One of my favorite parts of my job is that I am always learning new things from my clients. This is a major reason that I try to have clients “lead” their session. I am there to help direct, but I want to hear about what is going on from their perspective since they are the ones who know their situation best. They tend to start discussing what has been going on and while doing so, often experience this “ah-ha” moment that can be a groundbreaking unlock!
I recently saw a client who struggles with restriction. She mentioned a bit of a break through that she had around how she feels her fullness. It’s common for people struggling with disordered eating to feel like they lose their hunger/fullness cues. One reason this may happen is because when we diet or try to change our eating, we end up relying on external sources to tell us what, when, and how to eat. This may look like waiting until a certain time of day to eat or eating a certain serving size regardless of how physically hungry/full we are. When we do this for long enough, we almost “forget” what hunger and fullness feels like since we are so out of practice.
As this client is working on adding the appropriate amount of food back in, she struggles with sitting with, what for her, is an uncomfortable feeling of fullness. She often notices she starts feeling full after just a few bites and rather than feeling satisfied and comfortable with what she is eating, her eating disorder voice tends to get louder. This week, she mentioned noticing that this feeling she has labeled as fullness is not necessarily physically fullness, but rather a feeling of psychological fullness (or at least those are the terms we came up with ;)). Rather than actually feeling like her stomach has added volume to it, she clues into the fact that she can notice her shorts touching her stomach. Rather than feeling nice and satisfied by what she ate, she notices that half of her sandwich is gone and those “external cues” come into play. She doesn’t feel energized from her food but instead starts counting calories to note when she should be done.
If you are in recovery or working on your relationship with food, I challenge you to notice the difference between your psychological fullness and your physical fullness. Notice how often you “choose” to listen to one over the other. Once we put the work in (and it takes time & practice – so be patient!), we see that we have a built-in hunger/fullness system that is ready to communicate with us when we are ready to listen. Work on trusting it better!
The optimal opportunity to phrazle see it in its full splendor is around sunset on September 28, as stated by The Old Farmer’s Almanac.