Most people put limits on what they can achieve in life. Food addicts are no different. It’s easy to fall prey to emotional eating. But does it have to take over your life and put limits on the things you enjoy?
When emotional eating, eating as a response to stress, becomes an addictive habit, it can severely limit your ability to function as you would if your emotions were in a more balanced state.
It’s true that sometimes we don’t want to be in a balanced state. We don’t want to be happy. It would be good just not to feel “that way”. Why do I have to decide now?
Most people I meet that have food addictions are caught up in the past–well, not the past exactly, more like the memory of the past.
I heard a song a few years ago that talked about never wanting to feel the pain of remembering how it used to be. It was titled, “Never Gonna Fall in Love Again”.
Hearing those lyrics, it struck me that reliving the emotionally traumatic event was indeed worse than the event itself.
If the trauma was one of sexual abuse, physical or verbal abuse, or the unexpected breakup of a relationship, then remembering it again and again can be devastating. All are stressors that can lead to emotional eating and food addiction.
When the mind is bogged down with all that negativity, it’s pretty hard to get over anything. And there is food beckoning and promising relief. Even a temporary distraction from the mental barrage feels welcome.
Why is it so hard to speak your truth? Maybe because it is hard to find your truth, and you have to find it before you can speak it. For food addicts it is hidden deep so the stress is more threatening.
Food addiction is a exaggerated response to stress that we cannot find another outlet for. Stress locks up the mind and in some strange way, emotional eating unlocks it temporarily.
In that unlocked state, you can triumph over it and reclaim your power to make the life choices that will lead you closer to your goals and dreams.
The more information you have, the more choices there will be, and the more you will feel empowered to make them.
Food addiction can be conquered. That’s a choice too. It can be replaced with other choices, better choices. Only the mind limits; only the mind judges; only the mind justifies and demands.
You are greater than your mind, and you can use that to your best advantage. Whatever the cause of your food addiction, you must be a detective and get to the heart of the matter where the real power is.
Be an observer. Pretend you are helping a friend and map out a plan that can help you take control of your life and the choices you make.
Emotional eating is a choice. Any response to stress is a choice. But food addiction complicates things and makes it almost impossible to remain in control long enough to make that choice.
Why does food relieve the stress? I’ve never heard a good answer. It just does. But sooner or later you will be faced with the reality of how emotional eating limits your life choices.
And then you will have another choice to make.