I talk a lot about trusting yourself around food. It’s one of the most fundamental concepts to grasp in order to break free of the all or nothing wash-rinse-repeat cycle.
This concept can sound like hot pink fluff on steroids to someone who really struggles to stop over-thinking food. Because really, WTF does it mean to trust yourself around food?
The idea sounds great and to a normal person, this comes naturally. They only think about the things you should be thinking about when you eat, such as: needs more salt, mmmmm, I’m done now or mewantmoar.
Fortunately, we can learn everything we need to know about trusting ourselves around food from Mean Girls…. Along with most life lessons, but let’s just focus on trust for today.
Remember in Mean Girls when Ms. Norbury (Tina Fey) found the burn book and had all of the girls voice their apologies and fall into each other’s arms in a “trust fall”? (relive the magic here)
The girls bonded over their imperfections (“it’s not your fault you’re so gapped toothed”), forgave each other and built connection by falling into each other’s arms. This is self-trust.
I could end this here, but I’ll explain in case you haven’t watched Mean Girls 5,862 times…
Self-trust is the absence of doubting, fearing or second-guessing the outcome.
“Am I eating too many carbs? I’m not sure I should have this extra piece of sweet potato. If I have this extra piece of sweet potato, then I probably shouldn’t have fruit later. But I did workout today, so maybe it’s OK. Well, if I take some meat off my plate, then I can eat the sweet potato…” Waaaait a second…I just missed out on life.
Doubt creates over-analysis – and when we over-analyze we are making decisions outside of our body and intuition in order to control our destiny. This sets us up for restriction, sabotage, continued food obsession and more self-hate.
In order to build trust, we have to stop fearing the outcome, so let’s identify the outcome that we’re fearing…
Weight gain (which implies a whole host of other fears which we won’t address today, but you can check out my friend Isabel’s post because she nailed it).
Overeating.
Our ruthless self-flagellation from not ‘doing it right’
To build trust we have to challenge and overcome these fears. Thus, we need to have:
Body acceptance.
Detachment of food choices from our self-perception.
The ability to move the hell on.
Absence of judgment and self-criticism.
Self-trust is about being OK with whatever the outcome is.
Knowing you’ll be there to catch yourself in the ‘trust fall’.
Knowing you’ll forgive yourself for whatever outcome happens.
Knowing you’re fine just the way you are and that you’ll be kind.
You are the only person who can give that to you.
When you have this, you can jump without having to think. You have self-trust.
Truth.
Be Smashing!
