly always felt like a pressure cooker: a gauntlet I had to run, a trial in front of a judge, or a test I had to pass. There was little rest, safety or ease.

Ironically, it was this sense of safety that I was seeking underneath my search for the ‘right’ diet, food plan, exercise plan, psychological or spiritual tool (that I hoped would heal me.)

It’s ironic because my seeking didn’t bring me rest. Instead I felt more ashamed and even more frustrated that after all this effort, and all this knowledge, I still couldn’t solve my food problem.

Sometimes, the desire for ease would take over, like a wave crashing into shore, and I’d say, enough! I’d eliminate any sense of limit to try and soften the pressure I felt around my health and food, to help my nervous system come down.

But this wouldn’t feel good either.

Often what drives painful behaviors with food – whether they’re on the over or under side of the spectrum – is something else that’s alarming us, some kind of separation.

In the face of so much fear, our brains go to work, trying to fix the problem and figure out the source of the alarm. Bless them for this.

And our brains don’t always get it right. (More on this later.)

Being in a chronically alarmed, anxious state is very painful. It’s no wonder we look for calm and soothing in food (or other outlets), trying to move our nervous system out of arousal and into rest.

When we eat, we do get a small window of reprieve as certain foods can change our biochemistry, activating soothing transmitters in the brain. Also, the act of chewing moves us into the parasympathetic nervous system, the state of rest.

But we only get a tiny reprieve. For then the overeating triggers our alarm around overeating, which activates our nervous system back into sympathetic arousal, which moves us to eat, and around and around we go.

This cycle is painful and frustrating, and we can feel powerless in the face of its momentum.

Sometimes what’s alarming us is clear – financial stress, the potential loss of a job, a frightening health diagnosis; worry about a loved one. But sometimes what alarms us is more subtle, or not so obvious:

• Guilt - especially when we’re confused about what’s our responsibility and what’s not

• Continuing a painful pattern in our lives that we know hurts us, but we feel impotent to stop

• Feeling uncontained or unboundaried

• Sensory or emotional overwhelm, including the sensory overwhelm that accompanies neurodivergence

• Becoming more of our own person, individuating

• Trying new things or emerging in the world

• Fears of making mistakes or hurting others

• Shame – worry about our mistakes, a feeling that we’ve caused irreparable harm

• Feeling too much or not enough

• Confusion about our primary relationships

• The changes and losses of ageing, how our bodies, minds, and capacities change

• The bittersweetness of not being able to hold on to good experiences

• The tenderness of life’s impermanence and constant change

• The small losses and griefs of daily life

• Endings of all kinds

• Facing the unavoidable separations of life – transitions, moves, loss of a role or a season of life, deaths of loved ones

• Feeling vulnerable as we face our mortality or big changes in life

Looking at this list, we can sense the tenderness of life, how vulnerable it is to be human, and how much we’re asked to face and feel. We can feel compassion for ourselves as we look at this list – all the things that stir us up and that can alarm us, frustrate us, or send us into fixes, ways we try to fill the holes and losses of life.

I think of a young friend of mine, a 24 year old neighbor who is well seated on the autism spectrum. A beautiful soul, he feels so deeply, and often calls me to share the things that worry him.

When we talk, I’m struck by how sensitive he is and how deeply he feels, and also how difficult this can be for him. Talking with him helps me feel compassionate towards myself and my own neurodivergence. It’s no wonder I feel as much as I do. It’s no wonder I can feel overwhelmed by this. It’s no wonder I’ve sought ways to make sense of what I feel. And it’s no wonder that food became a primary way I managed this overwhelm.

You might pause and reflect on those things in your life that make you exclaim, no wonder. Perhaps you’ve been appropriately overwhelmed. Perhaps anyone would crumble or need support under so much.

In truth, we all have ways we try to soothe ourselves when we face too much separation, and this includes sensory overwhelm. And we don’t have to do this alone. As mammals, as human beings, we’re created to join with other nervous systems, with other hearts and brains to co-regulate our bodies when we carry too much on our own.

But this truth is often overshadowed in our hyperindividualistic culture, leaving us feeling bereft, like we’re ‘doing something wrong’ when we can’t manage our own – when in truth we’re not designed to manage on our own.

If you have a complicated relationship with food, or with another addiction or challenging pattern in your life, I hope this essay helps you feel a greater well of compassion for what your nervous system carries each day. I think of something my mentor Bonnie Badenoch says: “Bless the part of us that has had to carry and do so much.”

It’s true, we can receive healing and support to lessen this load. We can use tools and practices to help ourselves. As a hypersensitive (and I suspect neurodivergent) woman, I’d be cooked without the things that support me: yoga; exercise; time in nature; connection with others; my spiritual practices; grounding, whole foods; lots and lots of rest; creative play; and regular (daily!) laughter and tears to move the emotions that build up in my system each day.

Sometimes I feel shy about this list. Sometimes when I tell people I cry every day they recoil a bit or worry about me, as if I’m doing something wrong. (I think I’d be worried about myself if I didn’t cry every day, my mothering balm.)

Perhaps underneath my journey with food - and perhaps underneath all of our journeys - is a deeper journey, a journey of loving ourselves as we are, of liking how we’re made.

Today I feel a greater cherishing of myself, a gift of grace. For this I feel so grateful, especially for the people who have helped me.

And this doesn’t mean that I don’t find aspects of my unique blueprint frustrating or challenging, or that I don’t sometimes feel worn out by all that I do to keep myself thriving, or that sometimes I grieve what can feel really hard. All are true.

My yearning is that I may continue to soften within the frustration, to accept feelings of frustration as part of my wholeness, to bring playfulness to the challenges in my life. (Especially as many of the forces that shape us are cultural and interdependent, much bigger than our individual selves.)

We all have our unique difficulties, even if the deck we’re playing with is different (thank you, Emily, for the metaphor.) I hope you can feel reverence for the deck of cards you’ve been given, to soften the inevitable responsibility or guilt we can take on for the entire deck. (It’s much bigger than you.)

I remember something my beloved therapist would say to me, over and over: “This is the way the creator made you.” I carry her words with me and they live inside me, feeding me, even though she no longer walks on this good earth.

That is my wish for you, too.

May you bow to the way you’ve been made. May you celebrate your you-ness.

May you find the things that support you and help you thrive, including the support and love of others.

May you ask for all the help you need without shame. May you accept your vulnerabilities without blame.

May you give yourself lots of room for the frustrations and tears that this can also bring.

And may you know and grow the tremendous capacities that live inside you – often which are born through that which you would not have chosen, that which scrapes and tenderizes.

All can be true. All live within and support you.

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Thank you for reading When Food Is Your Mother. This substack is public, so feel free to share her words as you feel moved to do so.

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Join me for the next session of Gathering Ourselves, June 26th

If you’re looking for some space to play, to nurture a deeper cherishing for yourself, and a place to move tears and frustration, I want to invite you to join me and my co-facilitator, Tamara Neufeld Strijack, for the next session of Gathering Ourselves.

Gathering Ourselves is a creativity circle to connect more deeply with ourselves and each other. In these online gatherings, we use centering exercises, prompts, poems, and our own creative expression – whether it’s collage, journaling, writing, journal pages, drawing or more – to nurture a more generous, deeper, and restorative relationship with our inner world.

You don’t have to think of yourself as creative or a writer to come - merely a desire to show up and play.

We couple our explorations with group sharing – a sacred space where we can listen to ourselves and to each other with ‘the ears of our hearts.’ I’m so moved by how tender we are with each other.

Our next gathering is on Friday, June 26th from 10 am to 11 pm Pacific/11 am to 2 p m Mountain/12 to 3 pm Central/1 to 4 pm Eastern/6 to 9 pm London time.

You may sign up for one gathering at a time ($60) or for the series as a whole ($140 for the remaining three gatherings this year.) Kindly note that Texas residents pay sales tax.

You can learn more and sign up below. And please reach out if you have any questions.

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Thank you for reading When Food is Your Mother, a newsletter that explores a compassionate approach to understand and tend the roots of overeating.

I hope you enjoy this gentle exploration of our human vulnerability. You’re welcome to share, forward, and screenshot these words with proper credit.

All posts are free. If you feel moved to offer support, you can become a paid or free subscriber. Your subscriptions directly support my work as a writer, teacher and my upcoming book, When Food is Your Mother.

May you hold yourself and your vulnerabilities with kindness.

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