Welcome to my blog
Interview: Emotional Suppression and Binge Eating
Thanks to Jen Howk, host of The Face of the Deep podcast, for hosting me to talk about healing overeating!
Holidays And How I’m Estranged From Family
The holiday season brings up a lot of emotions about family for me, as it does for many who come from dysfunctional or abusive families. I’ve been estranged from most of my family for years.
Healing Food Addiction: What is Really Possible?
It is possible for you to fully heal your overeating, no matter how severe it is or how long you've been doing it. It might seem far off or even completely impossible to imagine not having it, but truly, here are some of the possibilities that are there for you.
When My Mom Padlocked Food From Me
My mom locked food away from me with a padlocked refrigerator when I was a teenager.
Your Thoughts Don’t Create Compulsive Eating.
Your thoughts don’t create compulsive eating. Your desire to deny and suppress emotions does. Don’t worry about your thoughts; they are a product of your emotions. I used to be so worried about my thoughts. If they were "negative", wouldn't that create compulsive eating?
Why Changing Eating Without Emotions is Pointless
Trying to change habits without examining them emotionally is pretty pointless because it won’t last. However, experimenting with changing the behaviors you’re drawn to and feeling about them emotionally can produce lasting change.
Why Do You Believe You Can’t Heal Food Addiction?
Do you believe the human soul can be broken beyond repair? If not, why do you believe you can’t heal food addiction? In fact, you can. Your soul isn’t forever broken.
Who Benefits From Your Confusion About Overeating?
Who in your life would prefer that you didn’t figure out the true causes of your compulsive eating? Who benefits from your unawareness, confusion and self-blame?
Healing Binge Eating: How Often Do You Cry?
In the process of healing binge eating, ask yourself honestly: How often do I cry? How often do I shake with fear? How often do I punch pillows?
When Parents Teach Us Compulsive Eating
Did your parents suppress emotions with food but act like their eating was "normal"? Some people grow up with one or both parents who actually modeled food addiction, but often there was no acknowledgement in the family that it was addiction at all.
Healing Emotional Eating: Be Proud of Your Courage
If you are embarking on healing the root causes of emotional eating, you are brave and courageous, no matter how messy it all looks and feels. You're not too messy or too emotional, you are very brave and courageous.
Compulsive Eating: When You Feel it’s Not Emotional
It is normal, when we begin this healing process, to feel like, "I don't have many suppressed feelings. I don’t think my overeating is due to an emotional cause.”
The Manipulation of the “Clean Plate Club”
The "clean plate club" and the "children are starving elsewhere" tactics are ones many people grew up with, and they were very damaging. Some parents shame their children by saying that children who are starving to death would love to have this food.
My Overeating and Guilt About My Mother
I felt guilty at even the thought of questioning my relationship with my mother. For most of my life, I thought that my "dad stuff" was the sole root of my issues. After all, Dad left, Mom stayed.
Understanding Your Emotions Isn’t Necessary to Heal Overeating
It is not necessary to understand your emotions before you feel them. Insisting on understanding our emotions before we feel and experience them slows the healing of overeating.
Grief and Binge Eating
We are afraid that our sadness will swallow us if we start feeling it. We're afraid it will create depression. We think that if we open that floodgate, we will drown in it. But these are fears that are not actually true.
Food Addiction and Being a Cycle-Breaker
Have you felt, or been judged to be, too sensitive? A “troublemaker”? Too dramatic? Do you see patterns in your family that bother you?
Healing Food Addiction: Less Crystals and More Crying
It’s not more meditation and crystals and bubble baths that you need, it’s more feeling messy emotions that you need. Healing overeating is not achieved through traditional self-care practices. It can never be healed if you're always trying to rise above or "observe" your emotions.
You Don’t Need Accountability to Heal Overeating
"You just need accountability!" How often have you been told this when trying to heal compulsive eating? How often have you said it to yourself? Here’s why it’s not the answer.
Food Addiction isn’t a Disease, it’s a Trauma Response
Many programs and "experts" teach people their overeating cannot be fully and permanently healed, but rather that they will always have it and the best they can hope for is to live with their addiction but manage it so it doesn't take over their lives. This is a false belief.