When Food Isn't the Problem, Self-Abandonment Is

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The Subtle Art of Being Your True Self

When you override your truth, your body and life are letting you know.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how healing our relationship with food is never just about food. It’s about self-trust. It’s about listening deeply to the quiet voice within — the one we’ve been overriding for years in the name of being agreeable, achieving, belonging, and staying safe.

We don’t do this consciously.  So many of us have been conditioned to not be our true selves and we don’t even realize it’s happening. Not just with food, but in our relationships, our careers, our daily rituals. And eventually, the misalignment shows up in how we eat, how we cope, how we disconnect. The question I have really been trying to answer for years is what does it really mean to feed yourself — soul first?

This whole "being your true self" thing is fascinating. On one hand, it’s subtle — so subtle you can miss it for decades. And on the other hand, it’s the most important shift you’ll ever make.

You don’t just wake up one day and say, “I’m not myself.” It happens slowly. Quietly. You rationalize the parts that feel off. You dismiss the inner knowings. And eventually, you find yourself living in a version of life that doesn’t quite fit — and hasn’t for a long time.

That’s where I’ve found myself. That’s where my partner and I have found ourselves — both quietly twisting, shaping, adjusting. Both pretending in our own ways. Playing parts. Wearing masks. I have done it with food, career and relationship. How you do one thing is how you do everything.

You May Not Have to Break Up — But You Do Have to Wake Up

There’s this fear — that if you let go of the patterns, routines, and relationship dynamics that are no longer aligned, the whole thing will fall apart.  If I stop dieting and try to become more intuitive will my health go to hell? If I stop doing my job the way I have always done it will I lose my security? If I change how I relate to my partner, will I be alone?

Sometimes, everything might need to fall apart.

And sometimes, it doesn’t. Maybe it’s not about burning it all down, but about finally telling the truth.

That’s where real liberation begins. In truth. Even if the shift is subtle. Even if it’s just one tweak in your day — like drinking coffee alone in silence, because that’s what your soul wants. That’s being your true self. And it changes everything.

The Cost of Denial

When we override ourselves for long enough, it doesn’t just create confusion. It makes us sick. Emotionally, spiritually, sometimes even physically.

Overriding creates a sense of discomfort. When you are not being true to yourself, it hurts.

And then we numb that hurt with food, shopping, courses (yep, I see myself there), overworking, overexercising, overgiving… and we wonder why we still don’t feel right.

Sometimes we even get physically sick from the lack of alignment with our true self. And then we chase healing in a hundred ways. We go down rabbit hole after rabbit hole fearfully focused on all the symptoms showing up in our lives. But what is the defintion of a symptom?  

A symptom is not the problem, the symptom is how your body or mind is telling you that something is wrong. And the root issue is often the same: we’re not living as our true selves.

What’s Mine, What’s Theirs?

This part gets tricky.

In relationship, with food or your partner, how do you even know what’s you and what’s your pattern? Is that morning walk something I want… or something I do because I feel like I should? Is this coffee ritual nourishing me… or just convenient? Am I showing up for them or for me?

When we’ve shaped ourselves around a diet, what everyone else says, or another person for years, it’s hard to tell where we end and that external influence begins. And sometimes the only way to figure that out is space.

Pausing in your day, making space for quiet reflection, carving out time to be alone, stillness. These are essential parts of learning how to hear your own voice again.

The Symptom Is Not the Problem

Overeating, overworking, affairs, addictions, numbing patterns and even physical ailments — they’re not the issue. They’re the symptoms of self-abandonment. They’re what happens when you spend years not being who you truly are. That inner pressure builds until it leaks out in destructive ways.

It’s not pathological. It’s not always about “the thing” — it’s about the pain underneath. The pretending. The stuckness. The misalignment.

So What Do We Do?

We start telling the truth.

We question. We sit in the discomfort of not knowing. We get curious.

  • Is this really what I want?

  • Am I doing this out of fear or love?

  • What would it look like to choose joy, even if it risks disruption?

We stop overthinking every step (still working on this!). And we start practicing the feeling of being ourselves again.

Even if it’s subtle. Even if we’re not sure.

Because when you do tap into your true self, even for a moment, it’s unmistakable. It feels like wholeness. It feels like home.

🌿 Want to explore this together?

If this spoke to something in you, and you’re in a season of rediscovering who you really are — in relationship, in work, with food — I’d love to support you.

I work with women who are waking up and learning to listen to the truth of who they are.

You don’t need to have it all figured out.

You just need to be willing to begin.

🌀 Sign up here to find out if coaching is right for you.
💌 Or reach out to me directly — I’d love to hear your story.

Live Free,

Elizabeth Hall

Certified Professional Mind Body Eating & Intuitive Wellness Coach

Here are the resources that inspired today’s post.