I came across this article a while back and would like to share it with you. I was exposed to the concept of "emotional eating" when I lost 70 pounds on the Optifast program. Its contents resonate with me. I have a dear friend, who, newly divorced after a very restrictive marriage suddenly has gone from a size 4 to as size 12 (horrors!) and complained that never before she has used food to comfort her but finds herself doing so now...
Emotional Eating is no longer a new concept. It is something that has become a buzzword in many people's vocabulary. The media reflects the way food has become an accepted coping mechanism for almost every situation.
Kung Fu Panda eats because he is not living his dream. Samantha Jones in the film Sex and the City eats so she doesn't cheat on her boyfriend. And watching Oprah's body shrink and expand over the years has become a way to monitor her level of overwhelm or upset.
We are a stressed-out society and food makes us feel better. It's that simple.
Food is legal and readily available. Eating to alleviate stress is even encouraged by friends, family and the media. Stores, fast-food chains and restaurants keep developing new kinds of sugar- and fat-laden foods that are effective in numbing our bodies and minds.
The ever-growing obesity rate reflects that people are turning to this tried-and-true coping mechanism more and more often. The underlying reason is because we are in pain. We are depressed, anxious and upset. Food has been installed as a drug of choice because essentially it works. It soothes, puts a person in a trance and keeps people where they want to be - as far away from feelings as possible.
If comfort eating is so common, what's the problem?
1. The most obvious problem is obesity.
It's normal to reach for the comfort of food sometimes. Everyone does it. However, when a person uses food to deal with feelings they often find themselves becoming increasingly afraid to feel and that leads to reaching for food more frequently.
One Shrink Yourself member told us, "I used to eat when I was bored but now it seems like every feeling is an excuse to eat - anger, loneliness, happiness, exhaustion, all of them."
If you eat to calm your nerves one out of 20 times it doesn't generally affect your weight. But when you reach for food 20 out of 20 times your weight will inevitably begin to rise. If food has worked for you in the past, your mind will keep offering it up as an option and that leads to the next danger...
2. Emotional Eating doesn't teach you the necessary skills to tackle life's challenges.
If your mind keeps offering food as a way to cope and you keep taking your mind up on the offer, you're never forced to find real ways to deal with real problems. Your development gets stuck in the place where food became your "friend."
One member mourned the loss of decades by saying, "I started to eat for emotional reasons when I was eight. Now I'm 38 and I feel like I never learned how be an adult. Food was just something to focus on while my development was on hold."
The more you use food, the less you believe you can handle life without it.
The last danger of Emotional Eating is...
3. Depression triggers Emotional Eating but Emotional Eating perpetuates depression.
Many people tell us that the hopeless feelings associated with depression make them feel like food is the only pleasure they have.
A Shrink Yourself reader wrote us to say, "For years I convinced myself that food was the only thing I had to live for. I kept eating. One day I decided I wanted to get better, not bigger."
As we said before Emotional Eating feeds off itself - the more you use it, the more you need it. This not only makes you gain weight but also stops you from developing the skills you need... skills that would make you approach life from an empowered way that is sure to lift your spirit.
The answer always lies in understanding why you eat. When you can see which people, feelings and situations lead you to the comfort of food you can begin to pick up where you stopped learning and started eating.
Facing things head-on not only makes you less dependent on food but also gives you the tools you need to build the best life.
Dr. Roger Gould is one of the world's leading authorities on emotional eating and adult development. A board-certified psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and former head of Community Psychiatry and Outpatient Psychiatry at UCLA, he is the author of Transformations and Shrink Yourself. Dr. Gould is also founder of the Shrink Yourself online program, an effective, proven program that ends emotional eating.
Dr. Gould has a book and an online 12-week program for self-enlightenment.
The path of self-enlightenment has been so very enriching for me over the years; to my friends and to those who comfort themselves with food, this is another excellent resource available on that path. Namaste.
For all those who were energized by the movie "What the BLEEP!" or Lynn McTaggart's book "The Field" or for anyone who has heard of these pop-culture icons and has wondered what all the hopla was about, this movie is a "must see".
From the director of "Bruce Almighty" and "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective", Tom Shadyac has taken the clarity and vision he experienced following a bicycle accident which allowed him to look at death clearly in the eye to create a movie that substantially adds to the momentum of the healing of our planet which we are experiencing today.
We are currently part of an evolutionary process which became apparent to even the nearly blind to the metaphysical segment of our society when bank foreclosures took place at a unprecedented levels, and has been predicted to continue through the whatever evolution is anticipated surrounding the end of the Mayan Calendar. This film is part of the global awakening which will be the result of our evolution.
To my personal friends in New Mexico, Oklahoma and Iowa, the film is currently playing in the DeVargas Mall 6 Cinema in Santa Fe and the High Ridge 8 Theater in Albuquerque. It starts at the Varsity Theater in Des Moines on Friday May 13 and will start at the Circle Cinema in Tulsa on May 27th.
Join me in being part of the evolutionary shift away from a fearful world to one which is life-enhancing; a life our Essential Self was intended to live.
America is celebrating our military's raid and assassination of Osama Bin Laden last evening. Jubilation at "ground zero", in front of the White House and at Times Square. One of the great injustices purportedly inflicted upon our country has been, at least, partially rectified. The media is eluding to the "war on terror" is nearing the end.
Or is it?
When Dorothy's house landed on the Wicked Witch of the West, the munchkins celebrated in much the same way that we are celebrating Bin Laden's assassination. The tyranny inflicted by the witch was over. Now their lives would improve. Much like the jubilation of Americans these past 24 hours. However, the story of the Wizard of Oz, I believe, is a parable for the primary challenge of the human experience.
Dorothy is told that the Great Wizard has the knowledge which can return Dorothy to her beloved Kansas. Much the same as we place our ability to be happy or successful in someone else's hands or upon some future event. (Does "I'll be happy when..." win the lottery, get the right house, job, relationship, weight, degree, etc. etc. etc. sound familiar?)
So Dorothy sets off down the Yellow Brick Road (the only correct way to get to the Wizard) and comes upon the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the Lion, each possessing their own "I'll be happy when". On the way, success at finding the Great Wizard is taking too long and adversity besets the group of seekers in the form of the Witch's sister seeing revenge for killing the ruby-slippered tyrant. Finding that life is tough, the group takes a gander through the poppy field (the source of opiates such as morphine, heroin, Vicodin & Percocet). Subjecting themselves to the poppy's influence, usual caution is thrown to the wind and instead of relief, the seekers' lives complicate greatly. (Dang flying monkeys).
After getting the "monkey off their back" the troupe find the Great Wizard. Upon beseeching the Wizard's advice, they are told that their power has always been within them. All they needed to do was to choose to experience their desired result! Focusing upon Dorothy, the Wizard instructs her to click her ruby heels together and repeat "there's no place like home...there's no place like home...there's no place like home". Similarly to asking ourselves: WWJD? we remind ourselves that Spirit is our true nature and we are at "home" when we emulate the great spiritual masters such as Jesus.
As a parable, the story of the Wizard of Oz is meant to teach us a life lesson. Just as our power, rather than being held in someone else's hands, is found within us; our tyrannies are also experienced because we choose to experience tyranny - either because of the way we perceive things or because of boundaries we fail to set. Even Victor Frankl and Anne Frank perceived these truths while being subjected to the treatment while in a Nazi concentration camp.
And neither is our relationship with terror; until we choose otherwise.
The evening news is filled with items that we should be afraid of; each other, a certain race or nationality of people, a new virus or chemical; even growing older. If were to take each of these fears to heart, we wouldn't get out of bed in the morning (unless we were told that this behavior was dangerous as well). There are folks, however, who live their lives around one or more of these fears.
Who amongst us hasn't terrorized another to some extent? We yell at the clerk who answers the phone to a creditor that we owe money to. We blare our horn at the driver who drives too slow, doesn't move when the light turns green or who cuts us off in traffic. Our youth are inspired by the shoot-outs we see in the movies or on television and seek their 15 minutes of fame by overpowering the pharmacy or convenience clerk, or brandish a gun when disagreeing with others. The true terrorist is within ourselves.
When we cease our tyranny we will experience the liberation we seek. When we stop viewing our world as a dangerous place requiring our toughened spirit to be ever ready to do battle and practice true forgiveness of others - extending peace, comfort and compassion rather than embracing offense, we will do our part to end terrorism in our society. As I write this post, I am watching "Roads to Memphis" on PBS an American Experience documentary about James Earl Ray and his assassination of Martin Luther King. In it, Andrew Young, an aide to Dr. Martin Luther King says "We always said we were not concerned with who killed Martin Luther King. We were concerned with WHAT killed Martin Luther King. And what killed Martin Luther King was a reactionary attitude that was afraid of change for the better in America. It was trying to hold America, keep America still, when America was crying out to continue the evolution of freedom. I learned from Martin Luther King that you have to do what you think is right and accept the
consequences as they come. You can’t do things to stay safe."
