Healthy Eating

Painful Eating Habits: Why Do We Keep Doing It? How Can We Stop?

Three healing steps.

Food is never just about food, and eating is never just about eating. They are intimately tied to our identity, our history, our social context, our biology, our emotions, and our beliefs.

What’s more, our relationship to food affects every part of our being and every relationship in our lives.

All of it. All of us.

That’s why changing unhelpful patterns around food can feel impossibly hard. It’s also why the stakes are so high.

An email excerpt from my client Alyssa (not her real name) at the start of our work together:

“All of my eating habits are tied to my emotions. I don’t know how to break this. I’m frustrated by a conversation I had with [my partner]…I go searching for something that will make me feel better for a second. Only to ultimately make me feel worse.

Same goes for having a rough day with the kids or on the flip side celebrating the start of the weekend. I feel infinitely better when I eat healthy foods. So, why don’t I always do that?!”

Well?

Why, seeing an unhelpful pattern — knowing exactly where it leads and will always lead — do we keep doing it?

Why, knowing that healthy eating makes us feel better, don’t we stick with it!

As I told Alyssa: Good news is, you’re already doing the only sort of work and practice that can make a difference. The kind of work and practice that will change your trajectory:

• Putting one foot in front of the next, pointed in the direction you want to go…
• while being conscious of where you are now, including your triggers, patterns, successes, and challenges…
• with honesty, curiosity, and kindness.

Three Steps

If Alyssa’s struggle sounds familiar, and you too find yourself in an unhelpful cycle on repeat despite knowing how it always ends up, try these three steps:

1. See and name the pattern.

Keep doing this, returning again and again with an abundance of honesty and compassion. Be really clear.

Also see and name when you do something different — when you change the script and step out of unhelpful cycles. Celebrate that! It’s gold.

2. Place one foot in front of the next, pointed in your desired, chosen direction.

See the longer trajectory even amidst temporary stumbles. Keep showing up fully, taking one healing step after the next.

It will change where you end up. No question.

3. Care for your true wants and needs.

When you are well-resourced and have enough time, space, and helpful surrounds, you’ll be infinitely more likely to do Steps 1 and 2 in a steady, sustained, successful way.

It’s just how it works, for us humans.

While many things are beyond our control, many others are not.

Choose your “advertising” thoughtfully. Bring in what nourishes you. Edit out what’s feeding your habit or addiction.

This is non-negotiable. Your heart must choose it and defend it fiercely.

Here’s the other thing. We are never “solved” as people. We never “finish” healing. We grow a bit. We stumble. We return again.

But in coming back to the practice…in coming back to honest, mindful witnessing…putting one foot in front of the other…and making conscious choices…we face old stuff with new eyes.

One day and one step at a time, with surrender and sovereignty, serenity and strength.

We learn new ways of being with our patterns, ourselves, and others. We change in the process. It couldn’t possibly be otherwise!

So hang in there, return to your why, and give yourself breathing room — meeting yourself where you are with honesty and care…even as you take your next healing step.

Find other stories on Eating, Diet & Weight Loss here:

Thank you for reading. I’m a doctor of Chinese Medicine and write about sobriety and soulful living. Find all my links here: