Do you have a hole in your soul?
It’s that dark, empty, ravenous feeling that has nothing to do with actual hunger.
It saddens you on sunny days and drives you to your bed on rainy ones.
It makes you lash out at your loved ones, or retreat into isolation.
It tells you that it would go away if you only you managed to shrink your waist/tighten your booty/get rid of those wrinkles/snap up those awesome boots/snag that ideal job/land that hot, successful mate.
It’s insatiable.
It lies.
Here’s how I know:
You manage to slim down, or buy those great jeans, or jet off on that expensive vacation. Or you become emotionally healthy enough to find, and keep, a healthy relationship. Temporarily, the hole feels like it’s filled. You have a couple of minutes of satisfaction, or even a couple of months.
But then it comes back. That feeling of STARVING.
Why?
Because all of those other things are band-aids. They’re not what you really need.
Here’s why overeating and the hole in your soul go hand-in-hand. If you are emotionally starving, insatiable, feeling like nothing is ever enough, your feeling of lack will translate directly to binging.
For some people, it’s binging on drugs, or shopping, or sex. And for others – we know who we are – it’s food.
Have you ever felt that feeling of hunger that you know isn’t about physical hunger? You keep opening your refrigerator door, hoping you’ll see something there that will satisfy it. You don’t. You eat a handful of this and that, trying to assuage the feeling – a couple of almonds, a few spoonfuls of yogurt, some peanut butter, half a bag of chips. On bad days you find yourself driving to the store to load up on foods that will get you high.
That’s when you’re trying to fill the hole in your soul.
And filling it with food just doesn’t work.
What does it need instead?
How do you deal with the hole in your soul?