Overeating and Your Parents’ Attitudes to Emotion

What your parents taught you about feeling emotions explains much of why you compulsively eat.

We all have messages about emotions that we learn from our parents and from society.

We learn fears about emotions, like, "I am afraid that if I start feeling my grief I will never stop and I will get swallowed up by it."

We learn judgments about emotions, such as, "Angry people are not spiritual; feeling anger means you are a bad person."

We learn false beliefs about emotions, such as, "There is no benefit to feeling emotion because you can't ever change how you feel."

These messages are absorbed from how your parents suppressed, allowed, or dealt with their own emotions.

Did your mom scramble to pretend she wasn't angry and plaster a smile on her face as soon as possible?

Did your dad completely cut himself off from any of his own sadness and vulnerability?

These messages about emotions are also absorbed from how your parents responded to your emotions, which may be similar or different to how they responded to their own.

Did your mom tell you you were selfish and that you were hurting everyone when you felt angry about something that was happening in the family, which you felt was unjust?

Did your dad tell you that emotions are something to skip over, to not let take over, that being intellectual and head-dominant is the best way to get through life?

If you can't remember how your parents would have responded to your emotions because you can't remember really having any as a kid, as yourself (and trust the intuitive answer you get):

How might they have responded if I overtly showed anger or rage?

How might they have responded if I said I was terrified?

How might they have responded if I openly wept?

A person who believes that anger makes you a bad person will probably want to overeat to suppress anger when it is triggered through life.

A person who believes that sadness will swallow you and drown you if you start feeling it, will probably eat too much when they start feeling a tinge of sadness.

What were the messages you received, and how are those messages dictating your use of food to deny and suppress emotions?

For more information on healing overeating and to inquire about coaching, email me at the contact page here on my website.

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