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Freedom from Emotional Eating

What is Emotional eating?

Simply, it is the habitual use food to soothe or numb your feelings and/ or sensations in the body, often without any real conscious awareness.

 

It sounds simple, but what that sentence doesn't tell you is the cost of this behaviour over the years.  It doesn't even hint at the guilt, the shame, the self loathing that tends to walk hand in hand with it.  

 

It doesn't talk of the fight to control; the food, the feelings, the thoughts or the actions. The pervading sense of powerlessness.

 

Nor does it mention the secrecy around the behaviours and how isolated you feel with this.

Indeed, nor does it speak to the constant self doubt that has led, most probably to a lifetime of dieting; searching for the answers, so that you can have the body you want, because surely, what the diet gurus say is true; "eat less, move more".   And so the perpetual thought "what's wrong with me" lodges in your mind. 

The thing is, if it were that simple, if dieting were the way to deal with this, then first diet any of us ever went on would have given lasting results and none of us would be living this life 10, 20, 30+ years on. 

We'd have a healthy and relaxed relationship with food, instead of this secretive, fearful and controlling one. And the sabotaging behaviours wouldn't kick in at the first sign of restriction. 

We'd be able to navigate life's challenges and celebrations in an entirely different way.

And that, there, is the key.  It's not the food that's really the issue; it's our relationship with food. With what we've made food mean.  As individuals, as families, as communities and as cultures.

When we begin a journey to stop emotionally eating we are asking ourselves to change, at the very heart, our relationship with food. 

We are asking ourselves to shift how we react to the stresses and 'triggers' around us and to find better and healthier ways to respond.

We are asking ourselves to connect with what's REALLY needed, re-learning how to listen to ourselves deeply, so that we can care for ourselves fully in a way that doesn't use food.

 

What underpins Emotional Eating is many and varied. Because of this, it is not a simple thing to stop.  Willpower alone will get you about 1% of the way, so clearly something else is at play.

What causes Emotional Eating?

As I said above, many things contribute to Emotional Eating.  But one thing I have come to understand from my own journey and from working with clients is that it isn't really about the food.  As I said above; It's mostly about what we made the food mean. 

For instance. 

If you grew up in a house that was busy or undemonstrative with regard to love, yet mealtimes were about sitting together as a family, sharing your days and maybe your mum put dinner on the table saying "I made your favourite". And so you begin to link love and food from a very early age. You may also equate food to connection, a sense of belonging and feeling special.

Or, when you were very small and full of life and loved to chatter away and you were told to be quiet alot, then to keep you quiet, you were given a biscuit or chocolate, you will begin to learn to soothe unmet needs (attention, love, play) with the food.  Over time you would begin to notice those feelings of lack (of attention, of connection) almost as soon as they come up and go straight for the food instead, this then becomes a habit where you wouldn't even necessarily notice what was happening, but instead find yourself in front of the fridge/ cupboard, reaching for food and eating it, most likely, mindlessly. 

Or, another common issue is plate clearing.  As you were growing up, how often did you hear that you can't have dessert until you'd finished all of your dinner? Or that there were starving children in Africa? What happens here is that you have learned to over-ride your natural feelings of fullness and satiation in order to get to the food you enjoyed or do as you're told and avoid the nagging voice. Learning to notice these feelings of satiation is a process of learning to trust yourself again. 

Or, perhaps when you were born or a baby/very young child, you were 'sent' away from your mother to be looked after elsewhere. This can set up a sense of abandonment and a deep sense of 'being wrong', which no amount of food will soothe, but because the food you had with mum would have been an avenue to closeness, cuddles and love, relaxation and ease, connection and being seen, that's what not having it came to mean.  Your body holds the memory of having it and also the memory of not having it.  And it's a deep need that will be pursued. 

As you can see, just from the few examples above, food can become a means to soothe complex needs. And many of them. 

This is why we can find it so very hard to deal with on our own. It takes alot of care, compassion and a felt sense of safety to start to pick apart all that contributes to our own emotional eating story.  

My Story

Since my late teens I had used food to soothe, to treat and to bring connection into my life.

A crunch point came for me about 9 years ago.

I was overweight, felt lost and was desperate to find a new way to be. 

I'd been on many diets, lost the weight and put it back on again. 

My head was full of judgements about my lack of control, about my food choices (on bad days), my weight, my shape.  I never came up to scratch unless I'd been 'good' all day and felt slim etc etc. 

My self worth was through the floor.  I looked outside of myself to know if I was worthy. 

It was a mostly secret, silent and painful battle.

I didn't trust myself to know what was right for me anymore. I often felt an overwhelming panicky misery.

I felt powerless to change anything.

"What's wrong with me?" trampled its way through my brain on a too-regular basis.

Despite all of this, I just could not face another diet.  

Inside I KNEW there had to be another way, a healthy way, a way that felt natural and easier, that was NOT another diet, more restriction, more will power that I didn't seem to have.

I had a deep sense that I needed to begin to move towards myself again; by that I mean, put faith in myself to know what's right for me, and to not be swayed by another diet, another person's view of what I needed.  I KNEW the answers were inside of me. 

Today, I am so very thankful for that deep pull to look in another direction. 

 

It led me to care for, and make peace with, my old emotional pain, change my relationship with myself and with food and then to help other women do the same. 

Along the way I trained in many healing modalities that connect the psychology and the energy. I learned to notice my feelings and to be aware of what was being triggered and then to care for it.  I got back in touch with my body's signals and learned to love, accept and respect my body.  I regularly move my body in a way that supports it and not just because it'll burn calories!

I learned how to take care of me in a way that supports the person that I want to be, have compassion for myself and to value who I am.  

And when I recognise that I am finding things a bit tougher, I seek support and work through what is coming up for me.

Along the way, I recognised that a new way of looking at food issues was needed by many.   That diets aren't the real fix; that remains an internal journey, where we come home to ourselves.

We thoroughly look at what holds the behaviour in place with the aim of caring for and healing those areas. Such as

-triggering situations

-triggering feelings

-limiting beliefs

-negative self talk

-shifting towards a new identity

-emotional wounds particularly from childhood

-womb and birth issues

-protective & sabotaging behaviours

-connecting with what the body really wants

-learning to identify the REAL need underneath the habit of Emotional Eating

-connecting with the true feelings and learning to be with them and then to release them.

-creating a sense of safety and empowerment within

-the need for connection, fulfilment and play

-strategies for real self nourishment

 

I share many different practices along the way that can help you to help yourself when away from our time together. 

 

It's most important to relax the nervous system and shift out of the Fight/Flight/Freeze response which WILL trigger Emotional eating until a new habit is formed.

There is email/text support during standard working hours.

You'll have access to supportive videos and mp3s in a members area.

 

I use a tool box of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT, Matrix Reimprinting, Birth Reimprinting), NLP, Hypnotherapy, Visualisations, Meditations, Energy Clearing practices and Energy Healing.

It's currently available as a one-to-one session programme, comprising of 15  sessions, each lasting 2 hours over the space of 8-10 months plus the Sweet-Tooth Breakthrough session. (so that's 3-4hrs of one-to-one contact time).

So each session gets split into approx. 90 minutes of working with the subconscious mind and energy, clearing the areas mentioned above) and then approx. 30 minutes of energy healing to allow clients to reset, so I can clear their energy and realign them to an empowered state.

 

Although I have a huge list of areas that we need to care for, we also work to care for what is coming up for you at that time. Because it is one-to-one, it is tailored for your specific needs.

 

Most clients learn alot about themselves as they go on this 'journey' and it always leads a lasting sense of self love and compassion. It spreads into all areas of their lives, allowing them to be a greater version of themselves. And that is the true gift within.

 

The cost is £2222. I can offer a 10 month interest free payment plan if that is needed.

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