Last week, Danna Levy Hoffmann and I offered two Stop Emotional Eating workshops and I am always fascinated by the insights that the participants gain.
I’ve noticed that I often use food as a reward and I wasn’t the only one. There are different routes for people to get to this point. I was often given sweets or chocolate when I had done something good so I started seeing it as a reward. There were others who had strict parents and weren’t allowed to have sweets. As an adult, they gave it to themselves as a reward often overeating the “forbidden” food.
And why is that we often find ourselves eating the whole thing? Be it a slab of chocolate, a bag of crisps, or a tub of ice-cream. This can be understood if we go back to tribal days where we would be gathering food. If we came across something like honey, we would take as much as we could back to the village and then keep going back until we have depleted the supply. It would be calling our name just like that tub of ice-cream does.
It reminds me that we are run by our subconscious minds, through our genetics and situations that left an imprint on us at an early age. These filter through to our everyday habits that can be supporting or disempowering.
When you understand where your habits come from, it’s easier to do something about it.