Characteristic humour and depth from Anne, on a seasonally relevant theme….
This touches on personal experience for me. I have experienced similar battles to Anne’s. In my past life, I regularly embarked on diets. I have also found more of value in deeper connection and compassionate attention to my own embodied being….
That process has led me from a place of frequent disconnected and self-abusive eating, to those experiences becoming a rarity and falling away all together. I still often have a sense of separation from, or unease with – at times a dislike for – my body (which is a complex response with many relevant experiential strands, rooted in old trauma and conditions of worth). Yet I am also able to hold myself in that, with more gentleness, awareness and tenderness. I meditate and move and dance and feel my way through what arises, and I eat from a more mindful, responsive place.
Along the way, I have noticed profound changes in what I eat – arising naturally, inwardly and without effort, rather than through attempts to impose by will or coerce. In the last couple of months – again without effort or much apparent involvement of the mind/will at all – I have become vegan, and am learning a whole new culinary repertoire, that feels wholesome and self-loving.
So, like Anne, I feel some impulse to invite you to reflect on the New Year diet resolution, if you are feeling inclined to make one….
(Lindsey Talbott, Therapist)
Palace Gate Counselling Service, Exeter
Counselling in Exeter since 1994
Palace Gate Counselling Service Blog 