Beyond Chocolate

Love stimulates the release of endorphins in the brain; substances that make us feel good.  So does chocolate.  I’ve heard it said that when you are in love you don’t need chocolate – that you need it more when your heart is broken.  Chocolate is a tempting solution when love or other things in our life go wrong.  Does it really work?

How can you mend a broken heart?  Chocolate provides temporary relief, if you don’t mind the calories.  But then you still have the broken heart, and an upset stomach and a truckload of guilt.  There must be a better way.

When you think about it, our hearts are constantly being broken.  Big relationship upsets may not happen every day, but our human lives are filled with disappointments.  We can tell ourselves to get over it, but it still stings.  When we bury our feelings, they can become a trigger for chocolate (or snack) attacks. 

We eat when we are upset, angry, disappointed or broken hearted because it softens the pain – takes the edge off.  Some describe it as a numbing effect.  Tune in and you’ll notice the cycle:  something happens, we feel edgy, and we eat because it makes us feel better.  The problem is that the relief doesn’t last very long.  Eating doesn’t change the situation and it often makes it worse because now we are upset with ourselves in addition to the original situation.

There is a mindless quality to this kind of eating.  We do it automatically as a way to deal with pain.  As we tune in to our patterns, we can see what we are doing and decide how effective it is. When we are mindful, we begin to have more choices.  If chocolate doesn’t help, what does?

It is surprisingly therapeutic to identify and acknowledge the pain.  Most of us have been taught to avoid pain, so this seems counterintuitive.  But ignoring it or denying it doesn’t make it go away.  It is a time to be gentle with ourselves and honor our feelings.  Just that validation can be like a salve.  Like the mother kissing the scrapped knee – the kiss doesn’t “fix” the knee, but the loving attention is an important part of the healing process.

Acknowledging a feeling is different than spinning stories about it.  Acknowledging is about sensing, being with the feeling.  When we start thinking too much, thinking about what might happen or what it might mean, we get attached to the story.  We get stuck in an endless playback loop.  It is cleaner to be with the feeling without the story. This allows for the natural healing rhythm to take place.

Beyond chocolate and acknowledgment, there are other things you can do to help mend a heart torn by life’s big and small disappointments.  Talk about your feelings to others or write them out in your journal.  Find music that is soothing or that shifts your mood.  Exercise of all kinds helps.  What works best for me is to just sit quietly with it for a few minutes.  I find things bother me more when I’m tired, so just resting can help.

As you find better ways to be with your edgy feelings, it will help you enjoy chocolate even more.  Instead of using it unconsciously to stuff feelings, eat it when you choose to.  Enjoy your favorite kind, in moderation, and fully savor it.  Try dark chocolate: it has some health benefits but best of all it is satisfying in small quantities.

Kathy Nichols is the Healthy Habits Coach. Kathy blends her background as a registered dietitian with life coaching to help you create healthy and sustainable habits. Contact Kathy at 707 431-7524, Kathy@HealthyHabitsCoach.com or www.HealthyHabitsCoach.com. Blog: www.HealthyHabitsCoach.wordpress.com