Women, Food and God
June 11, 2010 by Dana and Hilary
A book review by Hilary Kinavey.
A new book that has caught our attention recently is Geneen Roth's Women, Food and God. Roth has written many books on the subject of healing from compulsive eating, but this time she explores one's relationship with food as a pathway to knowing ourselves with wonderful depth, great understanding and deep compassion. She believes "the great blessing of our lives is our relationship with food."
When we turn to food, it is often because we don't know what to turn to, especially in a culture that often doesn't support or teach inquiry into our deepest self. Instead of regarding our compulsion about food with compassion and hearing it as a voice from our wiser self, we become focused on ridding ourselves of the obsession, risking disconnection from a core part of our being. Roth gently reminds us that "Your body is a piece of the universe you have been given. Our minds are masters at blame, but our bodies don't lie. Which is, of course, why so many of us learned to zip out of them at the first sign of trouble."
Similarly, at Be Nourished, we believe that reconnecting with our bodies and ending the obsession means listening with compassion, and learning that our bodies are not to blame, and neither are we. It just is, and we are in this together.