Emotional Rescue Eating: Are You A Rescuer?

Last week something happened to a family member of mine that was quite upsetting. The phone rang late at night with another family member asking me for help. Not quite awake, I screened the call and let the machine pick it up. The situation sounded chaotic. Later I replayed the message that was left on the answering machine and I kept asking myself, Can I really be of any help? I sat and pondered the question for several minutes, before I took action. I realized that I could not do anything to change the circumstances. The situation at hand was the result of consequences and choices that were finally bearing out for someone I love. As much as I didn't like it, I couldn’t change anything.

Like so many women, I’ve been raised with the belief that women are the caregivers, the nurturers, the fixer uppers. I thought a kiss on a boo boo would make everything better so for years I stuck my nose in many situations where it didn’t belong. That led to a life filled with chaos for me. I used to get in the middle of everything. When one of my friends got divorced, I felt so badly for her that I began to cause a rift in my own marriage. When several of my family members made choices that put them in awkward and uncomfortable positions, I was always attempting to turn things around and make it better for them, always looking to save everyone and cushion the blow. That kind of thinking led me to being a miserable person always seeking the comfort that food would give me.

Then one day someone asked me, “Are You A Rescuer?” It hit me between the eyes and I realized that what I was doing was holding back my life and living the consequences of other people’s lives. My do-gooder ways had caused enormous unnecessary tension for me and my family. Then I began to realize the importance of people taking individual responsibility for their choices. That’s when everything began changing for me and I emerged as The Juicy Woman.

Are you stuck feeling saddled by the chaos that everyone has piled on top of your life? Do you feel overburdened by frustration and overwhelm that really isn’t yours? Are you seeking refuge from the chaos at the bottom of a bag of cookies? If you’re having trouble saying "No" to other people and equal difficulty saying "Yes" to yourself, then you better run, not walk to register for the next Juicy Woman Fabulous, Fit and Free Call. After all, wouldn’t you like to start taking back some of that energy that you expend on others and spread a little bit of that sunshine on yourself? Whose life are you living anyway? How many pounds of excess weight can you attribute to emotional rescue eating?