March 18, 2024 • 30 mins
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Welcome to a deeply personal episode of the Breakthrough Emotional Eating Podcast, where I invite you to join me on a journey through the intricate connection between grief and emotional eating. As I share my own experiences of profound loss, I offer insights and strategies for navigating the complex emotions that accompany grief.
• Understanding Grief: I delve into the multifaceted nature of grief, sharing raw and authentic stories of loss and its impact on both body and mind.
• The Physiology of Grief: Explore the physiological responses triggered by grief, from the activation of the fight-or-flight response to the phenomenon of broken heart syndrome.
• Empowering Choices: Discover the power of choice in the grieving process as I discuss the importance of reclaiming agency amidst loss.
• The Three C's of Grief: I introduce the Three C's of grief—Choose, Connect, Communicate—as essential pillars for navigating the journey of grief.
• Transformative Healing: From regulating the nervous system through mindful breathing to embracing vulnerability in communication, I offer tools for transformative healing in the face of grief.
Join me as I extend a compassionate hand to listeners grappling with grief, illuminating a path of resilience, healing, and self-discovery. Tune in to gain profound insights and practical strategies for navigating the journey of grief and emotional eating.
Connect with me online:
1. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/breakthroughemotionaleating/
2. You Tube channel, Kristin Jones Coaching: https://www.youtube.com/@KristinJonesCoaching44
3. You Tube channel, Breakthrough Emotional Eating Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@breakthroughpodcast-44
3 . Website: https://www.kristinjonescoaching.com
If you want to learn more about how to stop overeating at meals and lose weight easily, get my How To Stop Overeating At Meals Guide: https://go.kristinjonescoaching.com/stop-overeating
Needing more specific and direct support for your emotional eating and overeating? Check out my online course, Stop Dieting Start Feeling, and my personalized coaching program, Breakthrough To You.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Do you want to lose weight butare tired of the restrictions
and deprivation that accompaniesa diet?
Does food provide you comfortwhen you are lonely, bored,
angry, or sad?
If so, you are in the rightplace.
My name is Kristen Jones, andI'm a life coach specializing in
emotional eating and weightloss, and I'm also a lifelong
(00:26):
emotional eater.
I want to provide you withinformation, motivation, and
support.
So you too can learn to manageyour emotion and thoughts and
develop a healthy relationshipwith food and yourself.
Welcome to the BreakthroughEmotional Eating Podcast.
(00:51):
Hi, and welcome to theBreakthrough Emotional Eating
Podcast.
My name is Kristen Jones, and Iam especially happy that you are
here with me this week.
today's episode of my podcast isgoing to be something that is
unfortunately so near and dearto my heart right now.
(01:13):
And, that is the topic of griefand grief and emotional eating.
And so what a little, a littlebackground.
I did a little bit of backgroundwhen I promoted This episode and
that was that in the last well,it's been more like nine months,
(01:37):
but in the last Two months inthe month of January I lost two
very significant people in mylife and that had been over the
course of about ten months of ofillness and Just you know, just
(01:59):
I was losing, losing, you know,gradually going through, the
process of losing two people inmy life.
And I felt that it was reallyimportant because I have been
trying to deal with my own griefand deal with the way it, it
just hits me out of nowhere.
I mean, I think that I'm, I'mdoing well.
(02:21):
I think that I can, I'm handlingthings and then all of a sudden
I don't have a clue.
That's it.
I don't have a clue.
I can't focus.
I can't think about anything.
And so it's, it's, it's been sobaffling to me.
And so I really felt like Ineeded to do some research.
I needed to figure out what wasactually going on because I
(02:42):
didn't understand it myself.
I didn't understand what washappening and why I was, you
know, Having these types ofexperiences.
So just a tiny bit ofbackground, probably 10 months
ago, probably in April of lastyear, my dad was diagnosed with,
it was actually probably beforethat, but my dad was diagnosed
with stage four, dementia and.
(03:05):
You know, when your parents, mydad was 87 years old and, or at
the time was 86 and you know,when, when you, we all know our
parents are going to die at somepoint and you know that that's,
you know, when they get to be acertain age, that that's going
to happen.
And so I had kind of beenpreparing myself for that to
happen.
And I had been spending a lot oftime with my dad and it had been
(03:27):
really amazing.
And I had felt very, connectedand very, good about, the amount
of time in the interactions thatI had had with him.
And, but it was, but it wasstill really challenging.
It was really challengingbecause my dad was really
unhappy.
My dad had been a very, veryactive, active person and very,
very proud.
(03:48):
And his life had changedconsiderably, not only in the,
in the last 10 months, but inthe last 10 years.
But when, you know, when youhave somebody who's older, you
kind of, you kind of start tomentally prepare yourself for
like, okay, I know what'scoming.
I know this is, I know this ishappening.
just about a month after that,my 33 year old niece, Elisa was
(04:09):
diagnosed with stage four lungcancer that had metastasized to
her brain, to her spine and toher liver.
And that.
was not something that any of uswere prepared for.
I don't, she wasn't prepared.
None of us, you know, you don't,you don't, nobody's prepared for
that.
And, so, and we almost lost herabout three weeks after she was
(04:33):
diagnosed.
Her cancer had already obviouslyprogressed significantly and,
and we almost lost her.
But we didn't.
And she was making a really,amazing recovery, recovery to
the extent of the recovery thatshe could make, because her
cancer was already veryadvanced.
And the blessing was we got sixmore months with her and that
was amazing.
(04:54):
But if you've been aroundanybody with cancer, if you know
anybody who has cancer, when,when cancer is present, your
life can change.
In hours, and that is whathappened.
And, in the beginning ofJanuary, she got sick and, and
within, you know, he had alreadyhad a, a one hospital stay and
we had gotten her home forChristmas.
(05:15):
And then she went back in afterNew Year's and, Never came back
out.
And so we lost her on January6th.
And then, 16 days later, we lostmy dad.
And so that was a lot.
It was a lot to deal with and alot to take in.
And so one of the things that I,Wanted to get out of this
(05:40):
podcast was kind of lettingpeople know like what?
What first what happens withgrief?
What what is grief because wehear about it, but we don't
really understand Like how doesthis what is it?
And how does it happen?
What is it?
What does it do to our bodies?
What does it do to our brainsand then how does it?
(06:00):
How do we, how do we get our,it's not even how do we get
ourselves out of it.
It's just, how do we allowourselves to go through it?
How do we allow ourselves to gothrough it?
Because nobody knows.
There is no prescribed length oftime.
There's no prescription for youshould be sad for a certain
amount of time.
You should cry for a certainamount of time and then you
(06:21):
should be past it and you shouldbe done.
Cause that's not how this works.
So, I have a lot of notes and,and I want to make sure that I,
that I really give grief andgrief and how it relates to how
we respond to it.
And in our case here on thispodcast, how it relates to
emotional eating, and it'sreally not even just emotional
(06:43):
eating.
It's just our own.
Responses to grief and it couldbe emotional eating.
It could be, falling into adepression.
It could be, starting to drinkmore.
It could be starting to spendmore money.
Any of those things, any ofthose responses that we
oftentimes do, In relationshipto and why we do them because I
(07:06):
think part of the problem is, isthat people get in their minds
that, well, it's been a certainamount of time and this person
is no longer here.
And also, I want to, I want tospecify that grief is not just
about someone dying.
Grief could be.
The loss of a job.
It could be someone moving away.
It could be the loss of afriendship.
(07:26):
It could be, the loss of a pet.
All of those things are, aretotally significant and can
create the grief response.
And they're all equallyimportant.
They're all valuable and they'reall things that we, that we need
to address.
And so I think, the first, youknow, the first thing that, that
(07:48):
I want to address is that grief.
Grief will do a number of thingsto our bodies and to our brain
when it happens immediately.
It's sometimes it's, it'ssometimes it's immediate, but it
also has this ripple effect.
And so I want to start off bytalking about the impact that
(08:10):
grief has on our bodies as wellas our brains and then how that
kind of manifests itself.
So the, When, when someone has aloss, the first thing that
happens is they can be, they, itactivates in their bodies.
It activates the flight, thefight, flight, or freeze
(08:32):
response.
And that causes.
It will cause physical things tohappen to our bodies and it will
cause an increase in bloodpressure, in respiration rate.
And again, that happensimmediately, but it also, so let
me go back through it.
It increases, respirationincrease, increases our blood
(08:54):
pressure.
It increases our response to ourstressors, our natural stress
responses that we have.
And so.
Those things start to happen toour bodies and when that fight
or flight, and we know aboutfight or flight anyway, but when
that happens, it happens notonly immediately after someone
dies, but it can also happenrepeatedly when.
(09:17):
Someone goes into a restaurantor a place that reminds them of
that loved one.
They can be swept up in thatsame response.
That grief response can happenat any time.
It could be two weeks after theperson passes away or leaves.
It could be six months.
It could be two years.
It's that, that can happen andit can come out of nowhere and
(09:40):
what happens is when peoplearen't prepared for that, they
think that there's, there'ssomething wrong with their
grieving process or they're,they're weak and they have a
tendency to isolate themselvesand that makes the situation
even worse.
So our bodies go through all ofthese, these responses and those
are all very, very normalresponses, but our body sees
(10:01):
them as a threat.
And so when our body feels, whenour brain sees us as being
threatened, it is going to dowhat it needs to do.
And it increases that stressresponse of what are we, how are
we going to respond to that?
And most people will turn tosomething to alleviate that
stress.
That stress and alleviate thatstress and oftentimes and bring
(10:25):
their their Regulate theirnervous system because their
nervous system has becomedysregulated It brings their
nervous system back intoregulation and one of the most
common things that people do inorder to bring their Their,
system back into regulation isto eat.
And that is a very, very commonresponse to any kind of
(10:46):
stressor, but especially astressor such as, such as grief.
So our bodies will, our bodieswill do that.
So that is, that is one thingthat can happen immediately, but
it can also happen over the longhaul.
Thank you.
There's another thing thathappens to our bodies
physiologically that there hasbeen shown.
There's been research shown thatin 2014, they did a study.
(11:09):
And when a person hadexperiences, grief experiences,
especially the loss of a lovedone or a loss of a spouse in
this, study, it was the loss ofa spouse.
There is physiologicallysomething that happens to their
heart that changes.
They're, they're the, theworking of their heart and it's
called broken heart syndrome.
(11:30):
And what it actually does is itmakes a person more inclined to
have a heart attack after aloved one has died.
They have shown there's anincrease in the, heart rate.
In the occurrence of heartattacks, 30 days after a spouse
has died in people who are 60and over.
(11:50):
And that is, I mean, that'sreally significant that we are
more prone because of this,because of this impact that
grief has on our bodies.
And if physiologically has onour hearts, that we can actually
have that type of response.
Another thing about grief, and Ithink this is really important
to know there's, there's threedifferent types of tears, but
(12:12):
the type of tears that a person,cries when it's grief related is
are called emotional tears andemotional tears actually contain
a painkiller and a painkillerthat lessens the.
feelings of pain that a personis actually experiencing.
So when people hold that in,they're not allowing themselves
(12:37):
to get that relief from theemotional pain that they're in.
And so when people want relieffrom an emotional pain, what are
they going to do?
They're going to turn to one ofthose stress relievers.
that regulates their nervoussystem because their nervous
system has gotten out ofcontrol.
It regulates it and that can bedrinking, doing drugs, spending
(12:58):
money, and eating.
And in our case, we're always,we're always more interested in
that eating response.
So crying and allowing yourselfto process and allowing yourself
to feel those feelings is sovery important, whether it's
just related to the griefprocess or it's related to the
grief process and reallydirectly addressing the
(13:20):
emotional eating aspect andemotional eating component of
it.
Another thing, and I experiencedthis firsthand is grieving and
the grief process dramaticallyimpacts your immune system and
your immune system becomesweakened.
The day after my dad died, Itested positive for COVID.
And so there, you know, there's,there's an incredible connection
(13:44):
between our immune system andwhat that does, how our immune
system becomes so weakened.
It also becomes weakened becauseoftentimes there's a disruption
in our sleep patterns.
We're not able to sleep as well.
We're not able to sleep in a waythat is, going to create a, the
ability for us to be able to,respond to.
(14:04):
different things in different,different occurrences that are
happening in our lives.
And the last thing, this is sointeresting is there is an
actual phenomenon called griefbrain and grief brain is what
happens to our brain when we'redepressed.
Are and again that goes alongwith that, that stress response
(14:27):
that we get when our, when our,when, when we are presented with
grief and we are feelingthreatened that, that, that,
that grief response is theemotions are so overwhelming
that our brain almost our braindoes disassociate and it.
Prevents us from feeling thatemotional pain and it, what it
(14:53):
does is it creates a lack ofconcentration, a lack of focus,
it, it creates a, an inabilityto be able to make good
decisions.
And all of those things are aresponse to our bodies wanting
to avoid that emotional pain.
When we know that's happening.
And we start to experience thatfogginess or that lack of
(15:16):
concentration.
We have to acknowledge that andknow, Oh, okay, this is a grief
response.
It's not that there's somethingwrong with me.
It's not that I'm, I just can'tdo it.
I don't need to try harder.
I actually need to be morecompassionate with myself.
And so that is, and, and, andreally the, the.
(15:36):
The belief is, and I think thisis really important, is that
when people can understand, theyunderstand what they're feeling
and why they're feeling it, theycan then be more apt to allow
themselves to feel it instead offeeling like, Oh, there's
something wrong with me.
I have to be really strong.
I have to be strong and I haveto, I should be past this.
I should be done.
(15:58):
There must be something wrongwith me.
I just need to toughen up.
No, because that just createsmore of that stress response.
And then we go through thatwhole cycle of it's the stress
response.
We then have to find a way toregulate and bring ourselves,
our nervous systems, calm ournervous systems back down.
We then do something such asovereat.
Then we feel guilt.
(16:19):
We feel shame.
That causes another type ofstress response.
And then we have to regulatethat again.
So it creates all these viciouscycles.
And so understanding why thiskind of thing happens to you
when you're in those states ofgrief.
And again, grief can be for avariety of reasons.
It doesn't just have to be thatloss of a loved one.
(16:39):
And it but it we have to startunderstanding and start
normalizing that this is aprocess and the process Is going
to be different and a differentlength of time for every single
person.
No person has the The theroadmap for how grief is going
to process through their bodiesand how it's going to actually
present itself So we have toremember that All of that is
(17:05):
going to, all of that is goingto, it, it, it all has to be
taken into consideration and wehave to be kind and gentle and
gracious with ourselves.
That's really, that's, that'sreally what I got out of my
research that I did is that wejust have to start being kinder
to ourselves when it comes tothis process.
So there are, there's, there'ssomething called the three C's
(17:26):
of grief.
And I hope that by presentingthese three C's to, to, to all
of you, that you'll, you'll beable to take these and you'll be
able to not only help supportother people while they're going
through their grief, but alsoyou'll be able to support
yourself when you are goingthrough grief as well.
So the first C of the three C'sof grief.
(17:49):
Is choose.
And what that means is that whensomeone is in a, a, a state of
grief and grieving, they feellike they have no choice because
all of their control in theirlives has been taken away
because this, this person orthis thing is no longer there
and they don't have a say in.
(18:10):
And so they then translate thatinto they don't have a say in
any aspect of their lives.
So it's important for people toremember that we always have a
choice and we have a choiceabout what's going to be best
for us.
So it's, it's oftentimes, and Iknow it's family members, best
intentions to try and guide aperson and let them know what
(18:31):
they think is the best grievingprocess for them or the best
thing for them to do.
It's really important forsomebody who is, who is in the,
in the, in the eye of the stormof grief to be given permission
and be allowed to make adecision about what's going to
be best for them, regardless ofwhat anyone else thinks, because
(18:54):
they, people need to feelempowered and that they do have
a say in their lives.
So, I'm going to give you twoexamples of that.
The first example is, is mysister who, who lost her
daughter, her oldest daughterand my niece.
And my sister made the decisionpretty quickly after my niece
(19:15):
passed that she did not want Tohave a memorial immediately
after my niece had passed away.
My sister's a caterer and shehad experienced, she'd done
plenty of celebrations of life.
And she knew that she hadwatched and she had seen when
people had done them immediatelyafter someone had passed.
(19:35):
And then when they had donemaybe two or three.
A month, two months or threemonths after a person had passed
the difference in how thespouse, the children the parents
dealt with it and how they wereable to present themselves and
how they were able to feelduring the ceremony.
And my sister made the decisionand said, I don't care.
I don't, I want to give it acouple of months.
(19:56):
I want to get in.
So we are my niece passed awayon, on January 6th and we are
having that's in 2024 and we arehaving her memorial on March
10th, 2024.
And so that gives us, giveseverybody in the family a couple
of months and all of her friendsand all, you know, she was very,
very loved.
And it gives everybody anopportunity to be able to make
(20:19):
arrangements to be a part ofthings, but to also not have
those emotions quite so raw andquite so exposed.
The second piece of choice thatwe, that I had to really give my
mom after my dad passed away wasmy mom decided that One of her
very dear friends invited her togo to Mexico.
(20:39):
She has a house in Mexico andshe decided, asked my mom to
come in and, and visit her and,and just give her, you know
just, you know, just get her,get a change of scenery, give
her a break.
And so my mom currently is inMexico.
She's in the middle of a threeweek trip where she is spending
time with a very dear friend andher husband.
And And at first I was like, Idon't want my mom to leave.
(21:00):
I don't want my mom to travel.
I don't want her, I don't wanther being anywhere, anywhere
away from me.
And I had to allow my mom thefreedom and the choice to decide
what was going to be best forher.
And I might not have necessarilyagreed with it initially, but I
do now.
And I'm so happy that she'sdoing it, but it, it really is
(21:20):
an important thing to allowpeople to have that choice.
The second thing is.
To connect.
So the second C is to connectand that kind of kind of
parallels kind of goes alongwith that first thing of choice
is that when people are tryingto, when they're in grief and
they're trying to make choices,oftentimes they do need to
(21:40):
connect with other people whocare about them and love them
and, and kind of run things bythem.
Grief can be so isolating andoftentimes people want to
isolate themselves because theydon't want to be a burden.
And they don't want to, theyjust don't feel that they're
even in a place to evencommunicate and connect with
other people, but it'sabsolutely what we need.
(22:02):
We are not ever meant to gothrough a journey like grief on
our own.
We need the support of peoplearound us who love us.
And we need to be able tocommunicate and share and talk
about our feelings and talkabout what is important to us.
And that leads.
To the third C, which iscommunicate and communication is
(22:24):
really sharing openly andhonestly what you need when you
are in that grieving process,what you need, what's going to
help you, what's going tosupport you.
And really communicating that tothose people around you.
So they can better support you.
I also feel that thatcommunication is really
important.
It's important to share how youare feeling to others who are
(22:47):
going through the same process.
So one of the things that I havebeen doing with my, I, I, I,
when my niece got diagnosed andI always went up and visited my
parents again because my dadwasn't doing well.
And so I would always go up andvisit my parents every weekend.
And when my niece became sickand when she came back home
after being in the hospital,There wasn't a weekend unless
(23:08):
she wasn't there.
There wasn't a weekend that Ididn't go up and I didn't see
her and I didn't spend time withher and I didn't spend time with
my dad.
And so I still go up and see,you know see my sister and see
my mom.
And my sister and I weretogether.
It was two weekends ago.
And.
It was just the two of us and I,I was sitting in my niece's
(23:28):
chair on the couch and I justbecame overwhelmed with like
this, this, this feeling of kindof anger of how it was just so
wrong.
And I was sitting there andthere for a moment I was like, I
don't know if I should saysomething.
I don't know if I should saysomething to my sister.
I don't want to upset her.
(23:49):
And, but I, I finally just said,I finally said to my sister, I
said, gosh, this is just sowrong.
And we started talking, we bothstarted crying.
And we both started talkingabout just, just how we were
feeling and it relievedeverything.
And it made me feel like, okay,all right.
I shared that.
And she, she got, you know, weboth got to cry and then it was,
(24:10):
we were done and we got back toour day.
And it wasn't that, you know, itwasn't that we didn't think
about it or we didn't, it wasn'timportant, but it was that, it
was that ability to be able toknow that I could share with her
how I was feeling and, and thatit was okay.
And then it was okay to cry andit was okay to feel that way.
And.
Again, this last weekend, wekind of had the same thing where
(24:30):
we talked about we talked abouther, uh, what were we talking
about?
I think we were talking aboutthe memorial and we were kind of
prepping for the memorial andtalking about different things.
And, and then she was sharingwith me some, some messages that
she had received from some ofher friends.
And, And we both cried and itwas, and it was okay.
And it was, and it was, it was,it was so good to feel
comfortable with communicatingin that, communicating that and
(24:53):
being able to share how I wasfeeling and not feel like I had
to keep it inside because, oh, Ihad already cried initially.
I don't need to cry anymore.
And that's just not the casethat we, we have to go with our
feelings and we have to allowour feelings to be there and to
be present.
So one of the things that I wantto kind of leave you with is
that idea of that stressresponse, that stress response
(25:14):
that we get, and it can be anykind of stress response.
But in this case, we're, we'retalking about that stress
response as a, as a result ofgrief and, of grief.
What happens when we start toget that stress response,
whatever triggers us to startthinking about that person or
start feeling ourselves gettingupset is we need to regulate our
nervous systems to bring ournervous systems back down to a
(25:37):
calm level.
And I'm going to tell you theeasiest and most simple way to
do it.
And it seems so easy.
Is we just need to breathe andso all I can tell you is when
you start to feel thoseoverwhelming feelings of, of, of
that stress coming in, and itcan be whether it's, you know,
your boss yelling at you.
(25:58):
It can be the stress responseof, of, of talking about, you
know, a person who's passed andyou start to feel yourself get
upset.
You just give yourself.
Like two minutes of just takingsome nice, slow inhales through
your nose and then exhaling outthrough your mouth and really
allowing yourself to breathe andto calm down and to let yourself
(26:22):
just calm your nervous systemdown.
And you'll be in such a betterplace to then make a decision
about Do I want to eatsomething?
Am I hungry?
Do I want to eat something?
Or do I want to just respondwith food?
Or do I want to have a drink?
What?
But you're making an informeddecision.
You're not just respondingbecause that's the way you've
(26:43):
always done it.
We need to learn to listen toour bodies, listen to our
nervous systems, and then calmthem down and then make the
choice that's going to be thebest one for us.
So I hope, I hope that bytalking about grief and about
talking about grief responsesand talking about the things
(27:06):
that we do during the grievingprocess, I hope that has kind of
demystified it and normalizedit.
And just for anyone, there's nota person listening to this
podcast.
There's not a person on thisearth that is ever going to be
able to avoid losing somebody.
It's the cost of loving peopleand we're never going to be able
(27:27):
to get away from that.
But we can be okay with thegrieving process and grief and
being okay with it and notfeeling like we have to hide it.
We have to be ashamed of it orthat we have to be strong.
We just have to let it happenand ride it out.
And there is no, there's noprescription.
There's no.
(27:47):
amount of time that we need.
We just have to give ourselvesthe grace we need and allow
ourselves to feel exactly whatwe're feeling.
So I hope that this has beenhelpful to anyone who's in the
midst of grieving and in themidst of this process.
And I hope that I.
(28:08):
Have shared some things thatmaybe you didn't know and that
it will help you be able to movethrough this grieving process.
So, a little bit about me and Iget a little bit of a reminder
about what I do.
I am a life coach.
I specialize in helping womenaddress issues with emotional
eating, but Emotional eatingand, and the stress response and
(28:31):
stress in our lives, it impactsall of our lives.
So it doesn't matter if you'rean emotional eater, if you're
not an emotional eater, we allhave stress.
We all need to learn ways toregulate ourselves, to learn
about our responses, to rewireour brain, to process our
emotions and to feel ouremotions.
And if you feel like you maybeneed some help, with processing
(28:54):
emotions and feeling thoseemotions and allowing yourself
to maybe have a new reaction anda new response when Things go
sideways.
We need to talk.
So again, please go ahead andset, you know, you can leave a
comment in the in, in the wheremy podcasts are listed.
(29:15):
I always ask at the end of thepodcast, you will always have a
Q and a, that will ask thequestion of what resonates with
you.
If you want to connect with me,please do.
I am on Instagram at atbreakthrough emotional eating.
Send me a DM and let's connectin that way.
All right, take care, have agreat rest of your day and I
will see you next week.
(29:36):
Thank you for listening to thisweek's episode.
To take your first steps towardsnever dieting again, get my stop
dieting guide, go to www.
kristinjonescoaching.
com.
That's Kristin with an I N andlearn a sustainable way to lose
(29:57):
weight and develop a healthyrelationship with food.
I'll see you next episode.
Do you want to lose weight butare tired of the restrictions
and deprivation that accompaniesa diet?
Does food provide you comfortwhen you are lonely, bored,
angry, or sad?
If so, you are in the rightplace.
My name is Kristen Jones, andI'm a life coach specializing in
emotional eating and weightloss, and I'm also a lifelong
(00:26):
emotional eater.
I want to provide you withinformation, motivation, and
support.
So you too can learn to manageyour emotion and thoughts and
develop a healthy relationshipwith food and yourself.
Welcome to the BreakthroughEmotional Eating Podcast.
(00:51):
Hi, and welcome to theBreakthrough Emotional Eating
Podcast.
My name is Kristen Jones, and Iam especially happy that you are
here with me this week.
today's episode of my podcast isgoing to be something that is
unfortunately so near and dearto my heart right now.
(01:13):
And, that is the topic of griefand grief and emotional eating.
And so what a little, a littlebackground.
I did a little bit of backgroundwhen I promoted This episode and
that was that in the last well,it's been more like nine months,
(01:37):
but in the last Two months inthe month of January I lost two
very significant people in mylife and that had been over the
course of about ten months of ofillness and Just you know, just
(01:59):
I was losing, losing, you know,gradually going through, the
process of losing two people inmy life.
And I felt that it was reallyimportant because I have been
trying to deal with my own griefand deal with the way it, it
just hits me out of nowhere.
I mean, I think that I'm, I'mdoing well.
(02:21):
I think that I can, I'm handlingthings and then all of a sudden
I don't have a clue.
That's it.
I don't have a clue.
I can't focus.
I can't think about anything.
And so it's, it's, it's been sobaffling to me.
And so I really felt like Ineeded to do some research.
I needed to figure out what wasactually going on because I
(02:42):
didn't understand it myself.
I didn't understand what washappening and why I was, you
know, Having these types ofexperiences.
So just a tiny bit ofbackground, probably 10 months
ago, probably in April of lastyear, my dad was diagnosed with,
it was actually probably beforethat, but my dad was diagnosed
with stage four, dementia and.
(03:05):
You know, when your parents, mydad was 87 years old and, or at
the time was 86 and you know,when, when you, we all know our
parents are going to die at somepoint and you know that that's,
you know, when they get to be acertain age, that that's going
to happen.
And so I had kind of beenpreparing myself for that to
happen.
And I had been spending a lot oftime with my dad and it had been
(03:27):
really amazing.
And I had felt very, connectedand very, good about, the amount
of time in the interactions thatI had had with him.
And, but it was, but it wasstill really challenging.
It was really challengingbecause my dad was really
unhappy.
My dad had been a very, veryactive, active person and very,
very proud.
(03:48):
And his life had changedconsiderably, not only in the,
in the last 10 months, but inthe last 10 years.
But when, you know, when youhave somebody who's older, you
kind of, you kind of start tomentally prepare yourself for
like, okay, I know what'scoming.
I know this is, I know this ishappening.
just about a month after that,my 33 year old niece, Elisa was
(04:09):
diagnosed with stage four lungcancer that had metastasized to
her brain, to her spine and toher liver.
And that.
was not something that any of uswere prepared for.
I don't, she wasn't prepared.
None of us, you know, you don't,you don't, nobody's prepared for
that.
And, so, and we almost lost herabout three weeks after she was
(04:33):
diagnosed.
Her cancer had already obviouslyprogressed significantly and,
and we almost lost her.
But we didn't.
And she was making a really,amazing recovery, recovery to
the extent of the recovery thatshe could make, because her
cancer was already veryadvanced.
And the blessing was we got sixmore months with her and that
was amazing.
(04:54):
But if you've been aroundanybody with cancer, if you know
anybody who has cancer, when,when cancer is present, your
life can change.
In hours, and that is whathappened.
And, in the beginning ofJanuary, she got sick and, and
within, you know, he had alreadyhad a, a one hospital stay and
we had gotten her home forChristmas.
(05:15):
And then she went back in afterNew Year's and, Never came back
out.
And so we lost her on January6th.
And then, 16 days later, we lostmy dad.
And so that was a lot.
It was a lot to deal with and alot to take in.
And so one of the things that I,Wanted to get out of this
(05:40):
podcast was kind of lettingpeople know like what?
What first what happens withgrief?
What what is grief because wehear about it, but we don't
really understand Like how doesthis what is it?
And how does it happen?
What is it?
What does it do to our bodies?
What does it do to our brainsand then how does it?
(06:00):
How do we, how do we get our,it's not even how do we get
ourselves out of it.
It's just, how do we allowourselves to go through it?
How do we allow ourselves to gothrough it?
Because nobody knows.
There is no prescribed length oftime.
There's no prescription for youshould be sad for a certain
amount of time.
You should cry for a certainamount of time and then you
(06:21):
should be past it and you shouldbe done.
Cause that's not how this works.
So, I have a lot of notes and,and I want to make sure that I,
that I really give grief andgrief and how it relates to how
we respond to it.
And in our case here on thispodcast, how it relates to
emotional eating, and it'sreally not even just emotional
(06:43):
eating.
It's just our own.
Responses to grief and it couldbe emotional eating.
It could be, falling into adepression.
It could be, starting to drinkmore.
It could be starting to spendmore money.
Any of those things, any ofthose responses that we
oftentimes do, In relationshipto and why we do them because I
(07:06):
think part of the problem is, isthat people get in their minds
that, well, it's been a certainamount of time and this person
is no longer here.
And also, I want to, I want tospecify that grief is not just
about someone dying.
Grief could be.
The loss of a job.
It could be someone moving away.
It could be the loss of afriendship.
(07:26):
It could be, the loss of a pet.
All of those things are, aretotally significant and can
create the grief response.
And they're all equallyimportant.
They're all valuable and they'reall things that we, that we need
to address.
And so I think, the first, youknow, the first thing that, that
(07:48):
I want to address is that grief.
Grief will do a number of thingsto our bodies and to our brain
when it happens immediately.
It's sometimes it's, it'ssometimes it's immediate, but it
also has this ripple effect.
And so I want to start off bytalking about the impact that
(08:10):
grief has on our bodies as wellas our brains and then how that
kind of manifests itself.
So the, When, when someone has aloss, the first thing that
happens is they can be, they, itactivates in their bodies.
It activates the flight, thefight, flight, or freeze
(08:32):
response.
And that causes.
It will cause physical things tohappen to our bodies and it will
cause an increase in bloodpressure, in respiration rate.
And again, that happensimmediately, but it also, so let
me go back through it.
It increases, respirationincrease, increases our blood
(08:54):
pressure.
It increases our response to ourstressors, our natural stress
responses that we have.
And so.
Those things start to happen toour bodies and when that fight
or flight, and we know aboutfight or flight anyway, but when
that happens, it happens notonly immediately after someone
dies, but it can also happenrepeatedly when.
(09:17):
Someone goes into a restaurantor a place that reminds them of
that loved one.
They can be swept up in thatsame response.
That grief response can happenat any time.
It could be two weeks after theperson passes away or leaves.
It could be six months.
It could be two years.
It's that, that can happen andit can come out of nowhere and
(09:40):
what happens is when peoplearen't prepared for that, they
think that there's, there'ssomething wrong with their
grieving process or they're,they're weak and they have a
tendency to isolate themselvesand that makes the situation
even worse.
So our bodies go through all ofthese, these responses and those
are all very, very normalresponses, but our body sees
(10:01):
them as a threat.
And so when our body feels, whenour brain sees us as being
threatened, it is going to dowhat it needs to do.
And it increases that stressresponse of what are we, how are
we going to respond to that?
And most people will turn tosomething to alleviate that
stress.
That stress and alleviate thatstress and oftentimes and bring
(10:25):
their their Regulate theirnervous system because their
nervous system has becomedysregulated It brings their
nervous system back intoregulation and one of the most
common things that people do inorder to bring their Their,
system back into regulation isto eat.
And that is a very, very commonresponse to any kind of
(10:46):
stressor, but especially astressor such as, such as grief.
So our bodies will, our bodieswill do that.
So that is, that is one thingthat can happen immediately, but
it can also happen over the longhaul.
Thank you.
There's another thing thathappens to our bodies
physiologically that there hasbeen shown.
There's been research shown thatin 2014, they did a study.
(11:09):
And when a person hadexperiences, grief experiences,
especially the loss of a lovedone or a loss of a spouse in
this, study, it was the loss ofa spouse.
There is physiologicallysomething that happens to their
heart that changes.
They're, they're the, theworking of their heart and it's
called broken heart syndrome.
(11:30):
And what it actually does is itmakes a person more inclined to
have a heart attack after aloved one has died.
They have shown there's anincrease in the, heart rate.
In the occurrence of heartattacks, 30 days after a spouse
has died in people who are 60and over.
(11:50):
And that is, I mean, that'sreally significant that we are
more prone because of this,because of this impact that
grief has on our bodies.
And if physiologically has onour hearts, that we can actually
have that type of response.
Another thing about grief, and Ithink this is really important
to know there's, there's threedifferent types of tears, but
(12:12):
the type of tears that a person,cries when it's grief related is
are called emotional tears andemotional tears actually contain
a painkiller and a painkillerthat lessens the.
feelings of pain that a personis actually experiencing.
So when people hold that in,they're not allowing themselves
(12:37):
to get that relief from theemotional pain that they're in.
And so when people want relieffrom an emotional pain, what are
they going to do?
They're going to turn to one ofthose stress relievers.
that regulates their nervoussystem because their nervous
system has gotten out ofcontrol.
It regulates it and that can bedrinking, doing drugs, spending
(12:58):
money, and eating.
And in our case, we're always,we're always more interested in
that eating response.
So crying and allowing yourselfto process and allowing yourself
to feel those feelings is sovery important, whether it's
just related to the griefprocess or it's related to the
grief process and reallydirectly addressing the
(13:20):
emotional eating aspect andemotional eating component of
it.
Another thing, and I experiencedthis firsthand is grieving and
the grief process dramaticallyimpacts your immune system and
your immune system becomesweakened.
The day after my dad died, Itested positive for COVID.
And so there, you know, there's,there's an incredible connection
(13:44):
between our immune system andwhat that does, how our immune
system becomes so weakened.
It also becomes weakened becauseoftentimes there's a disruption
in our sleep patterns.
We're not able to sleep as well.
We're not able to sleep in a waythat is, going to create a, the
ability for us to be able to,respond to.
(14:04):
different things in different,different occurrences that are
happening in our lives.
And the last thing, this is sointeresting is there is an
actual phenomenon called griefbrain and grief brain is what
happens to our brain when we'redepressed.
Are and again that goes alongwith that, that stress response
(14:27):
that we get when our, when our,when, when we are presented with
grief and we are feelingthreatened that, that, that,
that grief response is theemotions are so overwhelming
that our brain almost our braindoes disassociate and it.
Prevents us from feeling thatemotional pain and it, what it
(14:53):
does is it creates a lack ofconcentration, a lack of focus,
it, it creates a, an inabilityto be able to make good
decisions.
And all of those things are aresponse to our bodies wanting
to avoid that emotional pain.
When we know that's happening.
And we start to experience thatfogginess or that lack of
(15:16):
concentration.
We have to acknowledge that andknow, Oh, okay, this is a grief
response.
It's not that there's somethingwrong with me.
It's not that I'm, I just can'tdo it.
I don't need to try harder.
I actually need to be morecompassionate with myself.
And so that is, and, and, andreally the, the.
(15:36):
The belief is, and I think thisis really important, is that
when people can understand, theyunderstand what they're feeling
and why they're feeling it, theycan then be more apt to allow
themselves to feel it instead offeeling like, Oh, there's
something wrong with me.
I have to be really strong.
I have to be strong and I haveto, I should be past this.
I should be done.
(15:58):
There must be something wrongwith me.
I just need to toughen up.
No, because that just createsmore of that stress response.
And then we go through thatwhole cycle of it's the stress
response.
We then have to find a way toregulate and bring ourselves,
our nervous systems, calm ournervous systems back down.
We then do something such asovereat.
Then we feel guilt.
(16:19):
We feel shame.
That causes another type ofstress response.
And then we have to regulatethat again.
So it creates all these viciouscycles.
And so understanding why thiskind of thing happens to you
when you're in those states ofgrief.
And again, grief can be for avariety of reasons.
It doesn't just have to be thatloss of a loved one.
(16:39):
And it but it we have to startunderstanding and start
normalizing that this is aprocess and the process Is going
to be different and a differentlength of time for every single
person.
No person has the The theroadmap for how grief is going
to process through their bodiesand how it's going to actually
present itself So we have toremember that All of that is
(17:05):
going to, all of that is goingto, it, it, it all has to be
taken into consideration and wehave to be kind and gentle and
gracious with ourselves.
That's really, that's, that'sreally what I got out of my
research that I did is that wejust have to start being kinder
to ourselves when it comes tothis process.
So there are, there's, there'ssomething called the three C's
(17:26):
of grief.
And I hope that by presentingthese three C's to, to, to all
of you, that you'll, you'll beable to take these and you'll be
able to not only help supportother people while they're going
through their grief, but alsoyou'll be able to support
yourself when you are goingthrough grief as well.
So the first C of the three C'sof grief.
(17:49):
Is choose.
And what that means is that whensomeone is in a, a, a state of
grief and grieving, they feellike they have no choice because
all of their control in theirlives has been taken away
because this, this person orthis thing is no longer there
and they don't have a say in.
(18:10):
And so they then translate thatinto they don't have a say in
any aspect of their lives.
So it's important for people toremember that we always have a
choice and we have a choiceabout what's going to be best
for us.
So it's, it's oftentimes, and Iknow it's family members, best
intentions to try and guide aperson and let them know what
(18:31):
they think is the best grievingprocess for them or the best
thing for them to do.
It's really important forsomebody who is, who is in the,
in the, in the eye of the stormof grief to be given permission
and be allowed to make adecision about what's going to
be best for them, regardless ofwhat anyone else thinks, because
(18:54):
they, people need to feelempowered and that they do have
a say in their lives.
So, I'm going to give you twoexamples of that.
The first example is, is mysister who, who lost her
daughter, her oldest daughterand my niece.
And my sister made the decisionpretty quickly after my niece
(19:15):
passed that she did not want Tohave a memorial immediately
after my niece had passed away.
My sister's a caterer and shehad experienced, she'd done
plenty of celebrations of life.
And she knew that she hadwatched and she had seen when
people had done them immediatelyafter someone had passed.
(19:35):
And then when they had donemaybe two or three.
A month, two months or threemonths after a person had passed
the difference in how thespouse, the children the parents
dealt with it and how they wereable to present themselves and
how they were able to feelduring the ceremony.
And my sister made the decisionand said, I don't care.
I don't, I want to give it acouple of months.
(19:56):
I want to get in.
So we are my niece passed awayon, on January 6th and we are
having that's in 2024 and we arehaving her memorial on March
10th, 2024.
And so that gives us, giveseverybody in the family a couple
of months and all of her friendsand all, you know, she was very,
very loved.
And it gives everybody anopportunity to be able to make
(20:19):
arrangements to be a part ofthings, but to also not have
those emotions quite so raw andquite so exposed.
The second piece of choice thatwe, that I had to really give my
mom after my dad passed away wasmy mom decided that One of her
very dear friends invited her togo to Mexico.
(20:39):
She has a house in Mexico andshe decided, asked my mom to
come in and, and visit her and,and just give her, you know
just, you know, just get her,get a change of scenery, give
her a break.
And so my mom currently is inMexico.
She's in the middle of a threeweek trip where she is spending
time with a very dear friend andher husband.
And And at first I was like, Idon't want my mom to leave.
(21:00):
I don't want my mom to travel.
I don't want her, I don't wanther being anywhere, anywhere
away from me.
And I had to allow my mom thefreedom and the choice to decide
what was going to be best forher.
And I might not have necessarilyagreed with it initially, but I
do now.
And I'm so happy that she'sdoing it, but it, it really is
(21:20):
an important thing to allowpeople to have that choice.
The second thing is.
To connect.
So the second C is to connectand that kind of kind of
parallels kind of goes alongwith that first thing of choice
is that when people are tryingto, when they're in grief and
they're trying to make choices,oftentimes they do need to
(21:40):
connect with other people whocare about them and love them
and, and kind of run things bythem.
Grief can be so isolating andoftentimes people want to
isolate themselves because theydon't want to be a burden.
And they don't want to, theyjust don't feel that they're
even in a place to evencommunicate and connect with
other people, but it'sabsolutely what we need.
(22:02):
We are not ever meant to gothrough a journey like grief on
our own.
We need the support of peoplearound us who love us.
And we need to be able tocommunicate and share and talk
about our feelings and talkabout what is important to us.
And that leads.
To the third C, which iscommunicate and communication is
(22:24):
really sharing openly andhonestly what you need when you
are in that grieving process,what you need, what's going to
help you, what's going tosupport you.
And really communicating that tothose people around you.
So they can better support you.
I also feel that thatcommunication is really
important.
It's important to share how youare feeling to others who are
(22:47):
going through the same process.
So one of the things that I havebeen doing with my, I, I, I,
when my niece got diagnosed andI always went up and visited my
parents again because my dadwasn't doing well.
And so I would always go up andvisit my parents every weekend.
And when my niece became sickand when she came back home
after being in the hospital,There wasn't a weekend unless
(23:08):
she wasn't there.
There wasn't a weekend that Ididn't go up and I didn't see
her and I didn't spend time withher and I didn't spend time with
my dad.
And so I still go up and see,you know see my sister and see
my mom.
And my sister and I weretogether.
It was two weekends ago.
And.
It was just the two of us and I,I was sitting in my niece's
(23:28):
chair on the couch and I justbecame overwhelmed with like
this, this, this feeling of kindof anger of how it was just so
wrong.
And I was sitting there andthere for a moment I was like, I
don't know if I should saysomething.
I don't know if I should saysomething to my sister.
I don't want to upset her.
(23:49):
And, but I, I finally just said,I finally said to my sister, I
said, gosh, this is just sowrong.
And we started talking, we bothstarted crying.
And we both started talkingabout just, just how we were
feeling and it relievedeverything.
And it made me feel like, okay,all right.
I shared that.
And she, she got, you know, weboth got to cry and then it was,
(24:10):
we were done and we got back toour day.
And it wasn't that, you know, itwasn't that we didn't think
about it or we didn't, it wasn'timportant, but it was that, it
was that ability to be able toknow that I could share with her
how I was feeling and, and thatit was okay.
And then it was okay to cry andit was okay to feel that way.
And.
Again, this last weekend, wekind of had the same thing where
(24:30):
we talked about we talked abouther, uh, what were we talking
about?
I think we were talking aboutthe memorial and we were kind of
prepping for the memorial andtalking about different things.
And, and then she was sharingwith me some, some messages that
she had received from some ofher friends.
And, And we both cried and itwas, and it was okay.
And it was, and it was, it was,it was so good to feel
comfortable with communicatingin that, communicating that and
(24:53):
being able to share how I wasfeeling and not feel like I had
to keep it inside because, oh, Ihad already cried initially.
I don't need to cry anymore.
And that's just not the casethat we, we have to go with our
feelings and we have to allowour feelings to be there and to
be present.
So one of the things that I wantto kind of leave you with is
that idea of that stressresponse, that stress response
(25:14):
that we get, and it can be anykind of stress response.
But in this case, we're, we'retalking about that stress
response as a, as a result ofgrief and, of grief.
What happens when we start toget that stress response,
whatever triggers us to startthinking about that person or
start feeling ourselves gettingupset is we need to regulate our
nervous systems to bring ournervous systems back down to a
(25:37):
calm level.
And I'm going to tell you theeasiest and most simple way to
do it.
And it seems so easy.
Is we just need to breathe andso all I can tell you is when
you start to feel thoseoverwhelming feelings of, of, of
that stress coming in, and itcan be whether it's, you know,
your boss yelling at you.
(25:58):
It can be the stress responseof, of, of talking about, you
know, a person who's passed andyou start to feel yourself get
upset.
You just give yourself.
Like two minutes of just takingsome nice, slow inhales through
your nose and then exhaling outthrough your mouth and really
allowing yourself to breathe andto calm down and to let yourself
(26:22):
just calm your nervous systemdown.
And you'll be in such a betterplace to then make a decision
about Do I want to eatsomething?
Am I hungry?
Do I want to eat something?
Or do I want to just respondwith food?
Or do I want to have a drink?
What?
But you're making an informeddecision.
You're not just respondingbecause that's the way you've
(26:43):
always done it.
We need to learn to listen toour bodies, listen to our
nervous systems, and then calmthem down and then make the
choice that's going to be thebest one for us.
So I hope, I hope that bytalking about grief and about
talking about grief responsesand talking about the things
(27:06):
that we do during the grievingprocess, I hope that has kind of
demystified it and normalizedit.
And just for anyone, there's nota person listening to this
podcast.
There's not a person on thisearth that is ever going to be
able to avoid losing somebody.
It's the cost of loving peopleand we're never going to be able
(27:27):
to get away from that.
But we can be okay with thegrieving process and grief and
being okay with it and notfeeling like we have to hide it.
We have to be ashamed of it orthat we have to be strong.
We just have to let it happenand ride it out.
And there is no, there's noprescription.
There's no.
(27:47):
amount of time that we need.
We just have to give ourselvesthe grace we need and allow
ourselves to feel exactly whatwe're feeling.
So I hope that this has beenhelpful to anyone who's in the
midst of grieving and in themidst of this process.
And I hope that I.
(28:08):
Have shared some things thatmaybe you didn't know and that
it will help you be able to movethrough this grieving process.
So, a little bit about me and Iget a little bit of a reminder
about what I do.
I am a life coach.
I specialize in helping womenaddress issues with emotional
eating, but Emotional eatingand, and the stress response and
(28:31):
stress in our lives, it impactsall of our lives.
So it doesn't matter if you'rean emotional eater, if you're
not an emotional eater, we allhave stress.
We all need to learn ways toregulate ourselves, to learn
about our responses, to rewireour brain, to process our
emotions and to feel ouremotions.
And if you feel like you maybeneed some help, with processing
(28:54):
emotions and feeling thoseemotions and allowing yourself
to maybe have a new reaction anda new response when Things go
sideways.
We need to talk.
So again, please go ahead andset, you know, you can leave a
comment in the in, in the wheremy podcasts are listed.
(29:15):
I always ask at the end of thepodcast, you will always have a
Q and a, that will ask thequestion of what resonates with
you.
If you want to connect with me,please do.
I am on Instagram at atbreakthrough emotional eating.
Send me a DM and let's connectin that way.
All right, take care, have agreat rest of your day and I
will see you next week.
(29:36):
Thank you for listening to thisweek's episode.
To take your first steps towardsnever dieting again, get my stop
dieting guide, go to www.
kristinjonescoaching.
com.
That's Kristin with an I N andlearn a sustainable way to lose
(29:57):
weight and develop a healthyrelationship with food.
I'll see you next episode.
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