weight changes

“It is probably the hardest thing there is – to look at the scale and believe it, to look in the mirror sideways and examine the stomach, to convince ourselves that we need to lose weight. Then comes the need to block the kitchen and go exercise to lose it. Every eating disorder, perhaps every woman and every adolescent girl knows this need, this pain.

The impact on weight and external appearance is caused by the fact that we are taught to think that the external world is everything – the frames, the people we meet. We wake up, go out into the world, meet people. We learn, work, chat on social networks, and then return home. It’s as if we are always looking in the mirror and thinking that the reflection is us when in fact it is just reflecting us. It’s easy to believe the remarks people make to us and the fickleness of the external world.

Life starts from within, and everything we see outward is an internal reflection.

How does that make sense? I am flesh and blood, I see and hear. Yes, but we are prevented from the power of our subconscious. This power connects us with situations and people who match our system, which sometimes makes it seem like things are repeating themselves.

“What you think, you become” / From a Buddhist prayer

At first, it is strange and hard to digest, hard to get used to this new idea. But who among us, eating disorder sufferers reading this post, regrets the moment she turned the wheel towards self-harm? These curses and insults create a negative reality. You are fixated on your weight because an internal experience is created in your subconscious, which you ignore, and it is projected onto your appearance. How can I be whole with my external existence when I ignore my entire internal world? It is within you; it is not yours.

The path to stability and balance

Our goal is to create internal stability and balance. When I am balanced and living peacefully with myself, I am not affected by external criticisms as much because I am attentive to my internal world and can trust myself. The first step is awareness – awareness of the internal world, awareness of pain and suppressed patterns.

To generate awareness, we need to practice meditation consistently, an important step not to ignore on the path to creating new consciousness. There are various types of meditations, short and longer ones. I teach a Buddhist meditation called ‘Insight.’ The meditation consists of three stages: walking meditation, sitting meditation, and mindfulness.

What does my body weight say about me?

The impact on the body may stem from genetic memories, such as “I feel guilty for eating because my family members had nothing to eat during the Holocaust.” Yes, that’s how it works. Memories and genetic patterns play an important role in our daily lives. Because I feel guilty or weak, this guilt creates an environment of bullying that abuses me because of my weight.

How do I appear to the world?

I project onto my body the bag of emotions and thoughts I carry on my back, just as I see myself – the world sees me. On one hand, I won’t be socially accepted or worthy of existence when I am overweight (yes, that’s how an eating disorder mind works), but on the other hand, when I spend the whole day focused on eating and my weight, I isolate myself from society, I hide myself. Perhaps the layers of fat or hunger serve me to hide myself? Perhaps they conceal the need to isolate myself so that I don’t have to expose myself? So that I don’t have to deal with it?

facing myself is painful, but hiding is even more so, and it lasts much longer. When we are honest and open with ourselves, we create inner completeness