Could we look at Intuitive Eating as an ecosystem?

Lately I've been contemplating the HOW of Intuitive Eating, as in how does this actually come together? HOW does one DO Intuitive Eating? We know it's not a linear process and that there is significant overlap between the "stages of Intuitive Eating." We know that there are some universal truths we all experience in approaching Intuitive Eating and there are a lot of unique experiences based on our personal histories.

I've started to think of the whole of Intuitive Eating - that is, the lifelong unfolding that is Intuitive Eating - as an ecosystem. An ecosystem in which each piece is dependent on the presence, even if only emerging, of each other piece. And how certain conditions must be met for our awareness and self-literacy to deepen and be sustained. 

In the Intuitive Eating ecosystem, I imagine the following components:

- the soil from which an Intuitive Eating practice can grow, must contain the nutrients of honoring your hunger and respecting your body. From the very beginning of the process, you must ensure you are eating enough. And that eating enough is the very basis of enacting body respect that then gives way to giving yourself permission to feel comfort and pleasure in your body, to not disparaging your body or other bodies, to not militantly monitoring or aggressively comparing your body to the bodies of others.

- the rain that hydrates the soil is the thought work of challenging the food police and rejecting the diet mentality. This thought work is constant and ever-adapting as the diet culture becomes ever more sneaky, shifty, embedded in supposedly beneficial systems such as "wellness," "self-care," and "mindfulness."

- the sunshine is coping with your emotions with kindness, a process that must begin with acknowledging the importance of our many feelings about our bodies, weight, dieting, self-worth, belonging, etc. Coping with our emotions with kindness matures into working with ourselves as we are - kindly, gently, fiercely, compassionately.

- the rain (thought work) and sunshine (tending to emotions) nourish the soil of honoring your hunger and respecting your body to form the trunk of a tree comprising prioritizing satisfaction. And it is ultimately through prioritizing, experimenting with, and embodying satisfaction that we are able to make peace with food.

- finally the advanced practices of working with gentle nutrition, rediscovering the joy of movement, and stopping when comfortably full as a conscious choice rather than a moral obligation become accessible and nuanced. 

When the ecosystem is out of balance, the whole process requires shifting attention to what is inadequate, what needs to be brought back into equilibrium. This is obviously not the only way to view how Intuitive Eating happens but it is part of what I and many of my clients have experienced over the course of their practice. I'm curious to hear your thoughts.