Women, Food and God

A friend loaned me a book called Women, Food and God by Geneen Roth. She said it was great and that I NEEDED to read it. I took it, and with my usual skepticism I started reading. My expectation was not high - in fact I was completely prepared to approach this book with my usual sarcasm and well tuned ability to turn all things like this into a joke. You see, I'm not much for self help books - I have started and never finished quite a few. But, this book is different.

By page 6, I was crying so hard that I was concerned about causing water damage to my friends book. You see, this book seems to be talking about and directly to me. In the introduction I saw my compulsion with both eating and dieting, my constant desire to be fit and healthy co existing with my daily sabotaging of that goal, my easy annoyance with my husband, my habit of shutting others out and preferring to live within myself - and my habit of choosing food as the one thing that will make me feel happy and make me feel loved. The book makes me realize that the path towards finding the physical, spiritual, and emotional health and happiness I am seeking will require recognizing, accepting and letting go of past hurts and deeply buried pain. Nothing so funny about that.

So, all that and I only made it up to Chapter 2.  Dang, right?  But, I guess that change cannot be achieved without some real soul searching and realization of reasons why we do the things we do.  There were two quotes from this book that really spoke to me:

"The relentless attempts to be thin take you further and further away from what could actually end your suffering: getting back in touch with who you really are. Your true nature. Your essence."

"Can you remember a time, perhaps when you were very young, when life as it was - just the fact that it was early morning or any old day in summer - was enough? When you were enough - not because of what you looked like or what you did, but just because everything was the way it was. Nothing was wrong. When you were sad, you cried and then it was over. You were back to a fundamental feeling of positivity, of goodness just because you were alive. What if you could live that way now? And what if your relationship to food was the doorway?" 

I began this blog because I felt like I had become a person that i didn't recognize anymore.  I didn't delight in things that I used to love - like nature and playing with my children.  I was feeling tired and withdrawn, and unable to do things I would like to do because of the extra pounds I was carrying around.  In the few weeks I have been writing I have felt a difference in myself, a desire to enjoy life, and a renewed ability to do that.  But I don't feel that I have made a full return to who I once was - and I miss that person.

From what little I have read of this book, I feel that Geneen Roth is a person who at one time felt much as I do now, and a person who was able to reclaim herself and her joy.  I am excited about this book and about learning more about myself today, about the person I once was, and about the person I am becoming.

Peace