BODY IMAGE & EMOTIONAL EATING TOOLKIT
I developed this little toolkit because everything I tried to ease my own body shame and emotional eating – reframing thoughts, saying positive affirmation, doing CBT – didn’t help that much.
So, I created a few tools based on bio-psycho-social research that will hopefully help you to relate to food and your body in a more loving and empowered way.
Firstly, it’s important to normalise just how many of us dislike our bodies (which is also incredibly sad). After surveying over 4000 people, the Mental Health Foundation found:
If you feel anxious or ashamed because of your body, I’m sorry you feel this way. I hope you find some comfort and compassion in knowing you’re not alone.
Secondly, it’s important to use all these tools with an attitude of curiosity, lightness and playfulness. There is no perfect way of using them. Take what you need and leave the rest behind.
Thirdly, a little note on language:
When I talk about 'feelings' or 'vulnerable feelings', I'm referring to all bodily feelings and emotional feelings. These include distressing emotions you may experience in relation to your body such as anxiety, fear, despair, frustration, annoyance and disgust, as well as food cravings, binge urges, the temptation to over-restrict and any kind of desire to use food in a way that goes against your values and goals.
So, I created a few tools based on bio-psycho-social research that will hopefully help you to relate to food and your body in a more loving and empowered way.
Firstly, it’s important to normalise just how many of us dislike our bodies (which is also incredibly sad). After surveying over 4000 people, the Mental Health Foundation found:
- 20% of people felt shame because of their body
- A third of people felt low because of their body
- One in four adults felt disgusted because of their body
- One in three people felt anxious or depressed because of their body
- One in eight adults experienced suicidal thoughts or feelings because of their body
If you feel anxious or ashamed because of your body, I’m sorry you feel this way. I hope you find some comfort and compassion in knowing you’re not alone.
Secondly, it’s important to use all these tools with an attitude of curiosity, lightness and playfulness. There is no perfect way of using them. Take what you need and leave the rest behind.
Thirdly, a little note on language:
When I talk about 'feelings' or 'vulnerable feelings', I'm referring to all bodily feelings and emotional feelings. These include distressing emotions you may experience in relation to your body such as anxiety, fear, despair, frustration, annoyance and disgust, as well as food cravings, binge urges, the temptation to over-restrict and any kind of desire to use food in a way that goes against your values and goals.
Why we overeat & experience body shame:
As humans, at some point in our lives, we will find ourselves engaging in behaviours that increase our suffering and get in the way of us living and rich, fulfilling meaningful life.
These range from emotional eating, excessive food restriction and body preoccupation to overworking, unnecessary busyness and excessive social media use.
What all these behaviours have in common is that they offer us a sense of emotional safety in the short-term by protecting us from experiencing intense, vulnerable emotions such as anxiety, anger and grief, whilst increasing our stress and distress in the long run.
When we look deeply enough at even the most self-destructive behaviours, they begin to make sense. They serve a purpose. And usually, our overeating or overworking or overthinking is a way to protect us from what our brains perceives to be threats.
But, sometimes, the brain is overprotective. It interprets safe signals from the body such as bodily sensations and emotions, as if they’re dangerous – even though there is no real threat.
Emotional eating, excessive food restriction and trying to control the size and shape of our body are all our best attempts to find emotional safety. And using food does work to temporarily relieve our stress and anxiety, giving us a sense of safety in the short-term BUT causing dysregulation and distress in the long-term.
Using food to avoid vulnerable feelings reinforces to our brain that our vulnerable feelings are dangerous and that we need to fight or flee from them using alcohol or food or work or whatever avoidance strategy we've stumbled across.
Why our brain misinterprets our feelings as threats matters less than how we can teach our brain that these feelings aren't dangerous (and therefore we don't need to use unhealthy behaviours to avoid them). But understanding the mechanisms that may have triggered our overeating or body image distress or whatever unhealthy coping strategy we tend to use, can help reduce the shame around it.
There are several bio-psycho-social factors involved in why we find ourselves eating in a way that goes against our values and goals. These include (but are not limited to):
This means that emotional eating and body image anxiety is not your fault. They are caused by multiple, intertwined bio-psycho-social factors.
What this also means, is that by teaching our brains that the vulnerable emotions we're trying to avoid using food are not threats, we no longer need to use those eating behaviours that move us away from living a fulfilling life.
These range from emotional eating, excessive food restriction and body preoccupation to overworking, unnecessary busyness and excessive social media use.
What all these behaviours have in common is that they offer us a sense of emotional safety in the short-term by protecting us from experiencing intense, vulnerable emotions such as anxiety, anger and grief, whilst increasing our stress and distress in the long run.
When we look deeply enough at even the most self-destructive behaviours, they begin to make sense. They serve a purpose. And usually, our overeating or overworking or overthinking is a way to protect us from what our brains perceives to be threats.
But, sometimes, the brain is overprotective. It interprets safe signals from the body such as bodily sensations and emotions, as if they’re dangerous – even though there is no real threat.
Emotional eating, excessive food restriction and trying to control the size and shape of our body are all our best attempts to find emotional safety. And using food does work to temporarily relieve our stress and anxiety, giving us a sense of safety in the short-term BUT causing dysregulation and distress in the long-term.
Using food to avoid vulnerable feelings reinforces to our brain that our vulnerable feelings are dangerous and that we need to fight or flee from them using alcohol or food or work or whatever avoidance strategy we've stumbled across.
Why our brain misinterprets our feelings as threats matters less than how we can teach our brain that these feelings aren't dangerous (and therefore we don't need to use unhealthy behaviours to avoid them). But understanding the mechanisms that may have triggered our overeating or body image distress or whatever unhealthy coping strategy we tend to use, can help reduce the shame around it.
There are several bio-psycho-social factors involved in why we find ourselves eating in a way that goes against our values and goals. These include (but are not limited to):
- Unmet physical and psychological needs
- Genetic predisposition to vulnerable emotions such as anxiety
- Traumatic stress, chronic stress and adverse childhood experiences
- Heightened stress reactivity and sensitivity to threat
- Excessive vulnerable 'negative' emotions
- Disturbance in neural pathways that process and regulate feelings
- Neuroendocrine dysregulation
- Core beliefs about feelings, body and true self as 'unacceptable'
- Lack of secure attachment figures in childhood
- Lack of safe relationships as a adult
- Low emotional granularity
- Psychological inflexibility
- Lack of healthy coping behaviours
- Societal conditioning encouraging emotional suppression
This means that emotional eating and body image anxiety is not your fault. They are caused by multiple, intertwined bio-psycho-social factors.
What this also means, is that by teaching our brains that the vulnerable emotions we're trying to avoid using food are not threats, we no longer need to use those eating behaviours that move us away from living a fulfilling life.
The overeating-fear spiral
When we have a lot of fear around experiencing intense and vulnerable feelings (both bodily feelings and emotional feelings), and use food as way to avoid them, it reinforces to our brains that these feelings are dangerous, which creates a spiral:
And the cycle continues.
We break this cycle by teaching our brain that experiencing anxiety, shame and other vulnerable feelings is completely safe. Yes, vulnerable emotions are unpleasant and uncomfortable, and sometimes painful, but they are not dangerous. And, as we train our brain that vulnerable feelings are safe, it will rewire and, overtime, these vulnerable feelings, including body shame and binge urges, will fade.
- Vulnerable feelings (such as anxiety, shame and cravings) are misperceived as threats.
- Threat triggers the stress response, activating the sympathetic nervous system and putting the brain on high alert.
- Activation of the sympathetic nervous system increases anxiety, shame and cravings.
- Which are misperceived as threats.
- Which increases activation of the sympathetic nervous system.
- Which increases anxiety, shame and cravings.
And the cycle continues.
We break this cycle by teaching our brain that experiencing anxiety, shame and other vulnerable feelings is completely safe. Yes, vulnerable emotions are unpleasant and uncomfortable, and sometimes painful, but they are not dangerous. And, as we train our brain that vulnerable feelings are safe, it will rewire and, overtime, these vulnerable feelings, including body shame and binge urges, will fade.
PEACE: The basics
PEACE is at the heart of this toolkit. It’s a powerful practice for everything from body shame, food cravings and emotional eating, to anxiety, chronic pain and panic attacks.
I called it PEACE because: 1. Peace just happens to work perfectly as an acronym. And 2. Peace is the opposite to war. And, let’s face it, the ongoing battle with our bodies is exhausting. Fighting our food cravings takes its toll. And treating our emotions as if they are the enemy wears us down.
There are two main goals of practising PEACE:
The primary aim of PEACE is not to get rid of our intense bodily feelings and emotions (but this generally happens overtime as a nice byproduct). Rather, the goal of PEACE is to change our relationship with our vulnerable feelings so that our brain no longer treats them as threats we need to escape from.
PEACE retrains our brains and nervous systems to interpret signals from our bodies accurately. Over time, this rewires the brain, reshapes the nervous system and reduces the painful and unpleasant feelings that drive our unhealthy coping strategies.
I called it PEACE because: 1. Peace just happens to work perfectly as an acronym. And 2. Peace is the opposite to war. And, let’s face it, the ongoing battle with our bodies is exhausting. Fighting our food cravings takes its toll. And treating our emotions as if they are the enemy wears us down.
There are two main goals of practising PEACE:
- To teach your brain that vulnerable feelings are not dangerous.
- To foster a sense of safety in your body and brain.
The primary aim of PEACE is not to get rid of our intense bodily feelings and emotions (but this generally happens overtime as a nice byproduct). Rather, the goal of PEACE is to change our relationship with our vulnerable feelings so that our brain no longer treats them as threats we need to escape from.
PEACE retrains our brains and nervous systems to interpret signals from our bodies accurately. Over time, this rewires the brain, reshapes the nervous system and reduces the painful and unpleasant feelings that drive our unhealthy coping strategies.
PEACE: Pause. Explore. Affirm. Connect. Expand.
Below is a summary of the practice, along with a more detailed breakdown of PEACE and a couple of guided meditations.
There is no right or wrong way to practise PEACE. Some people like to use it for five minutes in the morning, other people prefer to use at for a few seconds at random points throughout the day, or when they notice body shame or the urge to binge arising. Play around and see what works best for you.
Because the goal of PEACE is to change our relationship with our vulnerable emotions, urges and bodily sensations, it’s helpful to be experiencing a low-medium level of anxiety, shame, craving, or whatever inner experience is triggering the urge to engage in an unhealthy behaviour whilst you practice (this in known as 'internal exposure therapy' because we are gently exposing ourselves to the feelings we fear).
PEACE is an acronym for:
P – Pause and pay attention
E – Explore your inner experience with compassion and courage
A – Affirm safety
C – Connect with sensations of pleasure and memories of joy
E – Engage with the world.
There is no right or wrong way to practise PEACE. Some people like to use it for five minutes in the morning, other people prefer to use at for a few seconds at random points throughout the day, or when they notice body shame or the urge to binge arising. Play around and see what works best for you.
Because the goal of PEACE is to change our relationship with our vulnerable emotions, urges and bodily sensations, it’s helpful to be experiencing a low-medium level of anxiety, shame, craving, or whatever inner experience is triggering the urge to engage in an unhealthy behaviour whilst you practice (this in known as 'internal exposure therapy' because we are gently exposing ourselves to the feelings we fear).
PEACE is an acronym for:
P – Pause and pay attention
E – Explore your inner experience with compassion and courage
A – Affirm safety
C – Connect with sensations of pleasure and memories of joy
E – Engage with the world.
Practising PEACE
P – Pause and pay attention
Pause and pay attention to your inner experience, validating how painful these feelings are and noticing and naming what state your nervous system is in (caring-and-connection, fight-or-flight or freeze) and any vulnerable feelings (emotions and bodily sensations) that are present.
For example, you might say to yourself, ‘I'm noticing my nervous system is in a state of fight-or-flight', 'I’m noticing disgust’, ‘I’m noticing shame’ or ‘I’m noticing a craving for chocolate’.
E – Explore your inner experience with compassion and courage
Courageously and compassionately begin to explore your inner experience.
- Where in your body do you feel this feeling most intensely?
- How much space does it take up?
- What are the sensations (e.g. tension, tightness, tingling, bloated, constricted, empty, fluttery, numb)?
As you explore this feeling, simply observe it curiously and compassionately. You don’t need to judge it as good or bad, right or wrong. You don't need to change it or fix it get rid of it. All you need to do is watch it from a place of lightness and wonder.
NOTE: Compassion is the courage to be sensitive to suffering – both our own and others – and to respond to that suffering in a way that will help to alleviate it.
A – Affirm safety
As you explore your inner experience, gently remind yourself that your feelings are safe, that they aren't threats. Remind yourself that your brain is simply misinterpreting these vulnerable sensations through a lens of danger. And, although they feel uncomfortable and unpleasant, there’s nothing wrong with these sensations. Your feelings aren’t dangerous. They are safe sensations.
You might like to say to yourself something like, ‘My brain thinks this feeling is dangerous, but it’s a false alarm’ or ‘These sensations are safe. I am safe’.
C – Connect with sensations of pleasure and memories of joy
Expand your awareness from your vulnerable feelings, to a sensation of pleasure in your body. This might be the feeling of the breath moving in and out of your lungs, the sun on your skin, the softness of your socks on the soles of your feet. Gently lean into these sensations.
If you find it difficult to connect with sensations that feel good in your body (this will get easier with practise), bring to mind a memory of joy – anything from a funny line in a movie you watched last night to a day at the beach with your kids last summer. Let yourself enjoy this memory for a few moments.
E – Engage with the world
Slowly begin to engage with the world around you. Open your eyes if you’ve closed them. Look around. Notice what you can see, as well as all the sounds. Engage with whatever it is you were doing before practising PEACE, or take any mindful action you need to take to meet the unmet need that your feelings might be communicating to you. For example, do you need food? Rest? Movement? Social connection? Play?
Notice that these vulnerable feelings might still be present. Notice that it's safe for them to be there. And notice that as well as these vulnerable feelings, there are also sensations of pleasure and memories of joy and a whole world around you to explore and enjoy.
MORE TOOLS
Below are a few more of my favourite tools for cultivating body acceptance and reducing emotional eating.
They are all based around the same philosophy as PEACE – learning to courageously and compassionately be with what is going on inside, so that you can move towards the goals you want to achieve, the life you want to lead and the person you want to be.
They are all based around the same philosophy as PEACE – learning to courageously and compassionately be with what is going on inside, so that you can move towards the goals you want to achieve, the life you want to lead and the person you want to be.
Values writing
Bring to mind one of your core values, and spend about 1015 minutes writing a short paragraph on how you can begin to embody this value in relation to your relationship with food.
(TIP: If you don't know your values, think about what you'd like people to say about you at your funeral!).
You might want to think about why this value is important to you, when in your life you’ve embodied this value, how it has felt when you haven’t lived in alignment with it, and how you can begin living this value as you pursue your wellbeing goals.
I’ve included an example paragraph below where I’ve written about one of my core values: Gentleness.
I would like to live gently. To eat gently. To treat my body gently. To speak to myself gently. I would like to embody gentleness and tenderness because I do not want to role model self-aggression or self-neglect to my future children or to other women. When I have not treated myself with gentleness, when I have eaten in a way that is harsh and restrictive, when I have treated my body with brutality – like it was an enemy to fight or a wild dog to control, it has left me feeling empty, exhausted and alienated from myself and the people I love. When I eat gently, when I mother my body with the same unconditional tenderness that I would offer a small child, I feel a wholeness, an expansiveness, an aliveness. When I eat gently, it begins to ripple out into everything I do – the way I speak, the way I work, the way I love. Like a jug fills drop by drop, meal by meal, choice by choice, I add another drop of gentleness, until I am overflowing. I can begin living by this value more deeply when I eat by keeping a few pots of nourishing fresh soups in the fridge for those times when I want something quick and easy for lunch, by cooking up some jacket potatoes that I can reheat and stuff with baked beans and cheese for an easy dinner, and by taking myself out for a weekly coffee and croissant date – so that I do not fall back into habits of self-aggression and self-neglect, so that I do not forget that, regardless of how my body looks, it is always worthy of gentleness, affection and devotion.
(TIP: If you don't know your values, think about what you'd like people to say about you at your funeral!).
You might want to think about why this value is important to you, when in your life you’ve embodied this value, how it has felt when you haven’t lived in alignment with it, and how you can begin living this value as you pursue your wellbeing goals.
I’ve included an example paragraph below where I’ve written about one of my core values: Gentleness.
I would like to live gently. To eat gently. To treat my body gently. To speak to myself gently. I would like to embody gentleness and tenderness because I do not want to role model self-aggression or self-neglect to my future children or to other women. When I have not treated myself with gentleness, when I have eaten in a way that is harsh and restrictive, when I have treated my body with brutality – like it was an enemy to fight or a wild dog to control, it has left me feeling empty, exhausted and alienated from myself and the people I love. When I eat gently, when I mother my body with the same unconditional tenderness that I would offer a small child, I feel a wholeness, an expansiveness, an aliveness. When I eat gently, it begins to ripple out into everything I do – the way I speak, the way I work, the way I love. Like a jug fills drop by drop, meal by meal, choice by choice, I add another drop of gentleness, until I am overflowing. I can begin living by this value more deeply when I eat by keeping a few pots of nourishing fresh soups in the fridge for those times when I want something quick and easy for lunch, by cooking up some jacket potatoes that I can reheat and stuff with baked beans and cheese for an easy dinner, and by taking myself out for a weekly coffee and croissant date – so that I do not fall back into habits of self-aggression and self-neglect, so that I do not forget that, regardless of how my body looks, it is always worthy of gentleness, affection and devotion.
Playing with thoughts
We often mistake our thoughts as truths. By playing with our thoughts, we create a bit of space from them. And in that space, we can decide whether listening to that thought and letting it guide our action empowers us or imprisons us.
Below are a few techniques to help you play with some of the most common thoughts related to body image and emotional eating.
Below are a few techniques to help you play with some of the most common thoughts related to body image and emotional eating.
- Say to yourself, ’I'm noticing that I'm having a thought that I can't cope with this craving'.
- Thank you mind by saying, ‘Thank you mind for warning me that I'm too fat. I know you’re only trying to protect me but I’ve got this’.
- Sing ‘I'm so bloated’ to the tune of Happy Birthday.
- Visualise the thought, ‘I'll start tomorrow’ on a leaf, floating down a stream.
- Imagine you’re driving a bus and a passenger is loudly shouting, ‘You’re not good enough’. Notice how you can keep driving the bus wherever you choose.
- Repeat the word, ‘chocolate’ (or whatever food you're craving) for about 30 seconds, once a second.
Hunger & fullness meditations
Below you’ll find two short meditations to help you get to know your hunger and fullness signals (interoceptive awareness), and whether you need to take values-based action or practise acceptance of the uncomfortable sensation.
I recommend practising them in-the-moment, when you are experiencing hunger or fullness, or when you aren’t sure whether to eat or not eat. Once you have practised using the guided meditations a few times and feel confident in the technique, try practising without the guidance.
I recommend practising them in-the-moment, when you are experiencing hunger or fullness, or when you aren’t sure whether to eat or not eat. Once you have practised using the guided meditations a few times and feel confident in the technique, try practising without the guidance.
Taking care of yourself without using food
Healing our relationship with food and our bodies really comes down to learning how to take care of ourselves.
It’s helpful to have a toolkit of simple nurturing and comforting practises and activities that you can use to take care of yourself both when cravings arise and on a day to day basis.
Remember:
It’s helpful to have a toolkit of simple nurturing and comforting practises and activities that you can use to take care of yourself both when cravings arise and on a day to day basis.
Remember:
- We’re not using these activities to distract ourselves from body shame and cravings, we’re using them to take care of ourselves whilst making space for difficult emotions and urges.
- It’s totally normal to emotionally eat sometimes – we all do it. Eating is an emotional experience. But, if you feel that food is your only coping strategy, or that emotionally-driven eating is moving you away from your values and goals, you might like to explore other ways of taking care of yourself.
- Go for a mindful walk
- Practise a couple of restorative yoga poses
- Take time away from social media
- Journal
- Lay down with your legs up the wall
- Have a bath
- Move your body in a way that feels empowering
- Find your favourite song and dance
- Watch a movie
- Read a book
- Volunteer
- Do the chore you keep putting off
- Have a nap
- Sit in your garden and do nothing
- Go to a local park and people watch
- Do some cleaning
- Clear out your wardrobe
- Make the phone call or send the email you’ve been avoiding
- Listen to a guided meditation
- Do some calming breathing
- Phone a friend
- Take a cold shower
- Try a new hobby (I’m currently loving juggling and alcohol ink art!)
- Play a game
- Learn a new skill (I went through a knitting phase!)
- Light some candles
- Go for a hike in nature
- Stretch
- Go to bed earlier
- Take a fun class
- Join a book club
- Catch up with a friend
- Listen to a podcast or audio book
- Give yourself a massage