Ice Cream Cannot Give You Love

In compulsive eating, we are often attempting to create a cheap version of a feeling we want.

We want ice cream to feel loved, we want bread to feel safe, we want chips to feel like life is exciting and has some meaning.

The problem is, food can't deliver these feelings.

Ice cream can't give you love.

Bread can't give you safety.

Chips can't give your life meaning.

This is why it never really works when we try to use food and drinks to get these feelings and we end up feeling let down and disappointed, and before we know it we are back in the same cycle again.

We are trying to fill gaping holes in our souls with substances that are not capable of delivering these feelings.

We are trying to get cheap, knockoff, fake versions of nice feelings, which may appear to work for 5 minutes before it fades away.

What to do then?

Many people would say, try to get these feelings elsewhere instead, from other or activities or from people. But this is actually just swapping addictions and will not solve the root issue.

We must grieve about the fact that we don't already feel loved.

We need to feel our fears about not feeling safe.

We can look at why we don't feel life has excitement or meaning without compulsive eating.

Furthermore, we must examine our childhood.

Why have I felt unloved in the first place?

Why have I felt unsafe in the first place?

Why have I felt life is meaningless in the first place?

And you can swap any other uncomfortable or painful emotion into these questions: angry, disappointed, hopeless, sad, heartbroken, lonely, worried, etc.

When we process the emotions that underpin why we don't feel positive feelings in the first place, we have the chance to, for the first time, connect with pure sources of these feelings.

Food will then take its rightful place as physical nourishment that does bring us pleasure, but which we no longer rely on whatsoever to have positive feelings in our lives.

Photo by Masaaki Komori via Unsplash