Disclaimer: this post is not a substitute for therapy. If you significantly struggle with your relationship to food, enjoy this post in a light-hearted way while also considering caring and professional support.
Is snacking good therapy? Can snacking really be used as a form of self-care?
The more I hear that snacking is bad for you, the more I enjoy it. Not because of some perverse wish to self-sabotage, but because, like everything else, whether it is good or bad for us depends on how and why we do it.
To say that life was unmanageable growing up would be an understatement. But one thing that was always certain was that at some point, I would get time alone to sit in front of the TV with a supportive pile of snacks next to me. That was my go-to and the only reliable way I had to create comfort and self-soothing.
For the many years that ensued, I resorted to this comforting bubble every time life would get challenging and unmanageable. At various points in my life, snacking looked a lot like an over-eating habit, and I became afraid of what it might be doing to my body. All these years later, I now think that adding that kind of stress to the act of eating probably had a more corrosive effect than the food itself.
I now firmly believe that the most damaging thing I can ever ingest is extra stress—and beating myself up about my food choices, or any choice, is an added form of stress. I no longer do that to myself. That makes me enjoy my food more, and actually be more discerning in my choices, because I just make better decisions from the relaxation of self-compassion and spaciousness.
Looking at my complex relationship with food over the years, I brought my snacking habits to a therapist, who offered me a different way to look at things: “This habit you created as a small child was simply your way to take care of yourself.” Wow. That shifted everything I had ever thought about eating for comfort.
All the judgements, fears and attempts to control my relationship to food started to relax and dissolve, to be replaced with curiosity and experimentation. I had been creating a safe space where reliability and predictability of outcome were guaranteed, it was simple, it was sweet, it was comforting and it was always there when needed. I gradually opened up to other ways to meet myself, while still giving food the place it deserves in my supportive tool kit.
Now as a grown woman, I have healed so much that life rarely seems unmanageable, although very tough challenges keep on coming. From my shifted perspective, snacking remains one of the lovely ways in which I enjoy time to myself. It just comes from a different place, not from fear, but from self-appreciation, like sharing a sweet moment with a very dear friend. The permissive space I enter when snacking is a beautiful sphere of intimacy and joy.
I love everything about snacking, but for me it remains an occasional pleasure: my appetite is much smaller these days than it used to be, and the days in which I enjoy snacking, I make a meal of it, a special occasion, a date with myself. It can be simple or elaborate. It can be homemade or ready-made, very healthy, or not so much. I have a beautiful box where I keep all my ready-made snacks. It is the box of special, yet ordinary occasions. It comes out when I fancy a movie night perhaps, or a little break from an intense task I’ve been working on.
From the glorious noises the wrappers make to the various shapes and colours, I love the simple and sweet ceremony I have built around snacking. I eat crisps one by one, slowly, deliberately, I look at each one attentively before I put them in my mouth, because a crisp is such a beautiful wonder, like a tiny slice of the Sun, with little rays of light and wonderful patterns. And have you ever noticed that each crisp tastes distinctly different?
I have a thing for fruity sweets. Boiled sweets with a crunchy shell and a melting core which burst in fruitiness to make your taste buds tingle. Chewy little cubes of creamy strawberry goodness… Their metallic wrappers make the best paper aeroplanes! And don’t get me started on chocolate coated raisins, what a genius invention…
Popping corn is always good fun, how can such a tiny quantity of kernels swell to such voluminous heights? I find the whole process absorbing, the chemical reaction and the molecular transformations never get old; each tiny pop creating a novel shape never before in existence and never to be replicated again.
As someone who long used food as a comfort and too often as a way to eat my feelings, I am so happy to have come to a place where snacking is a fun, always renewed pleasure, a joyful, interactive exercise in attentive presence.
One thing I notice more and more is that when I meet myself in full alignment of my needs and passions, snacking also becomes an elevated meeting of myself, a ceremony and celebration of inner fun and friendship.
Until next time, take good care.