Emotions!

Your body shows up every day, it’s up to you to get your mind there.

Food is not the issue. Getting your mind (and emotions) to cooperate is.

No one really taught us how to deal with our emotions. We were taught to turn to food to make us feel better. And it does make us feel better – for a bit, but it’s not permanent. Usually after we eat, we end up feeling worse – guilty, ashamed, and out of control around food.

God created us to “feel all the feels”. We need to experience the bad so we can know the good. When we take a moment to stop and actually feel what we’re feeling, instead of covering it up with food, and trying to push the feelings away, we’ll find that our feelings aren’t actually as scary or as bad as we thought they were.

One way I like to sit with my emotions is to journal them. I like to write about what I’m feeling.

Here’s what I typically do:

I name the emotion, and then describe what it feels like in my body.

Then I answer the following questions: Is it a useful or not useful emotion? Do I like feeling it? Why or why not

Then I journal about it like I’m describing it to an alien, someone who has never felt this emotion before.

I usually feel so much better when I’m done. The emotion tends to not be as strong and I can deal with it better.