Are you eating away your feelings?

Have you every felt sad, anxious, stressed, lonely... and then turned to food for a way to feel better?

Perhaps you are feeling down because something didn't go to plan or bad about yourself.

Perhaps you are feeling anxious about the future and things to come.

Perhaps you are feeling alone and missing connection or intimacy...

Yet often what people turn to when they experience negative emotions is food. The food takes on the role of soothing them - and yes, it may work well in the short-term, but when they turn to food all of the time for this comfort, it can get someone trapped in a vicious cycle of soothing with food but then feeling guilty for doing so.

Now we all eat food for comfort from time to time - that is okay and completely normal. However, if one of the only ways you know how to cope with your thoughts and emotions is to turn to food - then this can be troublesome for both your mental and physical health. It is why I find that often psychotherapy is a powerful way to rebuild someone's relationship with food. Through the therapeutic process, I am able to help people to sit with and understand their feelings, as well as to learn new ways to cope with and manage their thoughts and feelings.

Often it can feel easier just to eat to suppress emotions (or perhaps to drink alcohol to numb the emotions away). However long-term those emotions are still there once you have stopped eating/drinking - food and alcohol only really provide temporary relief when it comes to managing your feelings. This is often why someone might go back for the second or third glass of wine or piece of cake .... because that emotion that they want to numb away is still there.

Negative emotions and thoughts are not to be feared. Once you can learn healthy ways of managing them and coping with them - they can even become your friends - often indicating things that you would like to change in your life, or areas in your life where you can evolve and learn. Yet when your only way of coping with negative emotions is to eat (and then you may feel guilty for this) - you can almost fear the sadness/stress/anxiety/loneliness itself ... because of the negative impact it may have on you and your food choices.

If you would like some support in developing new ways to manage negative emotions and thoughts (without any food items having to be devoured in the process), please get in touch with me at info@thefoodtherapyclinic.com.

"Don’t let your mind bully your body into believing it must carry the burden of its worries." – Astrid Alauda