I was 18, pulled from my sophomore year of college, and on my way to inpatient treatment for the first time. In the backseat of the car, I sat curled up in my mother’s arms. I was cold, weak, and desperately afraid. In some ways I was numb.
Besides the knowledge of where I sat on that ride into Philadelphia, I have only one distinct memory. We drove past the Nabisco factory, which made the entire neighborhood smell like cookies for decades. The awful sweetness seemed at once a cruel joke and a horror show. I rocked in panic as my throat closed. I moaned, cried, and buried my face as deep into my mother’s side as I possibly could. Anything to be saved from that sickening evil smell. I wished to be numb.
Awakening after being numb for so long
That was the first time my sense of smell had been so intensely stimulated in a while. And it petrified me. Starvation had numbed me and compromised my relationship with my senses. The fear of smells and tastes became paralyzing. My vision was blurry, and I could only hear my eating disorder voice. All other sounds were muffled in the background.
It’s only through looking back on that memory 20 years later that I understand how anorexia literally desensitized me. As we all know, our eating disorders serve a precise function. They serve to protect us. Along the descent into eating disorder hell, protection turns into destruction. This leaves us isolated in the torment. We hollow out physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Sensation is unwelcome. Feeling is not the point. We seek to numb.
Learning to sense again
In my experience, the healing process from an eating disorder is a tumultuous effort of learning how to “sense” again. It is an awakening of hunger cues, emotions, our bodies, our intuition, and how we feel in relationships. It’s also a return to our literal senses, sensations, and sensory experiences.
In many ways, this aspect of healing–returning to our senses–is what resuscitates our souls by bringing color, textures, and richness back into our lives.
How do we go from numbed out zombies to sensitive human beings? It’s an ongoing process that requires support, patience, and resilience. In my healing, yoga has helped me return to my senses in profound ways.
Yoga- a safe place
For me, yoga is a safe place to learn how to feel and name sensations that happen in my body. In half pigeon pose I sense an intense stretch in my hip and in forward fold I feel discomfort in my hamstrings. And in triangle pose I notice the sensation of expansion.
The more I have become comfortable identifying, naming, and sitting with physical sensations that arise in my body, the easier and more natural it becomes to name and feel emotions, even the painful ones.
The practice of naming physical sensations can be applied to other activities as well. My advice is to find an activity that you enjoy and take stock every so often of what you feel and where you feel it. Name the sensation. Become familiar with it. Observe it. This skill will become useful for naming emotions and experiencing them versus turning to symptoms to banish them.
I recognize that naming sensations in our bodies can aggravate or cause turmoil around body image. Even so, healing requires we name those feelings too. Part of regaining our senses is also knowing and defining our limits. Trust your instincts around when and how often to practice identifying sensations. Like all aspects of healing, returning to our senses is also a process.
A softening
Yoga has also helped me develop my sense of sight. In yoga, we often talk about keeping the eyes soft to embody a sense of ease and calm. I’ve noticed that when my eyes are soft (meaning I am not scrunching up my forehead to fiercely concentrate), my thoughts are kinder. I judge, berate, and demand less. I am more open to the sensory experience of the pose and less concerned about controlling the outcome.
Applying soft eyes in difficult life moments has often made the difference between making a positive choice versus an unhealthy one. Soft eyes have also helped me to stand in front of the mirror and see myself from all angles with compassion.
On a final note, as I recall the Nabisco factory and the difficulty it caused me, I can’t help but smile at imagining how happy the smell would make my two little girls. How much it would light them up, and how many times they would beg me to stop for cookies until I did. Children have the most beautiful relationship with their senses; it’s automatic, simple, joyful. They represent the model of what’s possible for all things good.
They remind me how much more fun sensational is than numb.
Image Source: Flickr
