Unraveling the Truth: It's Not About the Food
What is your emotional coping skill?
In moments of high emotions, like feeling stressed from work, angry at your spouse, or sad from grieving, how are you regulating your emotions? Do you bury them deep down and move on? Do you let them take control of you and guide your actions? There has to be a balance on the emotional scale, but where does the balance lie? In this solo episode, we’re covering how our emotions play into eating disorders and how emotion regulation is crucial.
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It’s all about the food
Or is it? The phrase goes, “It’s all about the food, and it’s not about the food at all.” But when you truly think about it, it’s sort of a cliche, but only because it is absolutely true. Eating disorders are literally all about the food. When we look at it from the perspective of the food, it overlooks the critical emotional component driving these behaviors. However, the emotional component is essential for successful recovery.
What is driving the eating disorder?
What is underneath the eating disorder?
Why is the eating disorder even there?
Emotion regulation
Eating disorders, at their core, are emotion regulation issues. Emotions play a significant role in our lives, shaping our experiences and responses.
I’m going to use the word “healthy” loosely because I truly hate using this word because it’s vague and everyone understands it differently. But for the purpose of this conversation, take it with a grain of salt.
An emotionally healthy person learns to identify, understand, and manage their emotions effectively. They can navigate through life while acknowledging their feelings without being overwhelmed by them or needing to push them away. They can name their emotions, feel them, and move through them.
But let’s be honest, most people have trouble doing this.
From a young age, we learn to identify and regulate emotions through interactions with our primary caregivers. For example, a baby can communicate their needs by crying and their caregivers respond by soothing and attending to them.
They feel hungry, they feel cold, they feel physical discomfort.
Whatever it is, they communicate that feeling by crying. Over time, children begin to recognize emotions and self-soothe by internalizing the ways in which their parents label their emotions and provide soothing. They learn to go from crying to putting words to their experience. They learn to regulate themselves after much external regulation was done for them.
But let’s get real.
Not everyone grows up in an environment that fosters healthy emotion regulation. Some of us grew up learning that we should bury certain feelings, or that we should quickly get over something that upset us because, in the bigger picture, it doesn’t matter. We heard a voice that said “You’re fine, stop crying” and we quickly turned that into our own voice. We can tell ourselves that we’re “fine”, or we’re “okay”, but in reality, we aren’t.
That is the problem with this voice that we hear in our head that tells us to just move on. Our emotions never truly go away. They change form, like a transformer, and communicate in other ways. For the sake of this conversation, I’m referring to eating disorders and the deeper meanings behind them.
How do I fix this?
You guys know that DBT is not my jam, but emotion regulation is a pillar of DBT. If you haven’t learned about your emotion regulation skills, check it out. I’m not the one who should be teaching it to you by any means but it is a great resource to help you find the skills that resonate with you.
For example: If you find yourself being negative all the time, you should find ways to use positive self-talk. Like writing positive notes on your mirror with a dry-erase marker, or leaving sticky notes throughout your house to remind you of positive thoughts.
There are so many different ways to approach emotion regulation and it’s a skill that you have to learn that works for you.
But don’t get me wrong. I’m not telling you to try out these tools and then you’ll just be fixed. If you have a hard time using the tools, and just doing what needs to be done, ask yourself these questions:
Why is this skill really difficult to implement?
Why is it that you have a hard time with this particular emotion or really all emotions?
When you start to ask these questions, it will open up a new conversation.
Where do I start?
Verbalize the Emotion: name the feeling, talk about the emotion, and describe what it is.
Narrow Down the Emotion: If you don’t yet know the word to name the emotion, this is a way you can start to identify it. Find a category to put them in instead of naming the specific emotion. Sad and angry are both emotions that can make us feel “bad”. However, they are two different emotions, so categorize them separately to make it easier to distinguish between more nuanced emotions.
Reframe the Emotion: the goal of emotion regulation is not to eliminate emotions but to tolerate, embrace, and learn from them. They serve a purpose to guide our responses.
I get it. It sucks that you have to teach yourself this stuff, but you can, and you absolutely will. Over time, you’ll learn how to tolerate emotions and soothe yourself.
We need anxiety. We need anger. We need sadness. We need grief. We need guilt. We need all of these emotions to help us navigate the world.
The goal is not to simply get rid of these emotions, it is about learning how to dance with our emotions.
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Tweetable Quotes
“It sucks that you have to teach yourself this stuff, but you can, and you absolutely will.” - Rachelle Heinemann
"In order to get to a place where you can identify and organize your emotions and have the ability to soothe yourself and tolerate uncomfortable emotions, it has to be learned. It has to be internalized." - Rachelle Heinemann
"Eating disorders are an emotion regulation issue. It's not about food, it's about emotions." - Rachelle Heinemann
Resources
DBT Skills
Dr. Marsha Linehan: The 4 Skills Modules of DBT
Related Episodes
Episode 81 - What Do I Do About My Emotional Eating?
Episode 70 - What’s The Purpose of Anger?
More From Rachelle
Hey there! I’m Rachelle, the host of the Understanding Disordered Eating Podcast. As a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, I work with clients to make sense of life’s messy emotional experiences.
I believe in the power of deep work and its positive impact on your life in the long term. Learn more about how we can work together here.
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