by Brenda Allison
I think I have discovered the smallest unit of time in compulsive overeater physics. It is the gap between an emotional trigger and the moment my comfort food goes into my mouth. I am being somewhat factitious.
Recently I forgot my book at choir rehearsal. Sounds like a small thing, but suffice it to say compulsive overeater physics went into affect when I made the discovery. No, I did not eat the house down; however, my goal is to stop coping by eating my way through life.
My feeling of powerlessness over this compulsion coupled with the fact I was not hungry and did not know why I wanted to eat, motivated me to stop and sit with my emotion to learn two things from this trigger:
1] what am I feeling
2] what do I need?”
What I learned surprised me.
“After I figure out my emotional trigger to eat, then what….?”
My hope is that by modeling the thinking process, others will find their way to what truly satisfies the longing of their soul, and an answer to the question I often hear people ask,
“After I figure out my emotional trigger to eat, then what?”
For me, I was thinking like a victim with self talk of,
"Having to change seats three times at choir made me forget my book.”Delving further, I admitted to feeling disappointed that the director did not make the new people feel welcome.
Reasoning that high school had been my most recent choir experience with how territorial choir members are, I made the most important connection of all, that my orphan issues had gotten triggered.
As a teenager, what made choir so painful, was rooted in the tragic death of both my parents, and subsequent adjustment to a new high school, where I was finding where I belonged at school and in a foster home that felt harsh and unwelcoming.
The food trigger turned out not to be about forgetting a book, but that singing in a choir for the first time in many years connected me to the old, awful, familiar feelings of not belonging. It was starting to make sense.
After learning what I was feeling, the next question was, “What do I need right now?” I needed comfort. My first inclination was to comfort myself with the truth. “This is not the 1970’s, it is 2003, and you do not need to apologize for taking up space,” I told myself. “You have found your place in life, you are welcome in your home, you have a wonderful husband, welcoming children, true friends, a full life, and best of all a welcoming Lord and Savior who calls himself the ‘Father of the Fatherless [Psalm 68:5],’ and the ‘God of all comfort [1 Cor.1:3-4].’
He tells you he has plans to prosper you, not to harm you [Jer. 29:11], and the best part is he’s not only able, he’s also willing to meet ALL your needs [Phil
“You can’t heal what you don’t feel. You can’t feel what you self-medicate.”
I liked it that instead of comforting myself with food I was learning to comfort myself with truth. A wise person once told me, “You can’t heal what you don’t feel and you can’t feel what you self-medicate.”
It felt worth it to sit with my feelings long enough to learn where they came from, and to choose comfort that truly satisfies. Comforting myself with food is a primitive coping skill. I am motivated to do whatever it takes through therapy or whatever to learn better methods of coping and to break the food nurture connection.
In the past I did the best with what I knew, but now that I know better and I will do better. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)
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