Everyone Has a Hungry Heart – What Does Yours Want?
April 8, 2016Do you need to make money? Are you starved for attention? Do you feel lonely, depressed, isolated, or lacking meaning and direction? Do you feel unsafe? Do you want to feel more loved and validated? Are you angry or bored? If any of these resonate with you, it could mean that you have a hungry heart. These types of emotions and concerns can result in emotional eating in an attempt to divert our thinking from experiencing these troubling thoughts.
What are you hungry for, and why? These are the questions we need to be asking ourselves as we go through each day. From the moment we wake up, we need to be in tune with our needs - physical, emotional, mental, spiritual - and set healthy goals.
Do You Have a Hungry Heart?
Emotional Eaters Stuff Their Feelings Down With Food
As emotional eaters, it is often hard to recognize that we have any feelings at all. Emotional eaters are accustomed to stuffing their feelings down and "numbing out" with food. As a result, food really does become one's everything. It becomes a substitute for love, happiness, companionship, success, or some other desire and is relied upon to fill a void in one's life. Food becomes love - something emotional eaters turn to automatically to soothe themselves.
Eating becomes a habit that, in many ways, feels like an abusive lover. It can feel oh-so-good during the act and absolutely awful afterward, as the feelings of guilt and ridicule emerge. Eating, like "bad love", ends up becoming a vicious, self-defeating cycle that seems impossible to break free of.
What do we do when food becomes a substitute for love or some other feeling or need we wish was being met in our lives? The first step is to recognize that there is an emotional component to our overeating. Then, we can begin to examine exactly what the emotions feeding our eating frenzies are.
Emotional Eating is a Powerful Compulsion
Identifying these feelings can be very challenging, if not impossible, to do on one's own. Working with a skilled mental health professional can be very helpful. Emotional eating is a powerful compulsion that requires support to break free of, especially if food has become the love of your life. A professional therapist or coach is able to offer feedback and help you deal with painful emotions.
It is unhealthy to keep your feelings bottled up inside and "stuff" them down with food.
Once emotions have begun to be identified, the emotional eater must learn new, healthier coping mechanisms and life skills. The "naturally" thin do not use food to satisfy emotional needs. They are in touch with their feelings, and they listen to what their bodies tell them. They eat when they are hungry and stop when they are full. For some, this may seem obvious. But, it can be much easier said than done. Years of unconscious programming need to be reversed. Learning to listen to your body and your feelings may be very challenging at times. For others, the transformation proves to be much quicker and smoother. I prefer to work with clients to accomplish slow, positive changes since they are generally more realistic and sustainable.
Turn To Your Inner Child
An overeater must learn to take care of his or her inner child. S/he must be diligent about identifying and paying attention to his or her wants, needs, and emotions. S/he needs to soothe him or her with bubble baths, walks, time with friends, manicures, good books, or whatever else calms him or her down.
Over time, the habit of resorting to food for an immediate fix will be replaced with healthier choices and behaviors.
Admitting that food has become a substitute for other life goals and needs is a tremendous start. Examining your whole life, including relationships, career, family, friends, and health, to figure out where there are voids is an essential next step. Bringing emotions into conscious awareness and learning to manage negative feelings effectively will help to reverse the need to use food as a substitute. Rather than mindlessly eating, you will learn to make a conscious decision about whether or not it is worth it.
Everyone has a hungry heart. What is yours searching for, and why? What can you do to avoid emotional eating? What can you do today as a substitute for the time you spend overeating?
 | ABOUT THE AUTHOR Coach Jenna Nocera, MA, MFT, CLSC, CPFT is a Life & Wellness Coach, Psychotherapist, and Personal Fitness Trainer with advanced degrees in Behavioral Science, Psychology, and Marriage and Family Therapy. She works with clients to redesign their lifestyle habits. Subscribe to the Formula For Excellence® newsletter to receive a Free Habit Tracker and occasional health and wellness tips. |
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