Food issues and overeating appear to be very common. How many of us carry childhood memories of being made to sit and eat all the food on the plate ... everything had to be eaten and you were not allowed to leave the table unless the plate was clean?

Do these memories sound familiar?

• Whether we liked a food or not we had to eat it and how we felt about the food was not a consideration in any way, shape or form.
• If we did like the food and were happy to eat it but were full after eating two thirds of the meal we would still have to sit and force the rest of the dinner down anyway.

As we get older overeating seems to become something many of us do regularly, often marked by occasions such as:

• Special events and celebrations when we may eat 3-4 courses of food
• Movie nights with the family or a sleepover with friends – the more packets of processed food consumed the better, with a smorgasbord to choose from and generally including things like chocolate, chips, lollies, cheesecake, fizzy drink and ice cream
• Going out for breakfast to the latest café to hang out and catch up with friends, indulging in coffees, juices, a full cooked breakfast and then something sweet to finish the meal off, or perhaps one final coffee

Conversations about the amount of food eaten are very often laughed off with comments like:
‘Oh I won’t need to eat for the rest of the day’, ‘Luckily I can rest and do nothing after all that food I just put away’, ‘I feel like a stuffed pig after eating all of that’ or ‘I couldn’t possibly fit another thing in’.

We are capable of eating until we feel sick, or until the only thing we can do afterwards is lie down and sleep.

Overeating seems to have snuck into our lives to the point where the large amount of food we consume is considered quite normal.

Whether it has been from eating too much when out for dinner with friends when you order that dessert but you are already full to the brim, or when celebrating Christmas or Thanksgiving and cannot resist taking an extra helping because the food tastes so good.

And yet how many of us can remember ever having overeaten and feeling good after it?

We need to ask ourselves why do we continue to do it, when we know all of this and when overeating just does not make us feel good?

Our body will very often tell us a different story to the ones our taste buds do as we indulge in every mouthful.

Why DO we overeat?

There seems to be an endless number of reasons as to why we overeat including:

• To please and be given praise and hear the words ‘well done’
• Instead of feeling something – eating to numb what there is to be aware of
• Stress
• To settle the nerves or allay anxiety
• To avoid having a conversation with others
• To pep us up when we’re feeling tired
• As a way to abuse our bodies purposefully
• To fill up the lack of self worth void, where food becomes our ‘best friend’

There are other more insidious reasons that can sneak in when we actually feel good about ourselves:

• Taking the edge off our shine when we may be standing out in a crowd simply for being ourselves
• To dull the fact that we feel amazing
• As a reward for whatever reason we might tell ourselves
• A celebration, whether a birthday or a milestone of some sort, that warrants indulging in a feast

The reasons for overeating are endless. No amount of trying not to overeat seems to work. However, what does allow for a shift in our eating patterns is when the change comes from within and from developing awareness around how we feel about ourselves.

It is when we stop and develop our own self worth and truly commit to loving ourselves deeply, that how we are with our body and with food begins to change.

This is not a quick fix but rather an ongoing relationship with our food choices and how they make us feel. Approached in this manner, we can bring about long-lasting change.

Also Published on - https://www.unimedliving.com/

Author Sally Green
Photography Clayton Lloyd

Food and Religion, did you know it’s all part of the same package?
 
Does the food we eat support us to stay connected or to re-connect to the inner-most aspect of ourselves, our soul?
 
Does the food we choose to put into our bodies sustain us throughout the day and night to be all that we truly are – to be the best aspect of ourselves – for ourselves and others?
 
Does eating food allow our bodies to be left feeling light enough to know that we are more than just flesh and bones – that we are grand beyond measure, that we are divine?
  
The above questions allow us to consider our relationship with food along with the deeper questions about the meaning of life. Food and religion, two words relevant to all because everyone eats food and 84% of people according to google belong to a religion.
 
How we treat our bodies with food affects many things, for example, our feelings, thoughts and behavior. Most of the time we choose foods that –  

• dull ourselves so that we can’t feel anything
• have us disconnect from ourselves completely which then has us withdraw from ourselves and others
• puts us on super alert which makes us racy and going a millions miles an hour
• distorts our thinking and we can have crazy thoughts, to the extent that we can abuse our body very badly with either food or drink or by other means

  
If we are now considering that food choices can have a huge impact on our daily choices and that at times our food choices actually harm our body rather than bring healing to it then we may be open to hearing that what we choose to eat can come from a place of disconnection  with ourselves and thus what we choose to eat feeds the separation we already feel within. 
 
I am sure most of us have experienced eating food at lunch time that dulls us, makes us sleepy or even grumpy which then has an impact on how we are in the afternoon. We may become less productive, reactive with others or choose to hide ourselves away and not want to connect with other people or even worse we eat more food to try and change what we are feeling, the pick me up sugar hit would be familiar to many. 
 
The food choices most of us are making are confirming that we only see ourselves as a human body and not a soulfull being of love that deserves to be feeling light, lovely and gorgeous all the time. The very sad fact is that feeling truly vital, well and healthy is a long forgotten memory for most who are living now.
 
When does, our body get to rest from digesting food?
 
Can food be part of the same package as religion? 
    
“If you understand what religion truly is, then everything is religion.” 
Serge Benhayon Esoteric Teachings & Revelations, p 46 – Read More 
 
Maybe we haven’t been able to place food and religion at the same table because the food we eat plus how often we eat doesn’t allow this to be received by our body? Food is most definitely a big part of religion and developing a relationship with food and our bodies is paramount if we want to have a body where we can feel our inner-most most if not all the time. In fact, in religious terms we are all capable of developing a kingly body.
Read more - The kingly body – building a connection with your Soul

The purpose of food is to nourish our body, rather than to numb ourselves from all that we feel or to escape from life, and as such, we can make healthier and wiser choices for ourselves when choosing what to eat. Eating can become an action that supports us to stay connected to the grandness that we are. We can eat in a way that supports us to stay aware, connected and receptive to everything that is going on around us.
 
There are people living today that are making choices to support the inner-most aspect of themselves and as such they are feeling a vitality and well-ness that has long been forgotten. One such man is Serge Benhayon, his family and many who are students of The Way of The Livingness.

Read more - On the topic of food and diet
 
 

How did this book begin, where did the name come from and what does Bridging Foods truly mean?​

In June 2003 I had a life threatening illness, after surviving this I was introduced to a practitioner named Serge Benhayon through a friend. I listened to what Serge Benhayon presented to me in the Esoteric Healing session and felt that what had been presented supported me to make sense of my 'near death experience'. Within the gentle hands on Esoteric Healing session I reconnected to my true self and I felt my inner-most essence.

Serge Benhayon is the founder of Universal Medicine and a well known presenter and practitioner of Esoteric Medicine. He practices extensively on the East Coast of Australia from his clinic in Goonellabah and travels overseas twice a year to his European based clinic The Sound Training Centre (next to The Lighthouse) In Somerset UK.
I asked Nicole Sjardin, a close friend, to travel with me to Lennox Head NSW to participate in a Universal Medicine workshop Serge Benhayon was presenting in May 2004. The workshop gave us an opportunity to connect to ourselves, to have a sense of who we truly are and thus begin to understand that it is possible to know yourself from the inside out, from your inner-most. Nicole and I recognised that we had been living by looking at who we were from the outside in, from everything that the world teaches us and tells us. We were not listening to our bodies own intelligence.

From this experience Nicole and I were inspired to look more closely at our lives to begin to get a sense of how things affected us, a significant focus for us was how food affected our bodies, what was happening on the inside after we ate something and how did our bodies truly feel after we ate something?

Serge Benhayon talks about the energy of food. He does mention certain foods, like gluten and dairy, salt and sugar and the energetic affect they have on our physical body. He does not say what to or what not to eat but rather to feel how food makes you feel. 

“Is it worth the body losing energy in digesting one thing, when it 
could easily digest something much easier, faster and have more 
energy in the process?” Serge Benhayon

Nicole and I collected recipes that would support our own choices to begin a gluten and dairy free way of eating. The end result was Bridging Foods. With the title being suggested by Serge Benhayon and the overall book completely inspired by the teachings of Universal Medicine. So, Bridging Foods is as you would imagine a bridge, a cookbook; that presents you with a choice to eat gluten and dairy free, providing a bridge for you to begin to move from one side of the bridge which is how you have been eating to cross to the other side of the bridge where you begin to make choices that eliminate certain foods that do not support your body anymore. Gluten and Dairy may be just some of the foods that you eliminate from your food choices, but there just might be other foods that you discover that if you let go of your body feels so much lighter and lovelier.

The information and recipes within Bridging Foods allow you to explore your own food choices and how different food feels in your body. What you do or do not eat is now your choice. Nicole and I, although now gluten and dairy free, eat very differnetly. May the book serve to support you to make the food choices that bring greater harmony and vitality to you and your body. Our choices re food are constantly being refined and if you stay in tune with what your body is telling you you may also discover that your relationship with food and what to or not to eat will last a lifetime.

With love,
Sally
(on behalf of Bridging Foods)