it’s just food, nothing special.
There’s a bakery, several actually, near me, that people are always chatting and posting about. “Have you been to ___? It’s soooooooo good!”
I scroll away. I try not to flare my nostrils.
I have to DeSpecial the food, the entire bakery. All bakeries?
What does it mean to DeSpecial something? It’s when I take the charge, the thrill, the allure, the temptation, the specialness out of a food. I remember that I can live without it, that it’s just a thing to eat and that life can be very good without it. Life can be GREAT without a certain food, my life proves this about being without gluten all the time.
How To DeSpecial A Food: It’s not a how-to list, it’s Three Thoughts:
a: I remind myself that it’s just food.
seems simple enough, right? but it’s not, always.
food can be attached to
belonging
connection
fun
pleasure
creativity
play
luxury
and sometimes, being cool.
you know what I’m talking about, surely. I remember that all the cool kids in high school chewed a specific gum and only drank sprite or snapple. it was how to show that you were in the know and that’s still true!! ask social media if you don’t believe me. ask an influencer.
this even goes for gluten-free food of course, which is why I don’t post a ton of food photos. I don’t want to be flashy with my food like it’s something special.
it’s just food, after all.
2: let things not be all about food.
I know that tasty food can be a wonderful thing to share with others or even enjoy alone. But my social life changed a lot when I found out I had celiac and am severely gluten intolerant. Going gluten-free instantly limited the restaurants I could eat in, and the fun of a potluck table.
I sometimes sit and watch others eat something while I eat a less exciting food and do a quick pep talk in my head about how their food isn’t actually making their experience better than mine. sorry, but it’s true. it has to be true, the alternative is that my life is less vibrant without specific foods.
d: signs it’s time for me to do a DeSpecialing:
I’m lamenting about a food that I can’t have, feeling excluded through a food allergy.
I’ve convinced myself that food needs to be more fancy or complicated to be important or good.
food is being put on a pedestal or seen as overly important.
orthorexia starts to creep back in.
so I get quiet with myself and let the noise melt away, as slowly as it needs to. this works best for me if I go for a walk in nature, lay down on my acupressure mat, or move my body with music. I need to be in my body, without distractions, letting myself feel what I’m feeling without judgment.
let go of what’s getting in the way of me being able to simply eat. without pressure, without needing to prove myself, without it being good enough to post on social media, without needing to eat the perfect thing because there is no. such. thing.
once I move towards dropping my obsession with always eating The Best/Right/Healthiest thing, I’m able to let myself off the hook and honestly, let food off the hook.
when I let food off the hook for doing so much work in keeping me “well” (food does contribute to wellness but it isn’t the whole picture) it honestly got a little bit boring but what I relief it turned out to be.
food stopped being how I proved myself to others and if you’re not proving that you’re healthy by what you eat anymore, you see that you can’t actually prove that you’re cool through what you eat, either.
I neutralize food to the point of total detachment in order to find my center again.
I still enjoy food, I just don’t take it so seriously anymore. I mean, I’m an adult person who can make myself pretty much anything I want, whenever I want to. I could even eat gluten if I wanted to. Why give food so much power?
I let this be okay.