Dinner Guest

I have been experiencing some wicked heartburn, indigestion, and reflux lately. My question to my dear friend Beth on our group call in the Peace with Food and Soul program I have been in was how to identify triggers and causes and potential remedies because I have been eating tums like it's 2001 (in 2001 I was preggers with my oldest son and legit should have bought stock).

So I am fully expecting that we are going to explore foods or exercises or even ways to sit....I could never have anticipated how our conversation was going to turn.

I studied behavioral health in college so the connection should have been something that I would have at least pondered somewhere in my subconscious, but alas, it didn't bubble up even as a whisper.

"Do you trust yourself with food?" 

Beth asked me with genuine curiosity.

.....

ummmmm

.....

"Nope," I said. 

"Huh, no I do not." 

Now there is so much that I know about nutrition. On this journey to find healing I have studied an enormous amount of information and statistical and anecdotal evidence about anti-inflammatory foods, Hashimoto's and Autoimmune Protocols, metabolism-boosting and superfoods, supplements...blah blah blah. 

I am NOT a nutritionist or a doctor. 

I am not a guru or a sage and I am not implying that I am super smart on these areas but I am suffering from a bit of "analysis paralysis". 

Gretchen Rubin talks about this in multiple books, her blog, and on her podcast. 

I am borrowing the term here because I am stuck in a sea of information and have NO IDEA how to apply it to MY body to get my body to do the stuff that other people get to see when they apply the information.  I tell myself that I just am missing that one crucial piece that will pull it all together. I thought the issue was simply that I am not the best finder or a pearl of small wisdom, that I don't trust my body, or that I just didn't know enough, or that I just hadn't found the right person who actually "gets it".

When Beth said, "let's unpack that a little". 

I thought, okay....but it just means I don't KNOW what is the "right" diet, program, etc....YET.

The reality though, is that it is largely a matter of TRUST, not "right" info. 

I was confused by all the information and that confusion speaks to a number of experiences I have had around food and what is acceptable, right, good etc. Trying to marry those messages with the idea of what I should look and feel like had me lost in one of those proverbial funhouse mirror rooms. 

Beth invited me to think of a particular time when "Little Cass" was sitting down at a meal. Particularly one that might have been unpleasant. She asked me to describe what I was seeing and hearing.

I close my eyes and I can feel the chair under my little bottom, I almost instinctively want to pull my legs up to lift me a little higher so that I am sitting in a better position (like the grown-ups). We are looking at menus and a woman walks by being led by the hostess to their table. My then step-father points to her body and specifically her bottom. He laughs. He takes a drink and says, "look at that! Her a** looks like two hogs wallering in a potato sack. Fat a**." He shakes his head. I swallow and open my eyes.

"Its okay, keep going...what else do you see?" 

I close my eyes again and I see my mom smiling softly and prodding me to finish my meal. The waitress asks if we want dessert. I do, but I am no longer interested in what I ordered for dinner. I would totally rather eat something sweet. We are eating out after all which is a total treat. 

I am allowed to order the dessert and I am so happy. 

It comes and as I am eating it my step-father notices another woman who is very heavy set eating the same thing. "Well, there you go... keep eating... go ahead....that's you in 10 years."

I open my eyes and pause for a moment. 

Beth asks me, "wherein your body do you feel this exchange?"

I examine my body, I kind of feel it everywhere.... my throat, my back, my stomach, my mouth....

"Okay, go back there for a moment and take a seat next to Little Cass." 

"Okay"

"What does she need right now?'

My eyes pop open, "she needs a hug."

"Okay, close your eyes, and see yourself hugging her. What does she need to hear?"

"She needs to hear that those women are beautiful and loved. See, they are with their families, laughing and enjoying time together. And your parents, Little Cass, sometimes people mean well and it comes out all wrong. People who are hurting don't always realize that they are hurting others. We need to forgive them."

"Cass, thank you so much!" Beth took a beautiful moment to encourage us to go back to some places in our mind's eye and explore, just look with empathy and non-judgment. 

My favorite thing from this call is that she reminded us all that our parents, ALL of our parents are a key part of shaping our experiences with food and body and that we must NEVER use these mind scaping opportunities to shame them for what they may have done wrong. 

She pointed out that it was really healthy for me to see that forgiveness was needed and that forgiveness will be a key to unlocking new insights and positive energies around food and wellness.

Part of the confusion I had was having one parent encourage eating (and sometimes pointing out that moderation was good and healthy), trying new things, and being closer to the clean plate club while simultaneously having a parent that was trying (what I suspect was to encourage health, beauty, and vitality) but more from a critical and judgemental framework. 

I often feel a tug of war between what I want to eat, what I should eat, how to avoid getting fatter and more. I am an adult and I own the choices and beliefs I make about food, and I am so grateful for this exercise because the power is going to uncomfortable places and emerging having given myself what I think I need. It is so edifying and empowering.

Moreover, the homework was to bring "Little Cass" with me to dinner that night, keep her with me and even tuck her into bed.

So what about the heartburn, you ask? Since that was my original question, of course you would want to know the outcome.... Well, I have taken tums exactly three times in the last two weeks. I had been taking them multiple times a day and had just bought two new bottles. 

So, yeah.... crazy right?

I still experience swelling in my gut and this, by no means has been the magic cure, but I am so thankful to have been given this gift, this experience and to be reminded of the power of forgiveness. Forgiving others for the intentional or inadvertent pain we carry and forgiving ourselves for taking those recordings and replaying them years after those people have faded from your life.

I haven't spoken to my then step-father since I was 16 years old, and we recently learned that he passed away. I pray for the repose of his soul and I thank him for the lessons I have learned, and really hope that he has found eternal rest. Hopefully he can forgive me too for some of the crazy I put he and my mom through from time to time.

For now, I have the amazing privilege of getting to do the work THIS side of heaven and I can't rave enough about how much a joy it is to know that I am being made new each and every day. 

Hopefully a little wiser, and if I am being honest it will rock to be a little leaner too but even if that never happens, I will still be a little more loved. Not only because I am trusting that God is leading me to do good work and good people and I trust Him, but because I am adding myself little by little to the people that love me.

 

So...What's for dinner at your house? Who are you inviting?