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One of the hardest emotions for women to feel is anger. I have more clients who eat their anger than any other emotion. I’ve told you before that binging or storming is always a result of a strong negative emotion or negative on the Emotional Hunger Scale.
As young girls, we were taught anger is not okay… it’s not feminine. I don’t like feeling angry either – I was taught the same thing.
Well, we have the choice: to feel it or to eat it. Have you ever really tasted anger in the form of doughnuts or pop tarts, or do you just give it that name?
Anger is a powerful emotion that can help you get what you want. If you don’t use it to stand up for yourself, you usually just get angry at yourself.
When you feel anger, you can express yourself if that’s what’s needed in the situation, or you can just let yourself feel it all the way through and figure out what you’re thinking that’s causing the emotion. The mindless way to deal with anger is to just eat it.
Here’s an example of one of my clients who tried to binge eat anger:
My client came into our session and she wanted to discuss a day of her food journal. She was curious rather than judgmental. She’s learning to be the observer. This is the best way to use a journal with a coach. It’s also the best way to become the observer.
Her food journal reflected eating fuel during the day. Then, at 5pm, she ate 3 times by fogging and eating non-nutritious foods. She didn’t know why, but was very curious to find out. A beautiful time to learn about yourself.
I asked her about her day. She said, “You know what, I think I was a ‘little mad’ all day.” She proceeded to tell me what happened.
I asked her why she was looking for joy in all her food that evening.
She admitted feeling mad made her very uncomfortable. I asked how it feels to overeat all night long and pretend you don’t know why, as opposed to just admitting you’re angry. When we first started, this client had no clue how her body felt emotionally or physically; she was disconnected. Through our weeks of coaching, she is starting to shine a light on how she felt, both physically and emotionally.
At first, she was feeling uncomfortable quite often, because she was noticing and feeling her feelings for the first time. For some clients this must happen. You just feel what’s going on, acknowledge it, and realize that it won’t kill you. She has done this.
It was such an ‘aha’ moment for her to realize she was looking to food to help numb the anger, and what happened instead was that she was just plain uncomfortable after eating so much food. The difference: now, she can’t wait to explore it with me — there is no shame, just curiosity.
A week later, at our next session, she was so excited she couldn’t wait to tell me she left a meeting with a friend and was feeling sad. She came home and comforted herself, put herself to bed, and didn’t care to eat anything. She felt so good about it in the moment, and even better the next day. She didn’t eat her sadness! She has become a woman who can feel a negative emotion and not have to eat it.
To get your free downloadable copy of the Thinner Peace in Menopause and Beyond Podcast Companion Book please go to https://drdebbutler.com/change. This will make it even easier to follow along with me on future podcasts.
If you like what I’m talking but think you need more guidance, I am offering a free consultation to my listeners to answer any questions you might have about anything I’ve talked about, such as keeping a food journal. Just go to https://drdebbutler.com/workwithme.
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