Every person, without exception, experiences periods of struggle and emotional difficulty. During these times, many of us turn to familiar coping mechanisms, whether it's food or alcohol, excessive exercise, or starvation and other numbing behaviours as a way to soothe ourselves or regain a sense of control.
But what are we truly hungry for in those moments?
The answer is rarely just food or our body size. More often, we are craving something deeper: a sense of safety, love, adventure, purpose, belonging, recognition, or inner peace. These are the personal needs that live beneath the surface, needs we may not always feel comfortable admitting or may not even be fully aware of.
The symptoms of our condition, whether through disordered eating or emotional turmoil, are often expressions of unmet inner needs. They are signals, not just struggles. Just as we use food pyramids to understand how to nourish our physical bodies, we can create a "needs pyramid" to guide our emotional and psychological well-being.
This pyramid represents a hierarchy of human needs, layered one on top of the other. When a foundational need is unmet, it becomes difficult to satisfy the ones above it., as Abraham Maslow described. For example, it is hard to seek meaningful connection or accomplishment if we don’t first feel safe or grounded. At the base of this pyramid lies our most fundamental need: peace. This is not just the absence of conflict, but the deep, quiet sense of internal balance that we often confuse with happiness. For many of us, food and other destructive behaviours became a tranquilizer, a way to silence discomfort, anxiety, or longing. But in doing so, it also became a barrier. It numbed us to the point where we could no longer recognize what we actually needed.
"Peace is indivisible."
Maxim Litvinov
Learning to identify our needs is a vital part of healing. Every individual’s pyramid is unique. Your need for connection might be greater than someone else’s need for recognition. Someone else might hunger most for freedom or creativity. What matters is not how the pyramid looks from the outside, but how honestly we can understand our own.
In moments of distress, when cravings or compulsions arise, we can pause and ask ourselves:
What am I really hungry for right now?
Where on my pyramid does this hunger belong?
By becoming curious rather than judgmental, we give ourselves the chance to respond rather than react. We begin to reclaim the wisdom of our emotional signals, learning to meet our needs in ways that are nourishing, not numbing.
Today’s Affirmation: From now on, I recognise and honour my needs. They are valid. They are human. And they are the key to my recovery.
Thank you for reading it
J&M
You can connect with us and read more about ED recovery via our website MTC