BOOK REVIEW: Eating in the Light of the Moon

Eating in the Light of the Moon: how women can transform their relationships with food through myths, metaphors, & storytelling by Anita Johnston, Ph.D.

Eating in the Light of the Moon: How Women Can Transform Their Relationships with Food Through Myths, Metaphors, & Storytelling is a book written by Anita Johnston, Ph.D. about disordered eating in women. This book points out that 95% of people diagnosed with eating disorders are female, and therefore focuses on women and the divine feminine qualities that she believes become imbalanced with eating disorders. Johnston uses myths, metaphors and fairy tales to explain how the problem with food is really just an illusion; food is a metaphor for a hunger inside of us that is much deeper than physical hunger. In fact, we’re so used to tuning out our bodies’ true signs of hunger that we only know when we are famished or completely stuffed. She explains how it is essential that we learn again to pay attention to the subtle signs that our body is giving us. This book is full of symbolism and is a great journey of self-discovery. 

"Storytellers speak in the language of myth and metaphor," the author says. "They tell us a truth that is not literal, but symbolic. If we hear the stories with only the outer ear, they can seem absurd and untrue, but when listened to with the inner ear, they convey a truth that can be understood and absorbed on a deeply personal level. In this way, stories help us connect with our inner world, to the natural rhythms and cycles of the earth, and to the power of our intuitive wisdom." This book utilizes symbolism throughout to shed light onto the dark places of your psyche and explain that feelings are important and meant to be dealt with, not numbed out or covered over.

Johnston focuses on rediscovering the inner feminine, our intuition, and using that to shed light on our disordered eating. Through stories, the author tells of our struggles with food stemming from hidden feelings and an imbalance in our energies, our intuition has been ignored and our light has been extinguished. There is some reason that we turn to food for sustenance. Johnston explains a woman’s recovery as being a journey into a great labyrinth, where we have to wind around and around until we reach the very center of it, our core where all of our demons dwell, and then we have to face them and make the spiraling journey back out of the labyrinth into the world again. A woman must heal her relationships with her femininity, her sexuality, her body and her Self before she can conquer disordered eating.

I loved the use of metaphor in this book, it really speaks my language. What I got most out of this book was that food is a metaphor for other forms of sustenance, for a different kind of hunger, not only the physical. The most memorable part of this book for me was the metaphor about the animals that were starving and that couldn’t reach the fruit from the splendid tree because they couldn’t remember its name. They sent 3 different animals back to the lion to learn the name of the tree so they could eat of its fruit. Both the gazelle and the elephant could not make it back from the lion without tripping into a hole and forgetting the name. Finally, they sent the tortoise, whose great-great-great grandmother had told about the tree and how to remember. After getting the name from the lion, the tortoise repeated it to itself over and over again until it reached the other animals, “Ungalli. Ungalli. The name of the tree is Ungalli.” It repeated this over and over again until returning to the tree and announcing the name, and immediately the limbs of the tree extended to the ground and the animals were able to eat of the fruit. This story explains how you need to know the name of your hunger in order to recover and how you must keep it in front of you the entire time of your journey. Johnston says that it is only when your hunger is named that you can be truly fed. She explains the difference between nourishment and Nourishment with a capitol “N”. The woman who suffers from disordered eating must keep the name of her hunger in the forefront of her mind and repeat it to herself whenever she struggles with her own personal food symbolism.

This book focuses on how women who suffer from disordered eating have lost touch with their bodies and have become disconnected from their inner feminine; there is an imbalance between their masculine and feminine selves. It highlights the importance of the symbolism in our dreams and suggests using them for knowledge about our hidden fears and feelings. It also guides you, through insights and practical exercises, toward empowerment, explaining how to regain the power of your intuition and get in touch with your feelings, instead of stuffing them down or numbing them away. It focuses on feeding your “shadow sister” who wishes to be heard instead of starved or stuffed, by recognizing those parts of you that have been hidden or lost. Once you can see through the illusion that food is really the issue, you can dive deeper into your feelings and really begin to feel them again. Remember your hunger; always know what it is that you are truly hungry for, be it acceptance, love, respect, or creative expression. Keep it in front of you at all times and you will be able to give yourself the Nourishment that you TRULY desire. The name of the tree is Ungalli!!

SOURCES:

Eating in the Light of the Moon: how women can transform their relationships with food through myths, metaphors, & storytelling by Anita Johnston, Ph.D.

Johnston, Anita Ph.D.

Carlsbad, CA. Gurze Books. 1996

I'm going mobile!

I have a lot on my mind. It has been a crazy month so far. I also was forced to get a new phone when mine stopped letting me in my inbox. I got a ZTE Merit. It seems to be more intelligent than I am. I'm writing this on my phone using the blogger app. Much to learn. Much to say. Here's to technology and being in sync. That's a metaphor.

I sit with your specter and converse...

I sit with your specter and converse,

As if he was beside me throughout my day.

I work on the dishes and go off about loyalty and freedom.

I rest in the living room on the chaise lounge with strawberries,

I express with faux feelings to faux fellows in faux words. 

“She breaks just like a little girl,” I tell him.

He listens silently.

No reply.

He absorbs all that I am.

He watches me scrub the toilet.  I laugh and tell him about duty.

He sees my melt downs, he sees my build ups.

He witnesses my crazy core yet still he stays with lended ear. 

He has no choice. 

My mind holds him tightly in focus.

The edges blur but I won’t avert my eyes. 

4/5/12

I Try to Blog, I Turn To Shit

'Not Giving a Fuck is Awesome!'

Monday, January 30, 2012
What new thing did you begin this past weekend?

What new thing?  I don’t think anything new.  I think it has been the same old same old, but maybe that’s entirely wrong.  The problem:  people care too much.  I am becoming more and more consumed with the “Who gives a fuck?” mentality.  Not in a self destructive way (mostly) but in an open attempt to regain something of myself I might have lost, because in the end, if you really believe we only have one life?  I mean…fuck it, right?  Who was it…Janis Joplin that said something like, “You’ve got to be true to yourself, because in the end your self is all you’ve got.”  I think somewhere down my road I haven’t been true to myself.  I think that’s why I’m tortured, unless I’m just destined to be forever tortured.  A tortured, tormented, twisted mind.  Yep.  That’s me, alright. 

Trudge trudge trudge.  I try to walk through quick sand but it brings me down.  I try to push my way past things, see the forest through the trees.  What new thing did I begin?  NOT CARING if I am crazy.  Actually, yes – sort of.  I’ve tried loosening my hold on caring.  Multiple epiphanies really get me off daily, but I had this one the one day…man.  It was a doozy.  And it was a long, hard one.  A light switch.  An acceptance.  A realization.

I might be crazy – but is that such a bad thing?  I’m trying to “cure” myself?  I’m trying to be “normal”? What is normal? Overrated people, trying to be different.  A group of people too scared to be themselves?  I’ve always been pressured to do this, because I think I was convinced it was wrong.  Oh, you know, everything, my way of thinking, acting, seeing, being.  But is it?  Wrong.  What is that even?  Can’t define it, can you?  Because it’s all subjective.  Life is subjective.  And life is unpredictable.  We try to make sense of things and have this little line we follow and a path and all this shit, but what is it in the end?  Monotony.  Droning monotony.  A droning monotony of an existence?   There’s my Miss Anthrope.   I’ve missed you. (self hug)  Why do I remember having thoughts about the monotony of life around the age of 12?  I mean, I thought kids were supposed to be happy go lucky and there I was concerned about the cold war and worrying that life was just a meaningless string of bullshit and lies.  I guess I’ve always been misanthropic.  I guess I’ve always been tortured.  I guess this is who I am? 

I was talking to my friend at the bar the other day and we were discussing life and its bittersweetness at one point.  Everything is like that, it seems; bitter and sweet, simultaneously.  And if you think about it, it really makes sense.  Yin and Yang.  Good and bad.  Positive and negative.  The whole of life is the good and the bad, the Yin and the Yang.  You can’t have the Bitter without the Sweet or the Sweet without the Bitter? 

I think most of man’s spiritual dilemma can be traced back to the fact that we struggle with control issues.  Our mind is programmed to create order out of chaos.  When you really get down to the heart of it, nothing in this world makes sense, so we seek it.  We seek things that make sense to us, that have some order.  But we want to control the order.  We can’t accept that maybe we don’t have control over everything?  It’s just that losing control is such a scary thing, isn’t it?  But recently I have come to terms with the fact that there are just simply some things we can not control.  I can control my actions and responses to things, but I can’t control these things in and unto themselves.  I can control my actions, I am told I can even control my thoughts maybe (let me know!)??, but I can’t control my emotions or my feelings.  (Or can I?)  I can only ride the waves.  I can only control the surf, control the direction of my effort.  You can’t change these waves, you can only ride them.    

I digress.  My point, if I had one, would be – I can’t be myself without accepting the crazy and riding the crazy wave.  I’m soul surfing some gnarly waves of psycho.  If my mind was given to me by whatever gave it to me, and I’m meant to give it to something – to give it back, to complete the circuit.  My soul is just trying to complete the circuit.  So I’ll just give in - and go with the flow.  And when you do that, what’s to be, they say will be.  Maybe we aren’t really in control anyway?  Who gives a fuck who is steering?  We’re just back seat driving off the cliff...

[This title was taken from the Jon Lajoie video "Not Giving a Fuck."  If you haven't seen that one, I highly suggest YTing it.]

Masked But Unanimous

Masks.  Everybody wears them, but do we all understand them?  Yes and no.  Let me explain.  I was pondering this tonight while rocking my little girl to sleep.  I suppose this is a theme that often resurfaces in my stream of thought, and it was a really good visual tonight.  My daughter hates going to sleep and sometimes the act of initiating it can be pretty difficult, although tonight she was reasonably tired.  Even though sleep wasn’t far away, she still put up her fight.  She pulls at herself fighting sleep.  She pulls at her hair; pulls at her face; pulls at her ears.  She actually pulls at her own face as if she is unaware that it belongs to her sometimes.  Like it’s not even a part of her, that face.  That’s not where she lies.  She lies within.  

I just thought that this was odd because it is a metaphor of sorts, a huge symbol.  Can it be both?  Sure.  We all have a mask, but we get lost in it and sometimes it is hard to tell where the mask ends and we begin.  But there are really multiple selves within this main Self we are striving to understand, aren’t there?  Many many many selves.  Or is it just one?  One Self.  One mask.  We really are all the same damn thing anyway, so if the point is “One Love” and all that rot, why is there such a split in the human psyche?  What’s my point again?  The mask.  

The mask is often viewed as separate of the Self, or authentic self, I guess.  But if all things are connected in the great things, then aren’t they really the same thing?  Our mask is really part of who we are.  It is included in the Self, because the Self encompasses all things.  Every part of us.  It’s the only place all of these pieces can come together and make sense; order in chaos.  

It’s not the fact that we have a mask.  It’s the fact that we fail to understand this mask.  The mask is in its creation an entity unto itself.  We become our masks and in a way our masks become us.  Only sometimes it is as though we are peering out through the eye holes and all the while we are completely unaware as to what the mask looks like to the people peering at our eyes beneath it. 

Untitled: Something I Don't Remember Writing

In the kitchen they saw us kissing,

Our hair whirled ‘round our heads,

Like the wind was mingling with us,

And mixing our souls as we touched.

I laughed and you smiled at nothing.

I noted how often you spoke.

I missed your hands being around me.

I missed our hearts both beating broke. 

A nod of the head in your direction.

A frown smiling back at me still.

I mourn our times never aligned.

I burn for you and always will. 

[January 15, 2012]

November Blog #24: "Alone vs. A Loner"

NaBloPoMo Prompt of the Day (Nov 24): Do you enjoy being alone? Would you rather be around other people?

I think that I probably answered this question when I blogged about my secret pleasure.  In retrospect, I guess it really wasn’t much of a secret.  It’s pretty obvious to me, and to some, but I suppose to others it wouldn’t be.  Maybe that is why I chose it.  Would I rather be alone or around people?  I always described myself as an introverted extrovert.  This may be a silly contradictory phrase, but it really does make perfect sense for me.  Vice versa would hold true, as well; I am also an extroverted introvert. 

www.righteousmonster.com

I grew up in a decent sized family.  There were six of us all together.  I had 3 siblings, two younger sisters and an older brother.  Not big by older standards by any means, but 4 children is quite a bit for today.  I was the second child, but the oldest daughter.  Sometimes it felt as though I was the oldest in general.  It goes without saying that the first born is born into a deal of responsibility in the hierarchy of a family, and being the first of three girls and so close to my brother in age, I was no different. 

Although being in a big family forced me to interact with people throughout most of my days, I also preferred to spend a lot of time in my room and/or alone as a child.  I didn’t dislike my family, per se; all families have issues.  As I mentioned in my blog about my secret pleasure, I am not sure if I am just innately like this or I became this way because of conditions during my development.  It’s just simply how I am. 

I actually prefer to be with people; I love social interaction, I love conversing.  I just need almost as much time alone.  That is to say, I am accustomed to getting as much time alone.  My husband’s work takes him away all week, so up until I had the baby, it was just me and the dog during the weeks here.  I lived the half life of a bachelorette.  I must say, having the baby has saved me from loneliness more than I ever could have imagined.  She’s like my new best friend.  I prefer to be with her, honestly.  As a Stay-at-Home, I have also become accustomed to having her with me 24/7. 

As she keeps growing and we bond more and more every day, I find myself changing more and more.   My “self” is changing to include her as well.  I’m “alone” with Celie a lot of the time, but I am not really alone.  Sure, she isn’t an adult capable of intellectual debate and stimulating conversation, but she fulfills my social needs in a way I could never have comprehended before.  Don’t get me wrong, I still need time away from her, I still need time completely alone, and I still need time to be social without her, but I am growing more and more each day.  I believe I am being re-socialized by my daughter; she is making me co-dependent.  This is something I have kind of had a battle against since my husband and I got together.  I had to detach myself in a way from the loneliness I felt every time he left me or I would never be able to live the life that we do.  Even though I still feel this loneliness every day he is gone, my daughter is helping me to not feel so alone and feel more okay with him leaving me so much. 

Overall, I am a homebody.  I enjoy spending quality personal time with my family and that is what I choose to do most times.  I also would never be what I am today without the social stimulation of my friends.  I have learned things in solitude that one can never learn in social circles.  I have, in turn, learned many things in a social circle that one can never learn in solitude.  Although I have come far and overcome many personal obstacles, I continue to walk the thin line between social butterfly and social outcast. 

November Blog #6: "A Picture of Something You Wish You Could Change"

Day 24:  A Picture of Something You Wish You Could Change

(image: stuffnoonetoldme.blogspot.com)

“A mind is a terrible thing to waste…” as the UNCF maxim states.  Well, I personally feel that a mind is also a terrible thing not to change.  Of all the things I would like to see change, I would like a change of mind.

I personally am continuously looking for ways to change my mind.  I am, also, incredibly indecisive, which, I have deduced, is basically the fear of wanting to change your mind later.  So why do I feel I have been discouraged from changing my mind by society?  I’m changing all the time!  So is everyone and everything else in existence!  I would like to be open to change my mind.  I want to change my mind; I want you to change your mind!  I want us all to change our collective mind(s).  

As a teenager I felt overly encouraged to choose, decide, and “MAKE UP YOUR MIND!”  Make it up to never change it again?  But, that decision would only be based on who I am at this moment…and that is always changing.  What do I know?  And what if I change my mind?  (And I did.)

Changing your mind seems to be played off as something that you only do if you are either on a quest for god or working on your twelve steps. Change seems to denote negative qualities more than good.  It is mostly either dreaded, or greatly desired.  While this isn’t true in all cases, it just seems dreaded more often than not.  But why is that??  As the Barack Obama campaign suggested, can’t change be good?  Can’t CHANGE be HOPEful?  The president was able to “take it back” in a manner or speaking, and remind the people that CHANGE is what you want.  Change should be desirable!  (We’re not getting political here! Just an example! ha.)  My point being, change shouldn’t be feared so much and should be seen as a great opportunity for growth!  

Now, I understand that we must stick to our guns in most cases or our endeavors will bear no fruit.  Stay the course, and all that good stuff; the world would be in chaos if nobody ever decided on anything and then held true to that belief or goal.  Many people generally don’t want to deal with or see change, though, let alone change their minds.  They live in a constant state of mild fear because of this.  Change can be quite unpleasant at times to the human being and if we learn one thing from babies/toddlers it’s that repetition makes humans feel safe.  We want similarities, not differences.  We want to know what to expect.  But what is the Universe if not unpredictable?  

Nothing within the Universe is static; everything is flux.  So, why then do we seem designed to derive comfort from repetition and “sameness”?  Which is basically, what?  Order.  We want order.  The human mind is a little OCD if you think about it.  “A place for everything; everything in its place,” and all.  We seek to find order in chaos whenever possible.  That’s how we roll!  We’re searching for symmetry…beauty…in everything we view.  We naturally want it all good.  We sentimentally want the Yin without the Yang…or the Yang with the Yin.  Either way, we want things to make sense.  That is how we are programmed to view our reality.  Is it possible that change simply doesn’t make sense to ou­­r programming?  And not making sense=stress.  Therefore, change=stress.  Changing our mind, however, I think is a useful tool.  Maybe this is how we are meant to evolve?  One of the greatest things about this reality, however we choose to view it, is just that.  We choose however we view it.  If we don’t like something…we have the choice to change our mind about that.  (I know, this is easier said than done, right?  It’s a life journey, but you get my point.)   We are the director.  Our attention is the photographer.  Our mind is the camera.  We always have a choice of how to view things and if we don’t like what our mind is saying to us, as incredibly hard as it is to master, we do have the power to change it. 

I think that utilizing our ability to change our minds symbolizes our willingness to evolve.  Our ancestors were survivors (obviously), and they had to be flexible in order to be adaptable enough to survive.  They were mind changers from way back.  Change isn’t always a bad thing and changing your mind is very beneficial to your survival.  I believe the mind, when changed and manipulated, can be (wo)man’s best friend.  When left running on its own inertia, it is our greatest foe.   

I wanted to write more about this, but I changed my mind.  Can I change my mind?  I can, and I will.  It’s my life choice.    

Me to You,
Missie Sue