The Satisfied Soul: Transforming Your Food and Weight Worries

By Shoshana Kobrin

Is food your enemy and your best friend? Do you ever wonder what your endless struggle with weight and appearance is really all about?
It's the soul, not the body, that's starving
Discover the underlying causes of food and
weight issues, create a healthy relationship with food and your body, and nourish your starving soul.
SHOSHANA KOBRIN has helped countless women cut the cords of their struggle with food and weight. The Satisfied Soul is vividly illustrated by characters based on poignant stories of women in her psychotherapy practice, and her own long history of bulimia. You'll be encouraged by these courageous women who conquered obsessive dieting, bingeing, compulsive overeating, overweight, obesity, bulimia, and anorexia. The Satisfied Soul goes beyond dead-end diet plans with practical tools and a stirring, inspirational approach.
Most approaches to overweight, body image concerns, and eating disorders follow the medical model - dieting, attempts to correct negative thought patterns, and strictly monitoring eating habits. That model addresses only symptoms, not fundamental causes. The Satisfied Soul offers you a new direction: exploring the emotional and spiritual state lying beneath your troubled relationship with food. This involves repairing the inner emptiness and learning to connect deeply with your needs and desires, with others, and with the world we live in.
You'll learn strategies to change your thoughts, feelings, and behavior about food and your weight. Understanding the deeper layers of your struggle, you'll be more accepting of yourself and your body. This means eventually losing weight, if you need to, but more important, releasing your preoccupation with food. Let The Satisfied Soul guide you through the passages of change and growth to manifest your gift of transformation.

Move from the Dark Spiral of despair about food and weight to the Land of Possibility where each day is a treasure!

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781468510645

Shoshana Kobrin

Shoshana was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and started her professional life as a preschool teacher. After taking a Master's degree in literature, she pioneered a multi-cultural communications program during apartheid in South Africa. Her manual, Communicate While You Teach was written for teachers and nurses in training. Interest in intercultural group dynamics led her to a Masters degree in psychology at John F. Kennedy University, Orinda, California, when she arrived in the United States. She is a licensed Marriage Family Therapist, practicing in Walnut Creek, California. Specializations are: people in transition, couple counseling, child therapy, food and weight issues, hypnotherapy, and EMDR. Shoshana teaches at university level, supervises interns, and provides continuing education for therapists and nurses. For thirty-two years, Shoshana has been teaching, training, public speaking, and facilitating workshops and retreats in the community. She has presented at twelve, state-wide, professional conferences. Publications include poetry, a short story, and articles on food and weight issues and eating disorders, addictions, relationships, spirituality, communication, the family, and parenting. Her self-help book, The Satisfied Soul GuideBook: Your Path to Transformation was published in 2011. Books, reading, and writing have been an important part of Shoshana's life since childhood. Two tools were invaluable in healing from a challenging childhood and her long history of bulimia: Natalie Goldberg's, Wild Mind, which introduced her to free, associative journaling, and Buddhism's Vipassana meditation technique. Her spiritual and creative life, which she defines as “connection in many spheres of life” is of prime importance to her. Shoshana lives in Walnut Creek. She enjoys swimming, hiking, singing, piano and guitar, song writing, sketching, and ceramic sculpture.

Book preview

The

Satisfied

Soul

Transforming Your Food

and Weight Worries

Shoshana Kobrin, MA, LMFT

US%26UKLogoB%26Wnew.ai

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2012 by Shoshana Kobrin, MA, LMFT. All rights reserved.

Cover Painting and Design by Shoshana Kobrin

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 01/19/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4685-1065-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-1066-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-1064-5 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011961782

Printed in the United States of America

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Cast of Characters

Chapter One

FROM THE DARK SPIRAL

TO

THE LAND OF POSSIBILITY

Chapter Two

DANCING WITH DEFINITIONS:

WHAT IS DISORDERED EATING?

Chapter Three

WHY ME?

PREDISPOSITIONS TO DISORDERED EATING

Chapter Four

THE FAMILY RAINBOW:

REAL, IDEAL, OR GOOD-ENOUGH?

Chapter Five

THE AMERICAN DREAM

AND OTHER FANTASIES

Chapter Six

SPECIAL EFFECTS:

TRANSITIONS, PROCESSES, AND OUTCOMES

Chapter Seven

THE HIDDEN ONES: PARTS AND PIECES

Chapter Eight

EXCAVATING THE PARTS:

THE HIDDEN ONES REVISITED

Chapter Nine

FELT CONNECTIONS:

THE WILD, WILD WORLD OF EMOTIONS

Chapter Ten

THE BODY SPEAKS

Chapter Eleven

HIDDEN HUNGERS:

FILLING HOLES AND SATISFYING SOULS

Chapter Twelve

GATHERING IN THE EXILES:

THE LAND OF POSSIBILITY

Conclusion

THE ROAD WELL TRAVELED

AND THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

Epilogue

Bibliography

References

Appendix

I AND THOU—THE EFFECTIVE THERAPIST

About the Author

Further Information

To my special angel who taught me survival and beyond

Acknowledgements

My heart-felt thanks to:

Vivian Hankin, PhD, who set me on the path of conquering my eating disorder.

Linda Joy Myers, PhD, writing coach, without whose prodding, provoking, and insistence, this book may never have been written.

Ann Thomas, PhD, fellow warrior in the war with words.

My experienced, skillful, and supportive editor, Deborah Medvick.

Loc Huynh, my web wizard, for formatting my pictures and images.

Dawn Harding, who proof-read the document.

Connie Wisean, psychic healer, who opened my eyes to wider horizons.

Fr. Ray Bucher, Laurie Landis, Lorraine Steele, and Kateri Kautai, who enabled me to put my ideas into practice by conducting retreats at San Damiano.

And especially:

My clients, whose courageous journeys through healing move and inspire me.

PART I

Introductions

Preface

Our body is a vehicle for awakening. Treat it with care

Buddha

The photograph in my hands is a dry leaf, cracked and crevassed, foraged from an antique cardboard box in my garage. I peer down the decades at my 15-year-old self, at my house in Johannesburg, South Africa. I am standing beside Kay, my best friend. Kay has the mandatory tiny waist gracefully encircled by a belt. Her sky-blue eyes and sweet, outgoing nature attract a swarm of friends and boyfriends. I hover on the outskirts, alone and lonely, a worker bee in the hive. Who am I? Where and how do I fit in? Do I really matter at all?

All my troubles, I believed, began with my unacceptable body, straight up and down, with extra pounds that insisted on collecting around a rebellious waist. Without those pounds, I decided, I’d be adored, just like Kay. I tried to tame my waist with corsets that imprisoned me from breast to hip. They stung like a thousand scorpions. But to no avail. Looking at that photograph in the light of now, I see I was only very slightly plump. Back then, though, I saw myself as enormous as a baby hippo in the muddy waters of the Vaal River.

Dieting soon became a way of life. I avoided all the sweet things that made life worth-while: double ice-cream cones, braided, deep-fried, and abundantly sugared doughnuts from the corner café, and hot chocolate with French toast for breakfast. None of those for me! Except in secret. Then, of course, the calories didn’t count!

After marriage, my relationship with food became even more surreptitious, a matter of disappearing into the nearest bathroom. Secure behind a locked door, I emptied all the food in my stomach into a well-flushed toilet. I sampled diets from the sensible to the outrageous, losing and gaining those same pounds with monotonous regularity.

It’s just those pesky pounds that are the problem, everything else in my life is fine, I told myself. Never mind that I woke each morning wondering if it was worth living through another day. Or that it seemed to be someone else, perhaps an alien from another planet, that devoured endless packets of chocolate chip cookies, then atoned by surviving on carrot sticks and celery.

It was not until I arrived in California, and was granted the opportunity to work with a therapist specializing with eating disorders, that I discovered the twisted roots of my eating. My obsession with food and weight masked painful memories of an abusive childhood and growing up in the oppressive and conflict-ridden society of apartheid South Africa. I believed that doughnuts and chocolate would allay my search for meaning in life and I could escape the alienation and disconnection from my authentic self, and the world.

In my healing, I discovered that my dysfunctional eating was a creative mechanism to survive an impossible situation. Hating my body disguised hating myself. I expressed my despair in the safety of the therapy room. I faced my hidden soul-hunger and discovered my creativity in journal writing, drawing, sculpture, and music. In the process, I recovered my lost and famished soul and learned to love and nurture it.

So I write this book as an insider, having been a victim for 23 years to the tormenting obsession with food and weight. I have a bone-deep familiarity with the struggle and the strenuous healing from it.

With my history, it was natural for me to enter the field of dysfunctional eating. As a marriage family therapist for 22 years, I have counseled clients, trained colleagues and interns, and conducted workshops and retreats on food, weight, body image, and eating disorders. The close relationship between client and therapist is, I believe, essential to recovery. Equally important is the therapist’s ability to empower the client with self-confidence and self-help tools.

Most approaches to overweight, body image concerns, and eating disorders follow the medical model—dieting, attempts to correct dysfunctional thought patterns, and strictly monitoring eating habits. That model addresses only symptoms, not fundamental causes.

In The Satisfied Soul, I offer you a new direction—

exploring the emotional and spiritual state lying beneath your troubled relationship with food. This involves repairing the inner emptiness, nourishing your hungry soul, and learning to connect deeply with the various parts of yourself, with others, and with our world. You’ll learn strategies to change your thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Understanding the deeper layers of your struggle, you’ll be more accepting of yourself and your body. This means eventually losing weight, if you need to, but more important, releasing your preoccupation with food.

The clients I see entered therapy because they decided there was more to life than their guilty struggle with food. Watching them discover themselves, grow, and blossom is intensely rewarding for me. They leave me and step confidently onto the path of a rich and prosperous life. That’s when I know I’ve had a part in cutting the cords that bound them to the obsession to food and weight.

In the pages ahead, you’ll meet five women, imaginary characters based on my experience and that of my clients. Each struggles with one aspect of dysfunctional eating: obsessive dieting, compulsive overeating, obesity, bulimia, and anorexia. They felt lost and helpless in the face of their disease. Each held a kernel of hope deep within that they could heal their internal emptiness. We’ll explore the factors that led them into dysfunctional eating and follow their path to recovery.

You’ll discover new concepts and ideas, as well as the exercises and concrete steps for healing that have helped my clients. We’ll look at methods of nourishing your soul to fulfill your longing for spirit, communion, and connection. My hope is that The Satisfied Soul guides you through the passages of change and growth to manifest your gift of transformation.

I invite you to enter your Land of Possibility, welcoming you home to who you are. May you learn a language of hope, the syntax and grammar of love and faith—and highlight your heavens with a significant sun.

Cast of Characters

Obsessive and Yo-yo Dieting: Andrea, a 29 year old corporate executive and veteran of the diet wars, is preoccupied with the need to find Mr. Right. She believes she can be successful only if she loses weight.

Compulsive Overeating: Ervina, recently a widow, is 67 years old. She struggles with depression and ongoing symptoms of post-menopause. Food, especially chocolate, is a major source of comfort for her, resulting in a substantial weight gain.

Obesity: Helen was on three liquid fasts and had bariatric (stomach stapling) surgery. She dropped over a hundred pounds rapidly but gained it back. She now weighs 256 pounds, has a distant relationship with her husband, and no close friends.

Bulimia: Janet is 35 years old. After her marriage, her relationship with food deteriorated. She binges and purges daily, becoming more adept at secrecy than a master thief. Self-induced vomiting causes constant stomach pain and ruptures in her esophagus.

Anorexia: Celia, 18 years old and a college student, passed out in class one day and was rushed to hospital. She was diagnosed with severe malnutrition, acute endocrine imbalances, and an irregular heartbeat. Her anorexia started in high school where she felt alone and outcast.

Please note:

Although the characters in this book are composites of my clients and their experience, they are imaginary and bear no reference to any person. Any similarity is accidental, and confidentiality has been strictly observed.

This book is not a substitute for necessary psychiatric or medical attention.

Chapter One

FROM THE DARK SPIRAL

TO

THE LAND OF POSSIBILITY

In my end is my beginning

T. S. Eliot

Is food your enemy and your best friend? Do you ever wonder what your endless struggle with weight and appearance is really all about? Do you despair when you catch sight of yourself in a mirror or even when friends applaud your slender figure? A nagging voice in your head warns, Watch out! The pounds are just waiting to sneak in there.

Women in particular wrestle with how they feel about the weight and shape of their bodies. According to surveys, four out of five women in the United States are dissatisfied with how they look. Weight control is a hot topic in just about every magazine for women.

It’s not fair! said Janet, soon after she started therapy with me. How come I suffer like this when my sister, Aunt Lucy, and Charlotte at work eat exactly what they want and never step on a scale?

Like Janet, do you restrict yourself to lettuce and celery for days—or even months—only to find yourself racing for that double frosted mocha cake just when you swore never again to touch the stuff? You’re not alone. Food deprivation, purging, and dieting are common reactions to society’s obsession with being thin. Yet more than half of American women are overweight.

A Fresh Solution

Most approaches to solving food and weight issues use the medical model. First, the problem is labeled as obesity, bulimia, binge eating, or anorexia. Then the symptoms become the focus of treatment. If you’re overweight or binge, the doctor, nurse, or your family urge you to diet. If you throw up, they tell you to stop it. If you’re diagnosed with anorexia, they force you to eat. Although these solutions prevent serious health risks and work for a while, they don’t resolve the fundamental issues underlying the eating disorder. The old pattern remains and causes a rebound effect. You argue with yourself over food, try one diet after another, then overeat and watch the numbers creep up the scale. And there you are again—sad, mad, and frustrated with yourself.

My approach is different. It embraces your whole self and your whole life, rather than treating just the symptoms. I look at the complete picture. In my years of working with women suffering from yo-yo dieting, compulsive overeating, obesity, bulimia, and anorexia, I’ve discovered a secret reason for the fixation on weight and food: a false and deeply unconscious belief system about life and about themselves. They believe that they are undeserving and insignificant, that their lives are futile and pointless. They are convinced that no matter how hard they try, they’ll never succeed. This belief is confirmed for them when one diet after another fails and life refuses them satisfaction and fulfillment.