So in unraveling my emotional hunger, I really want to identify conditions that activate my emotions on a subconscious level. I am looking for situations and experiences that trigger the feeling of anxiety and isolation and emptiness that drives me to eat. I am not talking about having a snack, because I skipped lunch. It is eating that goes far beyond my bodies signals of satiety. I am seeking sweet and connection, through food to counterbalance the bitterness, isolation and emptiness. Emotional eating has nothing to do with nourishing and sustaining my body. Emotional eating is at best temporary fix that undermines my discipline and sense of self worth and hurts my health. I am working on resolving my reaction to relationship stress, financial stress, and illness constructively as part of my selfcare.
I recently identified a big personal trigger for emotional eating. When I am going to do an event or give a talk, my emotions bounce in the space between anxiety and anticipation. I always do my prep work and make it a practice to only talk about things I understand and love. I don’t really need to be nervous, but energy builds and churns. It is rajasic in nature. I am working to tune my vibration to engaging with the present, and joyful anticipation. Move up the emotional scale and stay in a sattvic vibration.
I have begun examining this in light of how I feel after I finish my presentation. I sometimes feel empty and more anxiety after the event is complete. I totally need to focus on understanding my emotions before during and after to see what is going on, so there is no eating to cope with emotions I am not recognizing.
What is going on with me? When I look at a picture of myself, I see the stirring. Here are a few things that came up when I took some time to think about my reactions after my last talk.
- Fear of Rejection I just have to try and remember that this life is a classroom built for our spirits to learn and grow. Connect with people after I talk. Reaching and succeeding, reaching and failing is all part of the class experience. Take joy in the process of learning and move on.
- My inner Voice I know I need to deal with my inner voice. It starts criticizing me directly after I finish. “You should have left more time for questions, you should have…..” I listened to a recording of Jack Canfield tell a story about this. He suggests dialoging with your inner voice and teaching it to be an advocate for your success. Tell it to quit picking on what happened, and focus on how to improve things for the future. “Next time address one less point to leave time for more questions. Have a couple of discussion questions ready if they don’t come from the audience. Next time put your display board up higher so it is easier to access. Up level your relationship with your inner voice. I am teaching my inner voice to focus on continuous improvement rather than failure analysis.
- Adrenaline Discharge My natural excitement builds up as I talk about topics I am passionate about. This energy builds up with no place to go. Before I eat I need to walk or breathe or do some grounding yoga. Not eat to calm and ground myself rather eat when I am truly hungry again. Stay away from tamasic (low vibration) eating both in motivation and food choice.
- Imposter Syndrome Stop the voice of self doubt, by asking for feedback. Take the feedback in as a toy to learn with next time you play.
So I need to address each of these each time I stretch into my trigger zone. Self soothe so I can grow without collateral damage. Then the stretch can increase over time and I can keep pace.