Do you find yourself eating when you’re not hungry, eating because you’re anxious, or eating for no reason? You’re not alone. Twenty percent of people report stress eating.
Unlike us, animals in the wild don’t do this. So why do we?
In college, I struggled with emotional eating—not just occasional ice cream, but urges to eat whenever I felt down, trying to subdue emotions. I ended up overfull and still upset, stuck in a miserable cycle.
During that challenging period, I first tried meditation. Back in 1996, meditation was considered weird.
I convinced my introverted roommate to join me at a meditation session. The instructor insisted we remain perfectly still. My legs went numb and I ached, silently vowing never to return.
When the meditation ended, I felt an immediate wave of relief. I also noticed a stillness in my mind, like leaves settling after a windy autumn day.
I had never felt so good in my life, and I was never going to do that again. Ever.
The next day, down again, I spotted leftover pizza and felt the usual urge to binge.
That’s when I had an epiphany. A realization that had never occurred to me before: “Hey, you always cry after you binge. This time, why don’t you cry first and binge afterward?”
So I did. I lay on my bed and sobbed.
When I was all wept out, I noticed something extraordinary: the impulse to binge had disappeared. Completely.
I was shocked.
By fully experiencing the unpleasant emotion, the urge to bury it with food disappeared.
Read that again.
By fully experiencing the unpleasant emotion, the urge to bury it with food disappeared.
The awareness from one 60-minute meditation session ended my eating disorder.
I’m not claiming meditation will end everyone’s eating disorders, but research shows it helps curb emotional and binge eating.
I never binged again. It was the beginning of a lifelong commitment to meditation.
The problem: We may have never learned how to cope with our big, bad, negative emotions.
What happens when you are triggered or angry? Do you know what to do with those feelings?
No matter how educated you are, how many degrees or skills you have, how many weights you can lift, how many dishes you can cook, how many employees you can manage, how many crossword puzzles you can solve, or how many languages you can speak, you likely have as much formal education about handling big negative emotions as a five-year-old.
It’s no one’s fault. Your parents, families, teachers, and leaders likely had the same blind spot. How could you learn from them?
Children are told “Shh, don’t cry!” and “You’re okay!” No wonder they become adults who deny feeling anything — “Nothing’s wrong. Really, I’m fine.” — alongside others with stiff upper lips.
So what do we do? We turn to outside resources and substances to dull pain or seek highs. We shop, gamble, drink, binge, watch movies or porn, scroll, smoke, overwork, overexercise, overindulge, or punish ourselves.
This might look industrious (“I work 12-hour days”), gritty (“I do an Ironman a month!”), or even saintly (“I volunteer 30 hours a week!”). But it’s all the same: numbing.
Anything we depend on — even if it feels good temporarily — takes our power. It drains our energy. We hand over the remote control to our lives. We give up our sovereignty.
Numbing is like a pain medication; it masks the pain for a little while but doesn’t heal the source. The emotions are still there waiting for you when we’re done distracting ourselves. They come raging back like the tears that rushed forth after my college binges. Now we’re exhausted, beaten up by the side effects of our drug of choice, and in worse shape to face the pain than when we started.
Instead of numbing, there’s a more powerful way to handle life’s challenges: reclaiming your sovereignty over emotions. That’s why I wrote my book, SOVEREIGN.
Technique #1: Feel It to Heal It
Notice how quickly children get over emotions. The tantrum happens; they scream at the top of their lungs. They cry 100 percent. Two minutes later, they’re done.
Why? Children are emotionally resilient because they allow emotions to flow through them without resistance. You have to feel it to heal it. Emotions are energy in motion and need to be experienced, not avoided, to move through you. The process is difficult but ends in relief. Like childbirth, it’s painful but brings deliverance.
Brain-imaging studies have shown that using acceptance during emotional moments helps the brain’s emotion centers to calm down (i.e., deactivation of the limbic area).
The day of my cold pizza epiphany in college showed me that if I let myself fully experience my despair and sadness, the urge to binge would disappear. Surrendering to the emotion sets you free. You just need courage and forbearance.
I say “just.” Not that it’s easy.
But it’s worth it.
As a result, I became free from both the emotion and the destructive numbing habit I was using to suppress it.
The difference between you as a child and as an adult is that, as a child, you are immersed in your emotions. They are their emotion: I am mad! As an adult, you can become aware of the mad without identifying with it. I am experiencing mad. You can observe the emotion and differentiate between you (the observer) and the emotion (pissed).
This point is critical: As an adult, you can choose to observe your emotions. Imagine watching a TV screen; it doesn’t control you. Likewise, you observe what happens on the screen of your mind and body. You are the viewer, the experiencer, and the feeler; you are not the screen, not the experiences, not the feelings. They don’t control you. Paradoxically, by accepting, welcoming, and observing them, you regain control.
What if emotional pain were not useless suffering?
What if pain were your friend?
The friend who matures you, makes you stronger, fiercer, and wiser.
The friend who loves you so much that they will break your heart so it can grow larger.
The friend who lures you into the darkest areas so you can see your own light shine brighter.
The friend who truly sees the beauty, strength, and magnificent potential you have. This is the friend who, by walking you through pain, stands with you as you claim your place in the world: bold, unbreakable, and free.
Sovereign.
Excerpted with permission from SOVEREIGN: Reclaim Your Freedom, Energy & Power in a Time of Distraction, Uncertainty & Chaos.