Overeating, Emotions and God’s Help

When you feel you can’t cope with the emotions that are under your compulsive eating, ask God to be with you as you feel. You’re not alone.

I'm not religious and this isn't a religious statement, but I do believe that God wants to help you heal food addiction.

Healing food addiction is hard and there's no need to sugar coat it. It's a familiar compulsion that many of us have had for years, decades, or even our entire lives since we were very small children.

To heal, we have to feel. We have to feel all of the hurt, anger, sadness, and fear of our current lives, our past, and especially our childhood.

It is normal to believe you can't cope with painful emotions. It's not true that you can't cope with them, but we all feel at times that we can't.

Some of the emotions underpinning your food compulsions will be completely overwhelming and you will feel totally out of control as you feel them.

In these times, you can talk to God, or whatever loving presence you believe in.

While God won't take away your emotions in a way that helps you avoid feeling them, God can be there with you as you feel them. And having God with you can make you feel way, way braver than you do all on your own.

You can ask God to hold your hand as you allow yourself to feel frozen fear and terror that's been stored in your body and soul for far too long.

You can ask God to lay your head in her lap as you sob and wail out your heart shattering grief.

You can ask God to give you his kind encouragement and non-judgment as you (safely) unleash all your rage and fury into a pillow or scream it out in your car.

God knows you are struggling with overeating.

God understands that it affects your life and your health, and has compassion for all of it. It's in no way too trivial of a problem for God to care about.

She does care, and she wants to help you heal your heart so that you don't want the addiction anymore.

God knows all of the causes of your compulsive eating, all of the emotions you're avoiding, and he knows how to guide you through the healing process.

You can heal all on your own, but you can also do it with God and in my experience it makes the process feel significantly more supported and guided.

Photo by John Towner via Unsplash