Craving Food or Avoiding Feelings? The Truth About Emotional Eating

If you've ever found yourself standing in front of the refrigerator after a difficult day, not because you're hungry but because you need something to make the pain stop, this one's for you. If you've ever reached for food, Netflix, busyness, or your to-do list to avoid feeling something hard, you're not alone.

Last week, something happened that shook me to my core and reminded me what this wellness work is really about. I got news that broke my heart. I won't share the details because it's not my story alone, but I will say this: it was unexpected, painful, and I felt it land deep in my chest like my whole body said "no, please no."

I'd been having a lovely day with family, enjoying sunshine and laughter. Then this moment happened, and it felt like a door slammed shut inside me. My nervous system shifted immediately. Tears came, my throat tightened, my chest felt heavy, and the familiar thought rushed in: "I can't deal with this. I need something to make it stop."

Just like that, the old patterns came knocking. Food. Numb. Escape. Even though I haven't emotionally eaten in a long time, there it was - that ancient, well-worn urge to make the pain disappear.

Clean Pain vs Dirty Pain: Why Emotions Feel So Overwhelming

In that moment, I remembered something I teach regularly: the difference between clean pain and dirty pain.

Clean pain is the natural pain of life. Loss, disappointment, grief, sadness. It's the kind of pain that actually needs to be felt, that wants to move through us. It's part of being human.

Dirty pain is the added suffering we create by trying to avoid clean pain. It sounds like "I shouldn't feel this way," "I need to suck it up," "Pull up your big girl panties," or "I shouldn't ruin everyone's day."

Clean pain frees us when we allow it to move through. Dirty pain traps us because we're fighting the very emotion that needs to be processed.

Here's the thing: clean pain doesn't feel very "clean" while you're experiencing it. It feels hard, raw, and messy. When it showed up for me that day, I had a choice. Would I feel it or flee it?

When Your Nervous System Wants to Shut Down

I could feel my nervous system starting to react just like in the old days. Under emotional stress, we typically respond in one of four ways: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn (people-pleasing). For me in that moment, it was freeze - that shut-down, disconnected "get me out of here" feeling.

The old part of me said, "Food will help. Just eat something. It'll calm you down." But the newer, wiser part I've trained said, "Wait. You don't need to escape this. You need to feel it, and you're safe to do so."

This brought to mind something trauma expert Peter Levine said: "Trauma is not what happens to us. It's what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness."

The Power of Being Witnessed in Pain

I did something different than I would have in my past. I turned to my sister, who was with me that day, and said, "Hey, I need to tell you something. Something really hard just happened and I'm not okay."

She didn't try to solve it for me. She didn't rush me through it or offer advice. She definitely didn't try to cheer me up. She looked me in the eyes, listened to what I said, and wrapped her arms around me.

I cried - really cried in public with people all around us. But in that moment, the only thing that mattered was having someone hold space for me. That moment of being witnessed and held allowed my nervous system to feel safe again.

The transformation: I was no longer alone in the pain. I wasn't wrong for feeling. I didn't need to numb anymore. That hug completed my stress cycle, and instead of locking the emotion inside like I used to, I let it move through me.

6 Steps for Moving Through Emotions Without Numbing

Here are the tools that helped me that day, and they can help you the next time big emotions show up:

1. Notice the Urge

Before anything else, pause and notice. That day, the urge came fast - I felt it in my body before I could even label it. Instead of acting on it, I paused and literally thought, "Oh, this is me trying to numb. This is an old pattern showing up."

When you notice the urge instead of automatically obeying it, you create space between yourself and the behavior. That tiny pause is where your power lives. Ask yourself: "I want to eat right now, but am I actually hungry? Is this a craving to escape rather than a craving for food?"

2. Name the Emotion

Once I noticed the urge, I got curious about what I was trying to cover up. In my case: sadness, grief, disappointment, heartbreak, and honestly, some anger.

I took a quiet moment to put words to it: "This hurts. I feel heavy, raw, vulnerable, rejected, sad." Naming an emotion activates the thinking part of your brain and helps calm the fear center. This is called "affect labeling," and it brings order to the chaos.

You don't need perfect words. "I feel awful right now" is totally enough.

3. Ask: Is This Clean Pain or Dirty Pain?

I stopped and asked myself: "Is this clean pain - the natural emotion I need to feel? Or am I adding dirty pain by resisting it?"

Clean pain was the heartbreak of what someone said and how it landed. Dirty pain would have been piling on guilt for feeling bad, pretending I was fine, or beating myself up for being "too sensitive."

Understanding this difference helps you stop fighting the emotion. Clean pain is meant to be felt - it's what helps us heal.

4. Complete the Stress Cycle

This is where you let the emotion move through your body. That day, I cried hard - not in a rushed "wipe your face in the bathroom" way, but fully in my sister's arms.

Emotions are not just mental - they're physical. They live in our bodies and need to move through to be processed. Completing the stress cycle might look like:

• Crying (like I did)

• Going for a walk

• Deep breathing

• Shaking or moving your body

• Having a good laugh

• Hugging someone for 20+ seconds (this actually helps regulate your nervous system)

5. Find an Empathetic Witness

This was maybe the most powerful part of my experience. I was with family having a great time, and I could have pretended I was okay to avoid "ruining" anyone's day. The old me might have done exactly that.

Instead, I turned to someone I love and trust. She didn't fix it or say "at least" or "you'll be fine." She just listened, let me cry, and held me.

We're wired for connection. When someone can be with us in our pain without trying to rescue or rush us, it changes everything. That painful moment became safe and healing because I wasn't alone anymore.

6. Practice Self-Compassion If You Do Numb

Sometimes we do reach for food, our phone, Netflix, or other distractions. You are not failing when that happens. You're not broken or bad at this.

If I had numbed that day, I still would have been worthy of love. But instead of spiraling into guilt, I would have gently asked myself later: "What was I feeling? What did I really need? What might I try next time?"

Guilt about emotional eating only adds dirty pain on top of clean pain. What breaks the cycle is curiosity and compassion.

Why This Approach Creates Lasting Change

These steps aren't about doing them perfectly or following them in exact order. They're an invitation to be present with your emotions rather than escaping them.

Emotional regulation isn't about being stoic or strong all the time. It's about building trust with yourself - saying "I can feel this, I can stay with myself, and I can ask for help."

Every time you choose to feel instead of flee, you're creating new neural pathways. You're rewiring old reactions and telling your nervous system it's safe to feel.

The deeper truth: When we stop using food to avoid our feelings, we discover that we're strong enough to handle whatever life brings us. We learn that emotions, even painful ones, won't actually harm us when we allow them to move through naturally.

This is what it means to build emotional resilience and practice self-kindness. It's letting your pain be felt instead of fed.

Your Next Opportunity to Practice

If you're hurting right now or facing difficult emotions in the future, remember: you're allowed to feel. You're allowed to ask for support. You're allowed to let emotions process through you.

You are strong enough to stay with your feelings instead of numbing them. And if you do end up reaching for food or other distractions? That's human too. Every moment is another chance to practice something different.

This is sacred, important work. The patterns might still exist, the temptations might still come, but each time you choose presence over numbing, you're building a more authentic, resilient relationship with both your emotions and your body.

Ready to explore more tools for emotional regulation and breaking the numbing cycle? Listen to the full episode of Wellness Mastery with Jen Hoyer for the complete personal story and additional strategies for staying present with difficult emotions.

Listen to Episode 30: Craving Food or Avoiding Feeling?