This week, 'Therapy Begins with T(ea)' steeps on society's influence on extremes, especially when it comes to our relationship with food, and offers a full body check-in to help you practice identifying your own hunger and fullness in a non-pathologizing way.
Therapy Begins with T(ea) is a weekly newsletter based on the themes that come up in my sessions as a therapist who specializes in conflict & attachment in romantic relationships, shame & imposter syndrome, and our psychological relationships with money. Each week consists of a 'steep' in thought reflection, an accompanying body based check-in, and tea card intentions for the week to come. Its intended use is for educational purposes only and is not a replacement for individualized medical or mental health treatment.
'Steep' in Thought (3-5 min)
Lost connection
Food is nourishment. It’s connection & community. Medicine. It fuels our bodies and enlivens our spirits -- and yet, most of us have a really complicated relationship with it. Maybe you’re actively struggling; maybe you’re working on challenging the outdated beliefs that were passed on to you growing up. Maybe you’re trying to strike the balance of metabolic science and overall wellbeing in your relationship with food. Whatever our relationship with food is, we know it influences us daily. And what’s made it harder is that we’ve lost connection to our body’s feedback of what food we need and when we need it.
We live in a world of movement, urgency, productivity, dopamine hits, and immediacy. Oh, and stress too, of course. Our over-engagement with ‘doing’ and with the external world, as well as the cortisol pumping through our system, weakens our sensitivity to our internal environment. And just like with our nervous system, we become jaded to the nuance of the ‘middle states’ and over-familiarize ourselves with the extremes ends -- in this case with food, it’s feeling famished or painfully full.
not the scale you think
To help re-engage with our body’s cues around hunger, we can use the hunger-fullness scale (the only scale I encourage routine use of when it comes to food & your body). As you read through this scale, keep in mind that it’s meant to help increase your connection to your body’s natural hunger & satiety cues; that said, food can/should be enjoyed for other meaningful reasons.
Which of these stages/ranges are you most familiar with? How about least familiar? Use this week’s full body check-in to better understand each of these stages as they relate to your experience with hunger and fullness.
Full Body Check-In (2-4 min)
Start with your breath. As you breathe in through your nose, feel the air fill your belly and ribcage. As you breathe out through the mouth, feel everything soften. Try out ‘umbrella’ breathing, feeling your torso expand 360 degrees, like an umbrella opening up, on your inhale; then slowly close the umbrella on the exhale. See if you can feel that expansion on your sides and back, not just your front. Take a few more breaths like this. Stay here or keep reading.
Think back to the hunger-fullness scale. What stages do you experience the most? Do you notice the slow progression your body makes from neutral to hungry? Or does it feel like time jumps and, all of a sudden, you’re starving with a headache? When you’re eating food, do you notice the sensation of your body getting full? Or do you find yourself only able to stop once you’re stuffed and in physical discomfort?
Take a moment and reflect on your own hunger-fullness cues. Do they feel like a switch inside of you or more like a dial/range? Which stages do you feel like your body skips over? Which stages do you want to focus on re-connecting with?
If you’re having trouble answering these questions, try focusing on one stage of the hunger scale at a time -- notice what memories, emotions, and physical sensations come up. Take your time with it.
Let’s practice cueing into your body. As you breathe in and out, ask yourself how hungry or full you are right now. Notice what sensations you feel in the body. Start by focusing on your stomach/middle torso. Observe any twinges, hollowness, or heaviness. Expand your awareness to your whole body and notice what comes up. What is your body telling you about your state of hunger-fullness? Which stage on the scale best describes your current experience?
Try checking in with your hunger-fullness cues throughout the day or week to help you increase that mind-body connection. You can check in with yourself when you’re not eating and when you are.
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