When I first got in touch with Caroline I was feeling very hopeless. To my knowledge, I had tried every type of therapy available to help me overcome my problems with binge eating and emotional eating. I always remember finding comfort in food, but emotional or binge eating did’t become a problem for me until I was about 14 or 15, and it remained a huge part of my life until a very short time ago…..I am now 31!
At some stage in my life, eating helped me to feel better, and it became a habit. I remember eating food without tasting it, waking up at night to eat, hiding food, lying about food, stuffing uncomfortable emotions back down! I became overweight, and then became bulimic in an attempt to lose weight or get some sort of control back. I bought food specifically to binge and purge on.I made up diets for myself, I overexercised guiltily to compensate for binges. I dreaded Christmas, Easter, parties…anything associated with food and eating, and I rarely enjoyed eating out. My entire 20’s were a decade of food battles and food anxiety. I was hugely critical of myself, and my own worst enemy.
All of this going on while trying to maintain a relationship, keep in touch with friends and family, hold down a job….and keep everyone convinced that I was doing great!! Not an easy task!
I have spent years getting to where I am today….I tried Hypnotherapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Mindfullness, Relaxation, Life Coaching, Coaching for weight loss, not to mention the amount of times I joined weight watchers and beat myself up for not being able to stick to their diet!! I felt many of the professionals I went to for help didn’t really understand me…they had never experienced what I was going through. I was so angry with myself…why couldn’t I just stop?
Along this journey I had learned so much about myself, my patterns and triggers. I felt I had all the tools I needed to change , but that something was holding me back, and I was more frustrated than ever.
I came across Caroline’s Freedom from Emotional Eating Programme and after some coaching decided to fly over from Ireland for some Wingwave sessions. Caroline’s story is so similar to mine, I felt she really understood me and genuinely wanted to help. I made my way from Dublin to Brighton, and over spending 4 powerful days together, I transformed the detrimental beliefs and emotional thought processes that were ruling my eating patterns. First we discussed what the main issues were. Using the wingwave technique Caroline helped change numerous beliefs like ‘I have to eat everything on my plate’ to ‘It’s ok to stop eating when I am full’. These changes happened RIGHT AWAY, I was blown away by the impact. That evening I went out to dinner, I ordered. The waitress brought a basket of bread…in the past this would have completely thrown me (bread was on my ‘forbidden’ list!), and eating one piece could have triggered a huge binge. Not that night. I ate one slice from the basket, enjoyed my food when it arrived and stopped eating when I felf full. I had no guilt about wasting food or what I was eating, it was fabulous.
With Caroline’s gentle but powerful support, I feel like I have a new life. I no longer judge my days by what I ate/didn’t eat, how much I exercised or how much I weigh. I LOVE going out to eat, I have just had an amazing Easter weekend with my family, surrounded by the usual amount of chocolate minus the anxiety! Yes I ate my fair share, but it didn’t turn into a guilt fest that usually follows me into the week. I am no longer obsessing about food or what I can and can’t have. These days I eat mostly what I want, when I am hungry. When I’m full, I stop. I am more comfortable with my food choices rather than second guessing myself all the time. Life has become a whole lot simpler, there’s a lot more space in my head and time in my day! I have noticed huge changes generally in my confidence and self esteem, and have started to lose weight now that the bingeing and erratic patterns have stopped.
I am doing the same job, living the same life and dealing with the same stresses as before, but certain beliefs and emotional responses are what has changed. I don’t have the same emotional connection to food any more. In the past a bad day at work or an argument would have had me standing at the kitchen counter stuffing dry cereal into my mouth. Looking back now that seems like another person!! Feeling anxious or tired or stressed or whatever, doesn’t have me running to the kitchen. I know food isn’t going to solve a problem unless it’s hunger.
For anyone reading this who feels like they are where I once was, or could benefit from working with Caroline, please give it a go. Caroline is so understanding and easy to talk to, I couldn’t recommend her and Wingwave Coaching more highly.
Eavan Murray
Dublin Ireland