photo @wayne.marcus
Food, Glorious Food
How Our Inner Child Influences Our Food Choices
An Essay by Dr. Irwin Jay Asher
Food, glorious food!We’re anxious to try it,Three banquets a day – Our favorite diet!
Every one of us has an Inner Child. An Inner Child records our experiences from birth. It reminds us what is safe and what should be feared. Also, what is love, and how to get it. What is hurt, and how to avoid it. How to please; and the price we pay when we sacrifice our soul to be accepted.
When I first started studying the Inner Child, I thought we all were born with a blank slate, Tabula Rasa. Not true. We carry messages from our parents and grandparents. What were their experiences with food? That is our true foundation. I grew up in the 1940s; the years of war. My Inner Child reminds me, quietly, silently, of a childhood message: Finish all the food on your plate; children in Europe are starving. At the end of each meal, three times a day, we would have something sweet: a cookie, a slice of chocolate cake. It took me years to stop that habit.
If I don’t listen to my Inner Child, give it a big hug, and remind it that the war is over and children in Europe are no longer starving, I will never find my way to healthy eating habits. In order to listen, I must be still. Being still is a challenge. Being a New Yorker, where we are taught that every moment must be productive, learning to be still has been a test for me. Practice. Practice. Practice.
Message: Heal your Inner Child in order to heal your relationship with food.
When I think about breakfast, lunch and dinner, I think about my choices. Am I choosing healthy? Am I showing love for myself by my choices? If I stick to healthy choices, I will pat myself on the back at the end of the day. If I cheat, I ask myself why. I try to understand what is not working in my life, and why I needed a “reward” to feel good. The sugar-high-feel-good lasts a moment, I tell myself. I stop. I talk to my Inner Child, and try to understand why this day is different from healthy-eating days.
Control: Ask yourself: Does food control you? Can you eat what you want, when you want, and stop at a healthy point? Does food take up a significant amount of your headspace? Do you think about that doughnut you got after dinner when you finished eating all the food on your plate? Do you continue wanting to reward yourself? Have doughnuts become your dinner? If your Inner Child is screaming, Reward me. Reward me. stop, listen and take positive action.
Journaling: Add journaling to your life. Journal the stories of your childhood. Write down everything you can remember. What your mother said. How that made you feel. What your father said. How that made you feel. Some of my clients grew up with a grandmother in their home; a grandmother who did the cooking. What messages did she instill about food? Find her words; write them in your journal. Write your child reactions; write your adult reactions. “Let it go” becomes a mantra. The more you understand, the more you know what has to be let go to live a sane-eating life.
Goal: Let go of destructive messages.
Shame: When you indulge in a doughnut, do you feel shame? I have a sign above my desk that reads: Do not blame, shame or vilify anyone. I should add: Do not blame, shame or vilify yourself. It is odd how we are taught to be kind to others, but little attention is given to being kind to ourselves.
Once I was in Paris, France on a business trip. My boss had a coffee and chocolate croissant. He enjoyed his coffee and croissant and then complained, “I should not have eaten that.” His wife responded immediately. “You obviously enjoyed it, move on.” She was accustomed to his eating and complaining. As if the complaining would make the calories go away. His wife made sense. If you treated yourself to a chocolate croissant, enjoy the moment. At lunch, just have a salad. Think: Balance.
Comfort food: Google’s definition of comfort food that is insightful and helpful. “If you call something comfort food, you mean it is enjoyable to eat and makes you feel happier, although it may not be very good for your health.”
Health: The body pays us back when we establish a regimen of healthy eating. Our skin glows. Our hair glistens. We have energy to workout. We get our work done on time. It’s like climate change. If we stop burning fossil fuels, the air we breathe will be healthy. If you’re thinking of buying a hybrid car to do your part, use the same thinking to manage your diet.
Journaling redux: Again, if you’re reaching for comfort food and watching your waistline grow, turn to your journal. Ask your Inner Child why you needed French fries with lunch? Did something happen in the morning that made your Inner Child demand comfort? Does comfort equal attention? Does comfort assuage disappointment? Does comfort act as a patch of frustration?
Inner critic: When I judge myself for saying something I should not have said; when I judge myself for not speaking up, comfort makes the emotional pain go away. Do you identify?
Feel the emotion: Talk about challenge. For people who have shut down emotionally because of a life trauma or traumas, this will be a particularly difficult road to travel. But, like getting on the bicycle, keep reaching out to your Inner Child and gently find the way to make him or her talk to you. Learn the dynamics of your inner world to be boss of your outer world.
Feeling vocabulary: Write down feeling words. Might sound silly, but see the words in front of you. Which feeling words are a part of your everyday experience? Are you comfortable with feeling words? If yes, bravo. If not, pay attention to someone in your life who expresses feelings and feeling words. Where’s the gap between you and a person who is comfortable with feeling words? Inner Child? Journal!
Body shame: Body shame usually starts with a traumatic event. If you are experiencing body shame, it’s best to see a professional counselor. I am a life coach and would be pleased to work with you. Contact information is on this website.
It took me eighty years to say out loud the story of my four-year-old self going to bed hungry. Yes, I had three meals a day, BUT, I went to bed hungry. The question is: Why didn’t I speak up? When my younger brother came along, he sat on my father’s lap and enjoyed pieces of his steak. He didn’t have to speak up; he acted up – so to speak. My Inner Child held on to the message that going to bed hungry is not okay. As an adult, when in bed, ready to sleep after a long day, I would check if I was hungry. If the answer was ‘Yes,’ I would get up and eat – anything and everything. I had a weight problem. Did food control me? Yes! Did food take up a significant amount of my headspace? Yes! I needed to heal my relationship with food. I did. I healed my Inner Child and thereby healed my relationship with food. When the men and women who entered my therapy practice stating out loud that they had an eating problem, I would slowly ask about their sexual history. We’ve all heard these stories, and they are true. Men and women who were sexually abused as children, too often overeat to assure themselves they are unattractive and safe from sexual predators. The Inner Child replays the feelings of the abuse – perhaps not the abuse itself, but the feelings. To shut down the bad feelings, to feel good about oneself – just one more doughnut. Ask yourself, who’s the boss? Who’s the boss of your eating habits? You, the adult, or the Inner Child who has stored missed needs? I had a cousin who told me as a child she was out shopping with her mother; she asked her mother if she could have an ice cream. Her mother responded: If I buy you an ice cream, I won’t have money for milk. What would you guess was, as an adult, her relationship with ice cream?
Recap: Everyone has an Inner Child; the emotional side of us. It’s like being born with a stenographer in your heart. Good things happen, the stenographer records: Good. Bad things happen, the stenographer records: Bad. The messages remain. They cannot be erased. As a young adult, or an adult, or a senior, the messages ring out good or bad as we journey through life’s joys and sorrows. Often, it is impossible to remember the root of the message screaming in our ear. For most of us who are being harassed by our Inner Child, we hear, “You’re not good enough,” “You’ll never make the baseball team,” “He’ll never ask you out, you’re ugly.”
Food, glorious food!What wouldn’t we give forThat extra bit more – That’s all that we live forWhy should we be fated toDo nothing but broodOn food.Magical food,Wonderful food,Marvelous food,Fabulous food,
Lyrics by Lionel Bart from the musical Oliver!
It took me eighty years to say out loud the story of my four-year-old self going to bed hungry. Yes, I had three meals a day, BUT, I went to bed hungry. The question is: Why didn’t I speak up? When my younger brother came along, he sat on my father’s lap and enjoyed pieces of his steak. He didn’t have to speak up; he acted up – so to speak. My Inner Child held on to the message that going to bed hungry is not okay. As an adult, when in bed, ready to sleep after a long day, I would check if I was hungry. If the answer was ‘Yes,’ I would get up and eat – anything and everything. I had a weight problem. Did food control me? Yes! Did food take up a significant amount of my headspace? Yes! I needed to heal my relationship with food. I did. I healed my Inner Child and thereby healed my relationship with food. When the men and women who entered my therapy practice stating out loud that they had an eating problem, I would slowly ask about their sexual history. We’ve all heard these stories, and they are true. Men and women who were sexually abused as children, too often overeat to assure themselves they are unattractive and safe from sexual predators. The Inner Child replays the feelings of the abuse – perhaps not the abuse itself, but the feelings. To shut down the bad feelings, to feel good about oneself – just one more doughnut. Ask yourself, who’s the boss? Who’s the boss of your eating habits? You, the adult, or the Inner Child who has stored missed needs? I had a cousin who told me as a child she was out shopping with her mother; she asked her mother if she could have an ice cream. Her mother responded: If I buy you an ice cream, I won’t have money for milk. What would you guess was, as an adult, her relationship with ice cream?
Recap: Everyone has an Inner Child; the emotional side of us. It’s like being born with a stenographer in your heart. Good things happen, the stenographer records: Good. Bad things happen, the stenographer records: Bad. The messages remain. They cannot be erased. As a young adult, or an adult, or a senior, the messages ring out good or bad as we journey through life’s joys and sorrows. Often, it is impossible to remember the root of the message screaming in our ear. For most of us who are being harassed by our Inner Child, we hear, “You’re not good enough,” “You’ll never make the baseball team,” “He’ll never ask you out, you’re ugly.”
Food, glorious food!What wouldn’t we give forThat extra bit more – That’s all that we live forWhy should we be fated toDo nothing but broodOn food.Magical food,Wonderful food,Marvelous food,Fabulous food,
Lyrics by Lionel Bart from the musical Oliver!