You have an urge to eat.  You’re not hungry, you’re just graspy and a bit stressed and tired.  You want to eat something because you don’t like the graspy, stressed out, tired feeling.  You want out of it pronto.

There are a few things you could do:

You could fight with the feeling and resist it.  You know you’re resisting when you’re thinking, “I don’t like this” and “I wish this feeling would go away”.  It feels white knuckly.  It uses willpower.  It is exhausting.

You could distract yourself from the feeling by going for a walk, doing a puzzle, phoning and friend, or taking a bath.  The problem with this is that the feeling will return when the distraction ends and then you’re back at square one.

You could avoid the feeling by eating the food.  This gets rid of the feeling for the time being.  Phew!  Except it always creates a net negative consequence: guilt, shame, disappointment, a stomach ache, weight gain.

You could allow the graspy, stressed out feeling.  This requires leaning in to the feeling with full acceptance, knowing that it’s just a vibration in your body connected to your thoughts.  This is the most awkward, foreign thing for your brain to wrap itself around because it is used to escaping and fighting.  If you master the art of allowing, it always has a net positive consequence: the feeling moves through, you feel relief on the other side, and you start to build confidence in yourself that you can feel things instead of eat over them.

Most people will not take the time, energy, and grit required to allow feelings.  Most are too impatient.  However, if you truly want to master this food thing, you must surrender yourself to this work otherwise your success will be temporary at best.  You will have fixed some of the symptoms but not the cause.

This is what I help people do.  If I can do it, you can do it too, I promise.

Until next time,