Today on the podcast: The metabolic power of healing from grief
Dear Jimi,
This week’s podcast is now live!
In this episode, Marc speaks with 45-year old Tracy, originally from New Zealand and newly living in Australia.
Quarantined in her apartment, Tracy feels alone and isolated, and reflects on a series of losses that have defined her life including the death of her father when she was just four years old. As can often happen with the early loss of a parent, Tracy never really got to experience the kind of innocent childhood that provides the foundation for a balanced mind and body later in life.
One of the joys, however, that Tracy experienced as a young person was being a competitive swimmer — spending several hours a day practicing in the pool. As with many competitive athletes, Tracy’s metabolism shifted after her swimming career ended, and she’s struggled with weight since. She’d love to go to the outdoor ocean swimming pools in her vicinity, but she feels ashamed of her body and afraid of being judged for her weight.
As Marc helps her recognize,
Tracy’s physiological metabolism is closely tied to her emotional metabolism. And Tracy’s at a point where the numerous losses she’s endured have created a cumulative grief that’s never truly been integrated, holding her back from moving through the emotions necessary to find true vitality.
Unresolved grief is something that
so many of us experience, and that often gets stored in the body. When emotions aren’t metabolized — whether grief, anger, or other emotions, they can often express as symptoms in the body, including weight loss resistance.
Many people don't fully appreciate the profound effect our emotions can exert on our physiology. And of course, when it comes to difficulty losing weight, there can be a myriad of causal factors. But checking in with our emotional body, doing the work that’s needed to feel all the feelings, and gradually let them go, is vital for our health on every level.
As Marc encourages us,
learn to be a nutritional explorer. This involves a willingness to open our minds to new ways of thinking about not only food and nutrition, but also to
the intricate interconnections between our mind, emotions, body, and spirituality.
Through the course of their conversation, Tracy discovers a new approach to losing weight, while finding a beautiful and healing path through the grief that has so deeply colored her life.
We invite you to tune in over on YouTube, where you can watch their conversation on streaming video.
In good health,
Team IPE
[email protected]
psychologyofeating.com