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by Golda Poretsky, H.H.C.
www.bodylovewellness.com

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(Note from Golda: This post first appeared on the lovely blog, Roots of She, and may be familiar to many of you.  I hope you dig it!)

"Abundantia," by Peter Paul Rubens (courtesy of wikipedia)

Nearly every woman I know has a screwed up relationship with food.  I think the way to heal this is not more of the same, it’s eating like a goddess.

Right now, we’re living in a cultural moment that tells us that the masculine paradigm is better than the feminine.*  This paradigm honors logic over intuition, outer rules over internal guidance, avoidance of pain rather than attraction to pleasure, and fear of scarcity over acknowledgement of abundance.  And this lack of balance between the masculine and feminine shows up again and again in the way we eat.

But our goddess selves know that none of that feels right.  Your goddess self doesn’t believe in diets, or rules, or calories or Weight Watchers’ points.  Your goddess self knows that food is a blessing, that slowing down a bit feels good, that your body knows what food you need and what you don’t.  Your goddess self knows that your body is beautiful, and doesn’t understand why you would control your food as a way to control the size and shape of your body.

In order to heal the way that we relate to food, we have to return to our wilder selves.  We have to let go of the rules, and delve into our true desires.

For many of you, this concept may be just at the edge of your comfort zone.  You’ve been taught to create meal plans, follow rigid rules, count calories, count fat, weigh and measure your food, etc. etc., so when I say to you that all of that should be tossed out the window, it may feel really scary.  Perhaps you even tried to throw it all out the window and things got kind of weird.  Perhaps you found yourself bingeing, and it freaked you out so much that after a while, you looked for your next diet.  You saw that out of control behavior as proof that you need rules and strictures and meal plans and counting.

But you had it all wrong.  Because you were eating at that time as a reaction to diets, and not as acknowledgement of your goddess self.  And the way to do that is to connect with your true abundance.

You see, you’ve got to get past the reaction of “I can eat whatever I want!  Screw you Jenny Craig!  I’m going to eat everything in sight!”  Because when you eat from that place, you’re not eating from a place of abundance, you’re just reacting to the rules and strictures of the masculine paradigm.  And while it may feel good to do that for a while, it can start feeling bad pretty quickly.  It can start feeling really out of control and just as unaligned with your true desires as a diet plan.  So the next move is to truly connect with your abundance, intuition and pleasure.

So here are 3 powerful tips for healing your relationship with food by eating like a goddess:

1) Connect With Your Abundance — Imagine for a moment that you can eat whatever you want whenever you’re hungry.  Imagine that you have a fridge and a pantry full of food that you really love, and that when your body says it’s hungry, you have your pick of really delectable offerings.  And here’s the key, it’s all going to be there tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day.  Whenever you’re hungry, you may eat.  You don’t have to worry about getting enough, because there is always enough.  Diets and restrictions don’t exist in your world.  You can trust that your bodily hunger will always be respected. You don’t have to worry about over-eating either, because there’s no reason to overeat.  Why have more cake tonight, and stuff yourself, when there will be plenty of cake tomorrow?

2) Connect With Your Intuition — Your intuition is a powerful tool that connects you to your body, your wisdom, and a greater knowing.  If you want to start eating more intuitively, then you need to build your intuitive skills.  The way to start building your intuition is by trusting it, even if you think it might be wrong.  You start by paying attention.  If your inner wisdom tells you to take a different route to work, you listen to it, even if it doesn’t make logical sense.  If your inner wisdom says, “I’m hungry, let’s have seconds!” you have seconds, even if you don’t have any weight watchers points left for that day.  If your inner wisdom tells you to say yes to going out for drinks even when you feel like going home and watching TV, go with your inner wisdom.  It’s important to rebuild this trust in your intuition in order to heal your relationship with food.

3) Connect With Your Desire — People often conflate hunger for things other than food with our hunger for food.  Hunger could be for anything from a new job to a new lover to better boundaries with a friend.  But if you don’t take the time to identify your desires, you’re more likely to turn to food to try to satisfy them.  So I’m going to ask you to start listing your desires, and keep adding to that list.  No desire is too big or too small.  Whether you desire a free iced coffee or to own a villa on the Italian coast, add it to your list.  Be specific.  Be bold.  There is no desire too big for a goddess.  Challenge yourself to think bigger than you ever had in your life.  And if you notice a few days from now that a desire has come true, check it off and write “Thank you, goddess!” next to it.  Just remember that these are not goals, they’re desires.  They’re meant to be enjoyed.

*I realize that the terms “masculine” and “feminine” may be problematic.  I’m using these terms to describe a duality of guiding principles for how people look at the world.  In no way do I mean that all men are one way and all women another, or that they should be one way or another.  It has nothing to do with anyone’s gender or identity.  It’s more to do with how an overabundance of one paradigm and a negating of the other is damaging to all of us.

Wanna learn how to really eat like a goddess? Then join me for The Big Beautiful Goddess Academy. It starts this week!  Click here for details.

 Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight.