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Oct. 7th, 2008
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Oct. 7th, 2008 07:22 pmThe following is an excerpt from "Eating in the Light of the Moon" by Anita Johnson, Ph.D
Imagine that within us we all have two containers that we carry on our journey through life. One is a gourd-shaped vessel for carrying food and water, and the other is a heart-shaped basket for carrying all the things we need to make our life meaningful and fulfilling. The gourd is what we fill when we need physical nourishment. It is to be filled with food. The basket is what we fill when we need emotional nourishment. It is to be filled with attention, affection, appreciation, and other "foods" for the heart and soul.
A woman with disordered easting patterns fails to distinguish one container from the other. When she feels hungry, she begins to eat. Before she knows it, her gourd is bursting at the seams. But she finds herself still feeling hungry. She does not realize that even though the gourd is full, her heart basket is empty and needs to be filled. She must learn to distinguish one kind of hunger from the other.
There are really two different kinds of hungers, those that come from the stomach and those that come from the heart. The hunger of the stomach must be satisfied with food, but the hunger of the heart must be satisfied with love, with emotional nourishment. Once a woman learns how to recognize the difference between her physical stomach-hunger and her emotional heart-hunger, her needs for food and her longings for emotional sustenance, and how to respond to them, she no longer has to worry about becoming fat.
Imagine that within us we all have two containers that we carry on our journey through life. One is a gourd-shaped vessel for carrying food and water, and the other is a heart-shaped basket for carrying all the things we need to make our life meaningful and fulfilling. The gourd is what we fill when we need physical nourishment. It is to be filled with food. The basket is what we fill when we need emotional nourishment. It is to be filled with attention, affection, appreciation, and other "foods" for the heart and soul.
A woman with disordered easting patterns fails to distinguish one container from the other. When she feels hungry, she begins to eat. Before she knows it, her gourd is bursting at the seams. But she finds herself still feeling hungry. She does not realize that even though the gourd is full, her heart basket is empty and needs to be filled. She must learn to distinguish one kind of hunger from the other.
There are really two different kinds of hungers, those that come from the stomach and those that come from the heart. The hunger of the stomach must be satisfied with food, but the hunger of the heart must be satisfied with love, with emotional nourishment. Once a woman learns how to recognize the difference between her physical stomach-hunger and her emotional heart-hunger, her needs for food and her longings for emotional sustenance, and how to respond to them, she no longer has to worry about becoming fat.