Eating in the Light of the Moon

Many people are afraid of their feelings, especially the so-called negative emotions. They are afraid they can’t handle their pain, that it will overwhelm them. They are afraid that if they allow themselves to feel their loneliness it will last forever, that if they fully experience their anger they will do hurtful, destructive things. They attempt to ignore or keep under tight control all their “bad” feelings like fear, sadness, anger, and loneliness.

Women who struggle with disordered eating tend to be more frightened of their feelings than most. They have learned to mistrust their bodies and discount the body’s most intimate way of communicating—the language of the emotions. To keep a safe distance from their bodies and feelings, they distract themselves with activities of all kinds and with constant thoughts of food. Anything but letting themselves feel. They live “in their heads,” allowing their intellects to dominate, keeping their feelings at bay. Sadly, many fail to recognize that our feelings can provide us with some of the most powerful keys to self-knowledge and recovery.

This Vietnamese folktale, called “The Wonderful Pearl,” reminds us of the healing that comes from exploring, rather than trying to control, our feelings. It teaches us that there are wondrous gifts to be found when we plumb the depths of our feelings, gifts that can help us with all the problems we encounter in life.

On the banks of the Mekong River, a long, long time ago, lived an orphan girl named Wa. Ever since she had first grown big enough to carry a basketful of rice upon her back, she had worked for the headman of the village.

All the villagers worked long, hard hours. And, just like everyone else, Wa was barely given enough to eat in return for her labor. She had to cut down tall trees, and when the rice was ripe, she bad to peel the husks from dawn to dusk. Blisters welled up on her hands from all the cutting of wood and the coarseness of the rice husks made her palms itch and scale. Each night she gathered herbs to put on her raw, itching bands. Over time, she developed a great knowledge of the healing powers of herbs, and others in the village would seek her out for help with their wounds.

One day, the headman’s messenger arrived and ordered Wa to guard the rice house, which stood on piles close by the paddy field. The rice house was filled with stores of rice, and the hungry girl longed to eat some, but she was ever mindful of the master’s warning: “An evil spirit protects my rice. If you eat even one grain, the spirit will jump inside you. Then you will die and turn into a grain of rice!”

Paralyzed by her fear, poor Wa went hungry. In her dreams, she saw her master growing fat and rich from the stores of rice, while the villagers who toiled for him grew thin and sick.

Wa jumped up in alarm and ran swiftly to the river to fill it up. The waters of the river lapped softly at the girl’s feet as she sighed and bent down to fill the pail. All of a sudden the waters began to foam and sing, making her scamper back to dry land in fear.

Out of the shimmering moonlit foam, a tall maiden appeared, wearing a long, lustrous gown. She approached Wa and, taking her trembling hand, said softly, “The Water Spirit’s young daughter has fallen ill. And our sprites say that you, Wa, are wise with herbs and can cure her. Come with me and see her.”

A pathway opened before her and the maiden led Wa down into the watery depths. There she saw the sick girl who she had been told was stung by a scorpion while playing at the waters edge. For three months she had lain in a fever, unable to eat or sleep. Wa touched the wound and told the sprites which herbs to collect. Three days after she had applied the herbal remedy, the girl was well.

Wa thanked the Water Spirit and returned to dry land. Upon her return, she recoiled in horror at the sight of all the bird tracks around the rice house she had left unguarded. The birds had helped themselves to half the unprotected rice!

just then an old man passed by and said, “Where have you been these last three months? Those thieving birds have stolen the master’s rice. He is searching for you and his rage is terrible.”

Wa sat down and cradled her head in her hands. She thought she had been gone only three days. She began to cry, soaking her thin dress with her tears. just then, she remembered the precious pearl. She took it out and said, “Pearl, wonderful pearl, bring me rice to eat.”

Suddenly, a great bamboo dish of rice appeared before her, filled with foods of all tastes and colors. Behind her a store of rice grew up three times higher than the master’s rice house.

She took out the pearl again and said, “Pearl, wonderful pearl, bring me a house, a pair of oxen, and some hens.” Almost in that very instant, a tall house on bamboo stilts rose up in front of her, with hens scratching the ground nearby. Next to it stood a pair of sturdy oxen.

The next morning, Wa made her way to the headman’s house. As soon as he set eyes on the girl, he roared, “Here comes the worthless lump of oxen dung, the one who stole my rice. I’ll have her fed to the tigers in the hills!”

When Wa and the headman’s son reached Wa’s lavish house, with its huge store of rice, his jaw dropped open in surprise and his eyes nearly popped out of his head “Take all you want,” said Wa. “I’m going to the river to fish.”

When he made his way home and reported back to his father, the enraged headman summoned his guards to slay the girl and take her riches for themselves. But the good people of the village warned her of their master’s plans. Once again, she took out the magic pearl and said, “I’earl, wonderful pearl, protect us from this evil man.”

Like Wa, a woman who struggles with disordered eating lives in a world filled with responsibility, duty, and deprivation. She is always hungry because there is no room in this world for how she feels and what she wants. Her life is controlled by the words of a “head” man who lives within her, an inner tyrant that drives her to do more, more, more and then refuses to reward her properly for her hard work.

It is the “head” man that denies her adequate nourishment, demands she watch her food carefully but not eat if she is hungry, instills in her a fear that if she eats even a tiny morsel, she will be taken over by the evil spirit of indulgence, and accuses her of being nothing but a “lazy pig.”

When a woman who is seeking freedom from disordered eating goes to the river of feelings that runs through all life, she may be frightened when the waters of her emotions foam and sing. Like Wa, she may initially resist plunging into the watery depths of her feelings (by insisting that she has to watch over her food, instead) until she understands that the wrath of emotions denied can be great.

In the story, it was only when Wa went deep into the river waters, deep into the world of emotion, that she could heal and receive the wondrous pearl that would help her nourish herself, obtain abundance, grow in strength, and protect herself from those who would hurt her. In that same way, it is only when we allow ourselves to fully experience our feelings that we are able to receive the precious gifts they have to offer. By allowing ourselves to have a deeper relationship with our feelings, we can discover that each of our feelings holds a pearl of inner wisdom.

Anger can bring clarity and strength. When we let ourselves feel the full force of our anger, the clarity we receive can be amazing. When we recognize, “this is what ticks me off, this is why, and this is how I need things to be different!” we can experience the relief that such clarity can bring. A good relationship with our angry feelings can give us the determination to forge ahead, the strength to “stand our own ground,” the energy and focus to let the world around us know what is and is not okay.

The paradox of fear is that by embracing it, you can transform it. What might, on the one hand, be paralyzing, can be transformed into something that brings forth trust and the courage to proceed. Denying or fighting with our fear can result in panic and stagnation. By embracing our fears, we can discover what we really need to feel safe.

With loneliness can come the gift of self-awareness. If you let yourself get to know your loneliness by being still with it rather than keeping yourself so busy running from it, you may learn why you keep others at a distance and how you do it.

Sadness offers the gift of healing and cleansing when we allow ourselves to cry. It teaches us compassion for ourselves and for others. Sometimes, situations that bring up a lot of sadness can provide us with the opportunity to heal past hurts and cry those “little girl” tears that weren’t safe to cry “back then.”

So, when a feeling comes knocking on your door, don’t run and hide and pretend no one is home. Don’t slam the door in her face and say, “Get lost! I’m busy and don’t want to be bothered.” Invite her in. Ask her, “What brings you here?” Get to know her. Go with her. Thank her for her gifts. Treat her presence with honor and respect. For she is truly your friend and is there to help.

Feelings are like fluid waves of energy. Like the waves we see in the ocean, they come in, peak, and pass, come in, peak, and pass. They have a natural cyclical rhythm like the ebb and flow of tides, the waning and waxing of the moon. The flow of feeling is as natural as the flow of life itself.

Children seem to be more adept at letting their feelings flow through them. They find it easier to laugh from the belly, cry deep tears, howl with anger. They’ve not yet learned to be afraid of themselves, to be untrusting of their bodies, and to be obsessed with trying to make a good impression. Children live from one emotional moment to the next. Their emotional lives are unblocked. It is not unusual for a child to be sad and upset one moment and then to be happy and laughing the next.

I remember one time when I was feeling tired after a long day’s work. I’d spent the day trying to do too much and, after a day of seeing clients, shopping, cooking, tending to the children, I wanted nothing more than to tune out the world around me and rest. Just then, my five-year-old daughter became upset about something and began to cry. I stopped what I was doing to console her, but she continued crying. Finally, I said, “If you’re going to keep crying, go to your room and cry.” And she looked at me and sniffled, “But Mommy, I’m just trying to get the last bit of tears out.” It was one of those moments when I knew she had reminded me of something important.

To help us cope with our fear of our feelings we learn to block them out. We build dams to stop the natural flow. We create compulsive behaviors with food to distract ourselves from them. Rather than pay attention to feelings, rather than letting ourselves feel, we think about food and eating. Or exercising. Or working. After years of doing this, our awareness of our feelings gets pushed so far back behind the curtain of our obsessions that we lose touch. Our feelings become like aliens that mystify and frighten us. We don’t recognize them, can’t identify them or give them names. We can’t communicate with them, can’t make contact, can’t cope. We’re not even aware of them until they get so intense that they consume us. Then, our pain becomes intolerable, the loneliness feels like it’s never going to end, our anger may push its way out in destructive or violent ways.

Pressure builds up inside of us as we live with our accumulated feelings over time. Physical tension, nervousness, irritability, stomachaches, headaches can all result from holding in feelings over years and years. How have you learned to cope with this pressure? Do you distract yourself by keeping very, very busy, by counting calories or pounds, by dieting, or by eating compulsively? Do you attempt to get some relief from the ever present tension by exercising, by bingeing and purging?

It is important to understand that it is not the feelings themselves that cause the bingeing and purging, the compulsive eating, the starvation, the obsession with food and fat, or the fat attacks. It is our attempt not to feel the feelings.

Picture yourself next to a large swimming pool. You are given a big beach ball and instructed to swim the length of the pool with the beach ball. For some reason, you get the idea that you are supposed to swim with the beach ball under water.

Can you imagine how difficulty that is going to be? All of your energy and attention is going to have to go into keeping that ball submerged. What if the ball slips? It will most likely shoot up into the air, out of control, and you will have to scramble after it, using up even more of your energy and time. By the time you reach the other end of the pool, you may be exhausted.

Now, picture the same pool, same beach ball, same task. But this time you decide to swim across the pool with the ball on the surface, tapping it with one hand as you swim alongside of it. Imagine how much easier this is going to be! You can swim on your back, turn somersaults, chew gum, sing songs, talk to people around you, and still get across the pool using a fraction of the time and energy you needed in the first scenario.

What I am suggesting is that we don’t have to go through life with our feelings stuffed down, always worrying about losing control of them. Stuffing down feelings takes up a lot of the time and energy that might otherwise be spent having fun, doing interesting things, and participating in relationships. Stuffing down feelings and then having to worry about them slipping out of control can lead to a life that has food as its central focus rather than the joy of living.

An essential part of recovering from disordered eating requires dropping judgments about feelings, developing an understanding that feelings are neither “good” nor “bad”. There are no right feelings or wrong feelings. Feelings just are. The only “negative” feelings are the ones that we can’t accept in ourselves.

Feelings are not necessarily rational. Sometimes you can make sense out of how you are feeling, but the understanding usually comes after you have fully experienced the feeling. If you try to “make sense” out of the feelings before you have allowed yourself to completely feel their depth and breadth, you may find yourself confused or frustrated.

I remember a time during the pregnancy of my first child when I was feeling very, very sad. But I could not find a reason for my sadness. I had planned for this pregnancy and had wanted this baby for some time. Yet I couldn’t shake this pervasive feeling of sadness. So I went into my bedroom and decided to be with my sadness until I discovered what it was about. It took hours. My husband came in and asked what was the matter. I told him I didn’t know but I was going to find out by letting myself feel whatever feelings came up. I just let the tears roll down my cheeks and eventually I started to sob. I paid attention to whatever images entered my mind without censoring or judging them. After a long while, certain thoughts kept reappearing and I realized why I was feeling so sad.

I discovered that although I was ready and eager to become a mother, I was feeling sad about giving up a lifestyle of freedom that I had cherished and so thoroughly enjoyed. I realized that in leaving the “maiden” phase of my life and by entering the “mother” phase, I would never again be so footloose and fancy-free. I would no longer be able to make decisions in my life without having to take into consideration the needs of another being.

By going into my feelings, I discovered that I needed to grieve the ending of this phase so that I could fully enter the next, without any resentment. I believe that had I dismissed my vague feelings of sadness or scolded myself for crying “for no reason,” or stopped my crying by arbitrarily deciding that I had cried “long enough,” I would never have reached the level of understanding that I did.

It is important to make a distinction between feelings and behavior. Behavior can be controlled. Feelings cannot. They have a life of their own. Trying to control feelings is like trying to swim up a mountain.

Unlike behavior, feelings cannot harm you or others. They can be uncomfortable and unpleasant, and at times they may be the impetus for hurtful behavior (if not expressed correctly), but they are not bad or destructive in and of themselves.

Feelings can cause trouble, however, if they aren’t recognized or accepted. They are waves of energy that can either flow through us or get blocked. They do not just disappear. If we ignore our feelings or suppress them, they seem to take on a power of their own, and their expression becomes distorted or perverted in some way.

Something entirely different happens, however, when we let ourselves experience our feelings fully and totally without fighting them or trying to talk ourselves out of them. When we allow ourselves to be totally immersed in our feelings, we can experience something miraculous and wonderful: the feelings will pass. They will flow through and be gone. And we will feel the freedom to move on, without being encumbered or weighted down by them. This doesn’t mean that they won’t return, but once we become adept at riding out our feelings instead of blocking them, we will find that they pass more and more quickly, and with less and less effort and struggle.

When we stop seeing our feelings as the enemy, something that just gets in the way of doing what we think we should be doing, we can establish a different kind of relationship with them. As we make friends with our feelings, we can discover that they can be allies and guides in this journey we call life. They can lead us to a place of deep understanding about who we really are and what we truly want, a place we might not otherwise be able to reach.

Recovery from disordered eating depends upon creating a friendly relationship with our feelings, responding to them with curiosity, not judgment, and receiving the gifts they can bring.

A woman seeking to change her relationship with her feelings so that she can be free of disordered eating first needs to increase her awareness of her feelings so that she can sense their presence inside of her. She needs to learn about the different sensations she might experience and pay attention to where in her body she feels them. This will help her to distinguish one feeling from another.

Instead of jumbling up her feelings and describing them in vague terms, such as feeling “bad” or “upset” or “okay,” she must learn to be more precise and specific. She needs to be able to recognize the sensation of anger, for example, and to notice how it feels different from the sensation of frustration or fatigue or irritation, until she gets a very clear sense of the different physical experiences the different feelings can bring.

Next, she needs to learn to accept her feelings, without judgment, without discrimination, understanding that there is no right way or wrong way to feel. Although some feelings may be more pleasant or seem more socially acceptable than others, no feeling is superior to any other. Different feelings bring different experiences into our lives and offer different lessons.

Finally, she needs to express her feelings in a clear, direct manner. This means if she is sad, an appropriate way of expressing these feelings is to cry or write in a journal. If she is angry, she might talk about her anger with a friend or the person with whom she is angry, or go in the shower and yell, or write a nasty letter that is not sent. If she is lonely, it might be most appropriate to call a friend or write a letter to someone she misses. Sometimes, she may not need to do anything at all but just be with the feeling until it passes. The point is that how she responds needs to fit with how she is feeling, so that she is not responding to each emotion with the same behavior: feeling sad? eat; feeling angry? eat; feeling lonely? eat.

Recovery from disordered eating requires an acknowledgment of how you are feeling and learning to distinguish one feeling from another. It requires an acceptance of all feelings without judgment. It requires an acknowledgment of the idea that feelings don’t have to make sense, don’t have to be liked, but, simply, have to be accepted. And finally, it requires some honest expression of how you feel, and a willingness to act with honesty and integrity.