How to Integrate Intuitive Eating Principle 7: Cope with Your Emotions with Kindness

Principle 7 of Intuitive Eating is: Cope with Your Emotions with Kindness. This is a big one—and one of the most challenging as emotions and food often get entangled. It can be much more challenging to discern emotional eating from say a hunger or full cue as you are working with the principles of intuitive eating. Emotional eating can also become tangled up in specific thought pattern or a belief (or lie) about a diet as you are working to reject diet mentality.

Coping with your emotions with kindness allows an opportunity for food to be just food. It’s another simple but not so easy concept as you are working towards not using food as a coping skill to manage your internal emotional experiences that create discomfort and challenges. This process of coping with emotions with kindness is about understanding, listening to, receiving the messages from and responding to your emotions in a nonjudgmental and compassionate way.  This process really allows you to delve deeply into the root of emotional eating.

Many of us learned very early in our lives to believe and feel that our emotions are invalid, inconvenient, dramatic or unnecessary based on how they you were treated when expressing your emotions as a child. If you heard, “you’re too sensitive” “you’re so dramatic” “I don’t have time for this (temper tantrum, crying spell and so on…” “I’ll give you something to cry about” “crybaby” or “turn on the tears and see if you get your way” just to name a few, then you were taught a negative message about feeling and expressing your emotions. This becomes the root of emotional eating (or any other negative coping pattern).

These statements are unfortunately quite common, and all are quite damaging, especially when heard repeatedly. It begins to feel futile or unsafe to express your feelings and then eventually you either up the expressions in an attempt to be heard or stop and cut yourself off from you emotions all together.

The point here is definitely not to place blame, that just creates a sense of being a victim and creates a feeling of helplessness. The point here is to allow yourself to understand where you picked up the belief that your emotions were not valid, inconvenient etc... The point is to develop awareness as to where your relationship to your emotions became uncomfortable or all together denied. When you avoid or deny yourself the experience of feeling your feelings, you learn to stuff, numb, suppress and repress your emotions rather than express them in a healthy manner. You deserve to feel all of your feelings and all of your feelings are valid. Period. However, what you do with them and how you respond to your emotions can make a huge impact on the quality of your life.

If you feel completely at a loss when it comes to naming, understanding, identifying and exposing your emotions, that is ok! You can do an internet search for a feelings wheel and download and print it out to begin to become more familiar with emotions in general. This process can feel daunting at first because if you learned to repress your feelings from a young age you most likely have been working hard to keep them deeply suppressed, locked away deep inside never to be seen again. However, feelings don’t just go away, they are all still there and ready for you to open yourself to understanding, accepting and managing them in healthy way. I recommend you use the following process to begin the process of becoming more comfortable with your feelings/emotions simply as a concept. Then you can begin to explore your own in relation to your life more in depth. 

To start, go through the feelings wheel and list each feeling in a journal, one by one, starting at the center of the wheel. Write down after the feeling name a time you remember feeling that way or something that might create that feeling inside you. Then write down where you feel that feeling in your body (it’s ok if this isn’t clear right away, just try). Write down the opposite feeling state (e.g. angry—peaceful, happy—sad) for each feeling. After completing this exercise with all of the feelings on the wheel, use this journal daily as a place to release your feelings.

Our feelings/emotions show up as a message about how we are experiencing our lives. They are incredibly valuable information. It’s super important to use the concept of nonjudgment with your emotions/feelings. When you categorize your feelings as good or bad you are more likely to attempt to avoid the “bad” feelings. However, if you are nonjudgmental in your view of your emotions they can be more accessible to understand.

Your feelings may be experienced as comfortable or uncomfortable. It’s human nature to want to avoid feeling uncomfortable. As you become more familiar with feeling states, it will be helpful to begin to get more comfortable with the discomfort of your emotions. This is where your feelings journal will be helpful. You can use the following exercise to more clearly understand and then release your feelings. Try using the process each day to reflect on an emotional experience you had (or are having) and write down:

• Name the emotion you are experiencing/experienced.

• Where do/did you feel this in your body?

• How uncomfortable is/was this feeling on a scale of 0-10? (0 being no distress present and 10 being as uncomfortable as possible)

• What messages did you receive about this feeling growing up (or in your current life)?

• What is the message this emotion has for you now, what does it want you to know?

• What does this feeling/emotion need?

• Can you give the emotion what it needs, why or why not?

• Is there something you can do to cope with this feeling in a healthy way?

• Can you let this feeling go/release it?

• What is the opposite feeling state?

• Is it possible to do something now to cultivate this opposite feeling state in this moment?

• How uncomfortable is your original feeling now on a scale of 0-10?

After going through this daily as an exercise in self-awareness and self-reflection, begin to apply it to when you are having a specific food craving. Notice if you are able to release the feelings in a healthy way, trusting that this becomes more comfortable and possible with practice.

Emotional awareness is a process and learning to identify and cope with your feelings can have a tremendously positive impact on your life, your relationships, and your relationship with food. As you open yourself to the inner workings of your emotional world, you begin to free and liberate yourself from any fear and shame you experienced in terms of expressing your feelings in your past.

Know that this is just the beginning. If you feel there is too much to uncover, it’s difficult to get in touch with your feelings or they have been too suppressed for too long, know that you can seek support, you do not have to go through this hard work alone. Find a therapist, a coach or a trusted mentor and receive the support you need. This work is tremendously powerful and you deserve to feel, appreciate, understand and experience all of your feelings.

How to Integrate Intuitive Eating Principle 4: Challenge the Food Police

I hope you are finding the deep dive into the principles of intuitive eating created by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch to be helpful, eye opening and thought provoking when it comes to your relationship with food. Today I’ll be exploring the fourth principle of intuitive eating: Challenge the Food Police. This principle is really all about embracing nonjudgment of your food choices and releasing fear, judgment and shame as it relates to food.

The food police are deeply entrenched in diet culture rules, regulations and beliefs about food. The food police tend to show up when you make a particular food choice and then will label that choice as good or bad—which we know only causes an internalization those feelings and creates a projection of how you will feel about yourself. This plays into feeling superior or inferior in relation to your choices rather than grounded and accepting, which is how you might prefer to feel.

The food police can be an external force as well. The people, books, studies and otherwise that will make comments about your choices, question your choices, praise you for making a “good” choice and maybe look at you a bit funny or even make a comment—with judgment—if you are making what they perceive as a “bad” choice. All of this only perpetuates stigma around food, body image and ultimately creates internalized feelings of guilt and shame.

Guilt shows up as your conscience. Guilt is an appropriate and helpful emotion to feel if you’ve actually done something wrong. Let’s say you are frustrated and take out that frustration on someone you care about and speak unkindly to them. You may experience feelings of guilt. That person did not deserve to be spoken to in that way, and most likely if you weren’t frustrated you would not have reacted in this way.

The guilt you experience is a helpful compass that signals to you that the way you acted was not in alignment with how you want to treat others or show up in the world. Now you have a choice to respond to that emotion. You can rectify your behavior through an apology. Following your apology you can show a concerted effort to change your behavior. The next time you feel frustrated, you can determine how to more appropriately and effectively cope with, manage and express that emotion.

I know this guilt talk has been a bit of a detour, however, it’s important to understand the nature and need of guilt. Guilt is helpful if you’ve actually done something wrong. If you eat a cookie, you are not doing anything bad or wrong and more importantly you are not a bad person for making that choice. The guilt that may show up from the food police in your head or around you however may make it difficult to wade through and clarify these feelings for yourself. Recognizing the amount of guilt you experience when it comes to your food choices allows you to explore your own food police more rationally and in depth.

What’s even worse is that the food police work through guilt and shame and when those feelings become internalized it can lead to emotional eating patterns. These patterns increase feelings of guilt and shame and lead to things like eating in secret, feeling ashamed and an increase in food cravings on an intense and deep level. Listening to and believing the food police ultimately can lead to dangerous emotional eating patterns and overeating because they are bound up in the diet mentality, judgment and the concept of restriction. When you allow food to be just food and ditch the judgment you feel more grounded and balanced in your choices.

Noticing the food police is enhanced when you pair it with the practice of mindful eating. Making a choice about what to eat and then doing so in a way that allows you taste, enjoy and be present with your food—without judgment. Be aware of thoughts about what you are eating and try to align with the facts about it rather than any emotions or judgments.

Some nonjudgmental self-statements might sound like the following, practice using them to combat the food police in your head and those potentially around you:

• This food tastes good to me.

• This food provides nourishment.

• This food satisfies me.

• This food satiates me.

• This food makes me feel _______________(healthy, energized, grounded…)

Some ways you can practice speaking to yourself in a kind, food police revoking manner might sound like some of the following:

• Today I choose to honor my hunger.

• The food I choose is my choice.

• I trust my choices.

• I know what my body wants and needs.

• I will eat this food with a mindful focus and notice the effects it has on my body.

• I deserve to enjoy my food.

• I deserve to nourish my body.

When you engage in this process of mindful and intuitive eating you begin to strip away judgment, fear and shame. Ironically, you may find that you crave less and restrict less at the same time.

For this week, practice noticing the food police while you are eating one mindful meal or snack. Be aware of any feelings of guilt and challenge them, ask yourself, “have I actually done anything wrong?” Take notes and see how you can transition to speaking to yourself internally in a nonjudgmental and compassionate way when it comes your food choices and your body. Begin using some of these self-statements and feel the internal shift that comes with this powerful practice.

How to Integrate Intuitive Eating Principle 3: Make Peace with Food

The third principle of Intuitive Eating is: Make Peace with Food. This principle builds on the first two principles of intuitive eating, reject the diet mentality and honor your hunger. When you make peace with food you no longer categorize foods in a judgmental and stressful way. When you make peace with food, you allow yourself the opportunity to eat anything you want and to not have forbidden foods based on fear, shame or judgment.

When you make peace with food, you may also recognize that there are certain foods that don’t serve your body. This allows you to make an empowered choice to not eat those foods. However, this choice is based on your peaceful relationship with food, your body and your wellbeing—not fear and control.

When you feel as though you are at war with food and your body, eating itself becomes stressful and possibly shameful. When you carry guilt and shame related to food, you create a host of other problems internally and this struggle only increases potential emotional and stress eating patterns. These patterns lead to constant thoughts about food—which is definitely not a peaceful way to be with food.

When you restrict certain foods based on fear, judgment and shame, you will inevitably crave those food and possibly overeat or binge on them. When you tell yourself “I can’t have that food” it makes you want it even more. This is why restricting, dieting and extreme rules related to food creates cycles of “I’ll only eat it just this once,” cheat meals, or “this will be my last fun day with food” before that majorly restricting diet that you may put onto yourself out of punishment for these other seemingly out of control choices. When you make peace with food, food can be just food.

Thoughts about food, fear about calories, worrying about good food versus bad food and what’s the right or wrong thing to eat all create stress. When food is on your mind all of the time it creates fear about food and can lead to eating in secret and feelings of guilt and shame. These occurrences will only keeps you stuck in the dangerous cycle of emotional eating. Making peace with food is a process and practice that begins with mindful eating.

When you eat mindfully you are not judgmental of the foods you are choosing to eat. You look for the facts, what is true and release emotions surrounding food. That doesn’t mean you can’t look forward to eating a particular food, enjoy it and savor the process of eating. Quite the opposite really! When you are nonjudgmental you get to release any guilt, fear or shame around eating certain foods and be present with whatever you are choosing to eat.

As you begin to integrate this step into how you relate to food, eating and your body, you come closer to trusting yourself and the ability to know what your body wants and needs. Intuitive eating is about tuning into your body and its individual needs in relation to food, calories, combinations of nutrients and portion sizes.  Mindful eating is about tuning into your body and being present in a nonjudgmental manner so you can enjoy your food, savor the flavors and take in the pleasure you can derive from your food choices.

When you make peace with food you are intuitively aware of how different foods make your body feel, you honor your hunger and move away from restrictive thoughts. You are also able to tune into cravings and understand why the craving is presenting itself in this moment.

Cravings can be complicated. However, they can be addressed through the intuitive and mindful eating process and managed without stress, fear and shame. If you are experiencing a craving it can mean that your food choices are boring, repetitive and you feel unsatisfied. A craving could be a desire to release an uncomfortable emotion or to calm your stress. A craving could mean that you are out of balance nutritionally. A craving could mean that your body is out of balance. A craving could mean that you heard about a certain food and you just can’t get it out of your mind! 

When you are mindfully aware and intuitive connected to your body, you are able to make a non-emotionally driven decision about what to do with your craving. This process requires self-reflection, self-awareness and often some discipline to pause and give yourself space to consider what your craving is really all about.

The first question to ask yourself when you experience a craving is, “am I hungry?” If yes, “what am I hungry for?” If no, “what is the nature of this craving, what does it want me to know?” This is where you can get really curious! Check in with your stress level, mood state and give yourself space to release any emotions that need to be witnessed and understood. Did you get this food on your mind because it happens to be around, you heard about it, saw it, or smelled it?

When you experience a craving, you want to get deeply curious about the message of the craving rather than acting on it right away or resisting it with an effort to “be good.” The more you reflect and grow in self-awareness, the closer you find yourself to creating a more peaceful relationship with food.

As you create peace with food, you find that your thoughts are less driven by food, or if they are you understand why and have the tools to cope. As you create peace with food, you eat more mindfully and offer a nonjudgmental experience with the process of eating. As you make peace with food, you make peace with yourself, and this is the true gift of this process.

This principle of making peace with food can feel daunting as emotional and stress eating patterns are often deeply layered. Remember that this is a process and path to explore. There is no need to be perfect, just to be present, curious and attuned to your mind, body and your unique needs.

Finding where you can begin to make peace with food, one small step at a time, will create great amounts of freedom and space in your life for more pleasure with food. As you begin to consider how you can make peace with food, allow yourself to be nonjudgmental with yourself, the process, and notice how you begin to release old beliefs about food and open yourself to greater inner peace and mental wellbeing.