Understanding and Releasing Emotions Driving Your Emotional Cravings

Becoming emotionally aware is a process. If you have been avoiding uncomfortable emotions for a long time, it will take dedicated time and an internal commitment to healing to become emotionally aware. It is absolutely worth the hard work to get to the other side!

Imagine living in a space where you are not ruled by your emotions and you have the ability to make a choice on how to respond to them. Imagine not living in reactivity to—or avoidance of—your emotions. Imagine instead, living in a space of empowerment and confidence with yourself as well as with food.

When I first learned about mindfulness and how to connect to present moment awareness, it impacted me in a BIG way. I tend towards anxiety and have had several stress related health struggles. When I discovered how much of the anxiety I experienced was self-created due to my over-connection with my anxiety-provoking thoughts I was shocked. Up until this awareness, I believed that because I thought it, it must be, or at least could be true! 

Through mindfulness and the awareness of connecting to the present moment, I learned that I could choose to respond to thoughts and the emotions they create in a different way. When I began focusing on learning to become aware of my thoughts and if possible, change my thoughts (or at least change my response to my thoughts), my whole life changed for the better.

Delving deeper into the inner workings of my mind through mindfulness, I discovered that many of the emotions I was unconsciously avoiding were self-created from believing the negative thoughts. Yikes! There are some emotions that we experience that are caused by our own thoughts and other emotions caused by legitimate external circumstances. Being able to recognize the difference and make a choice on how to respond is where your power lies.

Within the process of becoming mindfully aware, you learn to work with the Pause when you find yourself attempting to distract yourself away from an emotion. You then can move into a space of Reflection: why is it there? In the space of Reflection you can begin to discern the difference: is the emotion self-created or not? Is the emotion a response to a thought or a true potential problem? Is there something you can do about this thought or emotion? Once you Reflect and discern the why behind and driving your emotional experience, you can make a choice about how to respond.

Your choice might be to take action, especially if the emotion has been created by an external influence. If the feeling is internally created by a negative thought pattern or if you have attempted to manage or cope with the feeling to no avail, you can choose to Release it, to let it go.

Letting the emotion go is such a powerful aspect of emotional awareness because it creates a deeper sense of self-control and self-respect. You get to choose. While this may feel difficult at first, it is a practice. When you mind attempts to focus on the emotion, you can have a grounding statement to say to yourself, such as “In this moment I choose to let this thought go.” Or you might visualize the thoughts and emotions as leaves floating down a river, or as clouds floating by in the sky.

When you Release an emotion, such as worry, you Release the discomfort this emotion creates internally. Worry can create an internal experience of increased heart rate, agitation, fear of what may go wrong with no supported evidence that it may actually happen. This state of mental discomfort can trigger further internal and physical discomfort such as muscular tension, nail biting and other physical harm.

These internal tensions created by the emotion can be linked to many other physical ailments including neck, shoulder and back pain, stomach upset, IBS, TMJ, difficulty sleeping, inability to concentrate and fatigue (just to name a few). The action of Releasing the emotion, which may seem simple but is definitely NOT easy, can completely shift your internal experience. The process of Releasing is a practice and takes time, effort and dedication to the practice.

The process of Releasing an emotion invites internal freedom like no other because YOU get to choose. When you are Releasing, you are not avoiding your feelings, and you are not just trying to cope with them—but you are allowing yourself to understand them and use them to enhance your life. Through emotional awareness and Releasing unfounded discomfort, you build Inner Strength, confidence and empowerment.

This nonjudgmental approach creates freedom as you can choose your thoughts, and therefore choose how to respond to them. This freedom and awareness inevitably creates more acceptance of emotions, self-compassion and self-awareness.

As you continue to practice the three steps to managing emotional food cravings, Pause, Reflect, Release, you will find how this formula can enhance many areas of your life. When you begin to practice, let me know how it works for you! I’d love to hear your experience and I am here to support you along your path to healing, self-acceptance and self-compassion.

How to Pause and Listen to Your Body: Integrating Mindful and Intuitive Eating

Learning to pause and listen to your body is one of the most profound ways to heal your relationship with food. Connecting with the present moment by being mindful and intuitively aware of your body is healing. We often spend a good bit of time lost in thought, mindlessly rushing from one aspect of the day to the next which often results in mindlessly eating.

When was the last time you found yourself looking in the cabinet and yet you weren’t really hungry or finishing a bag of chips and wondering how you got there in the first place? These things happen, and when you struggle with emotional and stress eating, it can become a mindless action used to avoid or suppress emotions and stress. When you engage in mindless eating to ease stress or numb out emotions it may lead to forming habit pattern of mindless eating.

This is where learning to Pause and check in with your body and mind can be such a powerful action to take along your path to making peace with food. When you Pause, you begin to engage with the present moment as it is right now. When you Pause, you are respecting your body, your needs and tuning into your intuition.

Within the space of the Pause, you create an opportunity to make a choice. This is where the power lies when you become mindfully engaged with the present moment. In the present moment you can check in with how stress or your emotions are impacting your mind, your body, your energy, your mood and your choices. When truly present, you can ask yourself how you want to feel and make choices based on this—rather than on avoidance and fear of feeling your feelings.

If you have been reading here for some time, you most likely already know the definition of mindfulness. However, I am going to repeat it, because it is so useful to have the reminder. Mindfulness is paying attention from moment to moment with nonjudgmental awareness. The non-judgment part is often one of the biggest challenges. Our minds judge by nature and create conditions that can feel pressured or uncomfortable.

When you engage with the Pause in the moment of a craving or when you catch yourself mindlessly eating or avoiding emotions and stress, you are essentially practicing mindfulness. When you use the moment of Pause and make a different choice based on how you want to feel, you are growing your mindfulness muscles (so to speak) to create more strength, awareness and comfort internally.

Now that you have allowed yourself to Pause, you can create and build self-awareness. Taking time to ask yourself, “What is happening right now?” “Why am I stressed?” “Why is this emotion I seem to want to avoid through food here in the first place?” “Is there another choice I can make in this moment?” These questions lead to self-awareness, growth and the opportunity to heal your relationship with food and with yourself.

When you allow yourself to be curious about your emotions and behaviors you create the perspective of non-judgment. You can be kind and compassionate to yourself, which will be far more tolerated internally than being mean and judgmental towards yourself! When you become overly judgmental towards yourself, you are more likely to emotionally eat, regress and feel shameful or like a failure. When you are kind to yourself you are more likely to grow, to push through the challenges and create the change you want.

Once you have examined the pause in a mindful manner, you have an opportunity to make a choice. What else can you do in this moment? Here you might opt to set a timer for 5 minutes and have a glass of water. You might choose to practice deep breathing or remove yourself from the kitchen, food item, cabinets, whatever is causing the mindless eating and cravings.

If you struggle with emotional eating, you may struggle to connect to your intuition. You may feel a sense of being disconnected from your body and your gut feelings. When you take the time to Pause, and examine the space within the pause, you will get back in touch and connect with your intuition and inner knowing.

When you Pause you can observe what is happening internally. Is there something your intuition is trying to communicate to you? Be curious and open to listening to your inner wisdom. Learn to become accepting of your emotions, internal experiences and inner guidance. Learn to listen and you might be surprise by what you “hear.”

Try this practice the next time you are experiencing a craving or you find that you are mindlessly eating/grazing/staring at the fridge: take time to Pause. As you Pause, look within and tune into your intuition. Ask yourself what you are truly needing and see if you can offer that to yourself within that very moment. Your body and mind are intimately interconnected and practicing this Pause will encourage and strengthen this internal connection.

How to Identify the Emotions Driving Your Food Cravings

When emotions are the driving force that cause your food cravings, it is vital to develop emotional awareness. If you have been avoiding emotions through emotional eating—or any other mindless form of numbing them out—this can feel like an overwhelming (and emotional) mountain to climb.

As humans, we tend to seek pleasure and avoid pain. While pleasure is an important part of life, generally, life cannot exist without both, and at times, this includes experiencing discomfort and pain. If you spend your life avoiding pain, you limit your ability to truly experience the pleasures in your life to their fullest.

While emotional eating can be triggered by any emotion, it is generally driven by a desire to avoid or numb out uncomfortable emotions. Discomfort is not experienced as pleasure and we tend to want it to just stop. Food can temporarily trigger the pleasure center in the brain causing a temporary suppression of the uncomfortable emotion. However, it does not just go away! It comes back, along with all of the other emotions you have been avoiding with food.

Learning to identify emotions and understand why you are experiencing them in the first place is essential. While it can feel daunting, knowing you have been avoiding the feelings for a reason, being able to create a more peaceful relationship with food, as well as with yourself is worth the effort. Know that this is a process, it takes time and indeed a good bit of effort. 

To get started, it is helpful to have a feelings/emotions journal. If you have no idea where to start with identifying, much less feeling your feelings, you can download a feelings wheel like this one here. Giving yourself dedicated time to building your emotional awareness muscle is important.

If you wanted to strengthen your biceps, you wouldn’t do just one bicep curl and expect to create the strength you desire and be done for life! You have to do many repetitions—and in order to maintain the strength you create, you must be consistent. You will most likely have to feel a little sore in order for growth to happen.

When you check in, you are identifying and exploring your emotions, this helps you build your emotional awareness muscles. You can continue to develop your emotional awareness by preparing yourself, having a plan, and committing to check in emotionally with yourself consistently.

Choose a time to give yourself space with your journal and emotions wheel and check in with how you are feeling right now. Ask yourself if there have been any emotions you experienced throughout the day today or even the day before that want to be recognized.

Once you acknowledge that a feeling is there, check in with how that particular emotion impacts your physical body. What’s occurring internally as you bring up or allow yourself to feel this emotion? Again, try not to judge your experience but witness it, be present with it, and if it’s uncomfortable try not to run from it—if it is comfortable, try not to cling to it.

Spend time observing this feeling and engage with it from the perspective of witnessing it. Become a silent observer of your emotions.

Now allow yourself to discover the why. Ask yourself, “why did I experience that emotion?” “What happened to create that specific emotion?” Try not to judge, just be curious. Name the feeling, observe it, and now understand the why. This is powerful information about your internal response to—and experience of your life. Emotions are valuable information about your experience of your life and allow you to make choices based on your internal experience.

Do you need to take action on the feeling? When you understand the why behind the feeling, you can decide if there is anything you need to do. If you are anxious, is there something you need to do? If you are angry, is there something you need to say? If you are bored, is there something constructive you could do? How can you take action in a way that is healthy and allows you to feel empowered and in control.

Now you have the opportunity to let it go! If you have allowed yourself to authentically feel your emotion, be non-judgmentally aware of it and derive the important information from it, you can make a choice about whether or not you need to take action. Now it is time to let it go. Releasing emotions comes with time and practice, practice and time.

Allow yourself to consistently show up for your emotions—all of your emotions—and you will find them to be less scary. Additionally, you will begin to feel more and more emotionally empowered. There are no “bad” feelings, just some that may be more comfortable than others, however, they are all vitally important to be aware of in order to make a choice about how to respond. Every emotion has a purpose and is a valuable element of being a human and of being alive.

As you begin to feel more comfortable experiencing your emotions, you can specifically apply these concepts and practices to eating. When you are experiencing a craving, you can ask yourself what you are actually hungry for in the moment. You may find more often than not, it is not actually food! Then you have an opportunity to make a choice.

You create the opportunity to make empowered decisions regarding how to respond to your emotions and how to choose the foods you truly want to eat—not because of an attempt to temporarily numb an emotion, but to enjoy the taste and experience of eating that particular food.

When you consistently practice emotional awareness, you will end the cycle of escaping your emotions with food. If you find you could benefit from support in this area, reach out, find support and begin to grow your emotional awareness. This creates an opportunity to make peace with food by making peace with yourself.