When you sit down for a meal, what drives your choices?
Are you internally driven, which might look like:
- listening to your body’s hunger and fullness signals,
- checking in with what you’re craving / what sounds satisfying and delicious,
- reflecting on what would feel good for you that day
Or, are you externally driven, which might look like:
- relying on rules to tell you what you should eat
- relying on rules to tell you how much you can have
- relying on rules to tell you when you can eat
- looking to what your friends, co-workers, family members etc. order to see what you can order (i.e. if the person you’re eating with orders a salad you won’t order a sandwich because you feel you ‘should’ order a salad just like her)
- looking to the people you’re eating with to determine how much of something is ok (i.e. if someone else eats two slices of pizza you will only eat two slices because you don’t want to eat more, even if you’re still hungry)
Typically, when we trust ourselves and feel confident in our behaviors and choices, we feel safe to rely those internal drivers, even if they are different from diet rules, social media influencers, our favorite celebrities, or what the people around us are doing.
On the flip side, when we feel insecure and like can’t trust ourselves, we often feel safer following those external drivers.
This happens in our relationship with food every time we sit down for a meal.
And, it happens in other areas of life, too!
I’d love for you to take a few moments to check in with yourself today and ask:
Where in my life do I feel confident and trust myself enough to be internally driven without the need for external validation?
In my relationship with food?
In other areas of life?
And, where in my life do I rely on those external drivers and validation to feel safe?
No judgment — just notice!
