by Rochelle Griffin

Tests. Life is a series of them. In the past, for most of my life, I dealt with the stress of tests with food. Unless you are a fellow emotional eater, it’s hard to understand the strange calmness that can come over you when you put the (_______________) in your mouth. Whatever you filled in the blank with really doesn’t matter…it’s the emotions behind it…the WHY. You aren’t physically hungry. Instead you are emotionally hungry for something else. The question is WHAT are you hungry for? Love, security, acknowledgment, acceptance?

Over the years, I’ve learned to recognize the feelings. It’s like this overwhelming urge…this feeling that I KNOW I’m going to reach for the pizza or the cookies or the leftover pasta even though I’m fighting it. Of course, I never reach for something good for me. It hasn’t been something that I’ve been able to control until this past year through the course of a lot of self-discovery.

Well, I’m currently doing The Ultimate Reset and have to eat a very specific way. In fact, I’m part of a test group so I don’t want to mess things up. I’m following it to a T to have accurate results. Anyways, in the midst of this, I was tested in a way that I haven’t been tested before…my child. Even writing about it now brings up intense emotions. I won’t go into a lot of detail and bore you, but things have come to light in my household the past few days. When I went to Tahiti, I went seeking clarity for my life. I got it. As a result, I’ve simplified things. What I didn’t realize is how everything is still connected to my husband’s deployment to Afghanistan 2 years ago. Let me explain…

Keith was deployed. He’s the rock in our family and left Jacob and me behind. It was the hardest year ever but we did what we needed to get by. For me, that meant a lot of traveling for my business. Was I running? Looking back now…yep. Was this fair to my child? Absolutely not. Cue the momma-guilt now.

After a year, Keith comes home. We had been married for 20 years, so I was naïve and thought we wouldn’t have a transition. Mistake #1. We struggled with our newfound roles but didn’t realize it. Instead of dealing with the stress with food, I continued to travel under the guise of business. After all, he’s home and with our child. Mistake #2.

So fast forward to the other day. Jacob started to act out BIG TIME. He’s done this from time to time, but it came to a head the other day when I realized that he TOOK OUT THE WIRES IN HIS BRACES!!!!! They had been gone for 10 days (I was in Tahiti.) He also was breaking things…big things. It was obvious to me that he needed me home. Well, then he pulled some pre-teen attitude and became utterly defiant. He did the worst thing you can do to a parent…RUN when told to come. Oooohhhhhh…I was TICKED. I chased him…(after thought…man, I was FAST. Thank you, Beachbody! I even impressed my kid with my speed.)

Anyways, when all was said and done, I had so many emotions surging thru me. I was literally pacing inside the house like a caged animal. BOOM. Out of the blue, I wanted to deal with those emotions with food…but I’m doing Reset. Crap. I open the fridge, I close the fridge. I think about my commitment. Fine…I won’t eat…but I so wanted to. Eat, drink, whatever to feel better. Nope, instead I had to DEAL with emotions, dammit.

Here’s where the good comes out of dealing with my emotions instead of stuffing them…once we all calmed down, we had one of the best family talks that we’ve had in 2 years. As tears flowed from all of us, we talked about the effects the deployment had on our family and how we’ve each coped with it. We recommitted to each other to pull together and love one-another…like we are supposed to. We actually sat down and had dinner as a family. As stressful as the day was, it was a very healing day too.

And here we are full-circle. Emotional eating. Stuffing our feelings. The urge never goes away…don’t expect it to because you are setting yourself up for disappointment. What you need to do is learn how to deal with the painful emotions head on. It’s not easy. It’s not pretty. It’s down-right messy. However it will not only benefit you, it will benefit your family. From one emotional-eater to another, trust me.

Do you deal with stress by emotional eating? Let me know in the comments below.

A Toast to Your Health,

Rochelle Griffin is Registered Nurse with over 20 years experience who has transitioned her love for fitness, health, & freedom into a 6-figure company that now helps others live the life of their dreams.

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