Mindfulness And Emotional Eating

When I started working at a law firm, the first things I did were set up my voicemail and gain ten pounds.

unhealthy food

When I started working at a law firm, the first things I did were set up my voicemail and gain ten pounds.  Like any good associate, I responded by taking full advantage of my sweet United Healthcare package.  Between Westlaw trainings and Urgent Client Matters, I squeezed in visits to a nutritionist, acupuncturist, and massage therapist (who I think was committing insurance fraud).

I gained some cute handouts about carbohydrates, a collection of leftover needles, and five more pounds.  It was only once I began a mindfulness practice that I began to understand the feelings driving my weight gain, and, in so doing, control my weight sustainably.

Mindfulness means becoming conscious of what we usually ignore:  the laughter of a child, the aroma of a morning coffee, and, for associates, our emotional states.  Being a lawyer is all about hiding one’s emotions, or, as my law school career office called it, “professionalism.”  A judge yells at you for failing to recall the details of Smith v. Jones and you apologize politely and promise to look it up, rather than screaming, “I hate you!”

A client calls seventeen times and you answer the phone patiently on the eighteenth, “there have been no updates, Mr. Johnson, but I’ll follow up with the court when business hours resume,” as opposed to moaning, “leave me aloooone!”  A partner returns your masterpiece motion blood-smattered with red ink, and you assure him you’ll “turn the changes ASAP,” rather than crying, “all I want is for you to love me!”

From the moment our first cold call begins, our legal careers teach us to conceal our feelings.  As we progress through our legal careers, we may become so good at doing so that we lose the ability to notice our feelings ourselves.  We ignore our downturned mouths and pounding heartbeats as we trot back to our desks and get to work on those redlines.

But isn’t it important to toughen up in order to make it in the world?  Who wants to break down in tears in court or punch a senior partner in the face?  The problem is that, unlike bees or telemarketers, feelings do not just go away if you ignore them.  Rather, they metastasize and pop up in strange places where you’d least expect them.

Sponsored

One fun place feelings are likely appear is on our dinner plates, assuming that we even eat dinner on plates, as opposed to in Seamless containers or on paper towels while “on-the-go.”  In Big Law, where lawyers are really good at being lawyers, my coworkers and I shoveled down Pad Thai during late night team meetings when we felt sad because we missed our families at home; binged on shrimp cocktail when we felt alienated at cocktail parties; and hoarded cheese Danishes when we felt enraged during boring training sessions.

Like a well-intentioned but not particularly tuned-in mother who feeds her baby whenever he cries, whether he is hungry, tired, or has a poopy diaper, our response to a problem that had nothing to do with physical hunger was to shove a Pad Thai nipple in our mouths.  Eating when we were not actually hungry may have worked to shut up our feelings in the short run—the shrimp cocktail let us stay at the party long enough to shake some hands; the Danishes compensated us for wasting our mornings.  But in the long run, we still had our poopy diapers of sadness, alienation, and rage, and now, a new one called 15 pounds, likely to turn into 20 or 30 and maybe some high cholesterol and pre-diabetes.

The next time you catch yourself overeating, ask yourself the following questions to determine whether a repressed feeling is driving you.  Bonus:  they work for over-drinking, too.

  1. What was happening right before I started eating in my external environment? Even seemingly banal instances, like “Julie looked at me funny, “ can be helpful clues.  We are sensitive creatures.
  1. What happened right before I started eating in my internal environment? In other words, what thoughts was I feeling?  The more trivial the thoughts seem, the more important they are to notice.

Sponsored

  1. What need did I have that was not met?
  1. Is the experience of not having that need met a familiar one? The further back you can think, the better.  Experiences really tend to get to us when they remind us of our childhoods.
  1. Was another person responsible, even tangentially, for thwarting your satisfaction? What would happen if you were to tell him or her?  If this mental role playing exercise results in futility, there’s a clue to a whole ‘nother level of rage.

Before she was a health coach, Hannah Geller co-ran a small business, attended a competitive law school, and worked as an attorney at a corporate law firm in New York City. She now runs her own business with a focus on health coaching, psychotherapy, meditation, and yoga.