On Hearing the Hungry Heart and Feeding the Empty Soul

The blame for the obesity epidemic has been placed on everything from genetics to poor eating . . . but is there a darker, unspoken human need that remains unfulfilled and often even unknown even to oneself? Let’s start this part of our transformative inquiry by being honest with ourselves, confronting the sabotages, finding ourselves, and then not losing that person again.

​ Unmet emotional (and spiritual) longings are recurrently filled by food, yet the longing and emptiness remain.  Our mind, in its ultimate judgment, feels empty, lonely, starved for affection or belonging recurrently and unconsciously, even telling our bodies to turn to food to gain some feeling of being “full.” 

Food eventually becomes a learned substitution for every need in our lives, including how to deal with stress, loss, grief, loneliness, and loss of faith. Stress alone comes with its own sad story of fat hormones and carbohydrate intolerance, which may lead to sleep issues. Lack of adequate sleep, in turn, contributes to “fatness.” 

Constantly, almost like a mouse on a wheel, we try and try but get nowhere. Miraculously, if goals are met, the weight is lost – think . . . just how permanent is it? Usually, not very. It is because the elephant in the room, our heart, our soul, is still in the room unattended, unfulfilled, and even unrecognized.

Is it feasible to expect that with growing awareness of these other barriers to long-term weight-loss success, a separate treatment plan would blossom out of a need for permanent wellness success?

Oh, Where to Begin to Find Such Secrets to Be Solved?

Both the logical and exercise science points of view determine that obesity is caused by energy input being greater than energy output. Many people’s palates and brains are addicted to high salt, sugar, and fatty food, true. This notion is also consistent with science, but I believe other etiologies with more effective approaches are out there but underutilized, as just discussed. 

 Humans are emotional creatures, and there is no denying basic instincts such as finding community, love, pleasure, and happiness. Unlike our land and sea mammals, which are driven biologically to reproduce and survive, humans have an expansive consciousness with the free will to choose how they want to live.

 The gift of choice without knowledge sometimes harms our overall balance and well-being. It can be argued that over the years, families have changed, giving birth to an entire generation with prominent negative health behaviors.

 If a child grows up eating fast food and drinking soda in replacement for water, the child will grow up into an adult who passes these behaviors and unhealthy ways of coping down to his/her family. Simply put, what science and psychology say about obesity is true, and an integrative approach to this problem must be taken globally. No longer can feelings, anger, stress, sexual dysfunctions in marriages or relationships/break-ups – no longer can they be ignored and swept under the rug.

 The underlying causes of obesity are driven by emotions, which then become akin to an addiction caused by the release of hormones and neurotransmitters in the body. Many food chemists, for example, design food to become addictive, which plays into the role of overeating. It’s a vicious cycle that takes time to retrain the body and brain.

 This is a huge job and one that is not being done in its entirety in any weight loss program today.
 
Plan For Listening to the Inner Self, Your Emotions, Your Beliefs
 
For many obese people, they have “lost” their power somewhere on their journey in life. Many keep giving their power away to their boss, spouse, children, friends, or anyone who needs their service. Those who have power but still struggle emotionally are stuck in belief systems that they can’t be or look a certain way.

 This, too, is linked subconsciously to being powerless.  Many experience the domino effect. Sometimes it starts with one scenario that leads into other and more complex situations later in life. 

Many who have been verbally, physically, or sexually abused in the past are likely to fall into negative eating habits. Mostly, with women, there is either an underlying sense of shame or the need to be unattractive to men. I have found this with women who were sexually abused in their upbringing. In fact, they cover and hide any sense of beauty and love that can shine from their power center. 

  People are obese for many reasons, but those who are not emotionally happy often seek fulfillment and validation through overeating. Those who “MUST eat their ice cream every day” have connected a certain food with a certain feeling. Why is this connection to a certain food that important? Questions like these must be asked and answered with a plan for emotional fulfillment without the use of food. 

A truly balanced person never has a biological urge to “need” a certain daily food for survival.  The most important lesson is that power must be balanced. Those who have excess power often abuse their personal strength.

 Or they use their power to compensate for something else lacking in their life.  Not everybody has emotional problems, but for many, the emotion is deeply buried and allows others to control our lives instead of ourselves. Even if a person is religious, he or she may not be spiritually fulfilled and in control of his or her life, choices, and emotions. 
 
Start by listening:

1. Ask yourself, are you hungry in your stomach? Is it rumbling and growling? Or, is it just a craving coming from your mind?
2. Sit quietly. Observe your thoughts and the feelings from your body. Do you feel loved? Or is there an emptiness inside?
3. What do you think of when you think of death? Do you have faith? Or do you feel all alone?
4. Do you catch yourself talking yourself out of doing what is healthy by making excuses for yourself – like, you deserve that, you’ve been “good” all day?
5. Learn to identify those “comfort foods” that your momma gave you to fix all your problems and write down suitable low-calorie replacements.

Once you have learned to listen, you should have learned quite a bit. After you identify your barriers to success, you need to develop a plan for every sabotage, and you should be ready to implement that plan without hesitation as you head for the cupcake cupboard.

©Kathryn Shattler, Synergetics Weight Loss for Life Plan
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