A couple of weeks ago, I wrote that developing my own food protocol and creating daily food plans were two of the three things that helped me to have significant and lasting weight loss. Today, I’m writing about the third thing: feelings. Learning how to acknowledge, identify, and process my feelings is, hands down, one the three absolutely necessary things that I have done in order to lose weight and keep it off.
For any woman who, like me, has struggled with her relationship with food and eating, and subsequently, her weight, I can guarantee that an inability to identify, acknowledge, accept, allow, and process feelings is at the heart of it. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s been true for me.
Why has it been so difficult for me to deal with my feelings? Because, like most people, I was never taught how to experience them, and I was never taught that it’s normal to experience a full range of emotions, from deep sadness and grief to joy, excitement, and happiness. In the past, emotions would arise and I wouldn’t know what to do. I was afraid of them. I thought that they would consume me, take over, and I wouldn’t be able to control them.
When I didn’t know what to do with emotions, I resisted or avoided them, most effectively by eating, overeating, obsessing about what I was going to eat, bingeing, purging, restricting, and then beating up myself when I did those things. Rinsed and repeated, over and over.
During my life and weight coach certification through The Life Coach School, I learned a great deal about and grew in my understanding of feelings. I also learned some effective tools and strategies for processing them. Recently, I reread the beautiful book, Eating in the Light of the Moon, by Dr. Anita Johnston. Dr. Johnston uses metaphors and folklore to illuminate the underlying issues and conflicts that lead women to use food and eating to deal with life. Food and eating are distractions that keep women from dealing with the real issues in their lives. One of the issues is the inability to process feelings.
In this and next week’s blog posts, I want to provide information on feelings that most people don’t consider, as well as some techniques for experiencing feelings in meaningful and productive ways. This week, I’ll go over what I learned during my coach training. Next week, I’ll dive into Dr. Anita Johnston’s work.
Let’s Start with the Basics.
What is a feeling?
A feeling is a vibration in the body.
A feeling is caused or triggered by a thought.
A feeling cannot hurt anyone.
A feeling has a relatively short life span.
Even though we label feelings as good or bad, positive or negative, they really aren’t any of these things. They just are.
Feelings come and go, ebb and flow, peak and recede, they leave and they return.
What Do We Do with Our Feelings When We Don’t Know What to Do?
Many of us (most of us?) are never taught how to experience emotions. We are not encouraged to talk about our feelings.
I didn’t know how to deal with my feelings, so I obsessed about food instead. I planned meals. I planned binges. I ate. I overate. I binged. I purged. I restricted.
The result?
Eating numbed my feelings.
Eating suffocated my feelings.
But my original feelings were still there. Unresolved and hidden, but still there.
I admonished myself for my overeating and bingeing. I berated myself. I regretted my actions. I shamed myself, and I was overwhelmed by feelings of guilt and self-loathing.
Instead of daylighting my feelings (because I didn’t know how), I filled my life with work and obligation. But it was never enough. Not good enough. Didn’t produce enough. Didn’t serve enough.
I would create elaborate food plans – what I could eat, what I couldn’t. How much I could eat, both in public and in private. I had so many rules that I had to follow, I couldn’t keep track. All in an attempt to block out my feelings.
Even though I dulled my feelings, they didn’t go anywhere. They persisted.
And on top of the feelings I was reluctant to feel – anger, sadness, loneliness, jealousy, frustration, and even happiness – I also had feelings of guilt, shame, and loathing over my eating habits and weight gain, too.
So the eating and weight gain didn’t help me deal with feelings. They only compounded them. And the worse I felt overall, the more I ate. And the more I ate, the more weight I gained. On and on it went, for years and decades.
How Can We Acknowledge, Allow, and Process Feelings?
Today, I know that feelings cannot hurt me. I experience discomfort when I resist them, but I gain clarity, understanding, and greater self-awareness when I allow and process them.
When I allow, accept, and process feelings with curiosity and nonjudgment, I learn to listen to myself, to be with myself, and how to take care of myself in healthy ways.
I know that life is meant to be 50-50, that I am supposed to feel uncomfortable emotions as well as those that seem easier, more pleasant, and more desirable. I remind myself that feelings are neither good nor bad. They are vibrations in my body brought about by my thoughts about my experiences.
When I’m willing to feel any emotion that arises, I learn and grow. Feelings are my teachers. So rather than eat, overeat, and binge, I process my feelings.
How to Process a Feeling
First, be the watcher. Witness the emotion with curiosity, compassion, and nonjudgment.
Sit beside it, without being mired in it, without resistance or struggle.
Second, ask:
What am I feeling right now?
Where is this feeling in my body?
What color is this feeling?
Is this feeling hot or cold? Hard or soft? Fast or slow?
Is this feeling smooth or rough, silky or bumpy?
How does this feeling make me want to act or react?
Do I know why I’m feeling this?
Third, breathe into the feeling. A slow four-count inhalation, a brief hold, a slow six to eight-count exhalation, and brief hold works well. Repeat.
The feeling will begin to ease.
Fourth, follow up by writing about the emotion.
Think about the five W’s – who, what, when, where, and why of the feeling.
This work helps me to see patterns in my thoughts, feelings, and actions objectively.
Then I can decide where I want to make changes in my life.
I know now that this isn’t a quick or easy fix. This is an essential life skill for me. One I must practice daily. Some days are easier than others. Some days, I am full of resistance. But rather than overeat and binge in response, I create space for myself. Within this space, I witness the resistance without judgment. I learn and I grow.