Some days, I wish my healing journey had been a little more like Eat, Pray, Love.
I love Italy. I LOVE food. And I LOVE people.
That looks like a wonderful way to heal and grow spiritually.
And certainly, a trip like that can help us shake some things loose and get over ourselves. It might even help us find enlightenment.
I've made adventure part of my healing journey at times, too. But for most of us, the truth of our humanity is that we have quite a few things to work through - and it takes more than a trip.
From our obsession with food, sex and other physical sensations to our attachment to comfort, there are many things that keep us occupied.
We all have our own crutches and distractions that help us feel a little saner and more comfortable in this world.
But what if we're not meant to feel quite so certain or comfortable here?
As desperately as we seek that comfort, it doesn't seem to be what life is entirely about.
What I've discovered throughout my long journey is that, with each addiction or habit I seek to release, the rawness of being human becomes more evident.
We are incredibly sensitive beings.
We arrive in this world crying, and at some point we stop. But we don't quite figure ourselves out.
We continue to function at the mercy of our nervous systems, emotions and minds.
The Comforts We Become Attached To
We're all addicted to something.
It might be our thinking, food, alcohol, fancy brunches, people, money or something else entirely.
We attach meaning and importance to all sorts of aspects of life, developing ideas about what they should mean and how they should be.
And these attachments can become the things we rely on to feel comfortable.
You might be surprised by the emotions that emerge when you begin letting go of your comforts.
Suddenly, your mind, nervous system and body no longer have the familiar things they've been relying on.
Emotions begin to pour forward.
This is also why fasting can sometimes reveal emotions that have been hidden beneath our habits of seeking comfort.
My Own Relationship With Food
Food is something we all have to contend with.
After all, we can't simply quit cold turkey and decide we'll never eat again.
For me, our relationship with food is profoundly revealing of the challenge of overcoming attachment and becoming free.
After a long period of healthy eating, unhealthy food became an addiction for me, shaped by isolation and the toll of healing C-PTSD and working through various emotions.
Food served me well for quite some time.
I was eating every hour, trying to soothe my nervous system in ways that my other practices didn't seem able to accomplish.
But the day came when I needed to let go of that habit, too.
Learning to Move Through Discomfort
One of the most important things I've learned is that we cannot always rely on what we feel to decide what we do.
So instead of eating to soothe myself, I allowed myself to cry.
Instead of avoiding work, I made myself work.
And the surprise?
I found myself feeling peaceful and joyful while working.
This is how we begin to rebuild ourselves.
We heal as much as we can, and we learn to move forward through some of our emotions and discomfort.
But there's something crucial here:
We have to let the emotions flow.
Without that, we risk returning to the same patterns, only to find ourselves facing them again later.
The work isn't simply about giving up our comforts.
It's about discovering what lies beneath our need for them — and learning that we can meet those feelings without always having to escape.
That's where a different kind of freedom begins.