An array of different breakfast dishes, including waffles and eggs
An array of different breakfast dishes, including waffles and eggs
Picture of Heidi Toth
Heidi Toth
Heidi lives, writes, runs and shovels more snow every winter than she would like in northern Arizona. She studied journalism, political science and business and works in communications. She responded to the pandemic by going back to school in 2020 and earning a second bachelor's degree in religious studies.

Our Bloggers Recommend: What is Intuitive Eating?

Do I trust my body? Do I listen to my body? I’m asking myself these questions as I’m listening to “We Can Do Hard Things” this week, when hosts Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach speak with intuitive eating expert Evelyn Tribole. As Glennon, who has been diagnosed with and in treatment for first with bulimia and then anorexia since she was a child, and Abby, who spent most of her adult life as a world-class athlete (well, she is still world-class but no longer playing), share their thoughts and experiences, they keep repeating the need for trust in oneself–and how dangerous it is to not trust yourself and your body to make good choices. Glennon, who grew up evangelical, discusses how she was taught not to trust her body, how being given rules set her up to have a poor relationship with her body and not trust it to send her the signals that she was full.

The Exponent II did a series on being fat and female last fall, and as I listened to this podcast I kept thinking about my own relationship with food and my body (neither is good or intuitive) and how being told I needed to follow certain rules to be “good,” even though most of those rules weren’t related to food, could have affected me without knowing about it. By internalizing the need to trust and obey with question external forces, even if it conflicted with what I individually felt, did I learn not to trust myself?

Read more posts in this blog series:

Heidi lives, writes, runs and shovels more snow every winter than she would like in northern Arizona. She studied journalism, political science and business and works in communications. She responded to the pandemic by going back to school in 2020 and earning a second bachelor's degree in religious studies.

One Response

  1. “By internalizing the need to trust and obey with question external forces, even if it conflicted with what I individually felt, did I learn not to trust myself?” – Heidi

    There is a tendency seen in the mental health side of things at school that when something is going wrong, boys tend to “emote” and “externalize” everything – they are more likely to yell, throw, punch, etc. when dealing with their overwhelm. Some of them turn to cooking as a more creative route to physically express emotion. Girls tend to “turn inwards” and “internalize” everything. When it comes out, it is comes in tears, in words, in controlling personal access to food., in quietly over-doing things.

    Boys turn into men and girls turn into women – and that pattern doesn’t change a whole lot. But when you have men writing scripture – making explicit how to deal with stuff (including scriptures) – we get the “external control” words of wisdom that may help emoting boys. We also get “external control” words to help our “internal control” girls – which is why so much is lost “in translation” so to speak.
    NOTE: There is overlap – these are general traits. We all know girls/women who yell, throw, and punch without fully thinking about it. (and call them tomboys) We know men who “internalize” everything and who over-focus on self-control. (usually these are our “sensitive” males that are loved by women for their sensitivity). And the same person can be both (usually throwing enough punches and getting the consequences [sometimes and] / either hardens the individual or induces sensitivity).

    Church sanctioned “me trusting my judgement” when my judgement was telling me to follow the church’s rules and culture norms (specifically for the group I was in). The church was “OK” with me trusting my judgement when the church teachings didn’t cover my circumstances (ish). But the bottom line was that my judgement needed to follow/imitate the church’s judgement (technically the judgement calls of those who felt they were presiding over me and were more responsible decision-makers).

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