It's Not About Food Podcast with Laurelee Roark Laurelee Roark

Following our purpose leads us to the path that feeds our soul. We all possess unique gifts and we have the need to express these gifts. To find our calling is to find the path of our hearts, the way of life that makes us feel alive and glad to be here. Over time we may find many different paths, small and large. We find our calling by listening to our inner voice and doing what feels right and true to ourselves. 

Honoring means understanding we are sacred beings and our bodies are sacred. They are not objects to be sculpted and forced to meet cultural ideas. They are not a commodity to manipulate in order to measure our self-worth. By de-objectifying and creating reverence for our bodies, we become free to experience the wisdom, magnificence and magic of our bodies.

Diet thoughts are the kind of thoughts we’re having when we think we “should” only eat certain kinds or qualities of foods, count calories and carbs or fat grams, or other eating rules that are restrictive and based on losing weight. These thoughts are learned from our diet culture. Dieting is an obsession that allows us to focus on something very tangible and concrete, giving us the feeling that we are in control. When we understand that diet thoughts can sometimes be a response to underlying feelings, we can begin to use diet thoughts as a red flag to explore these feelings.

Body Wisdom is the inherent wisdom we each hold within our own bodies that tells us what we need physically, emotionally and spiritually. When we listen to the wisdom of our bodies, we intuitively know how to feed ourselves, satisfy our needs and accept our natural bodies. 

Expressing our feelings and ourselves is the only way to live our truth in our bodies, hearts and souls. Many times we have been taught that to express our feelings is harmful to others and ourselves, but if we learn how to express our feelings honestly and constructively it is beneficial to everyone. 

Recovery process is not linear, but rather like a spiral. As we begin our journey of recovery around the spiral, we will meet many layers of life experiences that trigger disordered eating and body hatred behaviors. Even though we are once again doing these behaviors, we are not at the same starting point in the spiral. As we take each experience and use it as a building block in our healing, we move ourselves along the spiral. When we are consciously working on our recovery, every experience teaches us, giving us more strength and wisdom. Eventually we develop more effective coping tools to deal with these life experiences and the disordered eating and body hatred behaviors are no longer necessary.