This month there’s been a lot going on at Growing Humankindness. And one of the common themes I’ve been hearing from people are grieving the holes they’ve tried to fill with food.

Much of what we do here at Growing Humankindness is offering support and understanding as we grieve these holes. In this brief video, Dr. Gabor Mate talks about an insight he learned from my dear mentor Dr. Gordon Neufeld, about how ‘we shall be saved in an ocean of tears.‘

Sometimes there’s so much to cry about. There is so much we weep for – both in our personal lives and in our collective world. Yesterday I saw a young man standing in the rain with his baby in a stroller, asking for money at the side of the road. All I could do was cry.

In my teacher Malidoma Some’s village, the young men who couldn’t grieve were considered walking powder kegs. The elders intuitively knew these young men needed to face their pain and grieve.

Where do all our uncried tears go? They often go into food and other substances, into work, into left brained goals and plans, into rising above, into planning, into competition, and into a search for power and control.

Offering ourselves the safety to cry

We can’t make ourselves cry or force our tears. But we can give ourselves the safety that helps them feel welcome, where they can rise to the surface.

Sometimes our brain and nervous systems protect us by numbing our feelings – so we don’t want to judge or shame ourselves if we can’t cry.

When I’m under a lot of stress, I feel a layer of numbness. Sometimes this lasts for weeks. I can feel the tears just under the surface, but I’m unable to cry until there’s a place where I can really let down.

When I finally cry, I feel so much relief.

Sometimes our grief is not for the pain of trauma but for the impermanent nature of life – the deaths of loved ones, the moving away of people dear to us, the changes in roles and relationships, and all the endings we go through along the way. One of my daughters is moving abroad this month, and I feel the tenderness of this ending.

This is why athletes cry at their last high school sporting match or why we cry at graduations and weddings. There is the joy of new life and moving forward – and the sadness of endings.

Let someone ‘hold you’ when you want to binge

This brings me to a suggestion you might try, and see how it helps you. We often know the time of day when we most struggle with cravings or the impulse to binge or overeat. For many people, this is the evening.

Rather than trying to tough it out through these painful crucibles, reach out and let someone hold you physically or emotionally (over the phone, for example) when you want to binge.

In my experience, this is the very time when someone else’s support can make a huge difference, when we can feel the grief of, “But I want the food!”

Being supported during this time of activation brings healing, comfort and support to the hurt places that want to be soothed in food. This begins to lessen the load of pain we carry, bit by tiny bit.

It’s lessening the load of our pain and increasing the support available to us that helps us stop painful habits like overeating – not will power or powering through.

Support and more support

I know that making this shift may feel awkward, alarming or really scary. Go gently. Start with a small craving, and then try with bigger ones. See if having someone hold you in your tears, in the moment when you want to overeat, eases your journey.

We’re not meant to carry so much pain on our own. We often need others to help us grieve. Who can help you in the moment when the pain arises?

This might be a spiritual figure like Quan Yin, the Buddhist goddess of compassion, Mother Mary, or another figure of compassion and support. You can call on your ancestors and ask them to hold you. I reach out to my loved ones who are on the other side – especially my grandparents and great aunts and uncles – and feel buoyed by their support.

You can cuddle your pets, lay on the earth and cry, and reach out to a listening partner or friend.

And if you’re going through one of our courses, reach out to a friend or support buddy. See if they’d be willing to listen to you as you share what comes up for you – don’t try to do it alone.

It’s so easy for us to internalize the failures of our environments and our cultures and internalize them, thinking that there’s something wrong with us. Our culture’s discomfort and misunderstanding of grief is not on your shoulders, or your fault.

Each time you make room for your grief or reach out for support, you help create a more grief positive culture for all of us – where our pain can be lessened and we can feel the spark of new life.

When all is dark, look to the light. And we find the light through the raindrops of tears.