The Reason Behind Emotional Eating is Not Lack of Discipline or Willpower
Emotional eating is not something you just choose to stop doing. And you have likely tried to get rid of this behaviour in many ways. And you can do all the right things to “get rid of” this behaviour but without looking at the root cause of it, it will keep surfacing again and again. And that can be frustrating because you are indeed doing all the right things, right?
Maybe you have tried to:
Improve your diet and eat healthier
Exercise more to balance it out
Create good routine to help to avoid it
Stop buying treats
Add more restrictions into your diet
Tell yourself that you just need to be more disciplined
Fill the emotional eating with another numbing behaviour (over exercising, social media, controlling, keeping always busy..)
But without looking at the root cause of this behaviour, I guarantee you will be meeting the same behaviour pattern again and again. If you find yourself binge eating on a regular basis even if you’re doing all the right things - you are likely numbing out some emotions that you have no capacity to be with. And this is the root cause we can work with. This is where the nervous system regulation and body connection come to the picture.
Because the need underneath this behaviour pattern is not being met and the right things work until they dont - when there is too much overwhelm in the body. The root cause underneath this behaviour is the inability to hold space for your emotions and experiences. And while you can do all the right things, this inability to feel is still actively present and drives your behaviour when things get uncomfortable or challenging.
You can do all of these things to help you to get rid of the emotional eating. But what if you stopped trying so hard to get rid of it and chose to meet it instead?
What if instead of running away from it, you would turn towards it? When you grow your capacity to be with emotions and sensations, you will be able to stay with your present experience better. And once you meet the needs underneath this behaviour, you can fill them without needing to turn to food as an escape route.
Ready to transform this coping mechanism for good?
Join me on my upcoming WISE BODY - workshop. Where you will experience how your body communicates with you and learn how to start listening to its guidance while you expand your capacity to be with your emotions and experiences. And by learning to be with your current emotional state, you can release the need to turn towards food as a way to numb out.
