FOOD AND FEELINGS

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🚫When you have buried guilt or shame, it can be easier to externalize the feelings onto your food choices. By doing this, you create a way to then judge yourself as good or bad. Short term, this can provide a false sense of control with managing your difficult feelings. It’s easier to believe you are “guilty” for eating a slice of cake, rather than address the deeper layers of internal distress.
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But labeling food, and thereby labeling yourself, is a temporary fix. It provides a distraction by projecting your unwanted emotions onto food. The problem with this is you ultimately surrender yourself and relinquish your authority to something that has little meaning. Food has no moral value. And food has nothing in common with guilt!
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The definition of guilt is: “a feeling of remorse for a moral offense or crime.” The definition of food is: “any nutritious substance that people or animals eat or drink or that plants absorb in order to maintain life and growth.” Guilt implies you did something wrong. You cannot commit a crime against a substance needed to maintain life.
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If you privately eat a piece of cake, you’re not going to suddenly become someone different. It’s not like anyone who might mock or humiliate you even saw you do it. Likewise, you’re not going to suddenly change if you eat a salad. Nobody is going to praise you for that. No one will know whether you ate cake or a salad except you in your own mind!
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Remind yourself that food is necessary and neutral. Food is not good or bad, black or white, or all or nothing. And it holds no ability or power to judge your decisions. Food is a substance you’re always worthy of —not something to base your worth on. ~Britt💜