Manage Unexpected Stress to Help Manage Emotional Eating

Seven Ways to Connect with your Heart

Is it the unexpected outcome that triggers emotional eating?

In the river of life, have you enjoyed sunshine glistening on ripples and watched how events seem to flow naturally, requiring little effort. Did you meet unexpected turbulence and find yourself struggling against currents or whirlpools? Were you suddenly challenged by worry about the past or uncertainty of the future?

Responses to immediate stress can manifest as "freezing up," or as "grasping at straws," which offer temporary relief at best. Blame, fear or anger can follow. Such emotional responses can keep the mind absorbed in whirlpools and rapids.

As you struggled for balance, perhaps you felt stalled out? How can peace and balance - that sense of serenity, of flowing gently down life’s river - be restored? The answers are close by - they can be found within the heart. 

Listening to the heart, taps inner wisdom and inspiration. Peace, acceptance and harmony can replace habitual stress responses.

Freedom from stress-induced emotional eating lies in discovering fresh insights and new perspectives. Insights provide the key to seeing an immediate situation with new eyes. Insights help to connect thinking and feeling to restore balance.

Here are seven questions to help generate new awareness and unique solutions.

Do you have a Spiritual Practice?

Spiritual masters throughout the ages have described the importance of forgiveness, love and peace. Their guidance and insights can be invaluable sources of inspiration, in quiet times as well as during turbulence. Through prayer, individuals may seek divine guidance to move beyond a troublesome situation by releasing a problem for intervention and resolution. Meditation can help focus attention and open awareness while withholding judgment. A spiritual practice can promote physiological and psychological changes that help restore health and balance, and substitute for emotional eating.

Do you have a Movement Program?

A variety of well established practices combine physical movement with contemplation and meditation. Examples include Tai Chi, several types of yoga and QiGong. These ancient spiritual practices are believed to open a heart connection, to allow intuition to flow freely and thus provide a counterbalance to fear and uncertainty that can drive emotional eating.

Do you value Each Day?

Choosing to see each new day as a fresh opportunity to break free of old, confining thoughts and feelings can open new ways of seeing, unlimited by past events or uncertainty of the future. Such a fresh perspective becomes a fountain for new health-promoting habits. As Goethe said, “Nothing is worth more than this day.”

Do you take time to be Grateful?

Acknowledging blessings can dramatically change a viewpoint. Gratitude for blessings received need not deny reality. Rather, expressing gratitude for our health, our family, our surroundings, lays the foundation for forgiveness, acknowledged as a foundation for inner peace.

Do you take time to appreciate Nature as a Teacher?

Setting aside time to observe natural surroundings offers another channel of internal balance and harmony. Mountains, prairies, beaches, gardens, streams, forests, flowers, birds, sunsets and sunrises, moonlight, clouds and snowflakes– All can open the heart, when we are willing to listen.

Do you maintain a Personal Journal?

Expressing your emotions, thoughts, concerns, and wishes on the pages of a journal can open the door to fresh understanding. This is an opportune place to record your blessings and personal affirmations. Your journal can record each small victory and help you remember each step you have to take to put an end to emotional eating.

Do you nurture Companionship and Community?

The loving, non-judgmental support of family, friends and communities is a foundation upon which to build new healthful habits. Changing old, stress-induced patterns can be challenging, however the task can be simplified with unconditional love.

These suggestions can help you discover new insights to manage daily and unforeseen stress. They allow your heart to guide you in the flow of life. And when that river eventually reaches the sea, you will be able to look back to see a life filled with beauty, peace, grace and balance.... gone is the need for emotional eating.