As I was going through treatment for Anorexia many years ago, the biggest lesson I took away was how to feel hunger again. I know that sounds extreme and maybe even crazy but it is true. I had become so good at ignoring my own body, I no longer felt hunger.
Our body is a smart, adaptable machine and when we ignore signals it sends out, eventually it just stops sending those signals out. It takes a lot of energy to run this complex machine we live in and our body is always looking for ways to conserve energy.
If one signal doesn’t work, it moves on to another one. Usually bigger. For me, instead of feeling hunger I would start to see stars. You know, like before you pass out. Super fun.
Those signals usually get bigger and scarier, right? Clearly my blood sugar was in the tank in those moments and my body was getting a bit more desperate to let me know I needed food.
Which led me to another realization. The body is always trying to survive. It has your back. It is honestly working to protect you. My mind was fighting my body, but my body wasn’t giving in.
I think we all fall somewhere on the spectrum of ‘ignoring’. Our reasons may be that we don’t have time, we take care of everyone else, we’ll just power through until x.
For whatever reason, we continue to put the fatigue, the scattered-brain, the joint pain, the gut pain, the skin breakouts, hormonal roller coaster all last on the list. And then those signals become full-blown symptoms and then they grow.
This is a conversation I’ve had over and over and over again in recent months with so many women. We all seem to carry this myth that there will be more time when we just get to the next phase of life.
But, I’m here to tell you if you don’t prioritize you, today, it will NEVER happen.
What if you could reverse the trend? What if you did invest in you and honestly found your own intuition for your needs and followed them? What would that feel like? Look like?
How would that carry you into your next phase of life? What if you went into that next phase with a credit as opposed to a deficit?
Self-care is a revolutionary act, but it doesn’t make it wrong, instead it makes it one of the most powerful things you can do.