Emotional Overeating is Often Associated With This...

Overeating provides an artificial temporary solution for a person’s problems in life and is simply not about just food and weight. 

Now here’s the thing, the problems in life may be physiological, or it may be emotional, but most likely it’s a combination of both. The emotional may have triggered the physiological but they may not necessarily occur at the same time. 

We often associate emotional overeating with this – the person is not happy, her relationships are unfulfilling, she thinks negatively and feels depressed, she lacks direction and purpose, she holds on to hurt from the past, and she doesn’t like herself. We think this person overeats to deal with pain; except the food in the long term makes her even more miserable.

Though this may sound true or familiar, I want to be clear, food issues, or struggles controlling what you eat, are two separate things.

Many people think to be free from food one has to experience a self-discovery transformation in order to become happy and fulfilled so she no longer needs to hold on to emotional overeating. This may also be true, but it is not necessarily a given. You can have self transformation and still overeat, or you can stop overeating and still stay the same.

That’s because overeating and transformation are two separate things which typically occur at the same time leading people to draw conclusions that they are one and the same. But they aren’t.

An emotional problem, eating to fill a void, needs to be addressed on an emotional level. A physiological problem, craving food uncontrollably, needs to be addressed on a physical level. They can occur at the same time but they are not mutually inclusive. 

The other item I want to address is about self-discovery transformation. Many people think of transformation as this one time big event in life. The angels sing. The mountains move. Life is a story book ending.

This couldn’t be farther from the truth.

The real truth about transformation is that life is a series of transformations. Just because you go through one, doesn’t mean there won’t be a handful more that follows. What I mean is if you have a self-transformation and no longer feel the need to overeat, it does not mean that there won't come a time for another transformation causing you to slip up and rekindle old habits. If this happens, it's not self-sabotage. It's not failure. It's just a new challenge to endure. You get up, dust yourself off, and you continue on your path. You don't beat yourself up.

This seems to be a misconceived perception about transformation. For me personally, after my first transformation about understanding happiness, I thought, ‘Ahh, my transformation is complete. I get it. I can’t wait to teach others.’

But the reality is, that happiness transformation was a first of a series to follow. I now realize that there will be more. I have not figured it all out. Nor does it undervalue the first transformation that I had. I don't have to question whether my transformation was the real thing. It was. Life just wants me to have more.

It’s important to view transformation as a progressive life process as opposed to a one time revolutionary event you strive to achieve. It’s an evolution not a revolution. The changes that occur can be so gradual that you don’t even notice them or they can be profound, but the truth is that it is both.