Kelly with @cookingwcaitlin and I the most awesome lunch last week, and one of the dishes we both had was this Red Quinoa with edamame and tomatoes. If you are ever in Phoenix, you must go to St. Francis and nosh on some. It's amazing! Here you can gawk at the rest of our lunch.
I love Quinoa in general because it's a power packed food with fiber and protein, and most importantly, it tastes good. 10 years ago though, I would never have eaten this stuff because I was knee deep in my corporate road warrior days flying all over the place eating mainly airplane food, Chinese take out, and strip mall restaurant food.
Yes, when I wined and dined customers, we ate at fancy restaurants but I mostly stuck to spinach salad, some chicken dish, Tiramasu, and of course the bread basket and a cocktail...or three. I drank a whole lot during my corporate days in hindsight because I was trying to numb myself from a life I hated living. I called it Corpse-rate America for a reason.
Mirrors are not just for checking our look
After going on medical leave, one of my healers really got me to start looking at my relationship with food as a reflection of my relationship with myself. She told me that our outside world, what's going on in our lives, is merely a reflection of our inside world - mirroring. To change the outside, you must start with the inside. My first reaction was, "If that's true, I'm so messed up, I don't even know where to begin." As messed up as I was at that time, I did have a starting point, granted not a pretty one, but it was a point. That day with my healer was important because it led me to where I am here today.
When the healer talked about mirroring, it's not about exact replicas like someone stole my gym bag so where did I steal something. It's about the energy involved, where is it similar, like for example, the boyfriend broke up with me like amputating a limb, just cut me off, so where in my life have I amputated, cut something off or removed something, whether it be people, place, thing, belief, or emotion?
Starting to see the connections
I had never thought about mirroring before and that my relationships with food and myself were mimicking each other. The problem-sover in me thought this mirroring concept was really eye opening because when I switched my brain over to start comparing, I could immediately see some similarities. Later on, I'd start to see a whole boat load of connections.
The amputation example really struck me because I know that throughout my life I had performed many amputations with friends and jobs. If a friend hurt me, I would just cut them off and no longer talk to them. No explanation, no communication, I just cut off all ties. With jobs, I would just quit and never speak to anyone there ever again. I was a pro at the silent treatment.
Today, I'm all about talking and dealing with problems as they arise. I no longer run away from friction or conflict because this is how we grow, and besides, the universe won't let you get very far, so I figure I might as well get it over with while the problems are smaller versus bigger if you keep putting them off.
Words I would use to describe my relationship with food
10 years ago, some words I would use to describe my relationship with food would include: antagonistic, depressed, controlling, guilt-ridden, and disconnected. Joy was fleeting and what joy I did feel around food was related more to the high of sugars and fats like donuts, pizza, and ice cream. I would binge on foods and then purge either literally or I'd exercise for hours on end.
When I looked at my outside life, all of those words that I used to describe my relationship with food could be applied to what was going on with me at the time. For example, depression got so bad for me that my doctor put me on the "happy pills" as I used to call the anti-depressants.
I had an antagonistic relationship with my job and work environment. I mostly hated the corporate world and had even given up love for money. I was so caught up in the image of being the hot, successful, rich marketing woman that I became completely disconnected from the real me. I had a terrifying dream one night where I realized I didn't even know who I was any more.
With food, I ate things that numbed me versus nourished me and thus kept me disconnected from my body and my emotions. I was a serious emo eater, mostly binging when I didn't want to or could not handle my emotions. I would eat the "bad" foods and feel so guilty afterward, but not guilty enough to stop just guilty enough to feed my self-sabotaging need to feel not good enough.
I felt controlled by food because in my head food and exercise determined my self worth because it was tied into my weight. The scale definitely was the real boss of me in my life, and each step on that scale either determined a good day or a bad day. The scale was my ball and chain.
Thank goodness for my prosperity peeps
Back then, the only way I was going to be able to create a healthier relationship with food and myself was through help from people I like to call, "Partners in Prosperity" because health is wealth. These are people both professional and personal who care about and help me in my success and rebuilding.
I say rebuilding because in some areas of my life, I literally had to demolish and rebuild kind of like what they do with new casinos on the Strip in Las Vegas. They have to blow up and destroy the old casino to build a new fabulous one. At that time, some of my Partners in Prosperity included nutritionists, chefs at cooking classes, therapists, energy healers, a naturopathic doctor, fitness trainer, and chiropractor. On a personal level, I made new friends in a running club and at a gym where the environment was fun. And through 5 years of blogging, I've met so many incredibly supportive folks. I enjoy the fact that social media can help bring us together and help us help each other.
The last 10 years has definitely been quite the journey in rebuilding my relationship with food, and part of that journey was creating Noshtopia so that I could give my own learning lessons a voice and to use that to help others in similar circumstance. Today, the words I would use to describe my relationship with food would include: vibrant, real, fun, nourishing, creative, brings out the best in me, and connected.
And yes, as below so is above :)
