What if it’s Not About the Food? Sharing my Personal Struggle with Food and How Healing Happened…

Hi All,

Here is another guest post. This is from Ondina Hatvany, MFT. I hope Ondina's personal experience helps you know you're not alone, and there is hope for everyone who struggles with emotional eating.

“The constant craving for that chocolate chip cookie that won’t let up, until finally I can’t stand it anymore and give in…. Before I know it, the whole pack is gone… numb relief, coupled with self disgust because I feel so out of control. When will this nightmare ever end???” (excerpt from Ondina’s Diary Dec 1982)

Yes, I was once a food addict and at the whims of emotional eating bouts that left me exhausted and filled with self loathing. At the time I thought I would never find a way out of the not so merry-go-round of the fasting/ feasting cycle that had it’s grip on me. The breakthrough was when I first began to make the connection that perhaps it was not about the food… so, what was it about then? Here’s that story:

1985 in London, during the throes of my compulsive binge eating days, I was invited to a community in Scotland called Findhorn that was famous for its’ unexplained phenomenon of being able to grow record sized vegetables and fruits out of sandy soils. I spent a magical week living close to the land, eating fresh fruits and vegetables and meeting many interesting people. Needless to say, this was a welcome break from my unhealthy London life!

However, as soon as I was back in London, I hit the sweet shops driven by a compulsion that seemed stronger than me. I was on a massive sugar binge. Miserable and filled with self hatred, all of the magic of Findhorn disappeared. I was right back to square one, except now, it was worse because I had tasted something different. I felt trapped by the prospect of a future with this constant battle against food and my body.

That night I got a call from a new friend I had made at Findhorn. When he asked me how I was doing I decided to tell him the truth. Being at rock bottom, I figured I had nothing to lose. I shared with him hesitantly because I was so ashamed by my excursions.

His response was simple but it changed everything: ” Maybe you are looking for more sweetness in your life?”

It was an “Ah-Ha!” moment that changed everything: I felt seen!

I suddenly got that I was trying fulfill my emotional needs from food. There was a lot more going on here than mere over-eating.

Discovering the link of this emotional component with my struggle around food was the beginning of my healing journey. A journey that continues to this day as I explore with clients ways to break through compulsive binge eating, bulimia, anorexia and all the variations of emotional eating and food addictions.

Gone are the days waking up and dreading facing another day around food. Nurturing myself has become a great pleasure in life. This has created more freedom with food and my body image than I ever would have believed possible!

I share my story in the hope that others who struggle with emotional eating and food addiction might realize that freedom from vicious cycles of food, weight and body image issues IS possible. You might want to start with getting curious about the question: “What if it’s not about the food?”

Ondina has offices in Mill Valley and San Francisco. You can find her website at:
http://www.ondinawellness.com/

Overeating: A Response to Dangerous Needs

Today we have a guest post from Ben Ringler who is working toward his license as a Marriage and Family Therapist in the San Francisco Bay Area. It's always great to find new therapists who understand the roots of emotional eating. Ben offers us insight into how we may be eating in response to needs that feel dangerous...

Overeating: A Response to Dangerous Needs
Generally speaking, we live in a culture of addiction. Many of us make efforts to simultaneously avoid and fill ourselves because we are afraid to feel any emptiness, pain, anger or even pleasure. Anything can serve our addictions, drugs, television, sex, relationships, work and, commonly, food. Especially in our country, where we have abundant amounts of food, fast food restaurants on many street corners, supermarkets the size of small cities, eating beyond our body’s needs is common.

Challenge and Opportunity
Because food addresses some of our need for nourishment and pleasure, overeating is both challenging to overcome and an amazing opportunity for growth and self-acceptance. Challenging because we cannot avoid food like we can alcohol or drugs. We need to eat to food to survive. So, those who tend to overeat are consistently faced with their impulse to eat greater amounts of food (and types) than necessary. Opportunity because there are plenty of chances to become aware of the dynamic associated with overeating.

Eating Away Our Own Needs
How we eat often reflects how we relate to ourselves. Specifically, the way we eat is a mirror for how we feel about our own needs and how we go about getting our needs met. For many, having needs is (perceived as) dangerous. As such, the need to eat (or any other need that arises) is going to be anxiety producing and perhaps rattle the sense of inner safety. In response, overeating is one way that many have discovered to maintain a sense of safety from an inner world of unsatisfied and dangerous needs. For some, eating in large quantities may be a welcome pause from the anxiety of experiencing needs as dangerous.

Dangerous Needs
On an unconscious level, there are many who feel that their needs are dangerous. When those needs begin to arise, a sense of safety is rattled. As a result, one shoves those needs (and the fear of them) way down, often with food. Those who experience this were most likely either shamed and/or attacked or neglected and/or abandoned when they needed someone or something as a child. Their caretakers were unable to be with their own unmet needs while attending to a child’s. A chain of perceived dangerous needs is created. The unfortunate by-product is the association of needs arising with either attack or abandonment. As a survival mechanism, their needs (and the pain associated with them) were hidden from view.

Transformation through Inquiry
Food gives us a sense of substance, grounding, so there is some energetic basis for eating as providing a sense of inner safety. The question is, are our needs really dangerous? We can change our patterns over time when we begin to accept our behavior and face the truth of what drives these urges to overeat. From this perspective, if we begin to get in touch with our own needs, and the feelings we have associated with them, we can begin to break the chain of overeating as compensation.

Think about how you eat. First, bring awareness to the chain of thoughts, feelings and actions that lead up to a meal. Are you in need of food or is there something else? When you feel hungry, do you feel anxiety? Are there a lot of thoughts about what to eat? Do you fight yourself about what to eat? When you finally choose and sit down (or drive thru) for a meal, become aware of this process; can you taste the food? Are you anxious? Do you beat yourself up? How does your body feel? When you are complete, do you beat yourself up? Do you regret? How is your body now? Do you vow to do it differently the next time? Notice the repetition of these thoughts and feelings around eating.

Continue to notice each time you eat. Notice how you might resist noticing. You can begin at any time, anywhere. At one time, you adeptly learned to use food to keep yourself in tact and safe. You did the best you could and continue to. Keep that as a mantra as you simply notice how you relate to the overeating process now. This increased awareness will undoubtedly, over time, change you. New choices will emerge. It is not a question of will. Rather it is accepting the lessons that the behavior of overeating have to show you. Overeating is a doorway.

Ben Ringler is a registered MFT intern #52936, supervised by Patricia Herrera, MFT #37738
He can be reached at (510) 848-8899 or on the web at www.BenRingler.com

Ben brings up some ideas that are rich with opportunities to explore. How has it felt wrong, bad or unsafe to be "needy?" I'd love to see your comments!

This posting needs only two words...

Susan Boyle

See the youtube video here.

Then listen to her recording of Cry Me a River here.

Then go follow your dreams. It's never too late. You are not too fat. The world needs you. When you honor yourself, the rest of the world will honor you too.

Is the Mirror Your Enemy?

If you're an emotional eater, the mirror can really activate your inner critic, bringing up feelings of shame, comparing yourself to others or how you used to be (or wish you were). You could be feeling just fine and then, passing a plate glass window, get a view of yourself in profile and feel terrible. Suddenly your inner critic is unleashed, beating you up for everything you've ever put in your mouth. Ouch!

Common wisdom will tell you that the solution to this problem is simple: go on a diet. But if you're an emotional eater, it's just not that simple. Often the feelings of shame about your weight or size are what drive you to eat - using food to soothe the pain. And, even if you do lose weight, you may never feel thin enough or continue to find fault with different parts of your body. Dieting is not the answer to problems with body shame.

Ironically, the answer is in the mirror! By consciously using the mirror to practice neutral self descriptions, you can begin de-programming the automatic responses of your inner critic - un-brainwashing yourself, if you will.

I'm not recommending positive affirmations where you stand in front of the mirror and tell yourself how beautiful your belly is when you really think it's horrible. Instead, try looking in the mirror and describing your body without any judgment, positive or negative. Here's an example:

"My arm is pale on the inside and darker on the outside. It's wider at the top and then gets narrower at my elbow, a little wider at my forearm and then narrower at my wrist."

For many people it's easier to get started by making a list of body parts and then ranking them easiest to hardest to look at. You may spend a week getting used to talking about your hands or your eyes in neutral terms. Then you might move on to your shoulders or knees. Each person is different, so there is no right or wrong way to do this. Take your time and gently nudge yourself toward the more difficult parts only when you feel ready.

By practicing mirror work, there will come a time when you can look at every part of yourself from a neutral place. This is the path to true self acceptance.

Holiday Eating

There's nothing like the holidays to tweak your eating. My early memories of holidays involve special foods that my mom only made once a year, and usually only for company. If it was my job to put out appetizers, then I would always sneak bites here and there, being careful to hide any evidence of my eating. What I liked even better was clearing the table after the meal. As I carried the last of the potatoes or chocolate cake back to the kitchen I would secretly eat more of these "bad" foods - dishes I had to take tiny portions of during the meal, under my mother's watchful eye.

Even long time followers of the mindful eating/non-diet approach often find this time of year particularly challenging. It's also a wonderful time to notice what comes up. Holiday foods can bring up feelings of deprivation (I can only have this at Thanksgiving or Christmas or Hanukah...). Stressful family dynamics that lay dormant from January 5th through November 20th can suddenly emerge. Holidays can bring up old, unresolved hurts. And often the new year can lead to fears about the future or regrets about the past.

All told, it's the perfect recipe for emotional eating.

If you've been using food to self-soothe or distract yourself from uncomfortable emotions this holiday season, please don't beat yourself up or promise to go on another punishing diet or exercise program. Instead, see what it would feel like to be as kind to yourself as you would be with a dear friend. There is a reason you've turned to food, even if you don't know exactly what that reason is. Punishing yourself will only make you hurt more - and need to reach to food again to feel better.

If possible, gently observe (or recall) the events and emotions that have been present for you during this time. What feelings, thoughts or words did you have to stuff? If you could have soothed yourself with words, hugs, or tenderness, what would have helped?

Results Not Typical

I'm sitting at home, vegging in front of the TV. Queen Latifah is doing her latest Jenny Craig commercial - sharing her happiness at being a "size active." I wish the message really was that we can all be proud of ourselves, active, healthy and happy regardless of size. But standing next to Q.L. is a much thinner woman - we get to see her "before" and "after" pictures - showing that she's lost a significant amount of weight. And in the corner of the screen in small letters reads the caption: Results not typical.

All diets - Jenny's included have a 90% failure rate at the 3-year mark. There are so many reasons for this. Some of it is plain old biology - each of us has a natural weight coded into our DNA - and our natural weight may not be thin.

I know this is a hard one to accept for a lot of people. The messages we get repeatedly (so often that we are actually brainwashed into believing) tell us that we are all meant to be thin. If we are fat - it's a sign of something wrong that must be fixed. So, we turn to diets, to pills, to gyms, to coaches, to hypnosis - anything we think will "fix" us.

Sometimes, fatness is just a normal body type. Other times, there is an emotional component - we may "hunger" for something, but we are not physically hungry. This hunger is even felt in the body. The belly and heart have the largest clusters of neurons outside the brain - which is why we have "gut feelings," and "heartfelt moments."

Often we are hungry for soothing, understanding, connection, support, acceptance. What's crazy-making is that by going on a diet, you are basically saying to yourself, "I'm not acceptable, or lovable, or worthwhile as I am." If you hunger for unconditional love and acceptance, then the diet is a set up for failure.

If you eat to soothe, but you are getting the unsettling message that you're not okay as you are - then you'll need to do something to soothe that unsettled feeling. You may be able to calm yourself with exercise, stress reduction, or some kind of distraction for a while. But eventually you will probably turn to the thing that works best and fastest - food. This is one reason why 90% of dieters regain all the weight they lose.

What to do? Stop dieting - throwing money and energy away on pills and programs that are destined to fail. Work toward accepting yourself as you are right now. This is hard. Repetition and emotional intensity have brainwashed you into believing that fat is ugly, undesirable and unhealthy. However, more and more people have found ways to re-educate themselves and redefine beauty. Books like Zaftig and Fat!So?, movies like Too Beautiful for You, Hairspray and Real Women Have Curves can help provide a "counter-chorus" to the never-ending media messages about thinness.

Focus on health, rather than weight loss. Exercise comfortably and move your body in ways that feel good. You don't have to "burn" any part of yourself to be active and get your heart-rate up. Consult your MD or a professional trainer who is not going to push you to lose weight for safe ways to incorporate movement into your life. Pat Lyons and Kelly Bliss both offer books and internet support for exercise at every size.

Upgrade nutritional content rather than downgrading calories. Eat organically if you can afford it. Eat more whole foods and less processed or refined foods. Talk with a doctor or nutritionist who follows the non-diet approach to health. Google "fat positive" and explore the links for more support.

Accepting who you really are inside and out is a daunting task for many of us. You may have spent a lifetime making yourself a "fixer-upper" project. Self acceptance may mean remembering and mourning the painful times you've been shamed or rejected. It may mean learning to protect yourself from well-meaning others who continue to say rude, shaming things about you or your body. It may mean seeking out people who can and will truly love you just as you are.

When you create the safety of self acceptance, then you can have real results - results that ARE typical include - more laughter, more love, and more freedom to enjoy life.

Eating is not a Moral Issue

How often have you heard someone (maybe yourself) say, "I was so bad today, I ate a bag of cookies." Or conversely, "I've been good all day, I only had 1200 calories."

When we make food about goodness or badness, we take away our power to really know and understand our RELATIONSHIP with food, our bodies, and ultimately ourselves.

When we are "good," we give ourselves approval, possibly rewards, and perhaps, unconsciously allow ourselves to bathe in the invisible approval of a parent or other authority figure. When we are "bad" we shame and blame ourselves, punish ourselves, and bathe in imagined rejection or disapproval.

This whole process - whether "good" or "bad" really serves to distance us from the important question... Am I hungry?

If you are hungry, but not eating (or not eating enough) in order to be "good," then you are abandoning yourself - punishing yourself for past eating or potential future eating.

If you are not hungry, but are eating, then maybe you're not just being "bad." Maybe you are feeling empty, hungry for love, sleep, time, freedom...

When you make food a moral issue, you never allow yourself to get to the heart of the problem. Instead you get consumed with feelings of shame or avoidance of shame.

So for a day (longer if you like), try legalizing food. Eat when you're hungry. Eat what you're craving. And if you eat more than your body is hungry for, use that experience as an opportunity to be CURIOUS rather than ashamed. "I wonder what I'm really hungry for," will open you up to a kinder, more nurturing relationship with yourself. And if you're hungry for more kindness and nurturing, then this process may lessen the times when you eat to fill emotional emptiness!