I don’t need to remind you that we are in the middle of a pandemic, do I?
Well, hold on. If you live in the North Pole, you may be immune, there’s almost no cases. But here, in the United States, in the Northeast where I live, we are well into the crisis. Right about now, I wish I lived in Greenland.
Being in a pandemic, and all that goes with it, means that we as humans likely go into fight or flight mode, and break out whatever coping mechanisms we have in our arsenal to help us. It’s just natural and we all have our ways of coping with hard situations. For most of us, this might be too much drinking, too much eating, or turning to your worst versions of junk food you ate as a teenager. Good times.
I have talked to many women in my Facebook group as well as my private clients about emotional eating, I have written about my own story with emotional eating and I am finally starting to read articles about this new pandemic (and it’s about time that we talk about coping and feelings and getting this addressed in the media), which is the rise in inevitable rise in depression, anxiety, substance abuse and weight gain.
The thing is, we need to start coming to a place of acceptance around what’s going on. The Corona virus, and all the fear, sadness, anxiety, anger, loneliness and loss that we feel are not going away anytime soon. I am certainly not here to tell you to get over it, or move on. I, for one, have been putting up a lot of stubbornness around that. I have been resisting giving in, and still feel resistant. I didn’t ask for this and I don’t want it.
But it’s not going away.
The acceptance I am talking about does not include Oreos, Cheese Wiz and wine. Believe me, I’ve been there, it solves nothing and only creates shame and secrets. We need to talk. And give voice to our feelings. And be bold about this. We are all in this, and even though none of us have experienced anything like this before, we can still support each other.
Feel like you are the only one eating macaroni and cheese and cookies? We are ALL feeling this. A pipe underneath my sink literally cracked in half the other day, upending my dishwasher and sink, and I looked my husband straight in the eye, stone faced and said calmly, “I am making a pan of cookies right now. I am going to emotionally eat.”
We started laughing about it, because I was full out acknowledging what I was about to do. Speaking it out loud diffused the situation. I ate a cookie, I didn’t eat the whole pan.
If you feel like you are going down a slippery slope of sugar and wine, there are many other ways to cope, that don’t involve gaining 15 pounds. I would love to talk with you more about it. Want to chat with me? Click HERE to connect to my online calendar and we can set up a call (it’s free!). And let me know in the comments below how you are doing these days.
