Ep #347: The Benefits of Feeling Emotional Discomfort

Hi! This Thursday, March 27th of 2025, at 12pm ET, registration for the next round of The Stop Binge Eating Group Coaching Program will be closing.

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Alright, now onto today’s episode topic – the benefits of feeling emotional discomfort.

This isn’t something that most people think about.

They instead think more about the drawbacks of feeling discomfort and why they don’t want to feel it.

They think it’s too uncomfortable.

They think it will last for too long.

They think they can’t handle it.

They think it happens too often.

And when you think more about the drawbacks and why you don’t want to feel it, you won’t be willing to feel it. You’ll desire not feeling.

So you’ll be looking for a way out. And usually a quick and easy way out, which eating food is.

For many of you, that’s one main reason why you binge.

You’re not willing to feel emotional discomfort and you use food to avoid it.

As soon as you feel it, or after you’ve been feeling it for some time, you start thinking thoughts like the ones I just mentioned and your desire to escape how you’re feeling grows, and you end up eating to get away from the discomfort of what you’re feeling, and you keep eating to keep avoiding the discomfort.

So if you’re going to not to that, and if you’re going to be willing to feel your emotional discomfort, all the way through until it passes, you’ll need to change how you’re thinking about feeling it.

You’ll change from thinking about the drawbacks and why you don’t want to feel it to thinking about the benefits and why you do.

Now, you may hear that and be like, “no, I don’t want to feel it.”

But, when you’re thinking about the benefits more than the drawbacks, and the benefits are appealing to you, and if it will be worth it for you to feel your emotional discomfort without eating to escape it, then you will want to feel it and go through it.

It will be worth it if you do. You’ll get something amazing on the other side of it if you do.

So you need to be thinking more about the benefits of feeling emotional discomfort.

And also, it’s important that you address the thoughts causing you to want to escape, such as thinking it will last too long. If that’s something you think, I would recommend that you listen to a recent episode I did, #343 about waiting for emotions and urges to pass. There is something you can do to help your emotions to pass more quickly that doesn’t involve eating food.

And that’s true for the frequency of your uncomfortable emotions too. You can do something to decrease the frequency. You can’t control all your emotions but, you aren’t completely out of control. Your feelings are caused by your thoughts so if you’re feeling uncomfortable emotions often, it’s because you’re thinking thoughts that are creating them often.

And you have the ability to change your thoughts, your opinions, your interpretations, and your perspectives so you can change how you feel. And you can listen to episode #266 to learn how to change your thoughts so you can change how you feel.

The thing is, whatever it is that you’re thinking that is stopping you from being willing to feel your uncomfortable emotions is changeable.

You are not a victim to your emotions, you have more authority and control over them than you think you do, and you can handle them.

And it would really benefit you to put in the time and effort to handle them in a productive way. Meaning you don’t escape them, you stay with them, you allow them to be there, and to change how you feel and process through your feelings, you work on what’s causing them, which is your thoughts.

This of course is going to take more time and effort than eating food but, you’re going to choose this option because the benefits are so much better than what you get from eating to escape your uncomfortable emotions.

When you eat to escape your emotions, you get very temporary better feelings or numbing. You get temporary joy, pleasure, and happiness.

But that’s about it.

And then, if you eat too much, you end up creating more discomfort than you started with.

Eating isn’t really a solution, it isn’t truly making you feel better.

Because it’s not changing what was causing you to feel the uncomfortable emotion to begin with.

It’s just distracting you from it.

And, if you don’t actually handle your emotions and you keep avoiding and ignoring them by eating food, they’re just going to keep coming back. They’ll keep coming back until you resolve them and eating won’t resolve them.

So when it comes to eating to escape your discomfort, think more about the drawbacks of eating than the benefits because when you really think about it, the drawbacks will affect you more than the benefits. The benefits of eating will be short-lived while the drawbacks will exist for much longer.

Now, sometimes people try to do that, they try to think about the drawbacks more than the benefits of eating to escape emotions but still choose to eat anyway because the other option, just feeling their discomfort, sounds like it will be worse than the consequences of eating.

And this is for two reasons.

They’re telling themselves things like I mentioned earlier – it will be too uncomfortable, last too long, it’s happening too often, or they just can’t handle it, because they don’t know they can or don’t know how to manage their thoughts and feelings.

So they’re making feeling the discomfort of the emotions sound really unappealing.

And, they’re not telling themselves the benefits of feeling through the discomfort. They’re not talking themselves into feeling, they’re talking themselves out of it.

So if you want to be a person who feels their uncomfortable emotions rather than someone who escapes their emotions with food, tell yourself the benefits of feeling discomfort.

So many of us do with exercise to get ourselves to do it.

We might acknowledge that it’s gonna be uncomfortable but, we also also acknowledge why going through that discomfort will be worth it.

For me, I think about how much more awake and focused and energized I’ll feel. That’s what I tell myself when I don’t really feel like doing it and it increases my desire to do it.

The results are very appealing to me. I want the results of having done it. So I do it.

I go through the discomfort of doing something I don’t feel like doing and I go through the discomfort of the workout so I can feel so much better and feel so good afterward.

That’s what you’re going to do with your uncomfortable emotions too.

So, what are the benefits? What is it that you’re going to tell yourself so you’ll be more willing to go through the discomfort?

Well, I’ll share a few to give you some ideas but then I encourage you to explore your own personal answers. What are the benefits for you personally?

So here are some ideas.

You will truly feel better for longer and resolve your emotions if you face them and work through them.

You’ll actually address what is going on so these same thoughts and feelings don’t keep resurfacing.

You won’t binge eat because you are handling your emotions on your own instead of masking them with food.

You’re creating a better connection with yourself and your body, which is going to lead to more trust and a better relationship.

Essentially, going through the discomfort will move you toward the outcome you’re really wanting – to feel better.

Eating won’t really do that.

So, starting today, figure out what the benefits of feeling through discomfort will be for you personally.

And practice telling yourself those benefits over and over, drill it into your mind, and change your perspective of what it means to feel discomfort.

It won’t just be uncomfortable. There is a purpose. There is goodness on the other side.

And you have to go through it to get there.

And this goes for any goal, any changes you’re wanting to make in your life or in yourself. It will involve emotional discomfort. That’s just what happens when you do something new or different, or something scary, or something you have some doubts about, or something that requires patience if it’s a long-term goal or change.

So being willing to feel emotional discomfort isn’t only going to help you to stop binge eating but it will help you to thrive in your life in so many ways.

So be willing to feel it.

Alright, that is your episode for today but, if you want more help with this, if you’re having a hard time coming up with benefits, if you’re having a hard time choosing the benefits of discomfort over the benefits of eating, I can help you with this in The Stop Binge Eating Program. Together we’ll figure out why it’s hard for you and how to make it easier. You don’t have to work through this all on your own. Again, registration will be closing this Thursday, March 27th at 12pm ET so go register now by going to coachkir.com/group and if you have any questions you can email them to info@coachkir.com.

Let’s feel that discomfort. You will benefit greatly, not just with your eating but with so many things in life if you do.

Alright, bye bye.