From Restriction To Receiving: The Pathway Of Eating Disorder Recovery

At the core of any eating disorder is the frequency of restriction. This means recovery is all about learning how to receive.

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Whether it’s restriction of food, subtle dieting, an avoidance of a food group on certain days, eating at specific times, exercise focused on weight-loss, or a suppression of emotions, social connection, or boundaries, or one’s truth, restriction and as such, hunger, is at the core of an eating disorders.

A hallmark of eating disorder recovery is learning how to reconnect to hunger cues.

Hunger says: “I need food”. It signals a basic need that all living beings have: the need for nourishment. Hunger is the drive to stay alive.

We recognize hunger through signals of emptiness, rumbling, thoughts about food, and changes in our mood or attention. 

But hunger isn’t so black and white. 

Sometimes we eat because it sounds good, or the occasion calls for it. Sometimes we eat based on our schedule and have to eat even when we’re not hungry because if we wait until afterwards, we’ll be ravenous. Sometimes we eat to soothe ourselves when we feel sad, tired, or some uncomfortable feelings.

Indeed, hunger isn’t just biological.

Diet culture has taught us that our hunger is bad and is the enemy. Wellness culture has taught us to only eat when we receive the biological signals - and to stop immediately when we feel full.

The external rules, stipulated by diet culture, cause us to bypass, override or ignore our bodies, impacting how we trust ourselves, and connect to our desire. 

Connecting to our hunger cues is a reminder that our bodies are alive and want to live and thrive. Connecting to our hunger is a practice of reclaiming and receiving our desires from the inside out. 

Connecting to our hunger cues is a gateway into reconnecting to our deepest wants, needs, yearnings and desires directly through the body.

Hunger can be an opening into exploring our needs and wants - and what rules we have learnt from society that have limited us in our self-exploration of desire. Listening to our hunger in its many forms gives us clues into our ability to receive.

The stomach is the place where we hear and feel our hunger cues and is the place that also receives the nourishment that we give our bodies.

Restoring relationship with our body’s unique way of expressing when it’s hungry or time to eat gives clarity to the beliefs we hold around trusting our hunger - not just our biological food hunger but the trust we hold (or don’t hold) for our soul’s deeper hunger.

This exploration also invites us to explore what we need in order to feel safe enough within ourselves and in our environments to nourish the deep soul layers of hunger.

Oftentimes, the soul nourishment that folks with eating disorders need is attuned relating. Being attuned to is deeply nourishing. It is the medicine and nourishment that the soul needs to receive.

“Attuned relationships give a traumatized nervous system the ability to recalibrate. When we feel safer, we can better digest trauma, integrate pain, and develop post-traumatic learning. And the more attuned relational environments we create, the more we contribute to the self-healing mechanism of the world.” - Thomas Huebl

Since an eating disorder will find ways to isolate and separate from the world and from the body itself, the medicine that is needed is compassionate connection. Recovery cannot be done alone.

the eating disorder is a reflection of the kind of connection and relational attachment one received from attachment figures that include caregivers, family, work, community, cultural, societal, and spiritual frameworks.

These attachment figures teach us in obvious and insidious rules around connection, belonging, love, and self-expression.

These figures offer conditions of attachment; in order to have safety and connection, one must follow the rules set out by the attachment figures.

And so, we may have learnt that our authentic expression wasn’t accepted or allowed because it wasn’t attuned to, understood, or validated.

In order to belong, feel safe and be in relational connection, people may shut off parts of their authentic selves to receive some form of recognition, and to gain the safety and connection necessary for survival.

It is from these places where the disordered eating behaviours manifest and represent through food the kind of connection rules one had to abide by.

the path of eating disorder recovery is learning to receive (aka metabolize) relational attunement that is in response to our authentic selves.

Receiving this kind of nourishment is deeply healing on a soul level. This is what the eating disorder wants to truly eat and be filled up with.

What is your body hungry for?

What is your soul hungry for?

Is there anything that stands in the way between you and your hunger?

Can you give yourself unconditional permission to explore your hunger and allow yourself to fully receive it?

Our hunger cues can be a gateway to listen to the deep layers of what the body wants to receive, fully.

Photo by Santiago Lacarta on Unsplash