Emotional Eating Dulls The Knowing
Emotional eating most often occurs to escape a negative feeling OR to create a less negative or more positive feeling. And it works. Which is why we continue to do it.
We can “emotional eat” to avoid feeling angst. “Emotional eating” distracts us from the angst that arises in a pause. During a pause like the COVID-19 situation, we may remember that our life is meant to be lived more fully, more freely than we are living it. However, when we feel that uncomfortable angst bubbling to the surface, instead of asking the angst why it has appeared, we focus on “controlling” the eating. That seems less scary.
We try paleo, vegan, low-fat, high-fat, fasting, keto, etc. We hopscotch from one plan to another looking for a solution. But the solution doesn’t come because we are focused on the wrong problem, the food, rather than the real issue, the angst that is nudging us to look closer at ourselves and what we are doing with our amazing life.
Or, in another effort to deter a more detailed investigation of the angst, we focus on the anxiety that arises. This flavor of anxiety is not due to a neurochemical imbalance. Rather, it is coming up because of the cognitive dissonance that occurs between what we really know to be true (at some deep level) and possible for ourselves and the current, often more controlled way we are living our lives. In this situation, focusing solely on calming our anxiety in the moment only helps in the moment. It doesn’t address the angst. Our brain likes consistency, not dissonance. Dissonance creates anxiety. We are then faced with one of two choices to reduce the dissonance:
1. Change our idea about what we want in life and what we know at some deep level to be possible and true for us.
OR
2. Change our life to match that idea and possibility that our life could be more fully expressed, truer, and freer.
It’s much easier not to change our idea (that is just our own angst, anxiety, and emotional eating) rather than to rock the boat and make changes in life (that would make other people uncomfortable at best, and say terrible things and remove their love, at worst). So, we continue to live the same life and try to amend the idea that we are meant for full, free lives.
But the angst that bubbles up has an infinite source as long as it is ignored. The angst is asking us to pay attention. To purposefully ponder what it is we truly want in our life, when we’ve felt the freest, and what we can do to live more fully every day. Instead of detouring around the angst with a focus on diets or anxiety, ask the angst why it is there. Ask yourself when, if ever, you have felt most alive? If you find a time of feeling really alive and like yourself, be curious and remember who was around you, where you were living, what work you were doing, what activities, practices and hobbies brought you joy, and how you found meaning in your life. Let that guide you. This is the work that heals.