{"id":152,"date":"2011-04-14T23:12:46","date_gmt":"2011-04-14T23:12:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com\/blog\/?p=152"},"modified":"2011-04-14T23:59:51","modified_gmt":"2011-04-14T23:59:51","slug":"dont-crutch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com\/blog\/dont-crutch\/","title":{"rendered":"You Don\u2019t Need A Crutch"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Emotional eating is the way we cope with negative feelings we don\u2019t want to feel. By eating, even when we aren\u2019t hungry, we get distracted from the feelings we don\u2019t want to feel and experience a pleasurable feeling instead.<\/p>\n

These negative feelings ultimately become conditioned and act as \u201ctriggers\u201d that result in automatic, compulsive overeating.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>When you use the Lefkoe De-conditioning Process to de-condition your many triggers, you realize that earlier in life you had (unconsciously) chosen eating as the best way to pleasurably distract yourself from your negative feelings (such as anxiety, feeling unlovable, depression, and boredom).\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t that eating was necessarily the best way to cope with the negative feelings, it was just that you ate three times a day and noticed that, whenever you ate, you focused on the pleasure of eating instead of the negative feelings.\u00a0 That\u2019s how eating got conditioned as an automatic response to the negative feelings.<\/p>\n

You also realize that, in fact, there are many other things that might have worked to distract yourself from the negative feelings; you just hadn\u2019t thought of them earlier in your life.<\/strong> Some activities that might have worked as a coping mechanism include a hot bath, exercise, a walk, talking to a friend, reading a book, or listening to music.<\/p>\n

But using eating or any of these other activities to distract ourselves from our negative feelings implies that we are unable to cope with our negative feelings and that we need something to keep ourselves from facing them.\u00a0 In fact, although negative feelings can feel overwhelming, distracting ourselves with eating doesn\u2019t really work.\u00a0 Not only doesn\u2019t the distraction last for long, we end up feeling worse (guilty and bloated) after we stuff ourselves when we aren\u2019t hungry.\u00a0 The negative consequences of other distracting activities aren\u2019t quite as bad, but they still are only a temporary respite and the negative feelings are still there when we finish eating (or any other activity).<\/p>\n

It actually is possible to just allow ourselves to experience our negative feelings and to realize that while we \u201chave\u201d these feelings, they are not who we are.\u00a0 We don\u2019t have to use eating or any other distraction to deal with our negative feelings; we can just feel them and know they will pass.<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you really want to \u201chandle\u201d your negative feelings, the best way is not to pretend they don\u2019t exist for a few minutes (which is the only respite eating gives you), but, instead, to eliminate the beliefs and conditionings that cause them.\u00a0 Every negative feeling you have is either the result of beliefs and conditionings, or the meaning you are giving current events.\u00a0 Events, as such, cannot make you feel anything.<\/p>\n

Eating to feel good<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you eat to make yourself feel good<\/strong>, as opposed to eating to cover up negative feelings<\/strong>, there is a much better solution than eating, which only gives you a \u201chigh\u201d for the few minutes you are eating.<\/p>\n

Use the Who Am I Really? (WAIR?) Process, which enables you to experience yourself as the creator of your life, with anything possible and nothing missing.\u00a0 People who have used that Process report a feeling of bliss and unlimited possibilities that can easily be a substitute for eating.\u00a0 You can download an MP3 of that Process at http:\/\/recreateyourlife.com\/free\/who-am-i-really-mp3.php<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The only precondition for using the WAIR? Process is eliminating at least one belief using the Lefkoe Belief Process.\u00a0 You can do that free of charge at http:\/\/recreateyourlife.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For more details, please see my eBook, The Secret to Ending Overeating For Good<\/em>, at http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com<\/a>.\u00a0 You also can get answers to specific questions at my office, 415-884-0552.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2011 Morty Lefkoe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Emotional eating is the way we cope with negative feelings we don\u2019t want to feel. By eating, even when we aren\u2019t hungry, we get distracted from the feelings we don\u2019t want to feel and experience a pleasurable feeling instead. These negative feelings ultimately become conditioned and act as \u201ctriggers\u201d that result in automatic, compulsive overeating. … Continue reading “You Don\u2019t Need A Crutch”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[11,17,30,3,8,7,31,32],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":154,"href":"http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions\/154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/emotionaleatingreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}