Ever find yourself “mindlessly” eating? You aren’t alone. This is a big problem for so many people. The key issue is that it happens unconsciously.
What is conscious often is the weight gain or the fear of eating because of this habit.
My client “Z” tells me about the sudden and inexplicable mindless eating that just started recently after she had been doing so well for a while. She doesn’t understand it. She has been doing so good.
I ask the obvious question about what is going on in her life that is causing anxiety or stress and she simply can’t come up with anything. We begin tapping, which always helps to bring the unconscious to consciousness and lo and behold there is a LOT going on in her life that has been suppressed. This is very common by the way.
I know there is something bothering her if food is suddenly an issue when she isn’t hungry.
Old habits are very sneaky sometimes and need to be made conscious. This is part of creating a lifestyle change and not a quick fix, which never works for this issue. It is why I only work with clients over time and not in single sessions for food concerns.
Food is such a great distraction and it will be there as long as it is needed I find. The trick is to make it obsolete when it comes to cravings.
We starting tapping simply with where she was at, and what was eating her, and why she was mindlessly eating and after a few minutes she realized that she felt very overwhelmed. She had to do everything at home herself (she was a stay at home mom and this is very common I’ve found.)
She hadn’t even questioned it or realized it because it was her “M.O” as she described it. Therefore she was unconscious to how much stress it was causing her. All she knew was she couldn’t stop eating!
So we tapped on the following through the points:
“I always have to do everything”
“I have 3 kids and I do all the shopping, cooking, cleaning, driving kids, holiday planning and shopping, etc etc…” The list was very long and it got overwhelming during the holidays.
“I’m overwhelmed.”
“The real problem is that I can’t ask for help”
“I can’t ask for help because I have to do it all myself. That’s what my mom did. She was always pissed and resentful.”
“That’s what I have to do.”
“Woe. This sucks. Really bad. But I can’t ask for help.”
“If I ask for help that would mean there is something wrong with me. I should be able to do it all. Like mom did.”
“She was really resentful and so am I!”
“I can’t ask for help because in my family we don’t do that. When someone asked for help it was too much and I definitely don’t want to be too much.”
“This doesn’t make sense. Aren’t I allowed to get support?”
“I also can’t ask for help because nobody will do it right and it’s just too much work.”
“It has to be done perfect and nobody can do it better or faster than me. Oh man, this sucks!”
We noticed that she was in a real catch-22 here with being overwhelmed with too much to do and resentful about it, yet feeling unwilling to receive support. We spent a lot of time working through the details of why this was and going back to specific incidents in her past with her mother and her family that this pattern was from and then opened it up to possibilities tapping.
Tapping through the points coming up with a new possibility:
“What if I was wrong about this?”
“What if it isn’t asking for help, like something is wrong with me, but something is right about me?”
“What if it is good to get support and include the whole family, as a team?”
“What if I don’t have to be like mom and I have a choice?”
“I don’t want to be passive-aggressive and angry all the time!”
“What if my yes could be an honest yes and not filled with resentment?”
“What if I could have a lot of fun having the whole family be involved with shopping (and the holiday planning)”
“What if I can communicate my needs without guilt or anger and be ok with receiving support?”
By the end of a good session of tapping this client had found her very big reasons for the mindless eating that had cropped up seemingly out of nowhere as the holiday shopping and planning began!
One thing I have learned for certain over the last 10 years of working with women about food and weight. It’s NEVER ever about the food.
Some people will restrict food out of fear of gaining weight and then binge out of hunger. That isn’t about the food. That is about the fear of being fat and feeling unlovable or unworthy. An entire cycle of constant hunger and cravings is created all from one false belief: a fear of something or a need to deny something.
When cravings and constant eating come from a lack of eating, skipping meals or whole food groups like protein or carbohydrates for example, the question is one of eating. Dieting will create a very real problem with hunger.
But the answer isn’t in another diet. It is in tapping for the feelings underneath the hunger and why we are restricting in the first place.
The client above was not skipping meals or restricting any particular food. She was stressed and unconscious as to why because it was habitual for her. Either way, the answers all were within her in her subconscious mind. The power is in our fingertips and our own awareness.
Eat like the Goddess you are and love yourself. How do we do this? We listen with awareness and compassion and let go of very old programming and beliefs that disempower us as women.
It is time.
Work with Sandy
