Happy Valentine’s Day!

I don’t know about you, but I love chocolate! If chocolate isn’t your “thing” feel free switch it with your “go to food” and read on….

A big part of my work is helping women let go of their memory-driven food cravings, so that they can be present in the moment to enjoy food, without guilt, regret, overeating, or feeling deprived. It’s not like they always have trauma around food, but they crave the food to comfort the pain of stuck emotions and/or interrupted attempts for connection and love.

How FUNDAMENTAL is food to our existence?

We require food to survive, and we eat, if we’re fortunate, we interact with food in our bodies 24/7.

Shouldn’t this be a relationship of peace?

If we’re fighting urges, cravings, or can’t be around certain foods, for fear of losing control, we’re prisoners. It’s not the food’s fault and it’s not our fault either. It’s old, emotional baggage or traumas that are simply asking to be healed. Craving and obsessing about food, especially sweets or carbohydrate-rich foods may be the norm for a lot of people, but it’s not a satisfying way of being. It’s not how we were designed to function in the world.

When we’re in the thick of stress or imbalance and craving chocolate, we just want CHOCOLATE!

But, please hear me when I say that there is a peace available, no matter what your history, no matter what is going on in your life. You can have this peace with chocolate or any other food.

How do I know this?

I know much about how the human body works and I’ve seen people heal their relationship with chocolate and many other “hot button” foods. They’ve transformed the chaos it into a relationship of peace, trust and enjoyment. Then, following a healthy and satisfying lifestyle is easy and enjoyable.

I had a client back in 2007 who actually set me on this path to do this specific work around food. I didn’t know it ahead of time, but he asked me for help and I told him about this new method of healing I had learned. He said yes! He was a fabulous guinea pig.

You would never know it, but he had been addicted to heroin at one point in his life and had been sober for two decades before he came to see me. He had long since let go of his cravings for drugs or alcohol, but couldn’t trust himself around chocolate, even the really low-quality stuff that he didn’t even enjoy. He’d inhale it, be disappointed as it wasn’t even satisfying, and then feel horrible about himself. He suffered physically, mentally and emotionally and felt hopeless. He’d been repeating this cycle for years. It was making it really hard for him to lose the weight he wanted to lose and be an example of health for his clients.

I guided him in the process and he briefly felt and we were both delighted by what happened. He felt some really old emotions that had been tucked away decades ago. He acknowledged them and let them go. There were tears, for both of us actually.

But even when we experience old pain in a session, it lasts for a few seconds, instead of feeling it like a low-grade headache that’s in the background for years. That kind of pain is not bad enough to go to the hospital, but it sure does make daily life miserable, especially when stress intensifies it.

It’s the same with our old stuffed emotional pain.

Sometimes, it gets bad enough that we’re not able to ignore it anymore, and we seek a solution. That’s the gift of our cravings, they guide us to our freedom IF we face them.

So, he felt these feelings and became FREE. Immediately after his session, he could be around chocolate, and feel at peace. He could eat some chocolate, and stop at a much smaller amount and feel MORE satisfied. This was his natural state of being. He returned to a baseline, that was there all along, covered up by old traumas and emotions.

He was surprised at how much space there was around an issue that was so stressful and conflicted. He felt this way, because he healed the root cause of his cravings.

I hope this gives you encouragement to see yourself and chocolate in a different light. I’d love to help you be free of any dysfunctional relationship with food you may have, but most importantly, I want you to feel this level of peace, no matter how you find it. You deserve it!

So, on this Valentine’s Day, if you celebrate by eating chocolate, I encourage you to go slow. As you enjoy it, feel your sit bones on the chair, notice the air on your skin, and the sounds around you. Get present to the moment, take some gentle breaths and then it will be easier for your brain to register the magnificent satisfaction that chocolate is.

A stressed brain is nearly impossible to satisfy, and needs more substance outside of the body, to get the hit of satisfaction. But, you can be satisfied with a reasonable amount, when not stressed, and especially when the emotional baggage compartment is empty.

So, I encourage you to breathe into your heart and let your brain destress. This will help you actually FEEL the Joy of Chocolate.

All the best,

Kara