Health and Happiness
connection to body • something good, something beautiful
I write about food relationship because I know it causes many people anxiety, distress, frustration, guilt, fatigue, the list goes on and on. On top of the negative emotions, stressing about food and eating is a major brain drain. Working in tech, I never experienced the glass ceiling, but my obsession with my weight and what I could and couldn’t eat every hour of the day definitely distracted me.
Successful by Silicon Valley standards of job title, car, house, and neighborhood, my full-throttle drive was fueled by never-good-enough perfectionist thinking. I was not alone, most of us were Type-A+ and rewarded for it. Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg encouraged women to stay in the game because advancement in corporate America brings flexibility and benefits that make life easier, even though the job may be harder. But we need to be healthy both mentally and physically before we can function at our best.
Simmering discontent
During my career, I thought my problem was my weight, my apartment, my boyfriend, or my job. At some point along the way, I picked up the idea that I should be “pursuing my passion,” which became a simmering discontent because I wasn’t brave enough to make a change.
There came a day of crumbling down, a point when I could no longer hold it together and pretend that everything was fine. I broke down at a postpartum doctor appointment and instead of fixing me, which I thought would happen, he pulled a card from his pocket and sent me to a social worker.
Something good. Something beautiful.
When our food relationship is off, all aspects of our health are at risk—mental, physical, and spiritual. Coming closer to my body and surrendering my controlling ways helped me to connect to something within and yet not me. Something good. Something beautiful. Something ever blossoming.
Thank you
I’m so glad you’re here. You are why I stuck with this writing project through the discouragement and doubt—”Who are you to be a writer?” —through times of tidy forcing, when I attempted to package up my bits and pieces into something palatable.
I’d so much rather tell the truth. For it is through truth telling that we create something wonderful. Thank you for being here.
