The 5 Stages of Awareness: A Mindful Approach to Heal Emotional Eating

Emotional awareness adds tremendous value to life as it creates a rich experience of the totality of being alive. Understanding the inner workings of your mind, your heart, and your spirit requires an ability to feel and understand the depth and breadth of your emotions: all of your emotions. However, many people spend a lot of time unconsciously avoiding their emotions. Why is this? Because as human beings we tend to seek comfort and avoid discomfort.

Emotions are an incredibly valuable element of being a human, of being alive. They are a response to our experiences, environments, relationships, and our lives as a whole. If you have been avoiding experiencing your emotions for some time, or using food as an escape from your emotions, this may seem like a daunting task: to learn to be present with and feel your emotions. Working with the five stages of awareness allows you to experience your emotions and grow in your emotional awareness and well-being. Over time, you will create a sense of being more grounded, comfortable with, and grateful for the wholeness of your being.

When you embark on this process, you will stop trying to escape your emotions. Many people use food to avoid emotions and find only temporary comfort from the discomfort of their emotions. This leads to mindless eating, over eating, poor body image, and disordered eating.

When you numb yourself with food to avoid an uncomfortable emotion, you are setting yourself up for more discomfort internally. The emotions don’t just go away.  When food is the temporary solution to your problems, food then becomes a problem, leaving you stuck in a vicious, dangerous cycle. Use these five stages of awareness to break the cycle and begin experiencing your emotions. Allow yourself to begin the journey into some of the darker places within, in order to experience the fullness of your light. As Dr. Kelly Brogan says, “You have to walk through the wound.”

The foundation for the five stages of awareness is mindfulness. It is about experiencing your life, your emotions, and really being present for whatever is true right now. Mindfulness is paying attention from moment to moment with a nonjudgmental awareness. That means you are present with whatever arises in the moment. When you are present, you don’t run from whatever arises, you don’t resist it, you don’t numb it out. This numbing may protect you temporarily from discomfort, but it limits your experience of your deep internal world and can end up numbing out all emotions, the pleasant and more desirable ones as well. Here are the five stages of awareness:

1.    Mindful moment

By giving yourself a mindful moment each and every day you will connect with what is true in this moment. The mind may try to run from it, resist it and search for distractions. However, with practice, this process becomes more and more comfortable and leads to acceptance and peace. This is a moment of quiet reflection where you can just be.

2.    Recognize and name your emotion

Notice an emotion as it arises in the present moment and how it impacts your thoughts. Name it, not to judge it, but to understand it and to connect with it. Practice being aware, notice what is present without getting on the roller coaster of your thoughts and feelings. Notice the impact of the emotion on your physical body. This experience may be pleasant (happiness often comes with a feeling of warmth internally) and some may be unpleasant (anxiety often comes with increased heartbeat, muscular tension and shallow breathing). Notice your tendency to want to avoid or grasp onto the emotion and try to stay present with it.

3.    Create a non-judgmental awareness through observing the emotion

Here, you practice simply noticing and observing the emotion as if you are a witness to it. You are observing the emotions and working to release any judgment of your response to it. Judgements such as, happy (good) and anxiety (bad), are not useful in the process of witnessing and accepting emotions. Rather, you are now simply noticing the emotion and then sitting with it from the witness/silent observer perspective. Remain in the witness perspective for about 1-5 minutes. Set a timer, notice the mind’s desire to avoid, distract and move away from the emotion. Try not to judge that experience knowing that this process is challenging and takes time, effort, determination, and focus.

4.    Gather the information the emotion is providing you

In this stage you are tuning into the information the emotion is providing you. Understanding the emotion is useful wisdom regarding your internal experience. Allowing yourself to understand why you had the emotion in the first place will create an opportunity to choose how to respond to the emotion. Emotions are information about our experience of the present moment. For example, if I am happy, why? If I am anxious, why? This is extremely valuable information about our experiences. Understanding the why behind your emotions offers the opportunity to make a decision about how to respond. If I am anxious because I am worrying about something I cannot control, that is not useful. If it is something I may be able to control, how could I cope in more effective way or take action? When you understand what the emotion is trying to communicate to you, you become more self-aware. This creates freedom to be more comfortable with your emotions, the depths of your being, with your true self.

5.    Witness it and let it go

The final stage of emotional awareness is to let it go. Release the emotion. Often what is feared is that an emotion will bring you down, will take over, or will be unbearable. However, emotional awareness brings just the opposite, it lifts you up to know that it can be released. As you learn to let it go, you will feel more grounded in your being. As you understand, manage and cope with your emotions, you will become more comfortable feeling them, to let them go and move forward.

Begin integrating these stages of emotional awareness into your daily routine and notice the impact. When you allow yourself the freedom to experience your emotions you no longer seek out the comfort of escaping with food. When food becomes a facet of life that is pleasurable, nourishing and life enhancing rather than a battle internally, you will make peace with food through the process of making peace with your emotions and yourself.

How to Manage Emotional Food Cravings Along Your Path to Making Peace with Food

We all have food cravings. You know, that feeling where you just want something sweet, or salty or crunchy, or maybe all three in one! But why do we have these cravings and what can we do about them? Occasional food cravings are normal, however if you struggle with emotional eating, the cravings may be emotionally driven. It is vital to become emotionally aware in order to differentiate what type of craving your are experiencing. This will allow you to make a conscious choice in the moment of a craving. 

A general food craving is a message from your body. It may be trying to send you the message that you are dehydrated, that you have a nutritional deficiency, or that your energy dip may be related to a blood sugar imbalance. These are all really useful messages that are important to notice. When you truly listen to your body, you receive and understand these messages with clarity. A general food craving may also indicate that your daily diet is boring, uninspired, dull in flavor and lacking in a wide range of nutrients. The good news is, you can do something about all of this!

An emotional craving is different. An emotional craving is due to experiencing an emotion and not wanting to be present with it. There is a big difference. If you are experiencing a general food craving, you might be satisfied by having a small amount of what you are craving or a healthier version of what you are craving. With an emotional craving, this is often not the case as the food serves to numb the emotion only temporarily.

An emotional craving is far more difficult to manage and can lead to mindless overeating, weight gain and negative feelings about yourself and your body. The challenge is to begin to allow yourself to experience your emotions and have an alternative behavior aside from eating in order to manage your emotions.

When emotional eating has become deeply engrained as a behavior and your primary go-to coping skill to manage your emotions, it can take a long time to effectively manage and change it. If emotional cravings that lead to emotional eating do not become managed, it can lead to eating disorders, depression, anxiety and a low self-esteem.

Here are some examples of common emotional cravings:

• When you are feeling lonely, food will be your friend and keep you company.

• When you are feeling anxious, food helps to calm you down and temporarily occupy your mind.

• When you are feeling sad, food becomes your comfort.

• When you are feeling bored, food gives you something to do with your time.

• When you are feeling down, food becomes your pleasure.

One strategy to begin to understand what may be driving your food cravings is keeping an emotional cravings journal. This is a place to write down, acknowledge and process your emotions in order to more deeply understand the why underneath and at the root of your craving. Another strategy is having a supportive person to talk to. This may be someone you trust, or someone such as a therapist or health coach to provide support as you work through your emotional cravings. Learning to manage, accept and experience your emotions will help you heal your relationship with food.

As a Wholistic Food Therapist, my focus is working with women who struggle with emotional eating. I have put together a 3-Step Emotional Cravings Protocol that helps to stop the cycle of deeply rooted emotional eating patterns. If you would like a FREE copy, sign up for my newsletter on my website so you can begin managing your emotional food cravings today.

Making peace with food is possible. If you find you would like more support along your path to healing, contact me as I have a number of ways to help support you along your journey to a healthy relationship with food as well as with yourself.

Mindful Eating

Have you ever finished eating an entire meal and you don’t remember tasting one bite? Have you ever gotten to the bottom of a bag of chips and wondered how you got there? These are examples of mind-less eating. Mindful eating is just the opposite. Mindful eating is offering yourself the time to savor your food. Mindful eating is pausing for a moment to be grateful for your food. It is taking the time to notice the aromas of your food, to chew your food thoroughly and really taste your food. When you eat mindfully you notice the impact your food choices have on your body and your mind.

To understand mindful eating, it is helpful to understand mindfulness as a practice. Mindfulness is paying attention from moment to moment with a nonjudgmental awareness. It is being completely grounded and present in the here and the now. The past can only exist as a memory within your mind and the future can only exist as a fantasy within your mind. When you engage with the present moment, you are truly aware and awake in your life. When you bring this concept into every aspect of your life, you become more peaceful and content.

Living mindfully allows you to be conscious and clear as you make any choice. When you bring mindfulness into your mealtimes, you will be more in tune, conscious and clear about what you choose to eat. Remaining nonjudgmental is essential. When you are calm and grounded while eating, you are more likely to assimilate the nutrients in your food. Digestion begins before you even take a bite. Allowing this process to be peaceful, mindful and pleasurable will enhance your life in many ways.

When you tune out the stressors such as your cell phone, TV, emails and social media, and tune into your experience of eating, you will create a closer relationship with your food. When eating mindfully, you will notice your hunger and full cues with more awareness. This creates freedom to make a choice in the present moment. Eating mindfully offers the opportunity to recognize how your food choices make you feel: mentally, physically, emotionally, energetically and spiritually. Mindful eating is extremely powerful and helps to reduce and heal emotional, stress and disordered eating.

To begin integrating mindful eating into your daily life, try this practice starting today. Begin with one meal or snack and commit to eating it mindfully. Turn off your cell phone and any other distractions such as the TV or loud music. Take a few slow, steady and deep breaths. Look at your food, take a moment to be grateful for it. Notice the aromas of your food. As you begin to eat, become aware of the textures of your food. If you are eating with your hands, place your food down between bites. If you are using a utensil, place it down between bites. Practice chewing slowly and thoroughly, really tasting and savoring your food.

When you are finished with your meal or snack, reflect on the impact of your food choice. Tune into the physical sensations you experience after eating this food. Take some slow, deep breaths and notice if you feel satisfied by what you ate and how full you feel. Notice if you enjoyed what you ate. Become aware of your energy and mood following this mindful eating practice. Thank yourself for taking this time to eat mindfully and to tune into your body. As you continue to bring mindful eating into your daily routine, notice the impact on your relationship with food as well as with yourself.