The other day I saw Hungry for Change, a food/health documentary, and it was full of interesting things: stuff I’ve already been reading about the food industry and the effects of food and stress on brain chemistry, about sugar as a drug, etc. Not new to me, but profoundly pleasing to see acknowledged by others.
There were a couple of things in it, though, that I’m still thinking about. One was a woman, a cancer survivor, who said the best advice she’d gotten was “don’t eat because you’re upset.” Such a powerful comment, because it invites us to examine how we use food to alter our moods.
The second was a discussion about how love is safety. This idea intrigued me when Scott Adams brought it up in a blog entry a while ago. The man discussing it in the documentary talked about how this is an association we make when we’re born, because a mother’s love is life: you’re helpless, you can’t eat, you can’t move, and if Mother doesn’t love you, then you die. Love, then, is what makes you safe. Is why you survive. And forever afterwards, he suggests, when we feel unloved, we feel unsafe. (And, the documentary continues, we often begin with ourselves: a lack of love, of willingness to take care of ourselves, makes us feel unsafe, so we begin with a certain stress level that only elevates as we continue to add environmental factors.)
Love as safety is an idea that’s lingering with me because it feels true. Both one way—love creates safety—and going in the opposite direction—the feeling of safety creates love. I think of Kherishdar: Love is the foundation of society. Maybe that’s why.
So I am handing those things off to you. Maybe today they will be your food.
The documentary’s on Netflix, by the by… I highly recommend it to anyone who is trying to figure out food and health issues.
Mirrored from MCAH Online.