Your Body Is A Manor House

I live in the English countryside in a county called Surrey. It’s a beautiful place, with its mix of hills and valleys, weirs, forests, gorgeous gardens and historic National Trust castles and estates.

I’m always finding new walks where I can enjoy the natural beauty. But it’s not just the nature that’s stunning; it’s the houses too.

There’s a lot of wealth around these parts and has been for a long time. You see it in the manor houses and estates, some of which were built back in the 1600 and 1700s, but are still standing today, looking every bit as grandiose.

These beautiful large houses are split over many floors.

With the immaculate gardens of perfect grass and flowerbeds that are forever in bloom. There’s the pool, the tennis court, the orchard, and the pond with its mini pier and a wooden boat tied up.

As much as I love my nature walks, getting to experience the beauty of these buildings and grounds (however briefly and with a craned neck because I’m on the outside of the estate wall looking in) is always a joy.

But there’s one thought that constantly crosses my mind when I see homes like this. I think to myself “what must the upkeep be on a place like this?”

And recently it occurred to me that this would make a great analogy for the human body.

Because the more I thought about it, we all live in a Manor House, sometimes we just don’t recognise it as such.

The human body is infinitely amazing

As in awe as I am with these places, the same is true of the body. Rarely do we stop and think how incredible our body is in its ability to digest our food, form memories, create immune cells, feel the warmth of an embrace or continuously beat our heart.

To take us from this tiny helpless infant and allow us to grow into a fully formed adult.

When we really pay attention to what our body does, it’s simply incredible.

We have to pay for these functions

Just like it costs considerable amounts of both time and money to keep a manor house ticking over, the human body is the same. It needs resources to work properly and to constantly repair itself.

Food, water, and sleep would be the obvious essential raw materials needed for this but other elements can also help you to thrive (instead of simply surviving). Love, social connection, sunshine, and movement would be a couple of these elements.

So what happens if less time and money is spent on the upkeep of a manor house?

In the beginning, not too much.

Maybe some of the paint starts to peel or sections of the wallpaper come away. Some rubbish starts to pile up. The garden becomes more overgrown and not as pristine.

From a functional perspective, things are fine. But to bring it back to its former glory would take some extra money and work.

Further time passes by and still, no work is done. The downstairs toilet stops working, so you simply shut the door and use one of the others. The shower starts leaking, so you make do with just having a bath.

It’s now at a point where there are noticeable changes. Sure, the place is still liveable, but more rooms aren’t working properly and repair work is starting to stack up.

With continued time and no repair works, this situation gets worse

The cooker breaks, limiting what food can be made in the kitchen.

The boiler stops working, meaning the house is now freezing much of the year (except for whatever rooms have a fireplace).

The pool becomes a strange colour of green and looks more like a swamp.

Part of the roof caves in, rendering the whole top floor off limits.

The electricity gets shut off for non-payment. This means the fridge is now completely out of action, you have no lights or internet and you’re spending your nights by candlelight (which isn’t quite as quaint as it may sound).

Things have drastically shifted

What started out as a house with many rooms over multiple floors, ends with you confined to one room in the middle of the property huddled around a fire. And you’re breaking up antique wooden furniture and throwing it on the flames, just trying to keep warm and make it through the night.

For many of my clients, this endpoint describes where they find their body now.

For others, they’ve been heading towards this place, but things aren’t so extreme…yet.

At some point, they look around, notice what’s going on and reach out.

They want to work together so they can change their living conditions. They don’t want to be isolated, feeling cold, hungry and trapped. They want to figure out how they can restore their home.

Figuring out priorities

Getting the pool looking nice with water in the right pH isn’t important if you have no electricity and are confined to one room in the house. But it’s common for analogous ideas like this to take people’s attention. So part of the work we do together is working out the priorities for what’s important right now.

Things can get a little messier to start with

When you’re doing repair work or cleaning out a room, in the short term, things can look messier than when you began. There’s stuff everywhere, the carpets are a mess, where’s all this stuff going to go?

I remind clients that this is normal; that this is what it’s meant to look like at this stage. With time, the room gets finished and we can move on to the next one. Rather than seeing the mess, bailing when it’s at worst and trying to cram everything back in the cupboard and hiding it under the bed.

Remembering what repair (recovery) actually takes

One of the most common things I hear from clients during this part of this process is “I just want to eat like a normal person”. After years (or decades) of struggles around food, it’s wonderful that this is now the goal.

But this needs to be the long-term goal. Because to start with, eating like a normal person isn’t sufficient.

Normal people might not need to spend their evenings and weekends rebuilding a bathroom, but these clients do.

Normal people’s outgoings are on the mortgage and whatever extra is needed for the day-to-day upkeep. These clients need to pay for a new roof, the electrics, the boiler, replanting the garden, new furniture…the list goes on.

Eating like a normal person is better than what was happening before, but it neglects to fix the problems that have accumulated over the years.

This is emotional repair, not just physical repair

Repair work is difficult. Changing habits can feel akin to turning an ocean liner. Rather unsurprisingly, this can bring up strong emotions. And so much of our work is on how to deal with and cope with these emotions.

Learning to notice how thoughts and beliefs affect feelings. Or how feelings affect thoughts and beliefs.

Discovering how to sit with discomfort and then move through it, without reaching for old coping mechanisms.

Creating a practice of mindfulness, self-compassion, journalling and breath-work. Where, over time, this creates a base level of emotional equanimity and resilience.

You still own the house

The good news is that, irrespective of the current condition, you still own and live in a manor house. This never changes. You own this incredible building that wants to keep you safe and sheltered and is filled with history.

And considering it’s been standing since the 1600s, it’s resilient.

Temporarily, it may feel like a building site. With time and some work, it can be restored to its former glory. Where all its rooms can be explored and enjoyed and where the garden is in bloom.

Need help?

If this article and analogy resonated with you and you’d like to make some repairs (whatever they may be), I’d love to help.  

I’m a leading expert and advocate for full recovery. I’ve been working with clients for over 15 years and understand what needs to happen to recover.

I truly believe that you can reach a place where the eating disorder is a thing of the past and I want to help you get there. If you want to fully recover and drastically increase the quality of your life, I’d love to help.

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