How Ignoring Your Intuition Is Causing You To Emotionally Eat
Nine months ago I found myself in a position where I “had it all” – the incredible partner, a dream job and a cute & cozy Toronto apartment. I was 28 and on route to doing everything a “good 28 year old” ‘should’ do – get married, buy a house and have kids. As an avid rule-follower and people pleaser, I should’ve been ecstatic. I was checking boxes off of the life expectancy to-do list and right on schedule. And yet, I couldn’t have felt emptier.
I had it all, but I really had nothing, because what I had wasn’t what I truly intuitively wanted.
And I paid for it. I paid for it by numbing with anything I could – food, alcohol, overexercising, overworking and filling my schedule as much as possible to “keep busy” (aka ignore the uncomfortable feeling of emptiness that I was terrified to sit in).
I realize I may have just painted a picture of a version of me completely strung out, living on the streets and going off the deep end. So, while I may have a Theatre Major under my belt and love to mix in a bit of drama here and there, I want to clarify, it wasn’t like that – but it may as well have been.
Like someone who is strung out on drugs and numb to the world around them, that’s what I was trying to do to escape my current reality by turning to external sources for fulfillment; fulfillment that was lacking in my daily life as a result of not listening to my intuition.
That’s what we’re doing when we turn to food; when we emotionally eat. We’re looking for quick relief to escape the discomfort of our current reality.
A lot of people assume that because emotional eating causes you to turn to food and has an out-of-control nature to it, that it means you have a “food problem” or an inability to exercise self-control or willpower – and that couldn’t be further from the truth.
The thing you’re doing (emotional eating) is not “the thing”.
What I teach in The Break Free Method, my virtual emotional eating support program, is that emotional eating is a coping mechanism. That’s it. Nothing more. It feels like something “more” and something “bad” because again, it has an out-of-control nature to it that makes people feel like they have a problem. That, paired with people’s deep-rooted fear of weight gain makes it a recipe for pathologizing the crap out of emotional eating and making it mean something worse and bigger than it actually is.
We turn to food as a coping mechanism when our basic and unique needs aren’t being met, as was the case for me last year (and the few years leading up to it) and for others (perhaps yourself?) when we don’t listen to and honour our intuition.
What Is Intuition
Defining something like intuition is tricky, because it’s really a feeling. It’s a deep-seeded inner knowing without conscious reasoning. When your intuition knows something to be true, there’s no denying it. Have you ever had a “gut feeling” about something? Maybe you just “felt like” something wasn’t a good idea. If you have, amazing – you’re already tapped into your intuition!
Why We Don’t Listen To Our Intuition
We’re people pleasers, we want to be accepted, we want to be liked, we want to fit in … need I say more? There are a lot of reasons why we don’t listen to our intuition and why we might doubt it, or undermine it.
We aren’t really taught to trust our bodies and the cues it gives us, be it the intuitive cue of feeling attracted to someone (“no, I couldn’t possibly be attracted to a woman – I’m straight!”) or a hunger cue (“I can’t possibly be hungry – I just ate an hour ago”).
Diet culture, a billion dollar industry, is a prime example of infiltrating our minds to make us believe that we can’t trust our bodies. It tells us what we should or shouldn’t eat, instead of the truth, which is that our bodies are actually really smart and know how to self-regulate without food rules.
As a result, we live in our head a lot, as opposed to listening to the inner wisdom of our body; the truth of what we really want. We brush off our thoughts, those tiny whispers [from our intuition] and convince ourselves otherwise because what we want goes against the status quo and we’d rather be a little less happy than be disliked.
The translation of that is millions of people are walking around feeling unfulfilled in the wrong relationship, the wrong job, the wrong friendships, the wrong gender, the wrong body, the wrong living situation – the wrong everything.
And shit, is that ever hard. It’s no wonder we turn to food just so we can experience an ounce of relief; a fleeting moment to escape the discomfort of our current reality.
I share this with you, especially if a part of your life feels “wrong”, to remind you that you are not the problem and that your emotional eating has nothing to do with your worth or lack of self-control or willpower – and that there is hope.
There is hope because we have the ability to honour our intuition and listen to those gut pulls that will bring us closer to the aligned, fulfilling dream life we envisioned for ourselves.
Over the last 9 months, I’ve left my relationship and left my job (to work for myself!). I traded in comfort & “shoulds” for uncertainty & “wants” – and I’ve never been happier.
Yes, it’s scary, but only for a fleeting moment. Because what’s on the other side of the fear and uncertainty is a life you wouldn’t trade for anything.
If you want to stop turning to food as a crutch to “solve” your problems (I put “solve” in quotations because food doesn’t really permanently solve your problems), start getting clear on your unique needs, wants and desires and listening to your intuition!
Becoming Aware Of Your Wants, Needs, Desires and Intuition (to, in turn, stop turning to food to cope)
I tattooed the words “trust and surrender” on my arm last November, because the truth is, sometimes you’re going to need a reminder as bold as ink on your forearm to remind yourself to trust that everything will work out the way it’s meant to and surrender to the fact that we really have no control over anything.
“96% of what you worry about doesn’t come true” is another good one. Both of these come from my mama, who you may know from episode 20 of The Fill Your Cup Podcast. We call these “mom facts” because none are scientifically backed, but neither is your intuition and that rarely does people wrong. Plus, when your mom tells you something, doesn’t it just make you feel like all is well in the world?
Whatever mantra or firehotquote (please someone tell me they remember that website) you need to remind yourself to trust the cues your body is giving you, use it.
These are some other things you can do to start tapping into your unique wants and intuition:
Raise your awareness
Instead of criticizing those thoughts or gut feelings when they trickle in, address them and accept them. These are whispers from your intuition that are trying to tell you something.
Feel your intuition with the “YES” / “NO” check
I want you to say the following statement to yourself out loud or in your head: “My name is _________ (insert your name here)”. Pay attention to what that “YES” feels like in your body (for me, it feels calming, aligned and “right”. Now try saying “My name is Cat Poo (or insert a name that isn’t yours here)”. Pay attention to what that “NO” feels like in your body (for me, it makes my tummy turn a bit and feels “wrong”). Do this a few times back and forth and get used to what it feels like. It’s faint, but like a muscle, the more you use it, the stronger it will become.
Learn the basic human needs needs and your unique needs
Hey, guess what? If you’re a human, you have needs! That might be news to you if somewhere down the line, you were told that you were “needy” if you had needs. Well, turns out, you do have needs and you very well might be needy and that’s okay!
Knowing that emotional eating has nothing to do with food itself and everything to do with unmet or unfulfilled needs, I designed The Break Free Method to help you become aware of what your unique needs are (aka what you’re actually hungry for when you’re not physically hungry) and how to start meeting them on a regular basis, and in turn, stop turning to food as a crutch.
If you are struggling with emotional eating and can see after reading this, where you might not be honouring your unique truth, intuition, wants and needs, The Break Free Method will help you to unlock them and teach you the tools to manage emotional eating effectively. You can learn more about the program over here.
And in case you’re feeling terrified that you’re going to have to overhaul your whole life to meet your needs and overcome your emotional eating, don’t worry. Yes, sometimes it might mean leaving a relationship, friendship or job that doesn’t serve you. Other times, and most of the time, it’s just making small tweaks to how you’re doing what you’re currently doing.
And on a final note, I want to leave you with a message that I needed so badly when I found myself not living the truest highest potential of my life just short of a year ago – it can make sense on paper, you can be with the most amazing person and have the house of your dreams, but if you aren’t happy, none of it matters. So, choose you. Choose your happiness.
This post was inspired by an Instagram Live I did with Barbara Erochina (who you may remember from episode 63 of The Fill Your Cup Podcast) where we talked about what “trust and surrender” really means and what it means to live and eat intuitively. Learn more and watch it over here.