Off Restriction! (Eating disorder recovery)

This is cereal made by one of the large dominators of our food source.

This is what I ate for breakfast.

In the world of eating disorders cereal like this is a MAJOR trigger. In fact, I know that even without an eating disorder diagnosis this food is a “bad” food for the majority of you reading this.

I have restricted cereal, and MANY things, for as far back as I can remember. I would binge regularly on whole boxes of cereal with sweet milk and honey. As I sit here now with the “breakfast of champions” on my belly, I have to really stay present to the one inside of me who still can’t believe she is no longer on restriction. She wants the rest of the box, and she doesn’t. She knows there is enough, more, nourishment- Life, for her. And she doesn’t. We are working on it.

You see, long before I was born there was an imprint made inside of my mother. She has told me numerous times of a day when she stood on the hill above her middle school and said goodbye to every dream and desire for Life that she had and numbed her channels of reception.

She was indoctrinated to a cult religion and also parents (loving but restrictive) that told her that her very life and all of her desires were bad and that she is a sinner and will only be part of the 144,000 if she denounces EVERYTHING.

And so she did. Every genius expression of her soul- deadened, suffocated, numbed out. She is a genius of a human by the way- my mother. But this is about me, not my mother-

*It’s always about my Mother*

Fast forward to July/Aug 1976 when her cellular blueprint of restriction wrapped itself around my soul during inception.

And the truth is I was encoded with this initially inside of my Grandmother’s womb. Her life force was also restricted by atrocious and misbehaved (to put it lightly) men, and by being a survivor, like many of our recent ancestors, of the great depression where everything was rationed and restricted. (I digress).

Fast forward to nowish- post rehab- and the constant lingering question from those who wonder about my journey~ What happened in there? Did it work?…

I took Her off restriction.

I had to go back into the life she was originally restricted from to retrieve her and the medicine for the wound that anesthetized her.

Beginning around the age of 3 I realized that the light I shine and the wonders of my heart have no place here. That the world is not for me and that EVERYTHING I see “the worldly people” doing is restricted and bad- oh very bad. Blend that with a large dose of sadistic fathering and you have the perfect recipe for what they call “complex trauma” with addiction, suicidal ideation, yada…

(F********ck!! it is hard for me to retell the realities of my past as I have re-mythed so much of my Life and would do it all over again for the majesty of grace I am receiving through the Divine- true healing) ahem…

Food is a great pleasure. It was the only pleasure allowed in my family- and we were gooooood at it. Like gooood. My mama is an undercover medicine woman. My father a rejected renaissance man.

But without proper rearing in boundaries that rise from Love and self sourcing (I am so not alone in this) and education around why the foods we ate were good for us, I was left with a huge separation wound of “goods and bads” that bled out into every area of my life and grew a sturdy inner bully/judge deep into my psyche.

I was hungry for Life. Starved in fact. My gut soured every day in ache and longing. I remember one sunset as a teenager where I wept. Not really for the beauty, but because I couldn’t feel it. It was a world far away and not something that I was allowed to *have*. The beauty was for others. Not me. I was denied access.

As a child the few friends I was allowed to have ate “bad” food. The kids at school ate “bad” food. Foods that made me feel- bad. I associated those foods with a life I was not allowed to desire, or be a part of because everyone was eating opposite of what I was eating. I deeply wanted a taste of their life and their sumptuous brightly colored, orange Cheetoey fingered belonging- just a little nibble.

Each time I would dream or desire or create or strive- I was shut down, denied, ignored, restricted.

AND~every time I tried a taste of life- I was punished. By my father, by a religious cult, by society’s shaping of women. Then by my own psyche.

So I snuck food, I lied, I cheated, I stole, I oversexed as a teen, I indulged in “bad things” I formed an incredibly intelligent ally inside that decided to shut down my desire for life and stuff it with bad food- that she could then purge to release the shame and reset for another day of fighting desire.

All of my life I have been on restriction from pleasure and belonging. And all of my life I kept trying to heal by restricting foods that I thought would help my mind/body regrow positive, life affirming connections. Yet, deep inside, standing in the corner, her heart facing a life of nothingness, was a little one who was not about to have me pursue ANY dream all the way, or allow herself healing, pleasure and freedom to feel Life because she did not want to be punished anymore.

However, since shame was the only way she knew how to belong, she continued the punishment loop all on her own to stay safe. She was going to be in control of that as long as she was on restriction from everything else.

Until some weeks ago.

At a folding cafeteria table inside an office building turned ED hospital, I sat staring at a plate of processed pasta, bread and a bowl of Oreo cookies. This was the 5th of my 6 meals per day (still had evening snack to go) of mostly processed, packaged “bad’ foods in the re-feeding process of my recovery.

Re- feeding. What was I really re- feeding?

I surrendered to the process. I alchemized every bite into love. I opened up, I chewed, I swallowed, I allowed it all in. I did not die- I let the machine, the fear, the judgement all in- to be held in curious love.

Then, all of a sudden a well spring in my heart burst open. My body flushed and I literally saw a lotus flower blossom in my belly.

Out of the center she tumbled forth in an exhale.

I was having a full shamanic soul retrieval inside a machine that knows not of these workings.

I was enjoying every forbidden fruit they put in front of me.

She tumbled forth and looked at me (in a matter of speaking). “Am I allowed to eat these things?”.

“Yes. You are allowed to have whatever you want”.

The ravenous, blinding Ox hunger (what bulimia means) for Life quieted. My cravings- meaning impulsive obsession- for things have simmered down to a balanced sweetness.

I could not have retrieved her in an Ayahuasca ceremony or 10 day vision quest. Maybe inside a great sexual orgasmic adventure- maybe. Yet, I could not have retrieved her without the ceremonial life I walk and every pilgrimage to the Altar of Life I have made.

For her, I had to go back into the first point of banishment. Ironically, I had to retrieve her from the world that inflicted her wounding.

All she knows is that she was not allowed to belong to the world she saw around her. Forget that it’s not a society or the dream she wants anyhow- she didn’t know that then- she didn’t even get the choice to listen to her body’s innate intelligence and decide for herself.

Now she does. She gets to be parented by the primordial wisdom I have cultivated for this moment through my ancestors, Cosmic Earth religions, prayers and f**king big huge brave loving heart.

When the intelligence of a child is left to navigate her body’s miraculous cues with the guidance of loving boundaries, and rearing in Dream as a fundamental to Life proliferation and true belonging, she will gravitate towards what truly, deeply nourishes her.

Maybe that is sometimes a slice of pizza or a York peppermint patty (my Mama always had one in her purse)- because she was not allowed to have that and now she is free to have a little taste. Or, maybe it’s a meal from the bounty of colors stirred, blended and baked up to a ripe sunshine by Her.

Or, maybe it’s emptiness to feel her hunger, her deepest longings- the ones exiled to the bottom, that only true emptiness can retrieve back from God.

My food preferences have been based not only in restriction, but separation and that disease is constantly embedded in me, subconsciously projecting self righteous judgement onto the world around me that does not make the same choices. It keeps me from understanding and holding any common ground with the populations that live on *bad* food.

Choice from boundaries strongly based in Life inclusive virtues are different than rules and restrictions based in judgement and condemnation of the “other”. Don’t get me started on how the populations that eat *bad* foods are generally viewed as marginalized, unintelligent, impoverished. Again, ahem…

She now has sovereign choice free of judgement- almost. It’s a daily practice to eradicate the poisons of my privilege and alchemize them into nourishment that truly feeds the Whole.

This bowl of cereal arrived to me via the little cottage I just manifested for work trade. The people whose home I am tending for many months left food. “Eat whatever you want” they said not knowing the invisible pet Ox I was carting around.

Nervous, I put all of the food I shouldn’t and won’t eat of theirs up and away. Until yesterday when I let her get too hungry. The box of cereal somehow made it out from hiding. I began to mindlessly plunge my hand in the box. I watched as judgement started to rise- fear- punishment loops.

I then felt the gap in the trauma loop that was created from the deep transformation in rehab. I could insert a breath and a pause and ask her what she wanted and how she wanted it. It does not feel good to be in those loops- she knows that now because she trusts me to show her another way.

The cereal tasted like childhood. A childhood she know longer has to sneak through and hide inside lashing out at me from her corner.

We made a deal. That she could have cereal for breakfast today. With milk (ok, hemp milk) and honey and bananas. And, not as treat, but as a meal.

As I write this I am far less bloated than I am after my soaked, sprouted, fermented, free range, kale infused, itamixed green smoothie.

Maybe the healing is really emotionally based ;).

Here is the wisdom I keep- I am divinely guided. Had I not been suddenly shoved by my angels into rehab (literally out of the blue) to retrieve her and take her off restriction to be all of sudden faced with a society on restrictions and quarantines and elevated scarcity *consciousness* — I can honestly say my life would be in danger.

I bow to the wisdom. I would do it all again to feel this freedom. I would. But wait!- there’s more….

My story has only just peaked through the clouds.

I am still on my journey as we all are. These are ripe times for pilgrimage- to the lands of the Soul. Will you join me?

I continue to ask for support. The monetary peace through the Go Fund Me feels a little sideways during this collective uncertainty around livelihood.

SO- here is how you can support me. Sign up for my Medium blog. Sign up for my newsletter on my website.

Now that I am off restriction, who knows what She will dream…

And, I do know that She has always dreamt of writing a Love story that will alter your Life.

That is how you can support me. Share my words if they tickle your fancy. Help me grow.

I am taking a huge pause now. Going into another layer of my healing that I have been attempting to do for a couple decades. I will let you know on the other side..

Thank you for listening. For slowing down. For taking a breath and a pause to let the voice inside that has been restricted a lifetime to speak…

SHE is ready- will you listen?