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EATING AND EGO STATES- HOW DO THEY RELATE?
Picture this..you’re in line purchasing lunch at your regularly frequented restaurant ready to order your usual grilled chicken salad, side of fruit, and a diet coke. It feels as if an alien abducts your mouth, changes your order, and utters “I’ll have a cheeseburger with fries and a shake, please.” Before you know it, you have actually spent money for an additional 700 empty calories without even knowing how this happened. Sound familiar? Most of our unintended poor food choices arise from unconscious choices made by parts of ourselves that are, indeed, not our grown-up selves.
John Bradshaw gave legitimacy to this concept in the late ‘80’s with his inner child work. Carl Jung spoke of shadow selves and archtypes. Countless other therapists have written about ego states and the inner family living within each of us. Looking at ourselves as a composite of many younger selves, each with different needs and agendas, adds a whole new perspective to dealing with food issues. In order to adequately address our challenges with food, we initially need to get in touch with these hidden parts of ourselves who may, in fact, be making our food choices for us.
To simplify this concept, notice that aside from our current age, inside each of us dwells an infant, child, adolescent, and young adult. If you want to change your eating patterns, you must first identify who inside is making your choices for you. Notice the foods you are attracted to. Infants and bottles go hand in hand. Do you find yourself constantly drinking and needing something in your mouth. Are you attracted to mushy, runny foods, “mama foods” like mashed potatoes. Do you ingest more carbohydrates to provide energy so you can overwork when what you really need is a nap? Perhaps your infant is seeking to get her needs for good mothering through your mouth.
Are you attracted to foods such as macaroni and cheese, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and desire waffles, pancakes, or cinnamon rolls for breakfast? Do you choose desserts or snacks high in sugar when you told yourself prior to the meal you were going to abstain? When our inner child decides our meal for us, it will probably look unbalanced and won’t have essential elements like sufficient protein and vegetables. After all, when is the last time you gave your outer toddler carte blanche to decide her dinner without providing guidelines?
Do you frequently indulge in nachos, pizza, fast food, chips and coke? Sounds like party food for an adolescent to me. Adolescents like trendy, quick, junk food as well as lots of excitement in their lives. Do you find yourself living on the edge through your mouth? If saying no to the nachos or pizza at the party or basketball game is difficult, your adolescent may be in charge of your food choices. On the flip side, perhaps you are depriving yourself of adequate food intake due to desiring the body shape of peers, much as an adolescent bulimic or anorectic reacts to peer pressure during her formative years.
In order to ensure that we are making healthy choices, by that I mean choices made by our healthy adult, we must first get in touch with these inner selves. One way to do this is with the help of a therapist, by keeping a food diary, and journaling. Making inappropriate choices about food or exercise is indicative of unmet needs by each of these younger parts of self. Perhaps the infant’s need is simply to be held or to take a nap. The child may need to express a feeling, such as sadness and needs to be held while she is allowed to cry. The adolescent may be bored and you may need to find some appropriate risk taking like learning piano or taking an art class. In our culture and in many of our families of origin, food has been the primary mode of nurturing. Through dialogue with our inner selves and nurturing them through more healthful means, we are able to satisfy our underlying appetite for something much deeper than food.
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