1) To keep from feeling.
You may have experienced this consciously when you had a bad break up and you decide to eat a whole quart of rocky road ice cream. When you fill up on food, you can keep from feeling the anxiety or sadness or anger because all you feel is the uncomfortable feeling of too much food. Once it works for you; then you may unconsciously use excess food to avoid any uncomfortable feelings. After all, you can count on your favorite foods to make you feel good especially when relationships or life situations are making you feel bad. Overeating provides a full feeling that serves as a distraction from feelings of anxiety, abandonment, anger or low self esteem.
I forgive myself for believing that:
- I have to use food and being full to take away the bad feelings in my life and body.
- food can take away my hurt and sadness.
- food is love.
- I don’t feel anger, I get fat.
- food is the only good feeling I have in my life.
- I’d rather feel fat than feel hurt.
I forgive (name):
- for hurting me.
- for not loving me.
- teaching me to use food to soothe my pain.
I give myself permission to let go of this unhealthy pattern with food and to be honest about what I really need.I give myself permission to stop using food to block unpleasant feelings and to ask God to please let me feel.
2) To feel powerful.
People who struggle with losing weight or maintaining their ideal weight, usually don’t think they feel very powerful around food. However, in our rich culture, food is one thing that you have almost unlimited access to. Practically anything you want to eat is within your reach and price range. So when you feel powerless to pay a bill or lose weight or control your child; eating all the food you want, any food you want, whenever you want can make you feel powerful. Here’s how this looks: I can’t pay my mortgage but I can buy and eat an entire bag of BBQ chips. I can’t make my husband treat me with respect but I can bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies and eat them all. No one can stop me. Overeating suspends the reality of your powerlessness in another area of your life.
I forgive myself for believing
- when I feel powerless in my life, eating all the food I want can make me feel powerful.
- food is my greatest source of power when I can’t do what I want or get what I want.
- the person who controls the food, is the one with the most power.
- I forgive myself for using food as a source for power when I can’t do something in my life.
- I forgive those who have taken ownership of my power.
- I forgive myself for giving ownership of my power to food.
- I give myself permission to let go of using food as a source for feeling power over other things I can’t control.
- I give myself permission to eat everything I want, whenever I want without ever using it again as a source for power.
3) To store up for a future famine.
A famine is when there is no food and consequently, you starve. Your emotional eating may be a compulsive response to a famine experience in your past. It could be your family really didn’t have much food or the food was unreliable. Maybe you didn’t know when or if there would be another meal, so you would overeat to store up in case there was nothing to eat later. Storing up for a future famine isn’t just about famine of food. You could have experienced famine of love or attention or money. These famines could have still caused your starvation for love or attention or money. Constant, compulsive piling up of excess food in your body is your way of preventing the hurt of previous famine to ever happen again. By metaphorically “filling your barn”, you think you can prevent such starvation and hurt from ever happening again in your life.
I forgive myself for believing
- I have to store up with food so I am not caught in a famine again.
- another famine is coming.
- I’m going to experience more loss, so I must fill my barn to prevent feeling that loss ever again.
- I can keep from feeling the loss by pouring my energy into filling my barn with tons of food.
- I’ll never heal from the famine of food/love/attention/money in my past.
- There isn’t enough for me.
- I forgive myself for compulsively overeating just so I won’t be afraid of being without during another famine.
- I forgive myself for compulsively hoarding food in case there is no food, love, attention or money in the future.
- I give myself permission to let go of my loss and to accept there is enough for me.
- I give myself permission to accept there is enough love, enough attention, enough food, enough money for me.
EPTworks™ Lifeworks Holistic Healing Escape is a luxurious 3-day retreat where you can heal the emotional issues related to excess weight, body image, self love, overeating and much more.
The next one is scheduled to take place November 6-8, 2013 in Destin, Florida.
Check this link for more information and to register.