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How Your Survival Brain Might Be Looking After You Right Now

re you struggling with wanting to eat, binge, drink or numb right now?

If so, you are not alone.  

Lots of people are getting in touch and telling me they are struggling so I wanted to share what your brain is doing in an effort to ensure you are being kind to yourself. 

Remember – fear is ultimately love.  Fear is your brain saying, I need to keep you safe so I am going to make decisions to help you.  It is really helpful to remember your brain is on your side. 

If you are faced with an uncomfortable feeling or situation, your wonderful brain will  move you away from discomfort towards pleasure.  It remembers things that felt good in the past and files them to use again in the future.

It would be fair to say, your brain is experiencing some discomfort at the moment and therefore it is unsurprising you might find yourself looking for comfort in the form of food, alcohol, sugar…things that have given you short-term pleasure in the past.

That is why dieting or restricting is the worst thing you can do. Taking away comfort will make you want it more and your plan to ‘be good’ will ultimately fail. 

So what can you do instead?

If the pattern you find yourself in feels destructive and is something you want to change – the answer is to use your inner wisdom to listen to what your body is really asking for.  

Your brain is not really asking for foods that make you sick – it is simply seeking comfort.  Your body does not want to be overweight, processing fatty, sugary food or working overtime to remove toxins.

What it wants is to feel loved, safe and healthy. 

Next time you find yourself comfort eating; practice slowing down and asking what you really need.  What would really bring you comfort?

You have a deep inner wisdom.  Your heart knows what you need…sometimes your mind will trick you into thinking it knows to help you feel better on a short-term basis. 

Your job is to discern whether the decision you are about to make is coming from a place that feels good or a place that feels bad. 

Practice kindness and patience with yourself.  Judgement and criticism will not help – instead begin to build a deep awareness of what you need to feel loved and to heal old wounds you are ready to let go. 

Now is a wonderful time to be healing old destructive patterns and I am working with a lot of people on this at the moment.  You can absolutely use this time to thrive. 

I am very happy to talk to you and help you understand your behaviours and how to create new ones. You can book a call with me to talk about changing your patterns here 

Keep going.  You are doing great.  The most important thing you can do is be kind to yourself. 

Sending love, 

Anna xx

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