Hello love,
I wanted to talk about growth and how we move through this emotional eating pattern. Because I see this with women when they’ve tried all the surface solutions and they don’t get the results they want.
But when we are working on a sustainable way to move through our emotional eating, growth looks different.
It’s nonlinear, so it’s sort of up and down but overall upwards. We’re moving towards that direction of resolving our emotional eating. It’s almost like we’re looking at a mountain and we know we can get to the top, but we have to navigate through that path.
Guidance is Important
This is why it’s important to have support and guidance, someone there who can help you see the path more clearly, who knows what’s going to happen, who can help you with the right tools and skills and navigating things.
So when we are emotional eaters, the roadblocks that we meet as we’re trying to resolve this pattern is, first of all, understanding what this pattern is about, knowing that it’s not about just controlling food and our body through willpower, that there are other connections going on.
It’s also about knowing that when we have this pattern, it is coming from this deeper place and we need to work with it at that level.
We need to see that it’s possible to move through this pattern, have that trust, so that we know on the journey we’re going to meet some resistance, we’re going to have doubts, we’re going to have fears, we’re going to be uncertain, we’re going to think we’re not doing it right.
This is what happens as we move through this journey. Part of the reason that it feels like we’re at the bottom of a mountain and we’re looking to climb up is because we are going to a higher level.
The Switch from Coping to Thriving
Emotional eating is a coping mechanism. It’s not a pattern for thriving, it’s a survival pattern. It’s using food to soothe and to cope. Through using food to soothe, we also develop unhealthy habits around food and our body and our emotions.
We need to change our perspective and really reprogram them to a better way, a healthier way, a more aligned way that feels good for us.
If you’ve been emotionally eating, if you’ve been obsessing about food and your body, it does not feel good. And that’s your indication that it’s not working for you. If it was working for you, you wouldn’t be here, am I right?
We need to look at emotional eating and resolving it like climbing a mountain. Not to make it seem daunting, not to make it seem scary, but that there is this up levelling that’s happening, this evolution that’s happening.
There is this climb that we’re taking. We’re getting to this pinnacle of resolving our emotional eating.
Encountering Obstacles
So in order to navigate and get there, we’re going through this journey of learning how to climb this mountain, learning how to overcome the obstacles like doubts and fears that we might encounter.
So whenever we’re climbing a mountain, it’s good to have a sherpa, a guide to help us. We’re still climbing the mountain, but that person is going to know the safest path, the fastest path.
They’re going to understand the terrain, they’re going to understand the doubts and the fears that come up and be able to guide you. If you trust them, it’s going to make your journey so much easier. So you need to look at who you’re asking for guidance from.
This is what I see with clients climbing this mountain. When we are shifting our perspective, we’re bumping into our resistance and our blocks and that deeper layer under our emotional eating. It’s a growth curve. We’ll have these moments where we feel doubt and fear, and if we don’t have someone there guiding us, we can get lost and spiral.
Our fears, doubts and perfectionism spirals us into shame and triggers our emotional eating. So we need someone with a bigger perspective, seeing where we’re at on the path and helping us to move out of it.
There is no magic bullet
When you’re on this journey, don’t think that it’s supposed to be perfect and you’re supposed to have this instant fix.
That’s what sold to us but nothing in life is a magic bullet. Nothing in life is an overnight success. There’s always work being done under the surface, behind the scenes that eventually becomes so easeful and effortless, it creates momentum.
Then we’re in this new way.
It’s the same thing for emotional eating. When I was on my own emotional eating journey, it took me several years to figure this out because I was trying all the surface solutions and the diets and the different practitioners and I didn’t even know I was emotionally eating. I would try and fail and thought something was wrong with me. I thought I didn’t have enough willpower. I thought I was broken and I needed to be fixed.
It wasn’t until I had tried and failed so many times that I realized, wait, this doesn’t work. It actually doesn’t work. I need to go deeper. That’s why I realized I had to shift the way I related to food, to my body and to my emotions and see the deeper pattern of emotional eating. That it’s a coping mechanism and how it’s being triggered on the surface and how do I actually resolve it.
I was obsessed about food because I was in a diet mentality and restricting. Then I would do that to my body and I thought if I could control my body and my food, I’d be accepted. We think we have to look a certain way to get that love and acceptance as well.
Every time we judge ourselves, every time we think we’re doing it wrong, that triggers us into shame. It spirals us into this negative mindset and triggers us to emotionally eat. And so we’re doing it in many different areas. All of these triggers are now adding up and so we need to go layer by layer.
That’s the climb
That’s the climb of the mountain. As we go through layer by layer, we’re climbing up the mountain and eventually the pieces, they start moving together. It doesn’t take as long as it took me, which was many years.
You look back and you’ve climbed so much of the mountain, you’re almost at the peak. That’s the beauty of resolving this pattern.
The way forward
When you have a guide, a step by step plan, a map and you understand how this pattern works, it’s going to be so much easier. This is why I created The Emotional Eating Evolution Program. It is the step by step methodology, along with guidance, support and all the right tools to help you navigate through this pattern to get you to that place where you feel at ease in your body and around food.
You no longer emotionally eat at you get to the top of the mountain.
This is what’s needed to resolve this pattern, not a one off 30 day diet, surgery or pills.
I would love to invite you to find out more about the Emotional Eating Evolution Program and see if it’s resonating for you. If you feel like you’re ready to resolve your emotional eating from the route, you can also book in an Emotional Eating Clarity call. So on the call, we find out more about you, what your goals are and how we can support you in the program.
To reaching the peak,
~Michelle
Certified Holistic Nutritionist Specializing in Emotional Eating
