Tiny Buddha

Tag: emotional overeating

  • Disordered Eating: What We Need to Understand and How to Heal

    Disordered Eating: What We Need to Understand and How to Heal

    “Food can distract you from your pain but food cannot take away your pain.” ~Karen Salmansohn

    Long before I was watching The Biggest Loser (a popular weight loss reality TV series) and trying to look like a swimsuit model, I was hiding in my closet eating candy, fiercely addicted to sugar.

    I remember feeling completely out of control over my cravings for all things sweet, and I didn’t know how to stop myself from eating until I felt sick. Food played a bigger role in my life than simply to support the processes in my body that lead to optimal health. To my “child self,” who wasn’t sure the world was a safe and welcoming place, food was a lifeboat.

    No little kid imagines, “Oh, it would be fun to starve myself and see what happens!” Or enjoys waking up in the middle of the night to work out for hours for the reward of being “loved” by those around them. But when faced with adversity in childhood, our number one goal is to survive, and in order to do so, we look for ways to reassure ourselves that we have some element of control.

    I grasped for anything I could to create a sense of agency and stability in my life, but at the cost of disconnecting from my inner wisdom and abandoning the core of who I was created to be. I was trying to survive by becoming less. Less of myself, less visible to the world around me, while at the same time crying out to be seen.

    As you consider your own childhood experiences with food, notice any emotions that come forward. How old were you? What was the backdrop in which these early experiences with food occurred?

    As I reflect on my own food story, I see how my emotional pain and a complicated relationship with food became intertwined. It was one of the only levers I could pull to manage the chaos both in my home and within myself.

    What appeared on the surface as a “fear of food” was in truth a fear of feeling. Feeling meant facing the ache of growing up in a home where strong emotions were suppressed, intuition ignored, and many conversations critical for the healthy maturation process of an adolescent, avoided.

    For example, any discussion around the topic of sexuality and what it meant to embody and express mine, was considered “taboo,” and shameful in the highly religious culture of my upbringing. Therefore, it is no coincidence my disordered eating patterns surfaced in tandem with my body’s transition into puberty.

    The changes in my body, at that time, felt terrifying, and the disordered eating served as an attempt to shut down the process of sexual maturation—a means to avoid the shame of being “sexual.”

    In my rehabilitation process from anorexia, bulimia, and orthorexia I found again and again that behind a binge, purge, or restrictive behavior was often a deep emotional pain I felt ill-equipped to meet and care for in a healing manner.

    Disordered eating was “pain-management.” Albeit not the most effective strategy for coping with distress, but it was the one I knew inside and out.

    The first time I recall recognizing disordered eating as a way to handle emotional turmoil, I was sitting in therapy feeling guarded and hesitant to believe that the healing answers lived anywhere in that room. I didn’t fully understand why I was there, aside from being told it was the “right” thing to do to get professional help.

    The therapist looked at me with concern in her eyes and asked, as if the answer should be simple, “Why are you so afraid of food? Why the eating disorder?”

    Now, I’d been asked that question by many well-meaning, worried adults before, but on this day, I felt an unexpected flood of emotion rise within, and fighting back tears, I replied,

    “I’m not afraid of food. I’m afraid my parents will divorce.”

    The moment the words left my mouth, I realized the question my heart had been desiring for someone to ask all along was: “Why the pain?”

    Think back to your childhood home and the role food played, beyond physical sustenance.

    Was food a reward for good behavior?

    Did food cause fights between your parents (i.e., one parent burns dinner, and the other explodes in anger)?

    Was food used as a way to “regulate” you—help you “calm down,” feel comforted when you were sad, or numb pain?

    When you faced challenges, was food more available than the ears of the adults in your life?

    Did you feel safe in your childhood home to express internal pain?

    Furthermore, if you grew up in an intense emotional climate, and your primary caregivers lacked the level of consciousness, and resources, to support you in learning healthy emotional regulation, food might have been the only “state-changer” (the only thing to take the edge off painful experiences) available. Food was your therapy.

    Emotions ended up being “fed” instead of felt. Eating became a way to cope with the feelings that seemed out of control in your life. Instead of fueling your body with the building blocks required for healing, you ate to numb your pain.

    Hear me when I say, there is no shame if you find yourself here—if you’re still stuck in the cycle of using food to survive your own emotional experience. You’re worthy of self-compassion—to be able to look back at your younger self and appreciate the ways you managed the pain you faced, with the resources you had. Whole-body rehabilitation starts by offering gentleness toward oneself.

    Another critical component of healing is giving yourself permission to have the conversations with yourself that, as a child, you didn’t or couldn’t have with others, but longed to. Doing so aids in establishing a “safe” environment within yourself for healing to flow. Set yourself free to explore any and every question that feels important to you.

    As I mentioned earlier, for me one such conversation was around what it meant to be a sexual being. For you this might mean exploring the confusion you felt when your parents split and the challenges you faced adjusting to new blended family dynamics, the loneliness you experienced as a child because it was hard for you to make friends, or a sense of shame about your family’s socioeconomic status.

    And if it was normal in your family of origin to bury and suppress half of the emotional spectrum, as it was in mine, especially the feelings that are uncomfortable, that require deeper self-inquiry, think about whether this culture aligns with your core values, now.

    What culture do you desire to cultivate for your future self around navigating emotional pain? This is your opportunity to excavate a new tunnel from which to travel from emotional pain to healing, for you and generations after you!

    Right now, you have an opportunity to build trust with yourself by committing to allowing every emotion to be experienced. What is one emotion that you believed as a child was “off limits?” What would change today if you allowed yourself to experience that emotion—to permit its flow through you?

    Listen to the little voice within you, with your heart wide open. Witness yourself. Be the listening ear you longed for when things first got “complicated” with food. Only then can you ask your younger self if they’re ready to entertain some alternative strategies, besides food, to help scary emotions move through the body.

    And when you are ready, here are some of the beautiful practices I have found on my own healing journey, that aid in building a space where the body feels free to release big feelings:

    1. Jin Shin Jyutsu- Finger Holding Practice

    This Japanese healing technique works to calm your energetic body. The practice involves holding each finger for one to three minutes on one hand, then repeating on the other hand. Each finger represents a different emotion:

    Thumb- Worry

    Pointer Finger- Fear

    Middle Finger- Anger

    Ring Finger- Insecurity and grief

    Pinkie- Self-confidence

    2. The 4-7-8 Breath or “Relaxing Breath”

    One benefit of this breath practice is its ability to strengthen “vagal tone.” The Vagus Nerve is the longest group of nerves in the body, running from your brain to your gut, and it is a key component in the activation of your parasympathetic nervous system—the branch of the autonomic nervous system that promotes the resting, digesting, and repairing in the body. Improving vagal tone can play a role in reducing stress and anxiety as well as:

    • Improve digestive health
    • Increase HRV (Heart Rate Variability)
    • And lower levels of inflammation in the body

    3. Walking outside barefoot

    Reconnecting to our roots, putting feet to earth, and absorbing the healing nutrients it has to offer can do a world of healing. When you put your bare feet on the earth, the electrical current coming from the ground contains an abundance of negative ions that are then absorbed by your skin and dispersed throughout the body. These negatively charged ions have been shown in clinical research to promote greater physical and psychological well-being.

    Try one or all of the techniques listed above to reconnect to your emotional body, ground yourself, and release stuck feelings. Notice any shifts you experience as a result.

    The goal is to start to create an environment of safety for your inner child to explore the previously forbidden emotions, without fear of abandonment or shame.

    No different from any other coping strategy, disordered eating can be a means to try to create the safety within that we lacked in our outside world early on in life. But there are other interventions, such as the ones mentioned above, that can offer a sense of safety without harm.

    Recovering from disordered eating comes back to finding healing ways to be there for your emotions, rather than numb them with food restriction, binging, or purging. Because it’s really not about the food at all. It’s about becoming the friend your body longed for in your most painful moments.

    Give your body a safe place to express, let go, and experience, without judgment, the total expanse of feelings that come with being human, and watch your relationship with food transform as a side effect.

  • How to Stop Feeling Lonely and Escape the Emotional Eating Cycle

    How to Stop Feeling Lonely and Escape the Emotional Eating Cycle

    “When you no longer believe that eating will save your life when you feel exhausted or overwhelmed or lonely, you will stop. When you believe in yourself more than you believe in food, you will stop using food as if it were your only chance at not falling apart.” ~Geneen Roth

    I used to eat because I was lonely.

    Lunch hour at school would last nine billion years. I’d have no one to sit with—I was spotty and mega bossy, and my hobby was copying pages from anthropology books.

    Everyone would put a sweater on the chair next to them, so I’d have to sit further away. Then, just as I’d pick up my fork, they’d up and leave anyway! “Oh well,” I’d think, “If I eat slowly I can make my fries last till the bell goes.”

    I switched to packed lunches to avoid the dining hall. But I didn’t want to be spotted alone on a windowsill, so I’d eat my sandwiches in a toilet cubicle.

    After, I’d feel full, but unsatisfied. And still have time to kill! So I’d go to the dinner hall and buy a meat pie. I felt sad and gross.

    The truth was, I didn’t know how to be a friend, let alone make one. I was full of resentment toward other kids.

    I acted superior but felt inferior. I was needy, or tried to impress them.

    I didn’t think friendship was something people learned—I thought there was something wrong with me. That I’d be this way forever.

    I also hated that I couldn’t resist overeating. Since my family was big on brown rice and organic vegetables, I felt guilty for buying junk food.

    When I hit my teens, I became body-conscious. I panicked that comfort food would make me fat. I wasn’t! But I thought my thighs were big, and clenched my stomach in all day. All day!

    I felt too embarrassed to ask anyone—especially my parents—for help. I thought they’d say I was greedy. Or lecture me about eating crap. Or take me to a doctor—humiliating!

    I didn’t know it was called “emotional eating,” but I was pretty sure it was bad. So I kept quiet.

    I thought: “I can fix this myself. I just need the self-discipline to eat less!”

    Going on improvised diets made things a whole new level of worse: binge eating, bulimia, and feeling utterly obsessed and depressed about food.

    It took seven years before I found a way to recover.

    I wish I’d known how to deal with lonely emotional eating in the first place, instead of going off on an eating disorder tangent!

    So if you’re dealing with a double-whammy of eating and loneliness yourself, here are eight simple steps. They will guide you through solving your emotional eating, and your loneliness, from the inside out.

    1. Imagine your life without emotional eating, and shift focus away from guilt and shame.

    You’re not greedy. You’re not gross. You’re not ill. You’re just trying to cope with a fear: abandonment.

    It’s the emotional fear we’re born with. Outside the tribal circle, a baby would die. The primitive part of your brain thinks, “I’m alone—I’ll starve!”

    It’s how you’re wired, so give yourself a break.

    If you waste your energy wrestling with guilt and shame over eating, you’ll never tackle the real emotional challenge—loneliness.

    So when guilt and shame come up, shift your focus.

    Imagine a peaceful relationship with food. Imagine eating when you’re actually hungry. Visualize slowly nourishing yourself.

    2. Loneliness is a self-worth issue, so become willing to work on your self-worth.

    It’s like this: You’re by yourself. That’s not loneliness, that’s solitude.

    Sometimes it’s nice, but sometimes you don’t have a choice. Uh-oh!

    Mind games start: you imagine it’s because you’re unlovable.

    That’s loneliness. Low self-worth, in disguise.

    If you’re lonely, it’s easy to think you could earn your self-worth back by changing something external.

    You think, “If I found a great partner, then I’d know I was lovable.”

    Or you think, “I’ll be worth loving once I get a grip on my emotional eating and lose weight.”

    But that’s not how it works! Self-worth isn’t something you earn. Or that drops in your lap either.

    You choose to create it.

    So ask yourself: How can I work on my self-worth?

    (Don’t worry if you don’t know yet. Some ideas are coming up…)

    3. Spend some quality time with yourself.

    Are you enjoying your time by yourself? Or just watching TV?

    Imagine you treated a child the way you treat yourself on a too-tired evening.

    Browsing Facebook when they say, “Play with me.” Sending them to the fridge to scavenge instead of cooking dinner. Binge-watching Netflix instead of putting them to bed when they’re tired.

    They’d feel hurt, and start believing they weren’t worth spending time with. They’d also start misbehaving wildly to get your attention!

    The same is true for how you feel about yourself. When we ignore our inner selves, we start to believe we are worthless, and an emotional eating crisis is a great way for our heart and soul to grab our attention.

    Spend some quality time with yourself.

    Take yourself on a date, just you and you.

    Play (build a go-cart, paint your room), be in your body (move, bathe, meditate), or relax (read, whistle, sit in nature).

    Self-worth grows as you self-connect, so every little counts.

    4. Create thoughts that give an inkling of self-worth.

    When I was rock bottom with food and loneliness, my thoughts were dominated by failure, being a victim, and believing change was impossible.

    Stuff like “I’m gonna be lonely forever,” and “I hate my body, I hate myself for eating, and I’m too pathetic to stop.”

    Three positive thoughts in particular helped me out of my pit.

    They didn’t tell me directly I was worthy or fabulous—saying anything saccharine about my life would have felt like gloss painting a turd.

    They just implied a basic level of self-worth.

    They were: “I’m part of life unfolding.” (I’m not in a vacuum. Even though I feel totally dissociated and alone, I’m still participating in life on the planet.)

    “I really care about my body.” (I’m upset I overate again. But I couldn’t get upset if I were indifferent… So on some level, I must care!)

    And: “Things are already changing.” (Repeating this phrase is a positive action… So maybe I won’t always be like this).

    Find one thought that implies you aren’t your worst fears. That makes you feel worthy-ish. Then repeat it like you’re being paid a piece rate to do so.

    5. Explore how you’ve created loneliness.

    Try this: It’s funny!

    Imagine someone wants to master the art of loneliness. Lucky for them, you’ve honed the perfect system!

    Write down what you’d teach them.

    My own Perfect System for Staying Lonely says: “Don’t have a calendar for friends’ birthdays. Tell yourself that you’re too broke to buy gifts, cards, or book a babysitter.”

    And: “Get hired for shift work, and rehearse theatre shows every weekend.” I disconnected from my relationship like that that for the first five years of my marriage! (Thankfully, the guy’s a legend.)

    The point is, I thought loneliness happened to me.

    But I make myself lonely, when I don’t need to be. Years after my schooldays are behind me, I lead myself back to that painful-yet-familiar place. It’s called a comfort zone.

    It doesn’t mean it’s your fault you’re lonely—this isn’t about blame. This is actually good news: If you’re doing it, you can undo it.

    6. List everything that your loneliness buys you.

    An excuse not to face trust issues?

    A reason to avoid intimacy?

    A cover for social anxiety?

    I know it’s not obvious that loneliness has advantages, but sometimes it’s a way to avoid something even more scary or painful.

    Me? Loneliness excuses me from owning my introvert personality. Intimacy makes me feel vulnerable, and rejection scares the crap outta me.

    These hidden benefits to your loneliness are called “payoffs.” It pays off to explore them!

    Because they’re the reason you’re creating loneliness, even though it hurts.

    7. Explore the ripple effect of loneliness in your life.

    You’d expect loneliness to make you shy at parties, or reluctant to date.

    But has it changed you in other ways?

    Unhealthy self-reliance has made me a nightmare to cook with. And low self-worth has taken its toll on my financial outlook.

    Clean out your worldview.

    Defy your loneliness-inspired beliefs about what you can and can’t do (like, ask someone to chop the mushrooms while you stir the risotto, or ask your boss for a raise).

    It’s a great way to un-victim yourself.

    8. Finally, when you’ve done all that inner work, break up your emotional eating habit.

    Habits weld to each other! Drinking and smoking. Driving and talking to yourself in a variety of accents. Lonely emotional eating and—?

    Break the links.

    Don’t just say to yourself “Stop eating toast.” Don’t make any rules about what you eat.

    Instead, change how you eat. If you don’t know how you eat, slow down.

    Notice what you do at each stage of your emotional eating habit—beforehand, during, after, where, when, with what planning.

    Do any part of your habit differently.

    Say you eat ten slices of buttered toast and jam in front of the TV each evening. Buy different butter that you don’t like so much. Put the TV (or the toaster) in the cellar. Create an eating area, keep the sofa for relaxing. Shop differently. Go out.

    Keep disrupting your habit, and it will eventually dissipate.

    Habit change takes patience, and sometimes repeated attempts too.

    But break up your habit from enough angles, and you’ll eventually find you’ve replaced it with a way to enjoy food again.

    —

    The way I think of it, addressing loneliness is 88% of the solution for emotional eating from loneliness.

    When I solved my eating struggles, I spent a couple of years of journaling and becoming aware of my beliefs, thoughts, and feelings. Then, only a month or two of habit change.

    I know a couple of years sounds really long! Perhaps it will take less time for you. The point is, this isn’t a quick fix. Quick fixes rarely address the underlying issues.

    It’s tempting to rush. To try to skip straight to solving the eating—out-of-control eating feels unbearable and you want it to stop, like, yesterday—but if that hasn’t been working for you, or you’ve even ended up binge eating like I did, give yourself permission and time to go deeper.

    Trust me, changing an emotional eating habit is much easier when it’s just eating, and the compulsion part has had your loving attention.

    So good luck, and don’t rush.