eating disorders research

[tom]

hi all,
i'm beginning a research project about the karmic sources of eating disorders, and am putting out a call for anyone interested in participating.

the link between emotions and health, and the emotions we carry over from past lives as they affect our health now, has interested me for a while. last week i decided to start with this area, which has been a personal interest of mine for as long as i can remember. the way i look at health in a chart is cutting edge, and i'm really excited to share whatever i can to help people see health and wholeness in new ways.

if you have or have had any eating disorder and might consider participating, here's the deal:

what i'm asking for: your story and your birth data.
your story would be a couple of (2, 3, 4?) paragraphs on your history with the eating disorder.
-how long you've had it.
-what was happening in your life when it began.
-what you understand the core feelings about it to be. (what do you feel/think it's about? etc.)
-what if anything you've done to address it/heal, and what you felt during that process, whether you perceive that you were successful or not.
-whether you still have it or not. or are now living with it as an active part of your life, i mean.
your birth data are day/month/year, time of day, and location of birth.

after reading that info from you, i may want to ask some questions before working on it, so perhaps also an e-mail dialogue sometime in the next few months.

what you'd get
in a few months, a written chart analysis from me centered on the sources of the eating disorder as i see them through the lens of my new-fangled and rad ideas about karma. (and who am i? my site's linked below.)

my aim will be to give you some ideas about how to look at the situation differently, to support you in healing and moving beyond it. or, if you no longer have it, to help you understand something new about why you had it.

you'd also be supporting me in developing tools to help other people with health concerns and issues. and isn't that pretty rad??

what i'd get
to use your (anonymous) story, (anonymous) birth data/chart and the analysis i send you in a writing project to help teach my approach to finding the karmic sources to health issues in a birth chart. it may be for my website or a journal or some other website, but will be published somewhere. i do work with clients on health issues frequently, but this is the first time i've organized a research project into a specific area.

thanks for your consideration. please write to me via my site to ask any questions you might have. oh, and also please pass the word if you think of someone you know who might be interested.

e-mail me via my site (http://tdjacobs.com) if you're interested in participating.

peace,
tom

[pam]

Hi Tom,

Are you thinking of anorexia, or bulimia, or Prater-Willey (sp), or are you thinking of any not really healthy relationship with food? Does the person who downs a pint of ice cream daily after the break-up of her relationship, or the person who develops a habit of eating a coffee cake and a latte every day (and therefore gaining thirty pounds in one year) after dropping her son off at school because she's pissed that she can't walk him to school and must work two jobs in order to support her family count? Or even the person who must get a bag of Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies after breaking up (quite literally) a fight between two of her students? Just what are the parameters?

What about the person who denies himself food for spiritual reasons,or who has an extremely strict diet e.g a raw foodist, a fruitarian, or a person who will only eat locally grown, organic foods. Give me some definition. Where does healthy nutrition end and unhealthy obsession begin? I might be part of what you are looking for.

Pam

[tom]

hi pam,
thanks for your note.
it all counts.
anorexia, bulimia, yes.
and binge eating, and emotional eating to try to dull or escape feelings, too.
it's so prevalent, and food is such an issue for many people, that there are many colors and shades to it. i'm interested in all of it. if it seems "out of order," i'm interested.

on one level my thinking is about addiction related to food, whether it's literally about food, or an addiction to control that involves food, or the refusal of love. or escape. or anything else.

i think it's a lot about ceres, by the way. i've been thinking about what i want to do re the importance of ceres' promotion from asteroid to dwarf planet since that announcement was made last year. all about self-care. taking responsibility for learning what mature nurturing is. and you know, ceres has historically much to do with food and mothering/nurture. and pluto's entrance in capricorn around the same time as its demotion and ceres' promotion...there's something really important about acknowledging the harsh realities of how we've been taught to care for ourselves, and taking back the reins of our lives.

when did food get mistaken for love? when we were kids and were provided for by parents/family? but then we grew up, right? so why do some of us think food is connected to self-love in ways that don't serve us? is the deferment, numbing or cessation of feeling really self-love? what does it really mean to love ourselves? and how, realistically, can food fit in as a tool for self-love?

[samina]

Hi Tom,

I can contribute on this subject. Overcoming deep & abiding eating disorders was a significant part of my path in this life. Interestingly, Ceres figures not only in my natal chart (Ceres tightly opposing my Cancer Sun, ruled by a Scorpio Moon), but also at this moment is conjunct by both Pluto & BML (and just yesterday ctivated by Mars as well...)

What an appropriate time to put my thoughts to the subject. Let me give it some thought today...

samina

[samina]

I read somewhere that Chiron in the 6th can suggest eating disorders. I do have that placement...

[Kim Falconer]

I've the same questions as Pam here.

Can we get a full definition of 'eating disorder'? A 'mission statement' as it were? What do researchers say on this? What are the literature review definitions?

I think, like many disorders (borderline etc) the notion of an eating disorder is shifting and hinges on the culture describing it. If food is an element or symptom or substance in some kind of illness, as Pam asks, how do we define those parameters consistently? I'm still wading through the gray areas....

Is there a distinction between spiritual practices regarding food as well?

Is there consensus on definition?

I'm being totally Virgo rising here but Tom, even more importantly, what is your definition of Karmic sources.

Thank you!

[tom]

hi kim,
what i mean by karmic sources is the past-life experiences that lead one to a relationship with food that's not what he or she understands is healthy. i do work like this, revealing and healing past-life emotional situations that are have been manifesting as some sort of health issue/disturbance in this life, frequently. including repetitive injuries, emotional illness/anxiety/ptsd, degenerative diseases and others. not everything can be turned around, but the need to manifest physically emotional issues from other lives can be dissolved. my numerous scars, for example, are here to stay, but i released the need to continue to have numerous auto, bicycle/sports, cooking/knife and other accidents by upgrading my consciousness about my mars-uranus in the 1st, which is square my nodes, which makes the energies huge in my karma. (i actually ride a motorcycle everywhere now as part of that healing.)

as for definition of eating disorder, for the scope of the project: if you have a relationship with food that is unhealthy or doesn't work for you, whether you've been diagnosed by a clinician or not, you're welcome to participate. and for strict religious/spiritual rules, the same - if your rules don't work for you or your health, there's stuff to see and work with.

i'm not interested in clinical definitions. the prevailing clinical paradigm misunderstands what's really going on with people anyway. instead, i'm concerned with individuals and their relationships with themselves. so the idea of borderline kinda goes out the window... if you're unhappy with your relationship with food, there's something to see and work with, and i'd love to support showing you this new way of looking at things.

samina,
chiron in the 6th is certainly said to relate to health issues. i don't disagree but there's a lot more happening than people have seen so far. a chiron in the 5th person could have an eating issue because he or she isn't sure about how to have a good relationship with pleasure, or feels socially awkward about dating or sex etc., and food can seem an escape. in the 7th or 8th, there could be one because of a fear of facing one's fears/painful memories about being treated as an equal/rejection or memories of betrayal, respectively. and so on around the wheel. nothing's cut and dry with health in the chart, because energy isn't cut and dry, is one thing i'll be showing with this work.

i do think of the 6th as where we get immediate feedback about what we're doing with our bodies, and so it's about health in terms of how good we are at listening and responding to what our bodies are telling us. but approaching it as the house where things go wrong with our health, which is what we usually seem to think, is the old way of thinking...just usually makes people fear what's happening with and in their bodies.

my take on chiron in the 6th would be that your wounding from infancy (this is where i see it starting; remember that chiron was rejected by his mother at birth and dad was already not going to be around) has to do with the fear of rejection you'd get if you listened to your body. you wouldn't be loved if you honored your chironic uniqueness.

you can make a story to illustrate...like the way a baby is sometimes reacted to when he or she rejects meat in a meat-eating family, or won't eat something else everyone thinks is normal, or refuses to take naps when he or she isn't tired. if the parents' love seems to hinge on you doing the thing you don't want, you as a baby will highly likely override your instincts and knowledge about the workings of your body (chiron in the 6th!) to make sure you get that love, which when you're an infant is literally everything.

[Kim Falconer]

Thanks Tom,

I thought it would be good for forum readers to see clearly both your approach to the notion of Karma and that of eating disorders. Your definition clearly situates you in both.

For me, food is like cats--I like them and they like me Karma, on the other hand, is a word I am still thinking about. There was a long discussion on this in another thread when we looked at the asteroid with that name.

I think any symptom in the body, from eating issues to 'accidents' to dis-ease, is a message that something isn't right. The body speaks in the only way it can--or perhaps the most expedient way (pain). I think it's terrific that you are researching these ideas and I'm most interested in hearing your conclusions as you go along.

Thanks for opening up this project!

Your insights on situations that lead to us 'overriding' our instincts about the body are gems!

[samina]

Tom, do you have knowledge of the chakras and what they represent, how they would correlate with "food issues"? For example, how the third --- in the solar plexus -- relates to feeling "at home" in the world, a feeling of "belonging", and of personal power, that one can influence and direct one's life? And with the 2nd, there's the feeling of safety, the ability to effortlessly receive all manner of good things...trust. And the 5th...being able to speak one's truth, which certainly correlates with personal power, as when one has no voice, one has no power. Serious blockages in these areas severely distort the function of the desire nature, which shows up easily with food. Do you filter your understanding of eating issues through a layer of that sort of understanding, in addition to using astrology as a guidepost? I have found the body's energetic system to be helpful to take into account as another layer of understanding, although I have not found the chakras to neatly correlate with astrological archetypes, as many have tried to put forth.

WRT where "woundings" or dysfunction originate, I'm not personally persuaded that it's necessarily sourced in past-lives or even from childhood...could be, could be not...it may very well be energy one is carrying in one's bloodline that wants to get resolved. It could also just be part of a challenging astrological makeup one simply chose to birth into. But there are many ways to chart the way to one's healing, and any story or symbol that conveys helpful meaning to an individual is a good thing. It's in that context that I would find discussion of the "karmic source" of an eating disorder helpful. Although I'm not personally a candidate for using that information at this time to heal...I have a friendly, peaceful relationship with food now. A far cry from earlier years in that relationship.

[tom]

hi samina - yes, i work with the chakras with clients on health/belief/attitude/emotional stuff. but for this project, i don't imagine they'll come into play. instead of counseling work with people, it's to be a new look at how to work with charts.

[tom]

one other thing:

my work with karma is explored in my podcast, available via my blog (http://tdjacobs.com/blog) and in itunes. episodes 3 and 4 really go into how i define karma and how to live and work with it. itunes has 1-4, and 5 & 6 are on my blog - still trying to figure out a technical issue to get the last two uploaded. 1,2,5 & 6 are answers to listener questions framed in terms of how i work with karma.

my take on it is not the norm, in fact challenges some existing ideas. i realized that what i've said about the project so far should have added to it what i mean by karma and how i think of it.

[ana]

I was letting a room to a charismatic overweight junkeating girl with anger problems She has been hit by her father for many years and seen her kid sister killed in an accident Her married living sister had anorexia After some months observing them and learning more about them and some tuning in I did some kinesiology for the family as a group from a distance healing family trauma over the sister and abuse and past life issues The result was that the fatty lost several stone and the skinny started eating normally if a bit junky and I watched bemused as they began to look the same weight Not that that was a magic cure as more issues would arise I have their charts so I will send them to Tom

[ariesmoon]

Tom - I'd be happy to contribute to this research. I'll email you but briefly for the forum, I have Ceres and Juno conjunct on the same degree, 8 Cancer, 4 degrees from my Cancer Sun. I have definitely noticed a pattern of what I would term "comfort eating" - sugary stuff - when I'm not able to express the love I need to express to another, when I'm not able to nurture in a relationship. Or when I want a relationship with someone and there isn't one! It's as if I have to feed myself with something.

And I know I'm not nurturing myself, because I know I'm eating too much of it. So this is connected with self-love. It's not that I don't eat healthily as well for meals, I do, and I enjoy preparing it all - I just add this sweet stuff in!

[predrag]

Hi Tom,
I would suggest you to look at Pholus regarding your idea of a research as well. Below are keywords suggested by Philip Sedgwick.
The possible influence of Pholus is maybe not so direct as Ceres has but I feel he could be seen in these charts about eating disorders too.
regards
Predrag


>>>Pholus: Keeper of the sacred wine and host to Hercules. Orbital Period: 91.95 yr.

Positive - just, wise, nurturing, meeting the needs of others while keeping own needs in balance, conscious of choice, ceremonial, pacifism, self nurturing, attentive

Negative - opinionated believing rules of cosmic forces do not apply to oneself, addicted to food or alcohol, careless regarding weaponry (or security tools), ignoring spiritual needs, indulgent, reclusive, meddling

Mundane - food and drink - especially regarding celebrations, daily ceremony and ritual

Ceremonial - toasting, blessings and grace, celebrations, creating a daily hour of power