Your inner compass

As you may have noticed (or not!), it’s been a while since my last post. At first, I simply wanted to disconnect for a while and fully experience my last month in the mountains. Then, at the end of August, my mom’s health seemed to deteriorate suddenly, and the last few weeks have been pretty stressful: managing her care, an array of practical issues, my own ongoing health problems, and the complicated feelings that come with all of this.

On top of that, I received a rather unsettling email from my dad. We’ve been estranged for years. Growing up, he controlled everything, and expressing myself wasn’t really an option. When I started struggling with eating disorders, he dropped me like a hot potato. Over a year ago, maybe more, he found my blog and began emailing me about posts; ever since, that space has felt less mine.

Starting a blog was a way to find my own voice, in addition to sharing what I’ve learned from my recovery journey. I pressed on even after he started emailing. The final straw came when he also began watching the videos on the YouTube channel I recently created. In one video I mentioned that I first developed anorexia at 13; he wrote that it wasn’t true, that it was just a reaction to salmonella. My long hospital stay for salmonella was a trying experience, yes, but I was 9 then—well before the eating disorders that followed for over 25 years and were diagnosed by several professionals (but he also said he doesn't believe in psychiatry, so there's that). Even though I don’t expect much anymore, reading him deny I was ill was still a blow.

All of this made me retreat inward for a while. One thing that helped was that I had just started reading Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman and Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. In different ways, both books underscore the importance of self-awareness.

Goleman identifies self-awareness as the root of emotional intelligence, the skill that precedes all other skills. Without knowing what we’re feeling and why, the other emotional tools (self-regulation, empathy, social skills, motivation) don't develop properly. Emotional self-awareness acts as an inner compass and builds the kind of self-understanding that helps us make better choices and have better relationships.

Intuitive eating depends on self-awareness too. It asks us to relearn how to listen to the body’s signals of hunger, fullness, and satisfaction instead of outsourcing decisions to diet rules; in technical terms, to rebuild interoceptive awareness. Just as emotional intelligence begins with noticing what you feel, intuitive eating begins with noticing what your body needs. Both invite us to tune in to inner signals, which can lead to a happier, healthier life.

This was exactly what I needed. In the midst of the recent chaos, it reminded me to keep hitting the pause button and check in with myself, rather than fall apart, feel overwhelmed and powerless, or numb out with unhelpful eating habits. Have I handled the stress “perfectly”? Of course not. But I’ve coped in ways that are mostly constructive. In my last video a few weeks ago, I said that the older I get, the more I believe self-awareness is everything. I didn’t know I was about to be tested so soon!

Shortly after writing this, I was looking for some somatic work and found a healing movement exercise by a creator I follow. Her words capture what I’m feeling beautifully, so I’ll end with them: "The more you expand your capacity to receive yourself and meet yourself exactly where you are, the easier it will be for you to adapt to life situations knowing that you will come out rising".