The Breakthrough Emotional Eating Podcast

BEE #137: Uncovering the Roots of Emotional Eating: How to Master Your Emotions and Transform Your Relationship with Food

• Kristin Jones

Share episode

Message me with comments or questions

Emotional Eating: A Mask for Deeper Feelings

Do you find yourself reaching for comfort food when you're feeling stressed, anxious, or lonely? In this episode, I explore the hidden reasons why we turn to food to numb our emotions.

Discover how:

  • Childhood Experiences Shape Our Eating Habits: I delve into how witnessing overwhelming emotional displays in childhood can lead to a fear of emotions and, ultimately, emotional eating.
  • The Power of Presence: Learn how to sit with your emotions, rather than running from them, and transform your relationship with food.
  • Practical Tool for Emotional Well-being: I share my simple yet effective technique for processing emotions that allows you to feel your emotions instead of eating to avoid them.

Let's break free from the cycle of emotional eating and embrace a healthier, more fulfilling life.

To access the Processing Emotions Checklist, click here. 


Connect with me online:

1. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/breakthroughemotionaleating/
2. You Tube channel, Kristin Jones Coaching: https://www.youtube.com/@KristinJonesCoaching44
3 . Website: https://www.kristinjonescoaching.com

If you want to learn more about a non-diet approach to weight loss, get my FREE Stop Dieting Guide. Go to https://go.kristinjonescoaching.com/stop-dieting-guide

Needing more specific and direct support for your emotional eating and overeating? Check out my online course, Stop Dieting Start Feeling, and my personalized coaching program, Breakthrough To You.

If you found this episode helpful, don't forget to leave a review on the platform you used to listen and share it with your friends on your Instagram stories. Also, be sure to follow me on Instagram @breakthroughemotionaleating, and don't hesitate to slide into my DMs to share your thoughts and feedback. Your support means the world!

Speaker 1:

Hi and welcome to the Breakthrough Emotional Eating Podcast. My name is Kristen Jones and thank you so much for joining me this week. One of the things that I discovered as an emotional eater was that I was not for a majority of my adult life. I was hiding from a huge part of my life, and food was the thing that I was using to hide from the fact that I was very lonely and that I didn't necessarily like the direction that my life was going in. But I didn't know what else to do. I didn't know how to fix it. I didn't know how to fix it. I didn't know how to address it. I didn't know even. I don't even think I was consciously aware that there was a problem, so to speak, with my life. I think I pretended a lot that everything the things and the emotions and the thoughts and the beliefs that that I did not want to be confronted with, that were there and they were present and I didn't like them, but I just wanted to ignore them, and so what I did was I used food instead, and I very easily could have just gotten high all the time. I could have just been a drunk. I could have been drunk the whole time. I could have just shopped constantly. There's so many things that I could have done, but for me, food was the thing that was most convenient.

Speaker 1:

And if you are like most people, there are probably things in your life that are not ideal. Most people have things in their lives that they don't want to address and they find a way to avoid them, and so if that is something that resonates with you, this podcast is for you. So what we're going to do is I'm going to present to you and kind of give you some information about what it is maybe that you're trying to avoid and why you might be wanting to avoid those things, and then what you can do instead of turning to food, and even just addressing this one thing could significantly change your eating habits, could change your weight, not even doing anything else, maybe not even changing anything that you're eating, but just becoming aware of the fact that you possibly are doing this and that you are using food for something other than what it is intended to be. Just that awareness and just making that effort to be a little bit more in touch with your own emotions and in touch with what you're doing it could significantly change the direction of your life, as well as your weight and your feelings about yourself. So let's get into it.

Speaker 1:

So, if you are like anyone else, you possibly again have areas of your life that you are not happy with, and I have spent probably the last five years coaching people specifically on emotional eating and why we emotionally eat, and the clue about what we're going to talk about today is in the phrase emotional eating, because when people are using food to avoid something, the thing that they are avoiding is emotion. They're avoiding feelings that they have and thoughts and beliefs about themselves, but it really comes back to the emotions that they're feeling within their own body. And so when we talk about, are you choosing to escape your life through food? A better question is are you choosing to escape emotions that you are having? And the bigger question is what are the emotions and why are you so afraid of feeling them? Definitely things to think about, definitely something to consider and to ponder, and it is, I think it is probably the most common reason that people use food or become emotional eaters is that it becomes a way of avoiding what is in front of you or what you are confronted with. That makes you uncomfortable.

Speaker 1:

And so the first, if we're going to talk about emotional eating, we're going to talk about, you know, using that to kind of escape your life and relieve yourself during stressful times. And if we're going to be doing that, there are a couple of concepts that we have to kind of talk about before we rush into talking about how we deal with this. And the first concept is again what are you escaping from? What are the feelings that you're escaping from? So only you know what those are, but oftentimes, actually I will say in almost all cases, we are not taught how to feel emotions or process emotions. We are taught how to react to emotions, and those are two very different things.

Speaker 1:

Processing an emotion and actually feeling it, and feeling it in your body, is very different than reacting. Reacting is yelling, screaming, throwing something. Those are two very, very different things. One is done by yourself, one is done within you, in a very solitary way, and the other is usually striking out outwardly towards other people or towards the targets of your highly emotional outburst or whatever the circumstances are, and so you have to remember that. So processing and emotion again, processing and reacting are two very different things.

Speaker 1:

And when we can catch ourselves and realize okay, what is it that I'm feeling? Can I identify the feeling? And then can I be okay just sitting with this feeling instead of reacting to it? And reacting to it is walking into the kitchen, walking into the pantry and grabbing something and eating something, because I don't want to feel how I'm feeling right now and it makes me so physically uncomfortable that I have to go and do something else. And so that it's a question you have to ask yourself, and probably right now you're like no, I can't, I really don't want to do that, I really don't want to feel that, those emotions, I don't want to even have those things come into my world. And so the next question and the next concept to think about is why are we so afraid? Why are we so afraid?

Speaker 1:

And in most cases, the reason why we are afraid to feel emotions is because when we were young, we either witnessed people showing emotions and being completely out of control, and it was frightening. It was a scary circumstance. It was a scary. It was to a child, a parent crying, a parent screaming. Depending on what your environment was that you grew up in, emotions could be incredibly high, incredibly exaggerated, very loud, very boisterous and very disturbing. And so if you witnessed that when you were five, six, seven years old, that is burned into your memory of like oh, I do not want to be that person. I don't want to witness that. I don't want to be that person. That scares me and that's completely understandable. But that was you as a child and we have to always remember that we are not still children. We get to make those decisions that make decisions about how we want to act as adults. But recognizing and realizing oh, that might be where that came from. I have this memory of blank, blank and blank. Somebody was yelling and screaming and I remember how scary it was and I went and hid under my bed or whatever the circumstances were. Recognizing and understanding where it comes from is so incredibly helpful, because then we can start to realistically say, okay, but that was me and I was a child. I didn't have a choice but to witness that and then take that in. Now, as an adult, I get to make a different decision. So that's one side of the camp.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes we have people who have witnessed very big emotions in their childhood and they do not want to experience that. You do not want to feel that because it's frightening. Then there's the other side, where people were brought up in environments where they were not allowed to express emotions and they don't know how. They don't know how. They don't even know how to identify an emotion, words to it they can't even say, they can't even identify what the actual emotion is. I find it very common for people to have two emotions happy or sad. And maybe we'll throw angry in there. Not even angry mad. Happy, sad, mad. Those would be the three, that's it. There's nothing else. Well, there's a whole range of emotions, but if you were never allowed or never encouraged or never saw someone appropriately express emotion, or even express emotion at all, that is going to be a very foreign concept and something that you will not feel comfortable with. And so, again, we get to make the decision as adults do.

Speaker 1:

We want to keep doing that same pattern, because it's not serving us. The only thing it's doing is causing us to find this other thing, and for emotional eaters, it's eating that will avoid, that will help us avoid that. So we don't have to deal with it. But when we don't deal with emotions and we don't deal with how we're feeling, it doesn't go away, it doesn't dissipate from your body, it doesn't. You don't forget about it. It stays, it builds and eventually it's going to come out, and it's going to come out in a much bigger way than you probably ever would want to have it happen.

Speaker 1:

So it's really important to recognize where did this come from for me, where, if I'm not feeling, if I'm not wanting to feel emotion and I want to avoid it, do I think I'm? I saw too much emotion and it scares me? Or I didn't see any emotion and I don't even know how to. I don't even know how to express emotion and, and especially, don't know how to express emotion appropriately. So those are your two camps.

Speaker 1:

So realizing that and then telling yourself it's okay to have emotions. That's part of being a human being. We get to have those emotions and we get to be okay with having those emotions. So, understanding, giving yourself grace and realizing okay, that may be how I've done it in the past, but it's not how I want to do it any longer, especially because it's causing me to eat when I'm not hungry, it's causing me to use food in a way that it is not meant to be used, and it has resulted in me carrying extra weight, not feeling good about myself being angry with myself, and again more emotion comes back onto that. So, recognizing that we have the ability to be able to now make very different decisions for ourselves as adults, moving forward and accepting and deciding how it is that we want to move through our lives, and do we want to keep avoiding emotions and continuing to gain weight or do we want to actually just say you know what, I'm going to allow myself to feel those emotions.

Speaker 1:

So, as a side note, it's really important to learn and know and understand that an emotion is merely it's going to sound really woo woo, but an emotion is really just a vibration in your body. It is nothing more than that. That uncomfortable, yucky feeling when you know someone's angry with you, or you feel badly or you feel guilty or you are really, really mad. All it is is a vibration. It's a vibration in your body and promise you it will not kill you. Your reaction might hurt somebody else or might hurt you, but the feeling itself, it's never going to kill you, it's never going to hurt you. Your thoughts about it, how you react to it, that's a different story. But the but, the emotion itself is just a vibration that moves through your body.

Speaker 1:

And so accepting and realizing I don't have to be afraid of emotions, I don't have to avoid them, I can just feel them, not create any more thoughts about it, and just sit and feel the emotion and let myself process it. I can do that and then I can move on. And I know you're thinking well, how the heck do you do that? Well, that's what we're going to talk about next. So I'm going to explain to you, and kind of take you step by step, how you process an emotion, how you process an emotion and allow it to be there. And the crazy part is that, allowing an emotion to be there and not creating any additional thoughts about it, the process itself at the most can take five minutes.

Speaker 1:

Now, I don't know about anybody else, but when I'm upset with somebody, somebody's done something, and I'm really upset, y'all, I can be mad for three days. I can be upset, I can be all the things. I can react, I can be angry, I can be all the things, and it just keeps getting worse and worse. Doesn't have to be that way. When you process an emotion and you allow it to be present, it's usually dissipates and goes away anywhere between 90 seconds and two minutes Promise you that. 90 seconds to two minutes. I know it sounds crazy, but it is in fact true. So, 90 seconds to two minutes, you can process and deal with an emotion, and that is that. That is. It's a game changer. It is a game changer because it's you processing the emotion.

Speaker 1:

It's not dependent upon anybody else. You're not waiting for somebody else to say they're sorry. You're not waiting for somebody else to say they're sorry. You're not waiting for somebody else to tell you that you're going to be okay. You get to feel the feelings, you get to do all of the things and you get to be in control of your emotions and not waiting for somebody else to come and make you feel better. Our emotions are all from us. It is not about what someone does to you. It is not about what someone says to you. It's how you interpret it, it's what you think about it and then how you make it mean something about you.

Speaker 1:

And so we have all the power. We just have to embrace it, we have to take advantage of it and we have to decide that we're going to do things differently. So how do we do it? How do you process an emotion? So the first thing you need to do is you need to stop yourself and recognize okay, I'm feeling something, and we all know we're feeling something. But we have to just stop ourselves and say, okay, I'm committing to trying to process this and not react and not do things the way I've always done them. That is something that is probably the hardest thing, because, from a subconscious level, our brain wants to do things the way we've always done it, even if it is ultimately dysfunctional and hurtful. We will keep doing things the same way over and over again, and we have to recognize, from a conscious level, this is not what I want to do. So you have to make that commitment to yourself. I am going to try this. I am going to process this emotion and not just react to it.

Speaker 1:

So the first thing you need to do is you have to be present in the moment. And the first thing is you have to be present in the moment. And the first thing is you have to name how you're feeling. You have to tell yourself okay, this is how I'm feeling, and try to stay away from sad, happy, mad. You know those are. Let's really, let's really get into you know. Are you resentful, are you angry, are you hurt, are you scared? What? What is the emotion that you are feeling? So, name it, name it and own it. And really, the second thing is you have to accept that that's how you're feeling. So many of us want to be, want to be so brave and so, um, uh, impenetrable that we just like, oh, I don't feel anything, I'm just. I'm so tough and strong. No, it's okay, it's okay to own that. You feel a certain way and just accept it and then again commit to. I'm going to actually allow myself to feel these feelings.

Speaker 1:

Next thing you want to find a quiet spot, if you can, kind of by yourself, where you can have a moment to yourself, and most of us always, always have our phones on us. So you want to set a timer for 10 minutes, because you don't want this going on any longer than 10 minutes. So, 10 minutes, you set a timer. Next thing is you identify where in your body you are feeling this emotion. Now, for me, it's usually in the pit of my stomach or it's right in my chest, especially if I'm angry. If I'm angry, it's chest. If I'm hurt, it's in the pit of my stomach. If someone has hurt my feelings, it's in my stomach. If it's in my chest, I'm angry. So identify where you're holding it in your body, because we all do that. Our emotions play out in our body. So where is it? Where are we feeling it in our body in that moment?

Speaker 1:

Then what you want to do is you want to give the emotion, wherever it is, you want to give it a shape, you want to give it a color and you want to give it a texture. So I oftentimes, if I am angry, it's like a porcupine or it's like a jagged rock. It's something with points and it's painful. I can feel it. I feel it in my body. I give it a color. It's something with points. It is in, it's in. It's painful, I can feel it, I feel it in my body. I give it a color. It's usually, if I'm angry, it's usually a very like a red or a dark, an angry color. But I would consider an angry color like a dark, you know, dark, brown, dark, gray, something that is dark, and usually the way I'm feeling because I'm angry, the texture of it. Oftentimes, if it's really something bad, it's not smooth, it's usually bumpy, it has all those points, it's jagged, it feels like it could tear my insides out. So I identify that and I visualize that emotion in my body, wherever it is.

Speaker 1:

Then what you want to do is you want to take slow, deep breaths, filling your lungs up, taking air in through your nose and then exhaling it out of your mouth. And what I do is I like to visualize my breath as water. This is just for me personally. Some people will just keep it as air breathing the air in. They take the air in and then they push the air back out through their mouth. I visualize it as water. When I take that air in, I feel like it's water. It's water rushing into my lungs, rushing into my body, and then I exhale it out and I sweep that water or that breath out over wherever the emotion is and I visualize it surrounding the emotion, it kind of breaking it up. I usually try to visualize the water as being a huge wave that's really powerful, and then I press it out as I exhale and I really want to try and break up that emotion with that water. That's why water works for me, because I find water to be very, very powerful. I'm also a Pisces, so one of those things, and I don't even believe in that stuff, but I think it's. I think in this case it's kind of true. So I take those breaths and I really try to have that breath or that water surround where the emotion is and try to start to break it up.

Speaker 1:

What's really important is that you stay focused on just visualizing where the emotion is, taking the breaths in and then exhaling it back at your body. What you do not want to do is you do not want to create any more emotions or thoughts about the original emotion. So we don't want to start, we don't want to keep having thoughts come up of like oh that he did this and this I can't believe he did. No, we've got to stop those. So when they come in, we've got to push those thoughts out. Nope, we're not thinking about that right now. We are just focusing on this emotion and where I'm holding it in my body, and what that does is it gives your brain something else to think about and it's something else to focus on. And you want to stay focused and not bring up new thoughts, because again, that just starts the process all over again.

Speaker 1:

So you want to continue with these slow, deep breaths for a few minutes and periodically just check and see how you're feeling, check in with yourself, see if it's broken up, see if it's starting to dissipate, see if it's not feeling so heavy. Maybe it's changed in shape, maybe it's broken up a little bit, maybe it's changed in color and texture. And the reality is that the intensity of the emotion should really start to dissipate within 90 seconds to about two minutes of doing this and as, again, all you're focusing on is the breath. Breathing that air in, I visualize it as water, exhaling it back out, visualizing it as water leaving my system and really taking that emotion with me. It is.

Speaker 1:

It sounds so crazy, y'all, and I can't even I, even when I do this, I, I, I explain it and it sounds crazy. But, honest to goodness, it works so well because it takes you out of the emotion, takes you out of the moment, gives you something else to focus on, gives you something else to really focus your attention on, because you're not thinking about what happened, you're not thinking about that person and if you do start thinking, you've got to push that thought away, you've got to let yourself be present and then, once you've done that and you can feel it start to dissipate, you have to let it go If you bring the thoughts back up again, you're just doing the same thing. You're going to get yourself just as worked up again. So don't do it. You don't want to feel that way. Don't do it, just decide nope, we don't think about that anymore. It's done, it's over, it's in the past. I can't change anything about it. I got to move on and that's what you do. It is as simple as that. But it takes focus and it does take practice. Like anything else, it takes practice.

Speaker 1:

Processing emotions is not something that happens, because most of us have never had any exposure to it, so we don't know how to do it. We don't even know what it feels like. We don't even know what it looks like. But now you have a checklist and I'm going to provide this checklist in the show notes with the podcast. So please make sure that you access the checklist and it again, literally, is a checklist that you can check off the boxes and have that with you, have it on the fridge, have it someplace nearby where you can. You can commit to saying, fridge, have it someplace nearby where you can commit to saying, okay, I'm going to try this when something happens, I'm going to try it and I'm going to try not to be eating anything, not to then turn around and eat something, but just really allow myself to process the emotion not react to it and feel how my body reacts differently. Feel how I feel differently in my own body and how much more in control you are in regards to your reactions and how you deal with the circumstances of your life.

Speaker 1:

You cannot change anything that goes on around you, but you absolutely can change how you respond to it. That is 100% in every single person's power. You just have to grasp it, you have to take it on and have to realize that that is your responsibility as an adult to take that on and to make that happen for you, because otherwise you will be at the mercy of whatever goes on around you, and that is a helpless, horrible feeling. Nobody wants to live life that way. We have to empower ourselves so we can make the best decisions for our own lives and then live the lives that we want to live. So, again, there will be a checklist in the show notes, so make sure that you access that, print it out, have it and start practicing today how to process emotions so you don't have to avoid them. You don't have to use food to escape from the things in your life that are not making you comfortable the emotions, the thoughts, the beliefs, the to-do lists, the things you're supposed to do at work, whatever that is. We've got to start tapping in to our feelings and allowing our emotions to be there, and then you will see significant change when it comes to how you then start to use food, how you then can change your relationship with food and not have food be the only thing that makes you feel better.

Speaker 1:

I hope this podcast has been so helpful for you. If it has, please, whatever platform you're listening to this on, please leave a review. Let me know what you think, and I would love to hear in the comments, in the whatever platform you're on, if there allows you to make comments. Please comment below and let me know. Did you use this? Have you tried it and how is it? Is it something that you think you can do, because it will single-handedly change your life? If you can get a hold and a handle on your emotions, your life and your weight will never be the same. All right, take care everybody. Great, great, seeing everybody today, and I'm so happy that I was able to share this information. I hope you use it and I hope it changes your life as much as it changed mine. All right, we'll see you next week.