My own memories of a difficult childhood are strongly tied up with food as love. This is a difficult issue for me particularly as I am aware many of the unhelpful decisions made by my parents towards me, I have repeated with my own children.
Growing up as an adoptee within a dysfunctional family, there were times when my adopted mother would pack a suitcase and drive off, leaving us alone in the family home. As my father was often working away, this meant that as very small children we were abandoned.
On one occasion as my adopted sister rocked back and forth in the corner of the playroom, I watched as daylight turned to darkness and screamed aloud into the silence. I was five. When my mother did return, she had chocolate bars with her which I ate greedily, always asking for more while also knowing there never would be or could be enough because my adopted mother was not able to give me what I needed. She had never received this for herself.
This is not however a blame and shame game because in recovery, working on life beyond addiction, the beauty is in the forgiveness and the self-compassion piece and that, knowing better, knowing that we can also do better – it’s not over. These generational patterns of abandonment, abuse and neglect can be righted once they are brought fully into awareness.
My small life is offered only as reflection on how deeply entwined food and love became in my story. I learned early on that sugar could change the way I felt, it could lift my mood it could help me numb out from what was a painful reality. Sugar taught me to lie, sneak, steal and hide and to look away until I was ready to see.
Had I my life over again with my children, I would offer these three techniques to each of them and ask them to promise that they would teach their own children the meaning and value of these techniques over giving food to children as love.
Gratitude
This idea is so simple but profoundly effective in allowing a child to feel listened to and heard. If as I believe it is our birth right to feel held and loved, then what more nourishing an opportunity than to create a time and space to deeply connect with our children over supper in the very act of eating?
“..small things done consistently in strategic places over time brings progress..”
Tommy Rosen
When we create a new habit, we must persist for it to provide the healthy dopamine hit that we wish to offer our children. Then the food we eat at supper is not the object of the connection, the sharing is. Make the food as nourishing and nutrient dense as possible and it will slip by under the radar that there is no pudding today. The child’s life will be full then alongside their belly – and the child is gifted the possibility of a whole and entire life.
But to achieve this, we must show up and do it as habit because this is where the magic happens. A child who knows that they will be met and heard in the evening will then spend the day in “heat seeking mode” looking for and collecting the good things to report back and share at the family table. And it might well rub off on you! Can you give this to your children? Can you break through the patterns of your disease?
The Awakened Brain
I was moved to listen to the work of Dr Lisa Miller, a 20-year Professor at Columbia University and foremost expert on the science of spirituality in the treatment of mental health and addiction. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller “The Awakened Brain – The Psychology of Spirituality” and has ground-breaking evidence on what happens when we are connected to something so much greater than ourselves. Dr Miller, and her cutting-edge research team discovered through the use of MRI scans and neuro-imaging that:
“…a child was five times less likely to be depressed when spiritual life was shared with a mother.”
In an age when so many children struggle daily with mental health, this is a powerful recovery tool. Dr Miller confirms that we are hard wired for spiritual connection – one-third innate and two-thirds from nourishment at deep soul level.
“Each of us has an awakened brain. Each of us is endowed with a natural capacity to perceive a greater reality and consciously connect to the life force that moves in and through and around us. Whether or not we participate in spiritual practice of adhere to a faith tradition whether we identify as religious or spiritual our brain has a natural inclination toward and docking station for spiritual awareness. The awakened brain is the neural circuitry that allows us to see the world more fully and thus enhance our natural societal and global well-being.”
Teach your children awe and wonder. Lift their hearts. It is their birth right, we are hardwired for spiritual connection, do what you can to bring this into your child’s life to create a whole person. A soul embodied and fully enlivened because we are teaching them life on all fours: bio-psycho-social-spiritual, leave nothing out.
“When we awaken, we feel more fulfilled and at home in the world and we build relationships and make decisions from a wider view. We move from loneliness and isolation to connection, from competition and division to compassion and altruism from an entrenched focus on our wounds, problems and losses to a fascination with the journey of life. We begin to live beyond a pieces and parts model of identity and a splintered fragmented view of who we are to one another and to cultivate a way of being build on a core awareness of love, interconnection and the guidance and surprise of life.”
When a child’s life is full of such wonder, there is balance. Work on this piece every single day.
The world needs whole people to evolve the planet. Do your best and keep going.
Oxytocin: The Hormone of Closeness.
Oxytocin is a hormone which is produced in the hypothalamus and released via the pituitary gland. It is released by stimulation like pressure, touch and temperature. Mostly it’s a hormone associated with birthing, suckling and motherhood but it is so much more than that.
It is an entire system affecting important areas in the central nervous system and is intrinsically involved in our perceptions of pain, calm, wellbeing, our social behaviours and our sense of belonging. It also reduces fear. It makes us feel relaxed and happy empathetic and friendly. And its free!
Teach your child simple ways to self-soothe by learning how to boost their natural oxytocin levels and they will have no need to reach for food to change the way they feel. Oxytocin is not something external to be acquired. It is an internal offering; an inside job and it comes in-built at birth!
Here is a list of ways to boost oxytocin levels:
· Cuddles and hugs
· Cuddles and hugs with pets
· Skin brushing softly with a hand mitten
· Massaging the soles of a child’s feet
· Massaging their achy limbs
· Soothing repetitive activities (shelling peas for example, craft or embroidery, French knitting)
· Breathwork – exhale twice as long as inhale ( one of my sons loved to breathe under water in the bath with me looking on)
· Offering three well balanced nourishing meals a day
· Simple sleep routines
· Walking together in the fresh air
· Singing together
· Humming together (have you ever sat at the table drawing or writing while another hums a whispered song gently in the sunlight)
· EFT (tapping)
· Warm baths
· Sitting around a log fire
· Sitting together and talking, listening and being heard.
Oxytocin is an ancient hormone that does not differ across the mammal species all around the world. They all have it as do we – which means……its important! Teaching our children how to self-soothe is a gift that will pay huge dividends throughout their lives.
In a world where many of us learned to use food to self-soothe and change the way we feel, ultimately causing such deep self-harm, what a gift then to be able to teach our children how to soothe themselves without using food as love.
Kate Oliver is a guide, a writer and an adoptee. A lifetime of yo-yo dieting and a dysfunctional relationship with her body finally ended when she was diagnosed with the disease of addiction. For the first time ever, life made sense – it was an enormous and profound relief. There followed a long period of retreat and stabilisation during which time Kate re-trained as a sugar addiction recovery professional under the guidance and supervision of addictions expert Bitten Jonsson RN, and Dr Georgia Ede. Backed by multiple certifications Kate now offers guidance and inspiration to others on their recovery journey through her private clinic at www.sugarsaddictive.com. She is a specialist in relapse prevention and denial management and is also certified in the use keto diets for mental health.
