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Free online training with author Karly Randolph Pitman on September 20, 2017. Replays available
Like an iceberg, what drives overeating lies below the surface.
There are five primary reasons why we turn to food – either in emotional eating, overeating, or binge eating. In each case, you’re eating to meet a need – and not because you’re deficient, lacking in will power, or because there’s something wrong with you.
In a nutshell: overeating is an attempt to feel safe and connected in the face of disconnection, overwhelm, pain, and separation.
The fierce intelligence and wisdom in overeating
I view overeating with tremendous respect and deep listening: it has intelligence and wisdom and even love in it. In other words, if you’re overeating, there’s a valid reason.
Approaching these reasons and the overeating itself with curiosity and compassion – rather than moral judgment – creates the space, rest, and room to respond to your needs differently and to grow out of overeating.
Understanding the emotions and needs that drive overeating brings you face to face with this intelligence, your vulnerability, and all your attempts to care for yourself, to soothe pain, and to feel empowered.
Healing through relationship
With this approach, you’re not trying to cope with the pain that feeds the overeating, or trying to manage or control the impulse to overeat. Both of these approaches are exhausting, and don’t work.
Instead, no matter how you’re relying on food to meet your needs, you heal by turning towards your pain, relating to it with kindness and compassion. As you change how you relate to the needs, feelings, pain, and conflicting emotions that lie underneath the overeating, over time, you unwind, drain and resolve the emotional pain and internal conflicts that drive the overeating.
The result is two fold – less emotional pain and greater empowerment to care for your needs and emotions without overeating. A change in relationship fosters new ways of responding.
What about physiological reasons for cravings, binge eating and overeating?
While this article covers the emotional or psychological reasons for overeating, it doesn’t cover the physical reasons. Physical reasons for overeating include low blood sugar, food allergies or intolerance, sugar sensitivity, candida overgrowth, vitamin or mineral deficiencies, hormonal imbalances, and more.
I don’t cover them here as they aren’t my area of expertise. However, they’re worth exploring, and I invite you to explore the work of Donna Gates and the Body Ecology Diet, Dr. Julia Ross and her book The Diet Cure, Dr. Mark Hyman, Dr. Kathleen des Maisons, or your health practitioner for more help in these areas.
What’s driving the overeating – five main emotions
Now I’m going to turn to the five main reasons why you overeat. In each case, I’ll describe the need and primary emotion that drives the overeating as well as tools and practices to help you shift.
Elevated alarm
This is eating to soothe the build up of anxiety, fear, inner tension, or stress. In this instance, overeating is almost like a panic attack. (Read more here about how a binge is a cry for connection and a cry for help.) When you finally eat the food fix, you’ve “had” it. The anxiety has reached its breaking point, and you turn to food to cope.
The metaphor I use is that of a tea kettle that reaches a boil. The kettle boils, the whistle blows, and the steam and pressure finally releases. In this instance, when you binge or overeat, you initially feel better because you’ve lowered the anxiety and stress.
Often, underneath overeating you find undigested grief, loss, fear or trauma. These experiences may still be living in the nervous system, and can drive this build up of alarm that seeks relief in food. In the work of the Grief Recovery Institute, they call things like overeating “short term energy releasing behaviors,” because in the short term, they do release the pressure and build up of painful emotions – even though they don’t provide relief or digest the emotion over the long term.
Here’s what to do instead:
1. When you’re in the intense space of wanting to binge, you need to protect yourself, to ride the storm of emotion without overeating. I find the damage control tool from EBT, emotional brain training, very helpful in lowering the build up of stress. You can also sign up for the free Binge Rescue worksheet here.
2. Find ways to come down, to lower the anxiety, overarousal, inner tension, or intense energy. Anything involving movement or rhythmic activity can help – exercise, walking, yoga, a bath, going outside, meditation, knitting, being in water, and more.
3. Drain the build up of emotion underneath. The ultimate resolution for alarm driven overeating is to drain the alarm, fear, grief, and other stored up emotions. Emotional support is often very helpful, whether that’s found in loved ones, friends, or a therapist.
Comfort eating
Comfort eating is eating to nurture, soothe, comfort, nourish or care for unmet needs or feelings. We may bury our true needs for belonging, love, acceptance, comfort, and companionship, telling ourselves we can survive without them. Or we may feel too vulnerable to express our needs honestly.
We may be so used to caring for others that we feel guilty or afraid in caring for our own needs. We minimize our own needs as we overextend ourselves and take on the needs of others.
We may comfort ourselves with food when we’re grieving; when we’re feeling sad that our needs aren’t acknowledged, met or understood. We may eat to soothe our disappointment over life’s no’s.
All of these things are examples of using food to care for relational and emotional hunger – what we’re meant to find in loving relationship. (I talk more about relational hunger in this video here.)
What to do instead:
1.Caring for your unmet needs helps you become both more aware of your buried needs and ways to move through the anxiety about caring for them.
2. Grounding – regular, rhythmic self care – helps you feel capable, strong, nourished, vital and whole. It tells you, “I have what I need.” This base of support allows you to care for yourself with greater honesty and attention.
3. Connect, connect, connect. The ultimate resolution for emotional and relational hunger is relationship – loving connection. Connect with a friend or loved one, connection with source or spirit through a spiritual practice, or connect deeply with yourself and with your experience.
Numbing out
In this case, we either can’t or don’t want to feel our feelings. This is because it feels too vulnerable to touch our feelings – we may feel afraid that we can’t handle our feelings; we may numb from our feelings because it triggers deep grief (all the things we wish were different), or we may suppress our feelings because we don’t want to feel the isolation when they aren’t acknowledged by others.
When the vulnerability becomes too much to bear, the brain moves into self protection mode. We don’t even allow ourselves to feel our feelings or to have needs – it feels too scary to have them and then feel the void when they’re not filled.
Many of us learned to disassociate from our feelings and needs from a very early age. If, as children, our needs were minimized (“It’s not so bad”), suppressed, edited (“You can’t be hungry – you just ate lunch two hours ago!”), or denied, we learn to eventually stop needing. We learn to turn them off.
We also numb out because we feel ashamed. We see something we don’t like about ourselves and we hide from it in food.
What to do instead:
1. Safety is crucial. Create physical safety with grounding, regular, rhythmic self-care.
2. Create emotional safety with compassion – softening self judgment, blame, and shame.
3. Find a compassionate witness. Whether it’s a 12 step group, a church group, a friend, a loved one, or counselor, we all need someone to listen to our hurts and help us process them.
5. The practice of acceptance helps us mourn – to grieve what we can’t change – so that we can move forward and change what we can.
Frustration
This is when “frustration turns foul,” to use the words of developmental psychologist Dr. Gordon Neufeld. In an average day, there are many things that go wrong – the dishwasher breaks, the babysitter’s late, the bill’s overdue, the traffic’s stalled – not to mention the larger frustrations of life!
When these frustrations reach a boiling point, we get stuck. We’ve had it, we’re over it, we’re done with what isn’t working. Eventually, we explode. We explode at others, at ourselves, or in food. Like the tea pot, we’ve boiled over again.
What to do instead:
1. Change what you can change. Can you move to lower the frustration in some way? Do it!
2. If you can’t change the situation, move to these alternatives. First, as frustration is an intense emotion, your first priority is to ride the wave of the intensity without bingeing – not to explore the deep source of the frustration. The damage control tool from EBT, emotional brain training, is also helpful in this case.
3. When the intensity lowers, move to inquiry. Acknowledge your frustration. We’re very quick to say, “It’s all good.” Or, “I’m okay,” when we’re honestly seething inside. Give yourself time and space to move the emotions out of you. Consider venting on a piece of paper, I’m frustrated about…. and let yourself write down all the things that are frustrating you.
4. Move the energy. Use the practice of flowing to move energy. Go for a bike ride, a brisk walk, a run, punch a punching bag, let yourself shout into a pillow, or throw rocks into a pond.
5. Let yourself grieve. This, again, is the practice of acceptance. Let yourself feel the sorrow of, “This isn’t working and I don’t like it.” Cry your tears of frustration. We feel much better after we cry – partly because scientists have discovered that we have toxins in our tears. Crying is a way of cleansing the body. Reaching this point of acceptance helps us move forward and find ways to cope with what we don’t like.
Self attack and shame
When things go wrong, many of us quickly move into anger, blame and judgment. Blame and judgment work this way: either it’s someone’s fault – or more typically – it’s all our fault. We blame ourselves for everything that happens in our lives; we blame ourselves for being deficient; we blame ourselves when we can’t make life conform to our ideas of how things should work.
When we’re caught in a space of blame we move into shame – “I’m bad.” I’m bad because all these bad things are happening to me…
This is too much to bear. Animals die without contact, closeness and love. Our spirits die, too.
To cope, we hide. We hide from ourselves – from our hearts, from others, and from love. Like a dog who hides behind the couch when he’s pooped in the house, we hide when we’ve been “bad.”
We hide from our goodness. We take refuge in our “badness” – and we do this by eating. We overeat to hide, and then we overeat to punish ourselves. We binge because it keeps us from the self care that helps us feel good. We eat because we know it will make us feel like crap – fat, out of control, disgusting, gross.
What to do instead:
1. When you notice that you’re eating to punish yourself, be very, very, very kind to yourself. Adding more blame and judgment only makes it worse.
2. Connect, connect, connect! Self attack feeds in isolation. Find a compassionate witness, someone whom you greatly trust, who can listen as you pour out your regret, sadness, and sorrow. When you’re in this tender space, you need to be reminded of your goodness – not to be reminded of all of your shortcomings.
3. Practice compassion and self forgiveness.
4. Even if you don’t feel like it, return to grounding as soon as you can. Even if you feel like a hypocrite, practice doing the things that care for your body – like exercise, eating regular meals, or resting.
I can really relate to this post. Especially #5. I am really good at "beating myself up."
I am just starting the Untangled program to help me break my old patterns that do not serve me anymore. Kat
Hi Kat,
I think we all have that voice inside that likes to beat us up. I try to have compassion for that inner voice, recognizing that it's just a scared part of me trying to keep me safe. This lets me take it less personally. I feel less alone knowing that we all share those feelings of "not enough" as human beings. You may also like this post on kindly relating to self sabotage: http://www.firstourselves.org/2011/releasing-the-…
XO, Karly
I really liked this one! It's SO incredible how you are able to understand this and put it so clearly into words. It's just amazing!! You categorized it so well. I relate to all of them. I feel like I want to write the 5 things down and put them on my wall. So that then… when I'm feeling like overeating, I can look at them and ask myself which category I'm in! Because sometimes it's hard to even know exactly what I'm feeling. So I think this is extremely helpful. Wonderful!
Kelley dear,
I'm grateful that this synthesis gave you clarity. What I find helpful about categorizing is that it brings understanding. With understanding, we can move into loving, kind, compassionate, appropriate action.
In my experience, what's needed is different based on the kind of bingeing. Frustration fueled bingeing is very different than comfort eating. That's why having a variety of tools at my disposal helps me – and I imagine helps you as well. What works for me is pairing a mix of "quick and dirty" strategies that help in the moment as well as more "big picture" strategies that facilitate emotional healing and processing.
With knowledge, awareness, and kindness, we can validate all our feelings while also moving into wise action. Yeah for all of us!
XO, Karly
Thank you Karly for providing such good advice for those who suffer with the complexities of emotional overeating.
You’re welcome Maria – thank you for writing!
Thank you for this synthesis Karly,
I love the fact that it is more holistic than any other information about overeating I have found on the web thus far. I am currently on a 3-week water only fast (in silence), and I am using the opportunity to not only the clean-up my body, but also research the emotional issues behind my over-weight. There are a lot :-), but boredom is really high on the list. At any rate, after losing 70lbs in this last last year, I do need to tackle the emotional state behind the weight if I want to keep going at manifesting my healthy weight.
I read somewhere on the web :
“There is no “trick” to weight loss, that weight loss itself is a relatively easy phenomenon to accomplish. It’s (recognizing and) dealing with the emerging emotions and other previously suppressed issues that constitute the true difficulty. The treatment must be refocused on the depression or the other emerging issues, until overeating is no longer needed to contain the emotional experience.”
All the best to you!
py
This too shall pass!
Thanks for this great article. How would you categorize the behavior of overeating while "celebrating" ? For example, you're enjoying yourself at a party or other event, and you're just letting loose, and eating and enjoying yourself. Maybe it's Thanksgiving, or a Wedding. Is there a proper category for that type of over eating ? I see it happening whenever I attend this type of event and I would like to know what more about it. Is this a type of reward we give ourselves, or ? Thanks so much for any thoughts on this.
Erika, this is a great question! Yes – we can overeat as a way of showing appreciation, to express excitement, and as a way of celebrating.
We can also use food as a conduit for celebration in a joyous and healty way. (In other words, eating as a way of celebration isn’t always overeating or something ‘wrong.’)
If this speaks to you, I talk about this more in this blog post here – https://growinghumankindness.com/sugar-call-for-praise/
Hi Karly,
I really like what you have had to say about the different relationships we have to food. But I think this needs to be developed further.
I think we all have very specific unmet needs that drive out eating behaviours and I feel that the connection between the unmet need and the food happens directly, not just because food is there.
There is an association between the overeating and getting that emotional need satisfied.
I see this as separate from comfort eating which is a normal human behaviour that is usually satiated once fullness is reached.
Overeating ignores body signals.
Do you have a history of overeating or just comfort eating?
I would love to discuss this further with you if you email me directly.
Much love to you,
Fran
Hi Fran,
Yes, this is a simplified description of the internal dynamcis that can lead to overeating – we could spend lots of time talking about those! For the sake of brevity, I just touched on those dynamics here.
It sounds like you’ve found some clarity about your own experiences with comfort eating and overeating – what drives them as well as how you care for them – through your own journey. I’m so glad! Warmly, Karly
Hi, Karly,
Thank you for sharing these great insights.
I’m an obese college student. I got this way from years of being stuck in numbing out eating, and now I’m also stuck in self attack eating. It’s a self perpetuating cycle. When anything goes wrong, I’m bad; when I’m bad, I eat; and when I eat, I’m disgusting, so I either eat more, or become motivated by my own belligerence, fast for a few weeks, give up when it gets too hard, shame myself for giving up, and fall back into the cycle.
You write that part of the solution is being kind to yourself. I know you’re right. But at the time, that doesn’t feel right. At the time, I feel absolutely convinced that if I allow myself any kindness, any leeway on the firm belief that my weight is WRONG, then I’ll just take it as an excuse to stuff my face some more. So I just keep internally screaming, in hopes that if I criticize loudly enough, it will convince me to stop. The reality, of course, is that I’ve got it switched around, but whatever part of me wants to believe hate is the answer won’t listen to reason.
I just wanted to say you’re the first person I’ve ever seen acknowledge the reality of self attack eating and I really appreciate it. I wish there were more support for this self destructive and self perpetuating kind of emotional eating. No one on various compulsive overeating forums seems to understand, and while people on eating disorder forums definitely can relate, I don’t feel right posting there. Reading your article has made me feel a little more validated in my feelings and helped me take steps toward giving myself permission to be kind to myself.
Best wishes,
Jaime
Hi Jaime,
Thank you for writing, and for sharing your story. I can imagine how frustrating and painful this has been to you, and I can hear how much you long for relief. I’m glad that the understanding of how frustration and self attack can fuel overeating was so validating and helpful for you!
You’re right – it does feel counterintuitive, very vulnerable, and often “wrong” to offer ourselves kindness when we feel so frustrated with ourselves, when we’re feeling caught in behaviors that lead to real suffering.
I’ll add a clarifying thought – being kind to ourselves does not mean a free for all. We can set a limit on unworkable behavior. But this limit can be set with a gentle, compassionate, warm hand, rather than through shame, judgment, punishment, or attack. In other words, you can say yes to all your feelings and inner experiences, while also honoring your values or need for health and saying no to overeating that hurts.
I share more about how these two ideas work together here – https://growinghumankindness.com/eat-less-sugar/
You may also enjoy these articles on healing the shame and self blame of overeating:
https://growinghumankindness.com/overeating-moral-failure/
https://growinghumankindness.com/fight-against-addiction/
Warmly, Karly
Dear Karly
I am so happy to have found your website and the wonderful things you write and say.
I am holding back tears after reading this article. I think all five areas apply to me. I feel so much hope from reading this but so overwhelmed. Inner me is jumping all over these thoughts and feelings with judgement. But there’s a voice somewhere deep down who thinks this is the start of the path I need to take. I just don’t know where to start. I feel so sad to be in this position, but maybe that’s my starting point. Sitting with this sadness for a while.
I just really wanted you to know how deeply your ideas and words are affecting me.
Thank you for this gift.
Hi Annie,
So nice to meet you! I can relate to your words – I think anyone who’s struggled with overeating can see themselves in all five of those areas.
And yes, all the feelings in response – overwhelm, hope, criticism, sadness – make sense. I’m so glad you’re able to sit with your sadness, for that’s an important turning point.
If you’re wanting to know a next step to start, you might be interested in this free webinar, a helpful introduction to my approach –
https://growinghumankindness.com/mother-webinar/
It may help orient you a bit to some next steps to take and how to support your healing process.
I just lost the love of my life from Dementia, I was his caregiver for eight years. I have found myself eating until I get sick, this has never happened to me before. I guess I’m wondering is this cause I’m trying to hide my grief or maybe a way of distroying myself. All I know is I’m so lost😭😭
Dear Debbie,
Thank you for writing and sharing. I can imagine the grief and many feelings that you are experiencing here in the loss of your life partner – both his death, the dementia, and what I imagine was a worthy and challenging labor of caring for him these past 8 years. It makes perfect sense to me, how in the wake of this experience and all that is has asked of you, you might find yourself eating more, or bingeing. And it makes perfect sense why you might feel lost.
As I see it, there is nothing wrong with you. Your feelings and experience merely sounds like a natural and normal reaction to a huge loss, and the grief that knocks on your heart and in swims in your body. How courageous of you to walk through this time and to feel it. I hope your heart is held in a lot of love and safety by your community, family and friends as you care for all these tender feelings.
I just came upon your website last night and feel as if all your facts about why people overeat apply to me.
I was neglected as a child growing up and had very dysfunctional parents. I later married a narcissist who was very abusive and controlling as well as mentally unstable.
I ’lived’ a life filled of fear, dread, control, and abuse. He filed for divorce on three separate occasions and wanted to reconcile each and every time. As a negotiating tool, he fought me for custody when he knew that that clearly wasn’t in the best interest of our daughter as I get told that I’m a great mother.
I finally went through with the third filing as his next ploy was an unconscionable one. I was done!
Thirteen years later, I have become obese. I have been to psychologist after psychologist after psychologist to no avail.
I was a former model and NEVER had an issue with weight. If I gained weight I would eat cleanly and work out at the gym. I only gained 19 pounds during my pregnancy.
I really want to lose the weight and get my old self back but cannot control my overeating and binging.
I harbor feelings of shame, depression, anger, frustration, feel lost, and scared. I feel like I have no control over my life and eating seems to be my only friend.
Furthermore, I have no familial support and only one amazing male friend as I have always been hurt and betrayed by women.
I’m seeing a hypnotist tomorrow and really hope that hypnosis starts to alleviate some of my pain as well as give me clear-cut objective reasoning why I am in the boat I find myself capsizing in.
My hypnotist will be working in conjunction with my psychologist. Hopefully, the healing process will start to take place.
Would you provide a little more explanation for what you mean by “grounding” and what is”regular, rhythmic, self care”? Please include an explanation for “rhythmic” in this context. Thank you!
Hi Ellen, great questions! Grounding ourselves and regular, rhythmic self care are the daily routines that we do each day – the rhythms of waking, eating, movement, connection and more that care for our physical, emotional and spiritual needs.
Food is often used to fill the gap when these needs aren’t met – or when they’re met in chaotic or uneven ways. This isn’t to shame ourselves – this is often due to a combination of many things, including our culture, the stress of modern living (which is often very disconnected) and the trauma we can carry in our bodies.
Thank you so much for these insights. They are applicable to many destructive behaviors other than over eating, very helpful and practical.
H Gretchen, I’m glad that is was helpful to you! And yes – I can see that these apply to many other behaviors that we seek out when we feel overwhelmed, frightened, or frustrated.
How do you approach a family member is not open to discuss their overeating? I think he is approaching 400+ pounds. He has given himself permission to order two meals while out for meals and will bring 4 or 5 soft drinks to the table to drink during a meal. He does not want to talk about it.
How do you help an adult child with recent onset of overeating?