Say you happened across one of those mounds of earth scattered about a prairie dog field.  Perhaps you might think or remark, “what an unattractive landscape!, there are piles of dirt everywhere!”  What would you be missing in this scenario?  What are you not seeing, that is very important?... The prairie dogs of course!  And their tunneled homes.  

This is a good analogy for the hating of our bodies that we practice.  We focus on the thing we think is unattractive, putting ourselves down, feeling panicky about owning this body that seems to be working against us, and saying all sorts of mean and hateful things to ourselves about how our bodies look.

Here’s the thing- we are COMPLETELY missing the gift here, the point of it all.  We are ABSOLUTELY focusing on the WRONG thing.  Okay, so maybe your body doesn’t look like what you feel like it should (which, please remember, needs to be your own idea, not the ideas or comparisons related to advertising and cultural myths, but anyway….), and you are angry or scared about the size of your body.  

When you only focus on the body, it’s like focusing on the pile of earth next to the prairie dog and its home.  “What an ugly pile of dirt” you would think.  “Ugh, it’s so brown and pointless” you may say.  You may kick the pile of dirt, trying to get rid of it, and as the dust scatters, or perhaps resists your attempts to break it down, YOU ARE COMPLETELY MISSING THE POINT of it being there.  

The earthen mound is only the byproduct of the real issue.  Your body weight and eating habits are only the byproducts of underground activity.  If your body is over its healthy weight, if you are bingeing, restricting food, or just eating often when you’re not physically hungry- THAT IS YOUR GIFT…how else would you know that something else is going on underground?  These are flags being raised from your underground psyche, letting you know that something is off and YOU NEED SOMETHING- even if that something is to just do nothing (more on this later).  

I know it may be frustrating to hear this, because you’ve struggled so long with body size and eating.  To hear someone say, “hey, it’s a good thing!” would make me a little crazy, I know.  But we can’t ignore the reality.  Truly, your body is not the problem here.  

As a matter of fact, your body is really hurting and trying so hard, and we are thankless and mean to it.  We keep feeding it food (or holding back), and it keeps taking it in and trying to metabolize it, do something with it, work with it, and try to keep going.  But, it never asked for that amount of feeding in the first place.  We’re communicating terribly with our bodies, not listening to them at all, or thinking that our body is asking us for nourishment (or ignoring it when it really does need food) when REALLY OUR HEART IS ASKING US FOR NOURISHMENT.  

Look, this is serious, even if the analogy is the prairie dog mound.  Let’s go back to that analogy and think about it.  If you don’t look over just to the side and see the prairie dog itself, and its tunneled home, then you completely miss the point of the earthen mound, right?

I know what you may be thinking- that maybe you just like food more than the next person, or something is wrong with your metabolism or hunger signals, right?  You know, only a very very very small fraction of people actually have biological problems like this.  It is VASTLY more likely that something else is going on.  Of course you like food, we’re wired to like food.  But almost every single body has a pretty good system for telling you when you’ve had enough food or need to eat for energy.

So something else is going on.  This something else doesn’t even have to be a big issue, either.  Maybe you are drained, maybe you are physically tired, or maybe in the back of your mind you are worried about getting the laundry done.  On the other hand, maybe you are lonely and scared, or afraid of getting lots of sexual attraction from others due to past experiences, or don’t feel like what you are doing with your life matters deeply to you or others.  The body expresses emotion related to these things in a very basic way.

Our emotional systems are pretty basic.  The thoughts related to them are complicated, as are the  memories and beliefs associated with our emotional system.  But the emotional system- pretty basic.  There is basically one set of internal responses that occurs along a low to high level, whether you are in love, being chased by a bear, or worried about who’s doing the laundry.  You may experience this on a low level as a tenseness, on a high level as a panicky feeling or attack, and in aftereffect as an emptiness or drained feeling.

Now, because the emotional system is so basic, it makes it very difficult to figure out what it is responding to.  It’s not like there is a specific emotional response to most internal (thoughts) or external (environmental) events.   There are a few exceptions, such as grief, where the emotional response is very specific, and accompanied by tears.  But mostly, it is just the one response, which consists of a change in heart rate, perspiration, muscle tenseness, and breathing rate.

What happens then, is we either experience this emotional sensation, or the aftereffects of it (fatigue, emptiness/drained, unfocused/scattered), and we tend to this need by FORCING FOOD ON OUR BODIES (or restricting food).  Another thing we can do on autopilot is to try to find a tangible target to release or explain this emotional response, and very often we will find our bodies (which are commonly on our minds, not just because we’re focused on them, but because there are messages everywhere all day telling you to focus on your body), and we will PICK OUR BODIES APART IN A MEAN AND DISGUSTED MANNER.

So, here we are focusing on the mound of earth, thinking how ugly it is or trying to get rid of it.    And, by doing this, WE ARE MISSING THE GIFT.  Our bodies are trying to tell us something, yes, but we just assume it has something to do with food.  Maybe they are trying to tell us:  "Hey, I’m so tired, it was such a long day- I just need to lay down," or maybe the body is trying to say something very profound, like "I don’t feel like people care about me."

We need to SLOW DOWN and ZOOM IN to our fleeting thoughts, that are further clues to what needs healing.  We are either not hearing the thoughts at all, or misinterpreting the emotional sensations.  For example, if you were to take the time to sit quietly and go over a binge eating time in detail in your mind, you may catch or remember a few helpful things.  Perhaps you remember that you felt really drained when you came home. Perhaps you then ate food  in response to this feeling.  In a way, you are partially hearing what your emotional body is telling you- you are responding to feeling drained by filling up with something.  But, did you need to be filled up with food?  Maybe not.  Or maybe it was food AND something else, but you just offered food.

Please don’t get discouraged by what seems to be so much work to hear your emotional body (and physical body, too).  Almost none of us were trained in this, and so you are not alone.  And, it won’t take as long as you think or be as difficult as you think.  But it does take 1) raising your conscious awareness (slowing down and zooming in, even after the fact), and 2) addressing what you find.

Just having conscious awareness that your body and food are not the problem, is a big step toward getting this communication system between your body and heart working.  Sometimes, just this is enough to change things.  What also helps is using the following three options, once you get better at noticing what your real need is in the moment: (usually best if done sequentially)

1.  Let it BE.  Just notice what you’re feeling, and see if by just letting it be, it fades and passes.  Much of the time it will.  Emotions on their own, if not continually retriggered by new thoughts, will usually pass in 1-5 minutes.  Try sitting quietly, breathing deeply from your belly, and allowing the feeling to fill you and then pass through you.

2.  MEET the need.  Try to determine what the need is (it’s OK if it’s too elusive and you can’t figure it out, sometimes it’s just too complex or hard to figure out- just try again next time, and use steps 1 and/or 2).  Then, if you can pinpoint the need, meet that actual need- don’t overfill your food tank with something it doesn’t even need.   So, for example, maybe when you slow down and zoom in, you notice that you feel lonely, and worried about your career future.  You might meet that need by calling a friend, and also writing down your career Plan B so it feels like you have some options.  Or, let’s say you feel hurt, and you think that by continuing to think about why you should feel hurt, this makes it real and valid to you.  Well, the thing is, it does do this- but it keeps retriggering pain (and turns it into what is called suffering), so maybe you could meet the need of having your pain/hurt feel valid, by writing about it, expressing the pain in tangible creative form, or talking with someone about it.  Or, let’s say you feel drained.  Your need then is to either fill back up (with sleep, creative pursuits, feeling loved, etc.) or to just relax and let yourself be immobile and quiet for a while.  Often, the need is related to an often felt or sharp childhood feeling, so if you ask yourself, "what does this feeling remind me of?" it can sometimes help to identify the feeling and therefore the need.

3.  CHANGE the feeling.  If the feeling won’t just pass (your thoughts won’t stop retriggering the feeling), and meeting the need doesn’t seem to be working (the need was misidentified, or you’re feeling resistant to meeting the need for whatever reason) then try to change the feeling.  This can be done in a variety of ways- exercising, listening to music or watching  a movie with a different emotional tone than that which is hanging on to you, taking a bath, etc.

Obviously, these things can all best be done with the help of a therapist, but you can certainly work on them on your own, as long as you’re not dealing with trauma, deep grief, or dangerous things like perceptual problems (e.g., schizophrenia), cutting, or suicidal thoughts.

So, maybe you are starting to see that hating the body, overfeeding/underfeeding the body, and body size can be a gift.  They are signs that you need to look underground and around.  When you find yourself hating your body or feeding your body when it has had enough (or restricting food), remember that this is truly not the issue- it is a mound of earth on the ground that doesn’t help us to get anywhere by kicking it around.  It does help us very much, though, by signaling us that something we need, or need so see (be it small or large) has created the mound of earth.

And, a big difference in that analogy (between our bodies, and a mound of prairie dog earth) is that our bodies are working so hard for us (not so much the earth mound).  We keep giving it what it doesn’t want, and it keeps trying to make it work and keep us functioning.  Our bodies are working very hard for us, taking the brunt of our self-hating and mis-feeding, mostly without complaining.  Our bodies are crying out to be heard, and we are ignoring them and throwing food at them or withholding food from them.  And we’re completely ignoring our own heart issues that have nothing to do with our bodies.

So, try to look at your body with deep gratefulness for all it is trying to do for you, and look to the side and underground to find your inner prairie dog and explore its tunnels.  Your body hasn’t done anything wrong.  Hating your body and using or restricting food only perpetuates this cycle of ignoring the real deal.  Notice the body and food as indicators, and then turn your head and heart elsewhere- light up those underground tunnels and make them feel like home.