Emotional eating part 1: the spiritual explanation and the connection with karma

This is the Part 1 of The Emotional Eating Blog Series.

Why do we eat the way we eat?

Eating is something we need to do to stay alive and kicking. It is the source of life, our sustenance and nutrition and if we don’t know how to connect and associate ourselves with food and our bodies in a healthy, adequate way, then we will have issues with weight. Overeating, under-eating, emotional eating and so much more.

Our emotions and frame of mind play such an enormous role in our lives, and it is important to look deeper into these connections we have around our body, eating and food as they will give us messages of what our bodies and our souls really need.

It’s not simply about the next quick fix diet, detox or fad fast. It is a journey about going inward and asking your body and soul what it truly needs. And most of the time the answer here is some good quality TLC (or Tender Loving Care).

Tenderly loving and caring for ourselves is such a huge part of adjusting how to live with emotional eating.

Cultivating how to look into the truth of your life’s traumas, of your childhood, teenage hood and adulthood baggage is a huge step into taking control of this issue.

How karma influences our emotional eating

What exactly is karma?

Karma, which is the action of body, speech, and mind, affects every facet of life. Actions affect both those who perform the act and those around them in incomprehensible ways. The genesis of karma shapes our lives, thoughts, conduct, our macro and microcosmos. 

Through mindfulness and conscientious conduct, we become aware of the nature of these actions and can therefore change our karma, the concept of cause and effect.

Karma is a Sanskrit word which translates to “action.”

The law of karma refers to the law of cause and effect: that every voluntary, unforced act brings about a certain result.

If we act prompted by greed, hatred, or delusion, we are planting the seed of suffering; the same applies when we eat from a place of greed, gluttony, that lustfulness without being aware of our desires.

However, when our acts are motivated by generosity, love, or wisdom, then we are creating the karmic conditions for abundance and happiness. 

You reap what you sow

An analogy from the physical world illustrates this: if we plant a cherry seed, the tree that grows will bear cherries, not apples.

Once the cherry seed is planted, no amount of manipulation, pleading or complaining will impel the tree to yield an apple. The only meaningful action that will produce an apple is to plant an apple seed. Karma is just such a law of nature, the law of cause and effect on the psychophysical plane.

Karma and free will

The Buddha used the term karma to refer to free will, to the volition, the intention or motive behind an action. He said that karma is volition, as it is the motivation behind the action that determines the karmic fruit. Deep rooted, underlying in each intention in the mind is an energy powerful enough to bring about subsequent results.

When we understand that karma is based on free will, we can see the enormous responsibility and authority we have to become conscious of the intentions that precede our actions. If we are negligent, oblivious and unaware of the motives in our minds, when unskillful desires arise we may unmindfully act on them and in such a way create the conditions for future suffering.

Does mindfulness help with karma?

Pay attention to your actions

Mindfulness and conscientiousness play a critical role in understanding the unraveling of karma. Two aspects of mindfulness that are relevant to this are clear understanding and suitability of purpose. Clear understanding means paying attention to what you are doing, being fully aware of what is actually taking place. 

When we sit down, we know we are sitting down; when we are eating too much/too little, we know we are eating too much /too little. Clear understanding of what we are doing in the here and now then allows us to consider the relevance of purpose. This means knowing whether the actions are sharp, practical, and effective or unskillful, whether or not they will bring the results that we want. The same should happen with emotional eating.

When mindfulness is fragile and weak, we have little sense of clear understanding or relevance of purpose.

Not only may we be unaware of our intentions, but we often are also not even paying attention to the action itself, and therefore we may be tossed into habitual patterns and actions that bring about painful results.

Don’t live your life in auto-pilot

The deep understanding that actions can form and influence the results create a meaningful interest in what we do. We begin to pay much attention; we begin to awaken. Not only does each action, no matter how insignificant it may seem, condition a future result, it also reconditions the mind. If a moment of anger arises in the mind and we get lost in it, we are then actually cultivating anger. If we get lost in jealousy, we are cultivating jealousy.

It is like a bucket being filled with water, drop by drop. We think each drop is so tiny, and not important. Yet drop by drop the bucket fills to the brim. So too the mind is conditioned by each experience in every moment. And moment after moment the mind is permeated. 

We should hold great consideration for the conditioning power of the mind, not only in terms of our present experience, but also in terms of our future direction. In that way we will be able to stop emotional eating.

This is the end of part 1 of The Emotional Eating Blog Series.

Part 1: The spiritual explanation and the connection with karma (you are here)
Part 2: The symbolic meaning of food
Part 3: Using mindfulness meditation – A scientific approach
Part 4: Three key steps to heal and transform

Stay tuned for more interesting facts and strategies to help you gradually overcome these life-long patterns and behaviors.

Let me help you stop emotional eating…

If you too are wondering how to pursue a more mindful lifestyle, change your karma, and thus change your mindset…

Might it be time you… book your appointment now online or visit me at Sacred Space here in Athens and begin your healing journey towards the inside…

Give your body, spirit, soul and mind the opportunity to finally embrace all its finest qualities… the ones blessed with from Spirit…

Always here, always yours,
KC The Greek Shaman