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Hi gorgeous, it’s Rachel here and I have a question for you.

Do you numb out of life? A big question I know, but I want to have this conversation with you if at the moment you have some kind of perceived problem with food, such as emotional eating, binging, overeating, food obsession or maybe you feel a bit disconnected from your world at present and not as happy as you want to feel. Maybe you think that life has got a little dull and flat. Maybe even (a little bit deeper) there might be a part of you that wakes up every day and thinks ‘oh my God I don’t know who I am anymore’

If that’s you, first of all I just want to say that there is nothing wrong with you, however, I want to start helping you to clear some things out of the way so you can enjoy life a little bit more than you do at the moment.

If you are numbing out of life right now, there is a very good chance that you will be turning to something, in order to do that.

So I want to share with you the most common things which we women turn to when we are numbing out of our lives

Now before I get into that, I firstly want to explain something.

What does it mean to ‘numb out?’

Well it could be at the moment, for whatever reason, there are certain things you do which allow you to not fully acknowledge the reality.

That could be to do with how you are really feeling, it could be an emotion, it could be a situation or an environmental issue such as a job, money issues, health concerns and what you are doing is choosing to turn a blind eye

You might find yourself having these kind of thoughts (although often we aren’t conscious of doing this)

I’m not going to go there

I’m not going to acknowledge it

I’m going to turn around and hope it disappears

We all do this. I know I did this for 14 years of my life, during which I had a really hungry soul (although I didn’t know it). I thought I had a food problem, but what I became very good at doing was numbing out of things.

I numbed out of my reality on a daily basis

I choose to not acknowledge how I felt, I choose to not acknowledge my truth, I choose to not acknowledge who I really was and all of that compounded over the years and manifested into a very messed up relation with food, my body and myself

Behavior associated with numbing out can be seen as generally excessive or binge behavior

Can you relate to that?

So why do we numb out?

Well it comes down to protection and safety.

Let’s face it sometimes it’s really hard to acknowledge our reality.

For example if you have a job which you don’t enjoy and it doesn’t satisfy you, or you have a relationship without a meaningful connection, or maybe you don’t love that person anymore or perhaps feel that you aren’t on the same page, sometimes it’s really hard to face that stuff

To speak your truth and say “I don’t want to be in this relationship anymore’ or ‘I don’t like this job, I want another one or want to change careers’ likely brings up even more discomfort

The problem is though, that often when we are numbing out, we are choosing to numb out as it feels so big, so overwhelming and so scary with a part of us thinking ‘I can’t do this’ , so we deflect that discomfort allowing us to focus our attention on something else

The majority of us who turn to food as a way of coping with this, we are numbing out of how we are truly feeling, as we don’t want to acknowledge it for whatever reason

Even though you might be choosing to numb out of our life, you might not think it’s a positive thing, but underneath that behavior it really is. Our bodies and minds are not designed to harm us, they are not designed to create discomfort believe it or not, they are designed to keep us safe though, so it’s all about protection and keeping us with what we know

The problem is though, that if you find yourself in a situation within you life which just doesn’t feel right, it could be a job, a relationship, a health issue, that protection mechanism often kicks in, then our mind believes change is on the horizon which can be uncomfortable and what do we do?

“I don’t want to acknowledge that so I’m just going to go and eat a piece of cake” (tongue in cheek but you know what I mean, right?!?)

When we do that over and over again, we become these detached, disembodied, disconnected, un-fed versions of our true selvess. 

Right let’s move on.

What are the main thing which we might do or turn to in order to numb out?

#1 FOOD

Any kind of emotional eating, binge eating, over eating is a form of numbing out. Food becomes your ‘thing’ as you want to turn the channel of what’s going on. This is arguably the most common ones amongst women and an area which pretty much all of my clients and community struggle with to some degree. (You can read more about dysfunctional eating here)

#2 ALCOHOL

This can get mixed up with food as we can turn to alcohol in the same way we turn to chocolate. Wine becomes a substitute for relaxation or for feeling content with ourselves after a manic day. So do you find yourself drinking more than you intend to or maybe you are drinking quite regularly. I’m not judging anybody by the way, there is nothing wrong with having a glass of wine in the evening, but if that is turning into a bottle or towards the weekends you find yourself slipping into that binge mentality, that is your red flag to step away and ask yourself what is really going on?

#3 SOCIAL MEDIA

How many times have you found yourself grabbing your phone and you are aimlessly scrolling through Facebook, pinterest, instagram?  Maybe your children or husband are shouting you, or you are in-between meetings at work, and for a few moments you just jump on Facebook to see what’s going on in the world?

I’m guilty of doing this and I’m guessing that you might be too

I invite you to be aware of it. If you recognize that you do, start asking yourself why do you grab your phone so often? Why are you pulled towards scrolling in that moment? Often it’s because we are wanting to numb out of what is really going on for us at the time.

I tend to find I do this when I”m procrastinating with something. If I don’t want to clean the kitchen for example or I’m feeling a bit depleted after spending a very long day with the children (all you mums know what I’m talking about!)

if you do it though and you find that 5 minutes turns into 45 where you get swallowed up into the hole of social media, I invite you to question it and try and understand what’s going on.

The moral of the story – When social media becomes a distraction it’s a form of numbing out

#4 TRASH TV

Similarly to social media if you find yourself sitting in front of the tv, flicking over the channels or getting lost in trash tv for  30-40 minutes.

That could be numbing out

So once again, just become aware of it!

#5 SHOPPING

Carrying on the excessive and binge mentality, I’m talking about compulsive shopping, where you find yourself wandering into a shop and you’ve spend $100 or come out with a bag of stuff which you really don’t need but you bought it anyway, this could be numbing out.

Be aware of this, acknowledge what you are doing, don’t judge or critise it, step back and start to question ‘why and I doing it? What am I trying to gain from this? What part of my hungry soul and I wanting to feed with this behavior?’

If you are choosing to numb out of your life at the moment as it is, there is something fundamentally imbalanced. Perhaps there isn’t enough fun, pleaure, adventure, connection, love.

There can be so many things behind that behavior, so I wonder what they are for you as these are the things your soul is really hungry for.

When you can find a way of feeding yourself based on these non physical hungers, all this numbing out stuff, it will start to disappear all by itself.

I promise.

Want some extra help with feeding your Soul Hunger?

I’ve created a beautiful meditation for you which will allow you to start figuring out what your soul is really hungry for. (Remember it’s not about the food, the wine, the shopping or anything else which you THINK is the problem. All of that is symptomatic and symbolic of a deeper hunger)

To get started, get the meditation here: http://www.rachelfoy.com/soulhungermeditation

Missed last week’s post? You can see it here: How To Listen To Your Hungry Soul