Reading Stephen Cope: What Are You Starved For?

There is a story that my family used to tell about me that was supposed to be funny. (How many of these do we all have?)

It goes something like this:

I was almost three years old. (Still a baby, remember.) And I was so cute, but I was also so very pudgy. Pudgy (strong) little legs and a belly that was proud of itself.

One night after dinner, we had cupcakes, and as I reached for my second, which I guess was normal, I was told no. I was now on a diet. I pouted and looked angry.

Isn't that funny?

And thus the beginning of my Love/Hate relationship with food, but more detrimentally, my Love/Hate relationship with this body.

This body that wants the second cupcake. How dare it?

This body that likes to be a bit soft. How dare it?

This body that has always been so strong and so flexible but not quite thin enough.

How dare it?

When the subject of Hungry Ghosts came up in this recent chapter of Stephen Cope's The Wisdom of Yoga, I knew we'd have a lot to talk about here on Blisschick.

Now forget that specific story of my love of cupcakes, because really, there is nothing at all wrong with that.

Move forward to my teens and to my twenties and even into my thirties...

Look at how much I hate my body. Look at how much I go up and down, chunky to too skinny, over-exercising, under eating, a little bit of vomiting here and there.

Does that sound familiar to you, at all?

What was really going on?

Only with years of yoga and journaling and praying could I come to know those cravings for what they really were, of course. It is obvious when you are outside the craving, isn't it?

I crave love and acceptance. A love and acceptance that I never received, because I simply was not enough or was too much.

At three years, I knew this. I was taught this (and yes, the lessons continued and got much more...directed).

I will always and forever struggle with my relationship to food, but thanks to yoga and journaling and prayer, I see it for what it is: a manifestation of my sadness and anger.

Here are some questions for you:

What do you regularly crave but deny yourself? This can be food, clothes, shoes, books, retreats, whatever...

Why do you deny yourself? Watch your Self: are you operating from abundance or scarcity, health or control?

What do you get from the denial? How does it make you feel? Do you feel righteous, indignant...how old do you feel?

Do you remember the first time you felt this way? Recall the circumstances and the emotions in as much detail as you can.


You might be interested in our previous conversations about body image issues.


(Image: Botticelli at the Cleveland Museum of Art) (Text Copyright: Christine C. Reed, blisschick.net, 2009)