Feeling Safe Around Food

On our journey towards understanding more about how to feel safe around food, this process offers some basic steps to take for people dealing with bulimia, binge eating, and emotional overeating.  These steps work towards the development of a more compassionate relationship with food, using an approach based on abundance, strangely enough!

Embracing the Abundance

Imagine a forest in the heart of spring, where every tree bursts with vibrant leaves and life flourishes all around.  It signifies abundance, much like the journey of learning to feel safe around food.  By taking inspiration from nature, we can recognize that when food is plentiful, not just physically, but in our minds it’s plentiful too, it loses its mystery, and we no longer have the urge to eat it urgently or in large quantities or in secret.  We just know that it is there and it will wait for us to taste it.

Professor Christopher Fairburn’s approach from the book “Overcoming Binge Eating” plays a crucial role here.  His method teaches us to embrace abundance and plentifulness by exposing ourselves to foods we once thought of as forbidden.  With your list of foods that you generally try to avoid, start with the “safest” food on that list and have that within easy reach, and allow yourself the freedom to explore this food gently, just one bite at a time and see how that feels for you.

The Step-by-Step Process

Start by identifying foods that have been “forbidden” in your diet.  Try creating an environment, where these foods are present and available to you, without any judgment or restriction and you’ll start to feel more comfortable seeing all these food around you.

• Gradual Exposure: Begin by allowing yourself to have these foods available more frequently.  Notice how, when they are available and visible to you every day, they lose their appeal, and you’ll stop craving them.  Which is the same sort of experience as if you craved chocolate and yet worked in a chocolate factory.  You would just know that you were allowed to eat chocolate any time at all, and because it’s always around you and clearly visible, after a really short space of time, your chocolate cravings would disappear in such an environment of abundance.

• Tune Into Your Body: During this journey, listen intently to your body’s needs and hunger cues. Trust yourself to know when you’ve had enough – you knew how to do this when you were a young child (before food restriction and an addiction to feeling guilty came along).

• Practice Self-Compassion: Be kind and patient with yourself. Allow your journey with food to flow ever so slowly and naturally and to develop its own rhythm and timing, like a river winds its way and flows all by itself.

Trusting Your Natural Stopping Point

Feeling safe around food is a process, not an overnight change. Remember when you were a small child and you could stop eating naturally because you just trusted your body’s signals of fullness and satiety.  See if you can recognize when a sense of fullness appears again as you eat a meal, this process will build feelings of safety and security with food, one meal at a time.

Conclusion

Feeling safe around food is a journey rooted in self-compassion and patience, we need to allow ourselves the space to develop the patience to trust ourselves that we can stop when we choose to, even when testing the waters with a food that was previously forbidden.  It is possible, one day at a time, to build a healthier relationship and enjoyment with all foods again, opening doors to healing from bulimia, binge eating, and emotional overeating.

We invite you to join our community at supporttostopovereating.com.au, where we provide guidance and support for your growth and self-discovery.