Self Healing Colitis & Crohn's by Dr. David Klein

Author:Dr. David Klein [Klein, Dr. David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dr. David Klein
Published: 2012-09-28T14:00:00+00:00

4.7 UNDERSTANDING HUNGER AND APPETITE

While preparing to write this section I sat down under a tree one day and made a list of reasons why people, including myself, eat. I stopped after I had identified 50 reasons, and over 40 were emotional in nature! Humans mostly eat out of emotional habit, equating their “appetite” with a strong message from their bodies that says: “Food! Feed me now and don’t stop until I feel better!” Some people eat to satisfy this “appetite” believing they are filling a true need for nutrition, while others do so knowing that this is not the case.

You may believe you need to work on “controlling your appetite.” When we recognize that we have an emotional eating problem, working on “controlling our appetite” rarely, if ever, works. The reason is we neither understand the nature of the “appetite” nor how to approach it. I do not believe that our “appetite” is something to control, but rather something to understand. Let’s explore this and see how getting to the core of our reasons for eating can help us.

Understanding “Appetites”

“Appetites” can be considered to be desires which arise from thoughts, memories and bodily needs. The needs can be physiological (nutrients/food/water/sunshine/exercise/rest/sleep) or emotional (comfort/security/love). Emotional eating can and sometimes does help us to cope. However, food can never truly solve an emotional “appetite.”

Essential and Non-essential Eating

There are only three essential reasons to eat: 1. to nourish our bodies when we experience true hunger; 2. to hydrate our bodies when we are thirsty; and 3. to fuel our bodies before and during rigorous work and exercise. Eating for any reason other than the three essentials is, to a greater or lesser degree, not healthful. How can we set ourselves free of unhealthful eating?

Body Awareness

The key to healthful eating is mindful body awareness. This practice leads to self-knowledge, which is the gateway to health, freedom and longevity. As conscious beings, we have the ability to develop our self-awareness on our pathway to self-mastery. With regard to eating, it is beneficial to observe our food cravings, appetites, food choices, the manner in which we eat, what our mind is doing while we eat, our emotions and our body’s sensations during and after eating.

By practicing body awareness in a relaxed manner while we eat, we gain new insight about ourselves and our appetites. The magic of this is that as we come to know ourselves, we are constantly improving our ability to make healthful choices. Then, as our health blossoms, sickness becomes a thing of the past. We begin to feel great all the time, and we no longer stuff our stomach, intestines and colon, pollute our blood and brain, or waste our money on excess food. There is a tool for helping us become proficient at body awareness and getting to the core meanings of our “appetites.” It is called...

The Somatic Inquiry

The Somatic Inquiry is a practice of sensing and observing the energetic presences and voids in and of the body, the inner terrain so to speak, and so discovering our true needs.

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