Episode 15: Your Relationship With Food Is a Mirror

Disclaimer

The content shared in this blog post and podcast episode is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as medical, psychological, or therapeutic advice.

If this episode brings up anything for you, or you feel like you need personalised support, please reach out to a qualified mental health professional, medical practitioner, or a trained therapy provider.

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Your Relationship With Food Was Never About Food

I want to talk about something today that has been sitting in my system for a while.

Because I’ve realised something so clearly, both through my own healing and through working with women inside Release & Reclaim.

My relationship with food was never actually about food.

It mirrored my relationship to my emotions.

And I know that might sound strange at first, like, what does that even mean?

But I mean it literally.

The way I related to food was the exact same way I related to my emotional world.

For years, I thought I had a discipline problem. I thought I just couldn’t be trusted. I thought I needed more control, more consistency, more willpower. I had parts of me that would shame me and say, why can’t you just get it together?

And I was so frustrated, because I felt like, why can I get the rest of my life together… but not this?

Why can I show up in every other area, but when it comes to food, I feel like I lose control?

But I can say now, with so much compassion for my younger self, food was never the issue.

Food was the thing I reached for when I didn’t know how to hold what I was feeling.

When You’re Not Taught How To Feel, You Learn How To Be Fine

I didn’t know how to hold my emotions because I wasn’t taught how to hold them.

I wasn’t shown how to process emotion.

And I definitely wasn’t shown how to meet myself with compassion when I made a mistake.

When I was growing up, it felt like there was no room for mistakes. If I made one, I don’t remember being met with softness. I remember being met with blame. I remember being met with shame. I remember being told I should have known better.

Even when I was young.

Even when I was learning.

And that kind of messaging doesn’t teach you how to behave. It teaches you that your humanness is inconvenient.

It teaches you that your emotions are too much.

It teaches you that your needs are not welcome.

And a lot of women I work with have a version of this story.

Not always in big obvious ways.

Sometimes in subtle ones.

The “don’t cry.”

The “stop being so sensitive.”

The “pull yourself together.”

The “don’t make a fuss.”

The “don’t be selfish.”

And what you were expressing wasn’t dramatic.

It was sadness.

It was hurt.

It was disappointment.

It was fear.

It was a need.

It was a human moment.

But when you’re dismissed in those moments, you don’t learn how to hold emotion.

You learn how to abandon yourself.

And that becomes your baseline.

So you walk through life being fine.

You learn how to be easy to be around.

You learn how to be helpful.

You learn how to keep the peace.

You learn how to stay composed.

You learn how to not be too much.

And you become so high functioning that from the outside, it looks like you’ve got it together always.

But inside, you’re living in a body that is full of emotion you’ve been holding by yourself for years.

And it has nowhere safe to go.

This Is Where Food Makes Perfect Sense

So of course food enters the picture.

Food becomes the one place you can soften.

It becomes the one place you can let your shoulders drop.

It becomes the one place you can exhale.

It’s like you don’t take a breath all day, and then at the end of the day, you emotionally eat or comfort eat, and it’s like you take your first real breath at 9pm.

Food doesn’t ask anything of you.

It doesn’t ask you to be impressive.

It doesn’t ask you to stay composed.

It doesn’t ask you to keep the peace.

It doesn’t ask you to be the stable one.

It gives relief.

It gives comfort.

It gives you a break from holding it all together.

And that makes sense.

Especially for high functioning women who have been carrying too much for too long.

But the relief doesn’t last long.

Because for most women, the shame comes straight after.

If You Were Trained To Feel Shame For Having Needs, Of Course You’ll Feel Shame When You Receive

This is such an important piece.

If you were trained to feel shame for having needs…

Of course you’re going to feel shame when you receive.

Even if what you’re receiving is a piece of your favourite chocolate.

Even if what you’re receiving is relief.

Even if what you’re receiving is softness.

Even if what you’re receiving is love.

That’s how deep these patterns go.

And this is why emotional eating is not a willpower issue.

It’s not a discipline issue.

It’s a relationship issue.

Restriction Is Often The Same Pattern, Just In A Different Outfit

I also want to say something important here.

When I emotionally ate, I also restricted.

And for me, restriction was one thousand percent about control.

So many women don’t realise they’re in the exact same pattern, just on different ends of the spectrum.

Not everyone is bingeing.

Not everyone is emotionally eating in an obvious way.

Some women are controlling food in the same way they control their emotions.

They look composed.

They look disciplined.

They look “healthy.”

They look like they have it together.

But they don’t feel free.

They don’t feel relaxed.

They don’t feel safe.

And then when they’re alone, one tiny thing can happen on a random Thursday and they lose their shit.

Because emotions don’t disappear when you control them.

They build.

They stack.

They wait.

And eventually, if you’ve been controlling them all week, they demand your attention.

And they come out sideways.

This is where you end up crying in the bathroom at work.

Or snapping at your partner.

Or losing your patience with your kids.

Or feeling like you’re fine until you suddenly aren’t.

And food is one of the ways the system tries to prevent that.

Because it’s fast.

It’s reliable.

It’s easy.

And it doesn’t require anything from you.

Digesting Food Requires Presence, And So Does Digesting Emotion

Here’s the part that really landed for me.

Digesting food properly requires presence.

Think about the difference between eating at your desk, eating in the car, eating while distracted, eating on the run, barely tasting it, barely noticing it…

Versus sitting down.

Slowing down.

Tasting your food.

Noticing the textures and flavours.

Letting it nourish you.

Letting it land.

That’s digestion.

That’s receiving.

And emotions are exactly the same.

If you can’t digest emotion, you won’t feel safe digesting food either.

Because it’s the same skill.

It’s capacity.

It’s presence.

It’s safety.

It’s the ability to stay with yourself.

And if you were never taught how to do that, of course food becomes the thing that helps you swallow everything down.

What IFS Teaches Is Not Control, It’s Relationship

This is why I love Internal Family Systems so much.

Because IFS doesn’t try to shame you out of emotional eating.

It doesn’t try to control you out of it.

It doesn’t try to give you another list of rules.

It doesn’t treat your system like it’s broken.

IFS brings you back into relationship with your parts.

The part of you that comfort eats is not a failure.

It’s a protector.

It’s often the most loving part of you.

Sometimes I describe it like this.

Imagine you’ve had the worst day ever, and you come home, and this part comes forward with this beautiful grandma energy.

Like she wraps you in a blanket and says, honey, you’ve had a rough day. Sit down. Here’s your favourite food. You deserve something soft.

And we get so angry at her.

But she’s trying to love on you in the only way she knows how.

The problem isn’t that she exists.

The problem is that she’s the only one who knows how to soothe you.

And your body doesn’t stop a survival strategy unless something else can take its place.

The Body Already Knows How To Heal, It Just Needs The Right Conditions

This is where I want to bring it back to something that happened to me recently.

At the time of recording this episode, I had two cysts removed from my scalp.

Nothing scary, nothing serious, I’m totally fine.

But the next day I was sitting there thinking, how incredible is the human body?

I could feel it healing already.

And I didn’t have to tell it what to do.

I didn’t have to force anything.

I didn’t have to micromanage the process.

My body just got to work.

It began repairing tissue.

It began moving towards healing.

That’s what the body does.

It’s always trying to resolve.

It’s always trying to bring things back into balance.

And the reason I’m saying this is because this includes the things we judge about ourselves, like emotional eating.

Your body doesn’t do anything for no reason.

Even if the strategy comes with consequences you don’t want.

Even if you wish you could stop.

The intention underneath is always healing.

Digesting Emotion Often Looks Like 5 Percent At A Time

Last week I had an IFS session with a colleague, and it reinforced everything I’m talking about.

We worked with parts of me that were afraid to be seen.

Parts that say don’t take up space.

Parts that say don’t speak up.

Parts that say don’t ask for what you need.

And underneath all of those protectors was grief.

Grief for a younger version of me who never felt met.

Grief for the little girl who learned early that needs were inconvenient.

Grief for the little girl who learned it was safer to stay quiet.

And what we agreed on was simple.

Not to flood myself.

Not to wallow all day.

Not to force a release.

But to sit with 5 percent of that grief each day.

A hand on my heart.

A couple of minutes.

Just asking, would it be okay if I sat with you for a moment?

Not to fix it.

Not to move it.

Not to make it go away.

Just to offer presence.

And that is digesting emotion.

It’s not always cathartic.

It’s often quiet.

It’s slow.

It’s gentle.

It’s the ability to stay with yourself.

And when you’ve never learned that, no wonder food becomes the thing you reach for.

Your Body Isn’t The Enemy

So if you take anything from this episode, let it be this.

Your relationship with food is not a food problem.

It’s a mirror.

And when you heal the way you relate to your emotions, the way you relate to food begins to change too.

Not through control.

Not through another nutrition plan.

Not through shaming yourself into being better.

But because your capacity expands.

Because your Self energy grows.

Because you learn how to stay with yourself.

And when you can stay with yourself, food doesn’t need to carry your emotions anymore.

Your body isn’t the enemy.

It never was.

It’s been trying to heal you this whole time.

And when you stop fighting it and start listening, healing stops being something you force.

And it becomes something that happens.