When hunger is older than this lifetime

How survival memory shaped
my relationship with food

There has always been a sense of urgency around food in my life.
You can explain behavior through your experiences, your childhood, your family, and your choices. And sometimes that explanation still does not touch the core.
Some patterns refuse to stay neatly inside this lifetime. They show up as obsessions, impulses, or fears that feel out of proportion.
Like my relationship with food.

This blog is about hunger, safety, and control. About experiences in this life, inherited memory, and past lives.
About the moment I realized that to understand my food obsession, I had to look far beyond my own history.

You do not have to believe in past lives to read this.
You only have to be open to the idea that some patterns did not begin where you think they did.

Why this story, why now?

I am in Hawaii right now, visiting a photographer, a dear friend I have met here twenty-three years ago.
We traveled together. She knows me well.

The first thing she did when I landed was not hug me or ask about my flight.
She said, “I put an emergency snack bar in the car for you.”
Then she added, “I have food at home. I cooked soup. I bought a chicken and things for salad. I just want to make sure you don’t go hungry.”
She laughed and said, “I know what happens when you don’t eat.”

I laughed too. I told her it was sweet, but really, I could take care of myself. I had brought snacks.

Then we arrived at her house. She opened the fridge.

Yogurt parfaits.
Prepared meals.
Nuts, sliced fruit. Berries.
Everything portioned into little cups and bowls.
Everything ready to eat.

And she kept checking in.

“Are you hungry?”
“Do you want this?”
“Do you want that?”

It was loving.
It was caring.

And also, if I am honest, almost excessive.

We started talking about food trauma / PTSD.

This is not about surviving

I am obsessed with food.
Everyone who knows me knows this.
I am the first one at a buffet. If I am hungry, I will steal the mango out of your hands. I always carry snacks.
I think about the next meal while I am still eating the current one.

For years, I had a perfectly acceptable explanation.
I had participated in the European Survivor reality TV show: ‘Expeditie Robinson’
A month on an uninhabited island, without food. Of course that left a mark.
It sounded logical. It ended the conversation.

Until I looked at older photos. Long before the Survivor TV show, I was always the one eating at parties while everyone else was talking or dancing.

This was not new. This had always been there.

When hunger breaks social rules

The moment I realized this went beyond personality or preference was during my time working for Capgemini. I facilitated three-day corporate events. Behind the scenes, the crew worked for six days straight. Close to a hundred hours. Hardly any sleep. Starting at five in the morning. By lunchtime, I was not just hungry. I was obsessed.

I pushed past clients and started eating from the buffet before them.
Management took me aside. “Esther, you can’t do this. The clients need to eat first.”
I looked at them and said, calmly and honestly, “I NEED to eat. Otherwise I am not a nice person anymore.”

I was so convincing that they let it happen.
Maybe they told the clients I had a medical issue.
In a way, they were right. When I don’t eat, I become EVIL.

Hunger as inheritance

Part of this story is inherited. My family is Jewish.
My father’s parents were in hiding during the Second World War.
They told stories about food coupons. About people who hid them but did not give them all the food they were entitled to.

About being completely dependent. Not knowing if you would get enough. Knowing you could not protest the unfairness.

In Jewish families, food equals safety. Abundance equals reassurance.
Love is expressed through food. Lots of it.

That explains a lot. But it still did not explain everything…

Going even further back in time

I have a Dutch friend who is a reincarnation therapist. She is good at seeing patterns.

When I talk about certain issues, she listens very carefully to the words I use.
Some words stand out to her. She calls them markers, sometimes linking to past life experiences.
When she hears one, she stops me and says, “This is a marker. You need to write a story about this.”
So I do. I sit down and write, without editing, without correcting, without steering it.
I let the story unfold on its own.

Sometimes I do this without her. I sit quietly. I meditate. I bring the issue into focus. And then I wait for the first image, scene, or story that appears.
I do not judge it. I do not question whether it makes sense.I just write it down.

You can do this yourself. Simply ask: ‘What past life story would make sense for me to have the behavior I have?
Write down a story right away without thinking too much about it.

If this does not come easily to you, working with a reincarnation therapist can help.
Some use hypnosis. Some work with language, the way my friend does. Others use different techniques.

The method is not the point. What matters is that you arrive at a story that makes sense to you.
It does not matter whether the story is objectively true. It does not matter how you get there.
What matters is that this is the story that comes up for you, and not another one.
That alone makes it meaningful. And very likely, significant.

Past life: preparing for winter in a cave

When I started exploring past lives, the first image came immediately.

Prehistoric times. A cave.
I was an older woman, responsible for preparing food for winter.
The men hunted. We gathered berries, seeds, fat, and meat.
I stored everything. Carefully. Strategically.
I had hiding places everywhere. Seeds in one place. Grease in another. Dried meat. Berries.
Winter was coming, and we were ready.

I felt calm. Safe. At ease.

Then another tribe attacked.
They did not kill us. They took all the food. Every last bit.
And then they left…

Panic set in.
It was the quiet horror of knowing.
Knowing we would not survive the winter.

We could still find small amounts of food, but not enough.

And then came the impossible choice.
Divide the little food among everyone and all die slowly.
Or feed a few so some might survive, while the rest certainly would not.

What stayed with me was the desperation I felt, watching the food being taken away.

I had prepared well.
I had done everything right.
And suddenly, there was no hope.

This life: in a cave on a TV show

This made me look at my Survivor experience with fresh eyes.

I knew there would be very little food. So I prepared.
I smuggled safety pins, to catch fish onto the island. Dental floss, to turn into fishing lines.
I brought vitamin pills. Nuts. Raisins. I hid them in tampons and insisted I needed exactly those.
That worked for a while.

Before I left, I studied edible plants. Roots. Tubers. Seeds.
I even brought bean sprout seeds; the fastest-growing edible plant I could think of. 

Then they put me in a cave.
No vegetation. Nothing to forage.
Once again, food was taken from me.
But this time, something changed. I adapted. 

I stole food from the film crew.
If you lock me in a cave and forbid access to food, I bend the rules.
They locked their lunchbox with a code. I found the code.
I kept finding food even when I was not supposed to.
For the first time in these stories, I was not powerless.
That did something.
It did not remove the craving. But it broke the helplessness.

When food became a bribe

Another past life story added a different layer to my relationship with food.
This one is not about wanting to make sure I always have enough food to survive.
It is about not being able to resist food that is placed in front of me. Hungry or not.

Long, long ago, I was a young man. Huge. Tall. Fat. Strong. Mentally challenged.
Very simple. No filters. No restraint.
When I saw something, I took it. Food. Animals. But also women. Girls. Boys.
There was no moral framework. Only impulse.

The village knew this.
They could not stop me physically. So they created a strategy.
Whenever I appeared, they distracted me with food.
My favorite dishes. Large quantities. Beer.

As long as I was eating, I was not dangerous.
If they fed me enough, I would fall asleep.
Food was used to keep the peace.
Food became a bribe, to keep me distracted from something much darker.

I sat with that story for a while. Not to judge it. Not to excuse it. Just to feel what it did in my body.
The heaviness. The urgency.
The way food stopped being nourishment and became a switch.
On. Off. Calm. Danger.

And I could feel how old that reflex was.
Not a craving. A mechanism.
Something learned long before language, shame, or choice.
That was enough for that moment.

How the loop connects

This sheds a new light on my friend’s behavior in Hawaii.
How she prepared all the food, just to prevent me feeling hungry and ‘becoming someone else’.
To the constant checking in. “Are you hungry?” “Do you want this?” “Do you want that?”
She did it with love. Instinctively.

And suddenly, another loop became visible.
Food used to keep the peace.
Food used to prevent something worse.
Food placed in front of me so everything stays calm.

Earlier I joked about “turning evil” when I don’t eat.
But in the past life story, that danger was very real… 

Understanding does not erase, but it frees

Understanding where patterns come from does not make them disappear.

I still think about food. I still eat when food is there.
I still feel safer knowing there is food for later.
But I am aware. I no longer shame myself.
I no longer tell myself a simplified story.

You do not even have to believe in past lives for this to be useful.

This is where No Excuses lives for me now.
Not as discipline. Not as toughness. But as responsibility.
The stories do not have to be objectively true.
What matters is this.
You did not make up a random story. You made up this one.
And that alone can tell you something about what your body is protecting.

Food is just one expression. For someone else it might be money. Control. Work. Sex. Approval.

Sometimes the most powerful shift is not fixing the ‘problem’, but realizing how old it is, and what it has been protecting all along.

Back to now

Right now, I am ending this blog because my friend’s fridge is calling 😉
There is chocolate in there, and I am not leaving for my next adventure in New Zealand without answering that call.

At least I got to experience a fully stocked fridge for a while, and nobody stole my food.

PS. If I am ever your guest, know that I cannot guarantee your food will be safe.