Healing and Hypnotherapy Volume - 3, Issue - 7, 1 January 2019 | Page 40

Friday, 28 December 2018
challenge. But try this—don’t just eat slowly—eat sensuously, feel
nourishment and every particle of food
“Emotional eating can be very painful. But it’s not the actual problem.”
replenished by your food and take in all the sensations of your meal.
Make sure you have enough ‘P’—Pleasure
Far too many people are taught to believe that pleasure is something
frivolous. Well, it’s actually required by our biology. Everything on planet
earth, be they amoeba, lion, lizard, or human, are programmed at the most
primitive level of the nervous system to seek pleasure and avoid pain. 
Well, if you’re eating and not paying attention, the brain will drive you to
seek more pleasure via overeating. What’s worse, if you’re stressed while
eating, the excess cortisol in your system actually desensitises us to
pleasure—so you’ll need to eat more food in order to get the pleasure we
are seeking.  the fact is this: If we want more pleasure from food, you don’t
need to eat more of the ice cream. Simply breathe, relax, destress, slow
down, pay attention, ‘Enjoy’ and the body will naturally experience the
pleasure it seeks. 
And the great news is, since pleasure catalyses a relaxation response, it
actually fuels digestion and assimilation.
“Emotional eating—it’s not that bad - Its a sign”
At our core, we are emotional beings—rich, complex, juicy, unpredictable,
feeling-  creatures. We love, we celebrate, we laugh, cry, we break down,
we rise up... So how could we NOT be emotional eaters? 
We love food. We love our favourite restaurant. We love how food makes us
feel good. Some of us love cooking for others. Some of us are passionate
about nutrition. It’s time to get over it—if you’re human, you will bring
emotionality to the table. 
Once we embrace the reality that we’re genetically hard-wired for emotional
expression, we can relax a little more. Underneath the quest to eradicate
emotional eating from one’s life is often found a hidden desire to
eliminate uncomfortable feelings. We strive for an impossible to attain
goal that, constantly leaves us frustrated and in failure. Yes, this thing called
emotional eating can be very painful. But it’s not the actual problem—it’s
a symptom that’s pointing to something deeper. It’s an alert
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