If Food Isn’t Love, What Is?
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2010 | POSTED BY MICHELLE
Has food become a substitute for the real love, affection and passion you crave? Did you comfort yourself with food after a relationship ended or someone died? There is a quote from Song of Solomon in the Bible that says, “Comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love.” Since the beginning of time food has been a replacement for the disappointments that love can cause. We know that while food might work as a short-term quick fix, that it can never fill the hole that only love can. If food isn’t love, what is? Keep reading to find out.
Using food as a substitute for love is so common that I have made it a yearly ritual to write about this phenomenon during Valentine’s week. Even the definition of love is overly simple and even confusing, “an intense feeling of deep affection” which might explain why figuring out what love is and having false substitutes for it are so common.
Many of us are hungry for love. Many of us are hungry for food. Many of us are hungry. Period. The two hungers can get collapsed into one another making them seem as though they are the same thing. One SY member eloquently wrote about this hunger by saying, “I have found that the desirous "monster" is not a monster at all. It's ME. It's my needs and wants and feelings and MUUUUUCH to my surprise, I'm NOT insatiable. I've ignored, denied, decried, sublimated, tabled, mocked, forgotten my needs so frequently that, like a crying baby, what might have been a little whimper has turned into a wail. And so of course I grab at the one thing, the one comfort, the one thing that's all my own: food. I have found, when I stop warring against my "monster" and start to address what it's asking for underneath the cries of food (Be kinder to me! I need a break! I can't take on this much!) the sense of deprivation is at first VERY BIG but there is a point of satiety. Even the most agitated baby won't cry forever if you comfort her long enough. And if you hold and comfort and feed and entertain and bathe and nurture and cherish that baby/baby/woman enough she'll trust you and won't need to act out to get your attention. It just takes time.
This reminds me of a quote by Pierre Reverdy, “There is no love; there are only proofs of love.” It’s not enough to love our selves or the people in our lives. We must communicate that love with loving actions and words. Just like the member above realized that she needed to be kinder to herself, give herself a break or take on less in order to stop relying on food so much, what are the ways in which you can demonstrate proofs of love to yourself and others?
A first step towards ending a pattern of using food as a substitute for love is to realize that overeating or “treating ourselves” is not an act of love but an act of aggression. This small shift in perspective can make us see that the way in which we were trying to soothe and comfort ourselves is actually counterproductive and hurtful. So, if food isn’t love, what is? Here are some quotes from a few of the greats:
"Attention is the most basic form of love; through it we bless and are blessed." - John Tarrant
This Valentine’s Day give your attention freely to yourself and others. Put down the computer, the remote, the phone, or the newspaper. Listen to your true feelings instead of feeding them.
"Loves makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place." - Zora Neale Hurston
This Valentine’s Day know yourself, share who you really are and take a risk to reveal yourself. Food keeps you in a hiding place.
“To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer. To suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy then is to suffer. But suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you're getting this down." Woody Allen
This Valentine’s Day lighten up, laugh it off, and let it go. No matter how confusing love or life might be, if seen through a certain lens, the whole thing can be pretty funny. Take some time to view things with humor. Food might numb the pain and tears, but it also numbs the joy and laughter.
"One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: that word is love." – Sophocles
This Valentine’s Day, love. Whether your proof of love is taking yourself out for a walk, eating well, laughing it off, forgiving a slight, keeping a criticism to yourself, accepting yourself as you are, buying a book you’ve been wanting to read, being kinder, just do it. Have fun looking for ways to give proofs of love. Notice that the one word that frees us of all the weight and pain of life is not food, but love.
In simple and everyday ways, love. In big and tangible ways, love. In silly ways, love. Simply put, love…love…love.
8 Comments In the order they were posted.
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As a psychiatrist who has worked with thousands of overweight people over four decades, I can understand how much you suffer when you are overweight or think of yourself as fat. Not only do you suffer from the physical and medical consequences of extra weight, but I know that you also suffer from painful feelings, such as disappointment, hopelessness, and guilt.
This program will help you learn the mental skills you need to stop overeating. Because, most of the time, you are really not hungry for food but for something else.
As you uncover and demystify your hidden triggers to eat, you will diminish their power over you, until one day you wake and the cravings will be gone! The new thinner, healthier, happier YOU will emerge.
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