Two Tools To Help With Emotional Eating
Filed Under: Emotional Eating
19 March 2021 | Written by Xenia Ayiotis
At the best of times many of us struggle with emotional eating. In the last year, with the pandemic throwing us off course, eating challenges have increased.
Emotional eating is a way we cope with unpleasant emotions. It’s a way to distract ourselves from difficult feelings. It’s a normal human response, yet diet culture leads us to believe that when we eat emotionally, it’s because we lack willpower and control. That emotional eating is a sign of weakness.
One of the symptoms of dieting is a disconnection from ourselves, from our body sensations and from our emotions. When we follow food rules we are hyper-focused on what we can and can’t eat and not in tune with what is going on inside of us. Many people come to mindful eating and initially, are physically and emotionally, unaware. It’s not obvious to us that we are turning to food to cope. Often we don’t know why we are eating and there are uncomfortable feelings that have not yet been uncovered, we don’t recognise what is going on for us.
When I eventually stopped dieting and started working on healing my relationship with food, I had no idea what I was feeling. I was completely disconnected from my body and my emotions. I just remember feeling bad most of the time. I couldn’t name the emotion. It was a low-level anxiety.
As I started identifying emotions, I realised that most of the time I was eating because I had a sense of inadequacy and fear of things going wrong.
I honestly felt that something was wrong with me. To make things worse, there was a lot of judgement about all my negative emotions because somewhere I inherited the belief that I need to be happy all the time.
Emotional eating is a way to zone out and dissociate from our feelings. Understanding what we are feeling and listening to our emotions can heal our relationship with food and with ourselves but first we need to get in touch with our feelings. Understanding why we binge or overeat requires awareness. Recognising an emotion takes practice and awareness.
There is great healing power in awareness. I have a very simple tool you can use to help you connect with what you might be feeling.
Ask yourself, are you:
S – Stressed or Strained?
A – Anxious or Angry?
L – Lonely or Longing?
T – Tired or Tense?
Sometimes, simply recognising the feeling that is triggering you to eat, helps you overcome it. Other times you may need to find ways to deal with the emotion. There will be times when the only thing that you’ll want to do is eat. In times like those you can practice mindful emotional eating, this process is accepting your feelings and giving yourself permission to eat as a coping tool. I write more about the process here.
The nature of life is that we will experience unpleasant feelings. Avoiding them won’t solve the problem. If you choose to practice feeling your feelings, here is a step by step process:
Step 1: Aware
Awareness is the first step. It could be that you become aware of anxiety or that you are worrying or stressed. Or you notice that you are eating mindlessly.
Step 2: Acknowledge
When you acknowledge something is happening you could say to yourself “Fear is Here”, “Anxiety is here” or simply label to yourself “I am stress eating.”
Step 3: Accept
This is an active step of accepting the moment as it is. It may be useful to say to yourself “This is a difficult moment” or “I am having a hard time right now”. Very often we resist the pain by saying we shouldn’t feel a certain way. This resistance creates more pain.
Step 4: Allow
Allow yourself to feel what you are feeling. Notice where you are experiencing it in your body. Is there a tightness in your belly or throat or chest? Breathe into it as much as you can, when working with difficulty it’s important only to practice as much as you can and not push yourself.
Step 5: Attend with kindness
Once you have gone through the four steps, it is possible you may be feeling vulnerable. So it’s important to check in with yourself and see what it is you are needing or what might you need later? To offer yourself some tender words like you would to your best friend. Something like “this is hard but we’ll take it one step at a time.”
I hope these tools will help you gain awareness around the emotions you find challenging.
May you be well
May you be safe
May you be free from harm
Xen
Hello, I'm Xen. Welcome!
I help women all over the world drop the struggle with food and their bodies to create a life of peace and freedom.
Sign up for my FREE 21-day eCourse “The Mindful Eating Moments” and get started on your journey to feeling free around food.
I respect your privacy. Unsubscribe anytime.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google
Privacy Policy and
Terms of Service apply.
You might also be interested in blogs about:
“From our first meeting - two faces on Zoom across the world from each other, there was a sense of familiarity and comfort that was a healing balm for a lifetime of food struggles and dieting. Without realizing how much damage I had done to myself by adhering, for decades, to restrictive food plans and rigid diet programs, Xen had a way of redirecting the harsh and negative self-talk and sending me forth each week with compassion, mindfulness and a new way of seeing myself in the here and now. Gone are the maybe somedays, and if-only, and when-I’m-smaller thinking. Now I am committed to the imperfect and rocky path to listening to my body, accepting my perfect imperfections, and rejecting diet mentality. Those negative voices will revisit me from time to time, I know, but Xen has offered valuable tools for meeting each day as a fresh start - another choice, another chance. Her devotion to this work and her belief in her clients is a remarkable gift; I am so fortunate to have found her. It is never too late to let go of the drama and embrace joy, ease and self-acceptance.”
“I felt hopeless and helpless in my daily struggle with mindless eating for many years. Then I found Xen which is exactly what I needed! My decision to work with her helped me to finally repair my relationship with food. It's changing my life for the better, one day at a time. Now I have control over the food, instead of it having control over me, which is the way it should be. I highly recommend Xen to anyone who has a desire to overcome similar food struggles. Xen, thank you from the bottom of my heart!”
“I reached out to Xenia because 2021 started on a tumultuous note for me. Between deaths, businesses suffering, hospitalizations, and job losses in our personal circle, I felt depleted and found myself being available for everyone but myself. Then I was hit with an unexpected health diagnosis, which was the last straw as it meant giving up “healthy foods” and workouts that I leaned on for my well-being and stability. Despite working in wellness (Yes, coaches and healers are vulnerable too!), I found myself reaching out to desserts for comfort. I like to live a life of permissions (not labels or deprivation leading to bingeing), so I wanted to work with someone who approached healing from a place of mindful compassion. I didn’t want to be my own client. Xenia was great in reminding me to be kind to myself. Working with her, brought me peace and helped shift my mindset. I love how desserts and I look at each other now.”
“Working with Xenia was amazing. She armed me with a bunch of tools to help me through difficult times. Xenia is the kind of person who really cares for helping you in the long run. Her work will forever have an impact in my life.”
“Working with Xen was a game changer for me. After working together for a few months my relationship with food radically changed. I no longer felt like a failure. I now have the tools to nourish my body with foods that feel good in my body. I don’t feel guilty about eating cake or chocolate, I also don’t overeat cake and chocolate. I no longer feel the need to exercise to compensate for my eating. I feel much more free around eating and I am more accepting of my body. Xen has a nonjudgmental and compassionate approach to coaching and really supports you in the process.”
“Working with Xen has been very empowering. Her approach is so refreshing from the usual. I have learned that I am in charge and that I get to choose what I put in my body and how to move my body in a way that I like! I get to make my own choices. It’s so liberating. Once you get a taste of freedom with food, there is no turning back to old ways! Thanks Xen for guiding me along the way to freedom.”
“This is the answer for those of you that struggle with food and all that surrounds it. Xenia said that I could make peace with food and it seemed at the time like an impossible dream. Turns out it isn’t. I recommend Xen and the mindful eating / intuitive eating approach unreservedly. If you have any questions about my experience, please get in touch. Thank you Xen. My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐”
“Xenia was a walking, living, breathing example of what can be done. I laughed and cried my way through a short course in this fascinating and invigorating programme with her, and have gained a designer tote full of coping skills that go way beyond containing kilogrammes. I feel infinitely lighter. I am doing this for me and, yes, you can do this for you too! And believe me, I’m cynical!”
“I don’t obsess about food like I used to. I am thinking differently about food and feeling so much more relaxed around all types of food. It’s wonderful to have pleasure and satisfaction from eating.”
“I learned a new way of thinking about food. I have learned that food is not the enemy and that it can actually be enjoyed with no guilt.”
