Feeling stuck in your food and body journey? Despite all the books, podcasts, and therapy sessions it just seems like you are getting nowhere. I bet you are totally annoyed at the perseverating thoughts swimming around your mind and sucking the life force out of you. Wondering, when will I finally let go of these thoughts and this struggle? You are not alone.
All of this to be expected at some point in your body and body liberation journey. It is a place many folks don’t talk enough about. It is where you have made some progress, but not as many leaps and gains as you had imagined. Perhaps it is taking longer than you thought, or you are simply at a crossroads with some aspect of letting go of old habits while simultaneously forming new ones. I personally have served hundreds of clients with similar stuckness, and if they keep grinding and excavating through perpetual introspection, they will end up on the route to burnout.
These consuming thoughts are indeed consuming. Like you are stuck in an eddy on the river of food and body shame, and you can’t get out. It can be exhausting trying to get out of this pattern, especially if you are trying to navigate this alone or are overconsuming recovery content. I invite you to reframe these stuck eddy vibes as an opportunity to rest and reset. To let up on the overworking and rest for a while in this eddy of slow stuckness along the meandering food and body liberation journey.
When we first hear about body liberation, Intuitive Eating practices, or breaking up with our eating disorder behaviors, we can feel charged with a vitality of hope that there is a kinder way out. We cognitively acknowledge the pacing of this journey will likely be glacial, but that knowing of the pace takes some time to reach the body and the nervous system. After a few months of working alongside your providers in reflection, experiments, and challenging the longstanding food rules, fact checking the critical voice, etc. we can get tired. It can seem like the arduous journey will always be this challenging. But this fatigue, stuckness, or overwhelm can be a sign to rest and reset. I call it the eddy of stuckness because it can feel like you are working hard, but getting nowhere. You want the voice to stop. You are struggling to see the light at the end of the tunnel. This is where a rest from full throttle recovery work is ok. Doing nonstop healing work is taxing and we can get fatigued from the introspection and challenging of old paradigms of thought. And if we keep swimming too hard to get out of the eddy of stuckness, we may tire and abandon the work altogether.
If you resonate and find yourself in this same place, come rest. Surrender and stop hustling for progress and change. Rest and notice what’s here. Look up at the canyons you have traversed. Let your limbs sense the water around. You are here. You made it this far. Maybe even put the food and body self-help book down for a week, two, or three. No more podcasts. No more reels, bopo inspo, and infographics. Just rest from the content for a while. Sure, continue with your newly established helpful habits of eating regularly, checking in with hunger and honoring when able. Checking in with fullness and honoring it when able. But please rest. Rest with what you already know. Acknowledge how far you have come. Listen to the conviction of your wisdom that you are not turning back on this journey because you are keenly aware of that soulsucking endless dieting road behind you.
This time of surrender helps to unburden yourself from the perpetual progress pointing our culture loves to aim you towards. Which we all know ends in fatigue and often burnout. So instead, let’s hold here and hang for a while. Dangle your feet in the water, notice how it feels, rest in your senses. What new awareness is here for you that was not here before this journey? How are you responding to yourself these days versus last year? What feels easy now, that used to feel terrifying before? Observe what this environment is like. Let the current of diet culture swirl past you, let the thoughts flow with the water, down the stream to another destination. Just stay here with me (and your caring providers) while you catch your breath. No more doing. Just being.
Let’s actually breathe right now. In…..and out…..
What do you notice? What parts of you are sinking into this rest, and what parts are ready for the next plan or wanting to prematurely end this rest? Meet all or your parts with curiosity and reverence. There is no need to do anything more.
After we give ourselves permission to rest and loosen the grip on progress and perfectionism, I often witness any energy shift for my clients. They regain some clarity, perspective, and vitality back. They begin to trust rest and know that what the mind blots out, the body somehow knows. And once the body is resourced, the mind will often follow. Rejuvenating their vitality and interest for the next part of their journey.
I use the metaphor of an eddy as a reframe for our stuckness. Only over time and with perspective might we see that this time of eddy energy was a time to gather energy for the next leg of our journey. When rafting or floating down a river, the gentle eddies can be intentional places of respite and rejuvenation. How might it feel to intentionally rest here when you notice this energy arise? How might it feel to even plan ahead for a rest and reset? I trust that when you are ready your body and mind will mobilize with greater clarity, compassion, and movement for this work.
"Urgency is a myth that preys upon your fears about the future."
— Rest is Resistance, Tricia Hersey
In compassion and curiosity,
Sophia
