Start Healing Emotional Eating With Awareness

What If I told you to forget all about willpower in your struggle with emotional eating?

Would it make you cringe and make you nervous?

That’s exactly how I felt. I was petrified to lessen my grip. If I didn’t have willpower to rely on, what did I have to save me from those moments when I would loose “control” and overeat? It seemed counterintuitive to me, likely it does to you too.

Guess what, that willpower wasn’t actually doing a great job at all. Truth be told, it did nothing. If we’re being honest here, willpower has no chance standing up to the power of our hidden emotions. In the cycle of emotional eating, willpower is forever the looser.

I can’t recall when exactly this life changing recognition came into my life, but I’m forever thankful that it was in the letting go of what wasn’t serving me, that I began my healing journey (if you were sitting next to me right now, you’d hear a deep breath of relief and gratitude).

Not only is willpower not a part of the process for healing emotional eating, it sets us up for more of the black and white, “good and bad” thinking. When we rely on this thing referred to as willpower for keeping us “on track”, we have a very strict framework for what is “success” and what is “failure”.

Although this part of my life was almost two decades ago, I can recall the emotional turmoil of this roller coaster like it was yesterday. What I recall most clearly, were the moments when, out of nowhere, something would trigger me, and I’d be half way through a gallon of ice cream or a box of cookies before realizing what was happening. Where was my so called friend willpower who was supposed to stand by my side and talk me out of eating? Again and again, cycle after cycle, more depleted, defeated, discouraged and tired I got.

Willpower wasn’t ever going to succeed in talking me out of eating something. Willpower was dead upon arrival-knocked out by the power of deep rooted emotions, old stories and messages.

Those old stories and messages, full of emotional attachments, were stronger and more equipped to win the fight against willpower any time, day or night.

So, if I realized that willpower had no place in my recovery, what replaced it?

Awareness did.

This awareness I liken to preventative medicine.

The more aware I got about what triggered me, the more opportunity I gave myself to stop the cycle. It took time, I wasn’t always successful, but along with the awareness piece, I welcomed in some new friends called patience, compassion, grace and surrender.

My emotional eating healed when I healed, and I no longer relied on something called willpower to step in and save the day.

You too can begin the healing process. No matter how long you’ve been fighting this battle, it’s your’s to win.

You will do this.

You are your answer.

* I am not a licensed physician. This is only my opinion based on my experience, and what worked for me.