The power of the Pause
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The power of the Pause
An anxiety framework for emotional eating.
The other day I wrote my short description for my Substack bio: “Weight loss blogger writing from the intersection of diet culture, trauma management and emotional eating.” It felt like a bold statement as it makes me sounds a bit like I have it all figured out, which clearly I haven’t. Nonetheless, these words feel true as I’ve been writing about those topics, on and off, for the last 17 years. Wow, right?
There are many reasons why people struggle with their weight, often it’s a combination of external as well as internal factors:
Trauma and using emotional eating as a PTSD coping mechanism.
Pressures and learned behaviors from growing up in a diet culture that only cares about profits and wants to keep us on the self-shaming diet roller coaster.
An infrastructure that is focused on lifestyle convenience (e.g. highways for cars rather than parks, bike lanes and pedestrian zones) and ‘value’ for money (pay only $1 more and supersize your meal!), resulting in the overconsumption of calories while reducing our natural activity levels.
While it is helpful to understand these factors, they can also make me feel more hopeless because what chance do I really have given these considerable forces?
Point #2 was the biggest influence up to my 40s but with ageing it has been overtaken by #1. These days my anxieties are the most potent factor that contributes to my overeating and sugar addiction:
This cycle is at the core of everything for me, I am sure it looks familiar to many of you as well. My sugar remedy is, just like the original trauma, rooted deep inside my childhood. Which means it’s been my trusted go-to friend for many decades, leading to my irrational belief that sugar keeps me safe. Subsequently, removing sugar from my lifestyle has never been a viable long-term option as I always equate that to being ‘unsafe’. Which is why, for many years, I thought my main work lay in overcoming and eliminating my anxieties, so that I no longer needed the sugar and food safety blankets. Needless to say, that did not work.
It took me a few more years to finally realize, and accept, that my anxieties are a part of who I am, and always will be. I can’t even tell you what a relief that was. This acceptance is also a big part of why I no longer beat myself up every time I “fall off the wagon.” I know now that I had to get to this point so that I can hook into the section of the cycle that will make the real difference, the remedy:
Changing the remedy is where I break the cycle.
In practical terms this means reaching for tools other than sugar and food:
Journaling
EMDR/EFT
Breathwork
Walking in nature
Going for a bike ride
Gardening (if we get the house!)
DOING IT ANYWAY
Everyone has their own tools, I know that these are my own most effective ones. If I do them, that is. Which is always where the crux is, isn’t it? I’ve been dabbling with some of these tools for quite some time and apart from maybe the walking none of them have stuck. Not because they are not the right tools but because my resistance always does such a good job at steering me back to my old habits.
Which is where the pause comes in - the moment before our action that reminds me of my identity, tools and goals. So when I feel anxious, instead of reaching out for my instant sugar-laden remedy, I pause. Long enough to center myself and bring myself back into my body. Long enough to make a choice that is healthier.
Instead of being stuck in the neverending anxiety cycle, this puts me on a journey towards healing and freedom:
If this diagram looks like ‘more work’ that’s because it is. The pause takes effort, so do the items on the remedy list. Certainly more effort than grabbing a peanut butter cup and turning on the TV! The pause is also hard for me because when I am feeling anxious the last place I want to be is in my body. This is where my real work lies and what I will be focusing on going forward.
You know, it’s funny, I can spend hours analyzing this stuff and working through it in my head. I love thinking, writing and talking about it! But ultimately the only thing that will ever help me succeed is DOING it. Which I have more thoughts about following my family’s visit and witnessing my nephew lose 12 lbs while on vacation in America, the land of plenty! More on that soon…
Have a lovely weekend,
Kerstin xo
P.S. I coined the term ‘Kylie Syndrome’ in 2005, with regards to my fear of the other shoe dropping when things are going too well. I am referencing Kylie Minogue, an Australian actress and pop star, who at the time ‘had it all’: young, beautiful, at the peak of her career, with a gorgeous French boyfriend. Then she got cancer. What goes up must come down, right? Her story ‘confirmed’ my anxieties around this.
The power of the Pause
I relate to all of this! On holiday in Skyros in June, with all its inclines, steep hills and steps I was confronted by weight, my unbearable heaviness, as my knees grumbled and kept telling me this was too much. I vowed to do something about my weight. Needless to say I made some half-hearted attempts when I got home because, as you say, the tried and tested behaviours feel like they keep me safe. Then, a week ago I ended up sat with a Doctor because of immense pressure in my head and the back of my neck. I thought I was going to have a stroke. She diagnosed high blood pressure and I was put on medication that day and told to rest. This is clearly a warning to me from my body and something in my head has clicked, that real self-care demands that I stop abusing my body. I am really pleased with my eating this week, and that I have managed to wean myself off chocolate while in Greece and have sustained this since coming home - 5 weeks in total. This is huge for a chocolate addict like me. The other strategy that helped me over the last couple of years was doing the 8 week mindful self compassion course, I’ve done it twice. Ordinary mindfulness doesn’t really chime with me, yet to turn the focus to loving kindness and self-kindness was so impactful. I need to do it again, and again, and again. I think it’s a line from a John o’Donohue poem in which he says “be excessively gentle with yourself”.
I need to try the pause.