Today, I’m going to teach you a strategy for interrupting the cycle of emotional eating. If you are an emotional eater, you are never eating for the reason that you think.
You may think you are eating because it makes you feel better, especially when you are stressed. Then slowly, insidiously, and seemingly suddenly, you find yourself 10, 20, 50, 100 lbs overweight and you are left wondering what the heck happened.
I’ve been putting in a lot of study about the brain, neuroscience and our habits lately in preparation for my upcoming workshop on how to resolve beliefs (like we do in sessions) when you are out doing this thing called ‘your life’.
Ultimately, here’s what you need to know.
First, you need to know why you want to stop this cycle. This big reason why is what brings your attention back to doing something about your situation. It is best when your reason why is intrinsic, but a reason outside of yourself is a great place to start until your self-worth can bring up some intrinsic values and virtues to tether yourself to.
From this place of reason why, you will need to examine your beliefs, your habits and behaviours, your strategies and processes for success, and finally your goals… not necessarily in that order.
Today we will look at the goal of stopping the cycle of emotional eating, and I’m going to give you a strategy for interrupting the process.
Interrupting the habitual process is a vital part of your success.
The trick is doing it without antagonizing the unconscious beliefs that are having you choose that unwanted behaviour. If you antagonize them, you end up causing yourself stress, which is likely the reason you are eating in the first place (in attempt to diminish the stress response).
The reason why the eating feels good is because the food will trigger a dopamine response, which in turn, will have you feel ‘better’ for a short while… at least until the dopamine wears off, which is when the unresolved stress pattern will seek relief again, likely by eating.
So what you need to do is approach the beliefs in a way that doesn’t cause you a stress response.
Using willpower alone to say ‘NO’ is not enough!
By denying yourself the opportunity to eat the food, it will usually lead to triggering a feeling of deprivation, and hence, stress, so let’s try a different approach.
Recently, a client came in with this exact challenge. Here’s what we did with her…
> My ‘come from’ was coming from a place of non-polarizing the behaviour, which simply means to allow for the possibility that she will eat what we referred to as ‘a muffin’. The muffin was just a representation of anything being eaten unconsciously that doesn’t serve her.
> Next, to further ensure she didn’t trigger a stress response, we always allowed her the possibility that she could eat the muffin. This maintained the relaxation already created via the massage.
> I then had her imagine that she was about to take a bite of the muffin, but first, before she took that first bite, to complete this statement:
“The reason why I am about to eat this muffin is because…”
Let’s say she responded, “because it feels good.” Your response may be the same, or different.
> As we massaged, keeping the relaxed state (important), we continued:
“The reason why it feels good is because…”
Let’s say she responded, “because I feel stressed and need this food to think clearly.”
> Now that we got her to the point where information was revealed about what the food is connected to, we turn the discovery process into options:
“What I could do instead of eating this muffin that would help me think clearly is…”
Let’s say she responded, “drink a glass of water, go for a walk”
> Time to choose a course:
“The benefit of eating the muffin is…”
“The benefit of drinking a glass of water and going for a walk is…”
> Action-oriented belief statements:
“It’s okay for me to eat this muffin.”
“It’s okay for me to not eat this muffin.”
“It is okay for me to choose.”
“I choose the water and the walk.”
> We didn’t do this last part, but if I were to do it again, I would invite her to go into this afterward:
“I choose the water and the walk because… (review benefit).”
This isn’t verbatim what we did in our session, but you get the gist. I also didn’t cover here the Body Message portion of the session which revealed that her emotional eating was connected to beliefs created around a time when her father brought her easy-to-eat foods so she could continue studying in order to get good grades, which pleased him.
Therefore, she held many beliefs around eating bringing her closer to her father. All of this revealed itself without the need for talk therapy, but by using the Discovery Prompt Process along with Body Message Themes.
But, there is a process you can use to help you with any unconscious behaviour that you would like to address.
Here is a summary of how you can apply this
Step 1 – Allowance: allow for the possibility of the unwanted behaviour (in this case, emotional eating) instead of making a rule against it.
Step 2 – Discovery: use the Discovery Prompt Process:
“The reason why I am about to eat this muffin is because…”
Step 3 – New Possibility: introduce options, such as:
“What I could do instead of eating this muffin that would help me think clearly is…”
Step 4 – Benefit: explore the benefits of all options using Discovery Prompts:
“The benefit of eating the muffin is…”
Step 5 – Resolution: resolve your relationship with all options, this helps neutralize any charge:
“It’s okay for me to eat this muffin.”
“It’s okay for me to not eat this muffin.”
Step 6 – Choice: making an empowered and educated choice:
“It is okay for me to choose.”
“I choose the water and the walk.”
Make the choice and immediately take action, pay attention to diminishing stress around the choice
Step 7 – Validation: revisit the benefit of your choice post-completion:
“I chose the water and the walk because… (review benefit).”
This is a sampling of the process you will learn when you attend my upcoming workshop, which I will be opening up for registration at an Early Bird rate next week.
Apply the above process this week to a behaviour you are wanting to change.
It will definitely give you some space to interrupt the reflexive nature of your unconscious behaviours, which is a vital part of retraining your mind to reveal The REAL You.
Leave me a comment below about a behaviour you would like to see change in.
Until next time,
If you would like to be on the VIP Early Bird Contact List, I will contact prior to general registration. To get on the early bird list click here.
