122: How To Stop Emotional Eating

How to stop emotional eating? Health issues arise if we don't overcome this disorder. Emotional eating is actually overeating due to negative emotions. 

Healing Emotional Eating

Hello, True Health Seekers! One thing we're not talking about today is food. Rather, we're going to talk about healing beyond food.

Personally, I feel like my audience is a lot like me. We've tried everything. We've been on every diet, whether it be soy free or vegan. For some of us, we swung from one side of the spectrum to the other when it comes to diet and emotional eating. And yet we still can't find the missing pieces to healing.

This is where we really need to go within and see what's going on. To discover if there are some components that have nothing to do with food and that can heal my body.

The Wake-up Call

Holistic Nutrition Expert and Transformation Coach, Shana Ekedal is an educator and a trailblazer in the area of mind, body, and spirit wellness. At the tender age of 10, her parents divorced. She started emotional eating, basically having an unhealthy lifestyle.

“The real wake-up call happened when I was diagnosed with skin cancer on the bridge of my nose,” says Ekedal. “Oftentimes we don't realize things until we have a physical ailment going on.”

Ekedal eventually started the road to healing. She did a self-evaluation which questioned why she was abusing her body with emotional eating.

Taking The First Step

“Most of the time, we want to know what the end result is. It really made me trust in making the first step and then more will reveal itself,” she shares.

I totally agree with Ekedal. We just have to be open to the guidance and opportunity that is coming our way. We should set our minds to eat better. If we do, it consequently becomes this gateway where all these other things are opening up. Some gateways to healing our body are yoga, meditation, cycling class, going vegan and many more.

How To Stop Emotional Eating

Ekedal's journey to healing took her seven years.  This was because she tried a lot of things that didn't work. Or the stuff that wasn't working were the stuff she didn't need. Eventually, she resolved to help others as well.

I believe that when you're a healer, you're like a sales manager. You end up doing what you love doing which is helping people. When you think about, say for example—real estate, that is a huge transition in someone else's life.

Helping Others

According to Ekedal, different people are built different ways—genetically, mentally and emotionally. The reason why you eat has nothing to do with food.

“I'm personalized with the people I work with,” says Ekedal. “People should have coaches or healers because these people guide them to the things they don't see. Those are our blocks. When we can't see it, we can't do anything about it.”

Family and Friends Vs. Coaches

It is good to have family and friends around to help us. But they have a bias or an agenda. We need to have someone in our life who is just our advocate.

They're just there for you to help you be that mirror so you can gain clarity. Only then can you can make the decision and empower yourself to make the best decisions for you.

That's why I love coaches. Because they are there for you yet they don't have an agenda. In addition to that, they got a lot of tools to help you succeed.

Dissecting Family Ties 

Ekedal says there are ties in family–energetic ties. And there are patterns in family systems that run generations like alcoholism or substance abuse.

She says we are a soul born into a body that comes into a family system and we need to survive. Furthermore, we look around and say, ‘how do we survive this environment?'.  Only then do we start integrating what the rules are.

“Sometimes, who you are as a person at the deepest level is not at resonance with the people that raised you. Like a scientist born in a family of artists,” says Ekedal. “It can be difficult for people to be validated, accepted and loved in that system that questions what we like.”

And it does make sense.  It's like being rejected from the tribe is synonymous to death. Ekedal also says there's a world of infinite possibilities. In that world, you can be who you are and still be loved and accepted in your family. Furthermore, you can learn to communicate in a way that's very effective.

Digging Deeper Into Emotional Eating

“Emotion is energy. It needs to move. We're born to cry when we feel sad. We grow up learning to store emotion. We start choosing when we can feel things,” says Ekedal.

“Over our lifetime we store this emotion about stuff that happened. And instead of feeling that, we eat, drink or become an addict over something. We do all these behaviors to not feel this stuff.”

Ekedal developed methods so people don't have to re-experience the pain. She says that energy needs to be released. Her methods enable you to be free not be at the mercy of cravings. She stresses that we don't realize the factors that are driving us to the food.

Techniques to Address Emotional Healing

1. Be aware

– Jot things down. Those things are the golden nuggets on how your personality was built

2. See if there are themes

– Examples are loss of life, betrayal, negative thinking or low self-esteem. It's about taking radical responsibility for who you are.

When we give away our power or blame others, we're left with no power to change our life. When we create a belief system, we look for evidence to prove we're right.

Positive Outlook

A positive outlook is truly a powerful healing method that you should not take for granted. Ekedal agrees by saying we should learn to de-escalate situations instead of being reactive.  So smile, take a deep breath and tell your loved ones that you love them no matter what.

Ekedal is the host of Be Well Live, a live interactive online show featuring thought leaders in the health, wellness, and personal development space. She has been published in the Journal of Nonverbal Communication and is a featured contributor for Awareness Magazine.

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