Do You Struggle With Emotional Eating? (Plus a photo of me in one of my chubby phases.)
This is me in one of my (many) chubby phases.
Do you struggle with emotional eating? You’ll want to read this.
Do you struggle with using food to “make you feel better,” to ease your anxiety or to reward yourself? Have caught yourself unconsciously shoving food into your mouth?
Do you feel like food seems to have this mysterious power over you?
Do you often turn to food for comfort, when your bored, when your lonely, when your stressed?
Do you feel like it is challenging to control yourself when you are at an event and there are so many food choices?
Do you have a raging inner critic who picks apart your looks & body when you see yourself in the mirror?
You are not alone. I understand because this used to be me.
We have been sold an image of perfection and I used to buy into it.
I was in an abusive relationship with myself and I was obsessed with what I ate/didn’t eat, it was exhausting. I thought the next diet, cleanse, program etc. would fix my problem. Um, no.
Know that it is NEVER about the actual food. It is about YOU.
If you are using food to shove down your emotions, you are not allowing healing to happen and what you resists persists.
Or, if you are using food fill up on a feeling that you are lacking, it is because you are not giving it to yourself. There isn’t enough ice cream/pizza/booze in the world to cover up what is really going on inside of you.
We are taught to be uncomfortable with our emotions/intense emotions and want to get rid of them as quickly as possible. Using food (or any vice) is just a coping mechanism and isn’t healthy.
Big emotions happen and being with them will allow the space for them to be felt and to dealt with in a healthy way.
Healing emotional eating, which is just a coping mechanism/security blanket and a temporary pacification, will set you free. If it’s not food it’s just something else; alcohol, drugs, sex, porn, TV etc.
Take time to discern where you urge is coming from? What is it trying to tell you? What are you feeling? What are you desiring?
Treat yourself as you would a child that was having a hard day- you would be kind, patient, loving, do something nourishing, pull them in close and help them to soothe themselves. YOU GET TO DO THIS FOR YOURSELF.
This evidence that you create is just FEAR.
Fear you will fail/not good enough/you will be judged/you have to look a certain way – you are just scaring yourself. If you look for reasons why you can or can’t, this exactly what you will find. You are creating resistance to keep yourself from having what you want.
You may be thinking I have failed in the past, so I will again.
For example, I used to think that I had to have a six-pack to be worthy, sexy and a credible strength & conditioning coach. Is this really true…NO. I used to constantly set myself up for failure by sabotaging and binge eating crappy food on the weekends, because I had been so restrictive all week (to prove my worth.) I was just proving to myself that my beliefs of unworthiness/feeling not good enough were “right’ over and over again.
Releasing the resistance:
I want to but…
A validation that you can’t really have what you want or justifying why your failing and keeping yourself living in the “someday” mentality, or that type of life/body/relationship is for other people. So you aren’t actually fully participating in your own life- you are sitting on the sidelines and thinking someday it will happen/show up…how is this working for you?
The way you relate to your self is modeled in the way your mother spoke to you, related to you and how she treated herself. Know that your mother did the best she could with the knowledge she had at the time.
Imagine a household with a depleted, unhappy, unfulfilled, stressed out, hurting mom… how does it feel walking into this house? What is the energetic tone of the home?
**Now imagine a household with a deeply present, connected, full of self- worth & love, full of energy, fulfilled and happy mom…if you walk into this house the energetic tone is very different.
Our well-being, our relationship to our body, to our hearts, and being responsible for nourishing ourselves, taking care of ourselves, doing whatever it is that fills up our souls is VITAL TO HUMANITY AS A WHOLE. YOU will have the ability to fully give to your loved ones/the world with out getting depleted.
***What behavior or belief are you carrying around that isn’t even yours? What do you get to let go of?***
You are choosing a victim mindset if you say you want one thing and are doing the opposite or sabotaging yourself. You are creating your own suffering.
Some part of you sub-consciously believes the story you made up a long time ago you can’t change this/you’re not good enough/not worthy/you don’t fully love yourself.
The reality is you can do anything you set your mind to, you are choosing to grip onto this problem to keep you “safe.”
I see so many women (and men) who believe how much I deserve based on how “good” or “bad” their body is being. Can you relate? This used to be me too.
Do you think you don’t deserve to have the relationship you want, to charge that amount, to speak publicly, and think you don’t matter and people don’t hear what you have to say?
Do you feel invalidated and actually invalidate yourself….so you wait until our body is “better” to write the book, ask for the raise, end the relationship, TO START REALLY LIVING.
Massive energy leak…It is a full days work to be at a high level of obsession with your body and food. Imagine if you re-channeled all that energy to loving yourself, your passions and living!!!!!
Re-claiming this energy will have a profound impact on you and your life. On how you show up in the world, your happiness, how you show up in your relationships and during sex, and freedom.
How much energy are leaking on fighting your body, beating yourself up, and thinking about food?
Here are some journaling questions for you to assist you in creating a healthy relationship with YOURSELF and food. Get clear on your real body/weight struggle.
* List out all the excuses you can come up with as to why you don’t yet deserve the body/life you want.
*Ask yourself if your excuses are really true?
* What’s your pattern of when you start to loose weight? Put weight back on?
*How did your mother speak about her body/what was her energy around it?
* List out all the benefits of continuing on as you are, without getting the body you want. There definitely are benefits or you wouldn’t be where you are! Come up with at least 20. Think about the ways in which staying as you are now is serving you, is allowing you to feel safe or protected, or not have to give up certain things.
* After that, list all the drawbacks of continuing on as you are. The stuff you know, but try not to think about or really face.
*Go to end result: you being fit, feeling sexy, lean…what are you avoiding? Here are some examples:
-attention from men/women
-business opportunities
-pleasing others- being thin for others/being what others want you to be
-being deprived-not being able to eat what you want.
The minute you take full responsibility is when your body and life will change!
There isn’t some external thing that is going to magically solve “your problem.”
YOU do by learning to love yourself with compassion. You really are worthy and have all the answers and everything you need inside of you.
Start asking your body what she/he desires? LISTEN.
It is possible to fully love yourself and FEEL your emotions fully to be the powerful creator you really are. It is possible to let go of the struggle and sabotage when you stop avoiding yourself and your emotions AND START PAYING ATTENTION TO YOURSELF AND HOW YOU FEEL.
Fully feeling your emotions is FREEDOM. You will eat to fuel and nourish your body instead of using food to push down emotions, or punish yourself.
REFRAME: Recognize we are all part of a greater ecology, something much bigger than just ourselves.
Ex. Bees (loosing the population)- some people are like, “Who cares, I hate getting stung by them anyway.” We get to care because if we loose bees, who will pollinate our plants and flowers, and give us delicious honey? Bees help to sustain all of life. If you take out bees, our entire ecology suffers massively.
So, as women we are are like bees: RECLAIMING THE TRUTH we are part of a greater ecology, we are all connected to each other and Mother Earth. We all deeply matter. YOU and YOUR BODY MATTER.
If you are HUNGRY to create more living and get rid of the struggle fill out this application for my January Master Mind group: