The Lake Within: Finding Yourself Beneath the Noise of Diet Culture

11 minutes ago

6 min read

Imagine a perfectly still lake. The water is calm and clear enough to reflect everything around it—the trees along the shore, the clouds moving across the sky, the moon and stars at night. The lake doesn’t have to work at reflecting the world. It simply does.

Now imagine that someone throws a rock into the water. The surface ripples. The trees become distorted. The reflection of the moon breaks apart. For a moment, it may be impossible to see the world clearly.

But here’s the important thing: The lake hasn’t changed. The water is still there beneath the ripples.

For many people struggling with disordered eating or an eating disorder, this can be a helpful way to understand what has happened to their relationship with their body, food, and themselves.

Somewhere along the way, rocks have been thrown into the lake.

Maybe it was being praised for losing weight.

Maybe it was hearing a parent talk critically about their own body.

Maybe it was being teased about your size.

Maybe it was learning that certain foods were “good” and others were “bad.”

Maybe it was a lifetime of diet culture telling you that your body should look different, that hunger should be controlled, or that your worth could somehow be measured by a number on a scale.

And now, when you look at yourself, the reflection can be difficult to see.

You may believe that your body is the problem.

You may believe that your appetite can’t be trusted.

You may believe that you need to be smaller, more disciplined, more controlled.

You may hear a constant stream of thoughts telling you what you “should” eat, what you shouldn’t eat, what you “earned,” what you need to compensate for, or what you need to change about yourself.

But what if those thoughts aren’t the lake?

What if they’re the ripples?

The deeper self beneath the conditioning

One of the beautiful invitations within Buddhist philosophy and how it can be used therapeutically is the practice of becoming still enough to observe what is happening within us without immediately becoming identified with it.

We can notice a thought without deciding that the thought is true.

We can notice fear without becoming the fear.

We can notice judgment without making judgment our identity.

In mindfulness practice, there is often an invitation to become the observer—to notice what is arising rather than being completely swept away by what is arising.

This can be incredibly meaningful in eating-disorder recovery. Because there may be a part of you that has been saying:

“My body isn’t okay.”

“I shouldn’t be hungry.”

“I need to lose weight.”

“I ate too much.”

“Everyone else is doing this. Maybe I should, too.”

And then there is another part of you—the deeper you—that is actually hearing those thoughts.

Pause for a moment and consider that.

Who is inside listening?

Who is the part of you that notices the thought?

Who is the one who can hear the criticism without necessarily agreeing with it?

Who is the part of you that existed before you learned that your body was supposed to look a certain way?

Who is the part of you that knows that you are a whole human being—not a body to be evaluated?

That part of you may feel very quiet right now.

It may have been drowned out by years of conditioning.

But quiet doesn’t mean absent.

Just like the lake remains beneath the ripples, your deeper self remains beneath the conditioning.

When the rocks keep coming

Of course, the rocks don’t stop. You open your social media feed and another advertisement tells you that you can change your body.

Someone you know starts talking excitedly about their weight loss.

A friend describes what they’re eating—or not eating.

Someone makes a comment about your body. You catch yourself looking in the mirror and criticizing what you see.

Or perhaps nothing happens externally at all.

Your own mind picks up an old familiar thought:

“I shouldn’t have eaten that.”

“I need to get back on track.”

“I don’t look good enough.”

“I can’t trust myself around food.”

There it is.

Another rock.

Plop.

The water ripples.

And because the reflection becomes distorted, it can feel as though something has gone terribly wrong. But the work isn’t to somehow prevent every rock from being thrown. It is learning to recognize: This is a ripple. This is conditioning. This is a message I have learned. This is not the whole of me.

You don’t have to fight the thought.

You don’t have to argue with it.

You don’t have to immediately make it go away.

You can simply notice it.

“I’m having the thought that my body isn’t okay.”

“I’m noticing the urge to judge what I ate.”

“I’m hearing diet culture right now.”

And then ask:

Who is noticing this?

Who is inside listening?

Finding the one who is listening

This is one of the places where therapy can become so much more than about the relationship with food. Recovery can be a process of getting to know yourself beneath the noise. Together with a therapist, you may begin to distinguish your authentic needs from the rules and beliefs you’ve inherited. You may learn to recognize the difference between hunger and emotion. You may begin to experience your body as something you live in rather than something you are constantly looking at. You may develop the confidence to eat in a way that honors your body’s needs rather than diet culture’s demands.

And gradually, something begins to change. You aren’t necessarily free from every uncomfortable thought. Instead, the thoughts have less authority. The rocks may still enter the lake, but you don’t automatically mistake the ripples for reality.

You begin to trust yourself.

You become more curious about your appetite.

You become more compassionate toward your body.

You become more willing to take up space.

You become more fully yourself.

And perhaps most importantly, you begin to realize: I am not the voice criticizing me. I am the one who can hear that voice.

A simple practice for this week: Find the lake

Try this once a day for two or three minutes. Sit somewhere quiet. You don’t need to meditate perfectly. You don’t need to empty your mind. Close your eyes if that feels comfortable, and imagine the surface of a still lake.

Notice what happens when a thought appears.

Maybe it’s about your body.

Maybe it’s about food.

Maybe it’s about what you ate yesterday or what you think you “should” eat today.

Instead of following the thought, imagine watching it create a ripple across the lake.

Then gently ask yourself:

“Who is noticing this?”

Take a breath.

“What is underneath this thought?”

Take another breath.

And finally:

“What does the deeper part of me know right now?”