Can mental hunger be trusted?

One of the most common fears I hear from clients with regard to mental hunger is the fear that no matter what, their mental hunger will never go away. When I was recovering from an eating disorder myself, I had the very same fear! The following questions swirled through my mind on an everyday basis:

• What if my mental hunger is just a “bad habit”?
• What if my mental hunger is just an excuse to emotionally eat?
• What if giving in to my mental hunger will neurally rewire my brain to become addicted to food?

All of these “what ifs” were manifestations of something much deeper: I didn’t trust my mental hunger. After all the years I spent obsessing over food, memorizing nutrition panels and ingredient lists, and finding the “healthiest” ingredient substitutes in recipes, I believed I had simply conditioned my brain to think about food 24/7.

Because I believed my constant thoughts about food were conditioned, I didn’t believe eating more would make a difference…in fact, I believed eating more would simply intensify the tug of a never-ending war with mental hunger. 

So, I continued to condition my brain to believe what I’d been conditioning it to believe for years: your mental hunger can’t be trusted, and therefore it doesn’t count as hunger.

• I stopped myself when I was just barely physically full, just in case my lingering desire to keep eating was mental hunger.
• I stuck to the serving sizes on the nutrition panels, just in case an extra spoonful was mental hunger.
• I engaged in a rigid exercise routine even when I felt exhausted, just so I would “deserve” my next meal or snack (which is a form of mental hunger!).

The only thing engaging in these behaviors resulted in, however, was intensified fear. The only reason you FEAR your mental hunger will never go away is because you haven’t yet provided your brain with evidence that a mental hunger-free life is possible for you.

Just as darkness is the absence of light, trust is simply the absence of knowledge. You don’t TRUST your mental hunger because you don’t yet have the KNOWLEDGE of what satisfying it will bring.

The only way to KNOW what will really happen if you honor your mental hunger – and ultimately prove to your body and mind that mental hunger CAN be trusted – is to honor it. You KNOW that how you’re living right now isn't making the mental hunger go away, so don’t you think it’s about time to do something different?

If you're committed to MAKING THAT DIFFERENCE and jumping into the possibility (which I promise you is an inevitability!) of a mental hunger-free life, my course Extremely Hungry to Completely Satisfied guides you every step of the way! Learn more by clicking here <3