A few weeks ago I was in an exceptionally calm and happy place during a whole weekend (after a pretty mind blowing spiritual experience). I was open, easygoing, in tune and connected; feeling my own needs and the needs of my husband and daughter, able to do what was asked in the moment and respond to my own needs and those of others without feeling conflicted. (Yep, I want to experience that more often as well).

During that weekend, my five-year-old daughter was happy, radiant, friendly, spontaneously helping out clearing out the whole(!) table, simply wonderful and a true joy to be around.

Now she is testing boundaries, fighting me every step of the way (especially in the morning). She just wants to play (of course she does) and refuses to conform to my rules (which I do not even like myself). She is acting out and going into drama (which really drives me insane).

Me? I feel a lot of frustration. I feel contracted in mind and my body (tense shoulders, tight belly, buttocks all clenched up). I see myself acting out old familiar (fear based) patterns – feeling an almost compulsive need to control what she does, how she does it, what she eats. Feeling nauseous with myself and beating myself up for being that way (I am especially accomplished at that!).

I see that I become triggered especially when there’s time pressure of some kind (having to get to school on time). I hear this voice in my head: ‘We HAVE TO get to school on time, because otherwise…’ Yes? How exactly is the world going to end, if a 5-year-old child is 5 minutes late for school?

I get triggered when she is going into drama. I try to reason with her from my mind (which, of course does not work at all). I need to contain her emotional outbursts (because they feel unsafe to me). I have this idea that I to behave like an authority figure and set boundaries. But how do you set loving boundaries without acting old-school authoritarian?   

Hmmm… I wonder if these experiences are linked somehow? (she said with sarcasm dripping from her voice). No seriously, although I have known at some levels (and in my mind) that children really reflect us back to ourselves, this time around the game has been taken to a whole new level. There’s no place to hide anymore (and believe me, I have been searching).

It is what it is: maybe the best thing I can do is simply to accept the facts as they are?
- I feel open and connected. Result: She feels open and connected.
- I feel closed and constricted. Result: She feels closed and constricted.

Mirror, mirror on the wall,
you are no different from me at all...
I may not want to stay,
but it is useless to turn away.

Even if I do not agree,
you are just another reflection of me.
Anger, sadness, joy and shame -
we might seem different, but are one and the same.

If I feel closed, I can relax as much as possible and open up again to whatever is, now, in this moment. I can actively remember that many of the voices I hear in my head are old behavioural programmes stemming from my own childhood (and generations before that). If my mind feels the need to control the situation and her drama (= my inner drama?), I can try to do the opposite: feel my body, relax, feel safe in myself and do my best to stay calm. And I can really work on that guilt thing I have going, be compassionate with myself and stop beating myself up when I get it ‘wrong’. How’s that for a start?

I would love to hear from you as well! What are your experiences with children as mirrors? What do you do to stay in a healthy mother / parent energy?

For most – if not all – of my life I have felt that the food I eat never really satisfies me. Knowing that I should slow down and chew, take my time to feel the food, but unable to actually do it. Instead, feeling the need to fill myself up. Fast, and a lot, always just past the point when I am not even hungry anymore. At night the additional urge to stuff my mouth full of chocolate, again, not stopping until a feeling of slight nausea settles on my stomach.   

I have tried different ways of eating. When I came to the Netherlands I did my best to adapt to the milk, bread & cheese culture – and gained four kilo’s. I found out that I was lactose intolerant. A few years later I discovered that gluten did not agree with my digestive system either. I tried to eat more salad and vegetables, but they just felt cold in my stomach and I became hungry immediately again. 

So I switched to three warm meals a day. Eating lots of rice, more fish, less meat and the occasional vegetarian meal. Still this gnawing feeling stayed with me. Gradually feeling a desire to include more vegetables and fruits in my diet, yet I simply could not make it work. The bottom line was that they did not satisfy the hunger I felt inside. 

A few weeks ago experienced a state of no mind and total oneness during a retreat. At one point we had lunch, while I was in this state of expanded consciousness. I remember sitting at the table with a fork and knife in my hands, looking at them thinking: ‘I know what these things are, but I have no clue how to actually move them’. My mind still knew what to do, but could not communicate directly with the body. 

I felt like a baby learning to eat for the first time. The beautiful, freshly made, crispy mixed salad with pine kernels, fresh herbs, olive oil and soft, juicy roast beef on a toasted piece of (gluten free) bread filled my whole vision. I felt my hands grabbing the fork and knife in an awkward way and, somehow, slowly managed to cut a piece and bring it to my mouth. Every mouthful was bliss – I could feel every texture, taste every flavour, my mouth was filled with food, swallowing it was complete fulfilment of now. I could not interact with anyone else. I was food. 

When I had eaten enough, I stopped. 
My plate was not empty, but I was done. 
I was not hungry anymore.

Back home, I find myself picking and mixing ingredients in new ways. I have gone from 60% carbs and 25 % vegetables/fruits to maybe 55% green and 30 % carbs. I feel an urge to eat more raw food, but still also mixed with warm. I eat less and stop when I’m done. We went to a restaurant and I chose the salad (something I would NEVER have done before), because all the rest seemed unappetising to me. I saw the rows of sweet pastry and creamy sticky cakes and felt sick to my stomach. It was a quite novel experience for me, indeed…

Now I am very curious to see how long this will last. What strikes me this time is that the changes do seem to come from within. It is not a system I have read about that I am trying to apply. I genuinely want to eat salad as well. So, I live in hope…

And the chocolate? Until a few days ago, I did not crave chocolate either, but I can feel that the addiction is creeping up on me again. It seems to be a real Pavlov reaction. I go to the living room, turn on the TV to watch a nice movie and my mouth starts watering at the thought of combining this cocooning event with chocolate. Even now, as I write this, I have the same reaction! So far, I have been able to stay off the chocolate, but I can feel the seductive call of delicious imported Finnish chocolate bars from the kitchen… Will I succumb or not? 

Tell me about your experiences with food (addiction)! Did something happen to make you radically change your eating habits? Are you able to keep the new habits alive? How? Please, share!