Realizing and acknowledging your emotions enhances change

After eating naturally for 20 years, I now know that I used to use food to control my emotions. I was completely unable to cope with many things that had happened in my life. So instead of acknowledging them and allowing myself to feel loss, sadness, and pain, I ate.

This meant that I didn’t have to feel because it was too difficult and completely overwhelming. I was able to control my feelings using food. To be honest, I probably lived for 20 years of my life in a fog, doing what I needed to get through the day, but not really living or feeling.

When I was diagnosed with depression and bulimia in 1996, I was completely blown away. I had more or less realized that I was suffering from depression, since most days I did not want to get out of bed. But the fact that I had Bulimia opened my eyes. That’s because I never got sick, what I did was exercise excessively. Eventually I learn that it was just another form of purge. It was also another form of control. I would eat very little and only “healthy” food, exercise at least once, if not twice a day, and then binge at night. It was a very negative cycle of diet, exercise, and bingeing.

It allowed me to cope, but I was living a very unhappy and unsatisfied life.

When I learn to eat naturally, I also learn to love myself and trust myself again. This was the way back to normality. However, to do that I had to really notice the feelings I was having, acknowledge them, and then choose a positive action to take.

He hadn’t cried for 20 years. After working with a counselor every week for a year, I finally cried on his shoulder in the last session and probably for most of the hour. But what a relief that was. I no longer had to hide anything, I could let it go, mourn my losses, and move on in a positive way. It was then that I knew I was on the road to recovery because I was beginning to face things, feel them, and get them out of my body by crying, laughing, screaming or singing.

These are all positive and empowering actions that make us feel better and then able to make a positive decision about what to do next.

Eating for emotional reasons keeps you stuck, because your body doesn’t want food. You want some kind of comfort like a good cry, love, kindness, a hug, a walk outside, or a chat with a trusted friend. All of these are positive, empowering, and comforting, but food for many of us has been our natural fault in times of stress.

To break this negative control habit, I encourage you to try the following:

Notice that you feel like eating when you are obviously not hungry.

· Acknowledge the emotion you are having. Are you sad, angry, disappointed, depressed, lonely, or even bored?

Feel the feelings and allow yourself to cry, scream, talk to someone, exercise, or journal to get it out of your system.

Then do something you like that gives you joy, instead of punishing yourself by overeating.

It can really hurt to sit with our feelings, but then it can make positive changes. Remember that our body only wants food to nourish itself, if you find that you are eating to feel comfortable, it is time to start looking for the cause so that you can solve it instead of just controlling it.