Eating From Abundance this Holiday Season
By: Alexis Bates
As a younger child, I was always eager to fill my plate up to its fullest with all of my favorites: roasted turkey, crescent rolls, and endless scoops of stuffing with gravy. I’d even specifically request my favorite side of creamed corn and learned to make it myself. Somewhere along the way, though, I lost my love for the holiday season. I’d love to blame it on becoming busy with work when the reality is that I didn’t want others to see me eat; I was sick of the way I was always agitated from being perceived. For years, comments were made on my weight and the amount I would eat. I would go through cycles of restriction and binging that were extremely apparent to everyone but myself and it only made me hate myself and the world more.
Photo Courtesy of Unsplash
Navigating Familial Body Shaming
What once was an opportunity to catch up with loved ones became a mental and physical secret game that isolated me from those I cared about. Food would go missing overnight. Resources were depleted with no explanation. Though typically I found myself able to wait for everybody to go to sleep before I began eating Oreo after Oreo and plates of leftovers; sometimes I could not wait. There were times my family saw me go back for seconds, thirds, fourths. I struggled to keep my compulsive eating a secret, even when I felt the most guilt and shame. My family had no way to reach me, as the real issue was feeling out of control and perceived during a period of feeling so unlike myself.
With my increase in disordered eating behaviors, my family became more concerned. Even the most innocent and compassionate questions triggered me to terror, self-loathing, and dysphoria. Though I continued to put off comments with a passiveness reserved for those in denial, I began to spiral out of control at my family’s worried confrontations. Comments on my weight ranged from passive and kind to aggressive and hurtful. I was discouraged by my simple response of “I’d prefer comments not be made on my body at this period in my life” being often overlooked or simply ignored. I was running out of hope that I'd ever recover my relationship with my family or my body as my condition worsened. I blamed them for making my condition worse, and they blamed me for having no control of myself and making it their problem.
Photo courtesy of Molly Blackbird on Unsplash
The only thing worse than spiraling is knowing everyone feels bad for you, or even, burdened by you. I stopped wanting to go through the vicious ritual of showing up year-after-year and not being better yet. I often felt like a hopeless cause going through treatments that never seemed to work, and swearing I’d get better but never having a finish line in sight. However, staying firm in my belief that I deserved to set the rules on how I’m spoken to and about, I insisted that I preferred my body not to be spoken on until I no longer had to. I was struggling, but I needed support, not judgment. Oftentimes, loved ones get so lost in their own fear and concern, they will say or do anything to alleviate some of that. It's up to us to remind our family members that it is not their responsibility to fix our problems; their support as we work through them ourselves is enough. It’s especially important to always remember people’s reactions to us are not a reflection of us, rather they are a reflection of where the speaker is at in life and their heart.
Eating from Abundance
From time to time I catch myself operating from the subconscious fear there will not be food as a result of an adolescence where I was punished for eating without permission and lived in constant fear of losing access to my food supply. I may gorge on subpar food at a buffet because some part of my body fears food in general will stop being available to me. This is completely antithetical to what it means to feast, though!
As we approach our yearly season of feasting again, it’s important to remember why we come together. Of course we are eager to see family and loved ones, to commune, but there’s an even larger historical context we exist within while filling our plates. Historically, feasting as a ritualized activity signals a society’s cultural progression. The act of feasting requires an elevated communal skillset: empathy and cooperation; pottery making; agricultural bounty; food and water storage; advanced culinary palettes; carpentry; hunting; and more. The act of feasting signals in every way that a society is one living in abundance.
The new way I serve myself at meals is to only plate what I know I can finish. I put less attention on people seeing me get seconds because I know I’m taking an “appropriate” amount each time, eating slower, taking smaller bites to make the experience a longer, more enjoyable one. I’ve come to worry about new things like food waste, sustainable living, and mindful eating. Taking what I need; leaving what I don’t for more leftovers. I unapologetically fill my plate with nutrient-dense foods to strengthen my body and enjoy the foods I find pleasurable in moderation, to comfort my soul. I am learning to embrace the spirit of abundance and realizing we each have to recognize our own limits.
By celebrating abundance, I hope to reframe a twisted narrative that many may feel trapped within by the financial stress of our day-to-day reality, which can even often include disordered eating, intentional or otherwise. This reality is one that operates from a space of deprivation despite the USDA reporting an estimate of 66 million tons of food wasted in America in 2019.
Photo courtesy of Ashlyn Ciara on Unsplash
Not only can reframing from a scarcity mindset to an abundant one create healthier eating habits, it can generally improve how you navigate life. Especially as we creep up on the end of the year and the time to make new resolutions, how incredible would it be if we each added an abundance mindset to our lists? This allows us to view every opportunity we are given from a place of desire rather than necessity. By prioritizing our joy and pleasure over our security (which is a daily non-negotiable) we begin to see where we can inject our daily lives with appreciation and contentment for what we have. This mindset can also allow us each to think more creatively when it comes to problems we face. In fact, from an abundance mindset, every problem is just another opportunity for growth. And how lucky we are to choose whether or not we grow in this life.
Enjoy your holidays, and enjoy your blessings this upcoming year!
Alexis Bates is a genre non-conforming writer exploring the concept of Heaven on Earth and creating change that allows each of us to embrace this reality. They are bringing light to the taboos of humanity.
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