You must halt energetic eating to lose weight

Whether your sensitivity to negative vibes is minimal or intense, for a diet to succeed, it is important to develop alternative coping strategies other than overeating.

by Dr. Judith Orloff — 

There is more to overeating and obesity than meets the eye. One big reason that many diets fail is that traditional weight-loss programs do not factor in the way we process subtle energy, or what Chinese medicine refers to as life force or chi. Subtle energy penetrates and surrounds the body. Sensitive people, also known as intuitive empaths, unknowingly overeat in response to being overwhelmed by negative vibes. Empaths not only sense energy around them, they absorb it into their bodies.

The energetic premise of obesity

When empaths are thin, they have less padding and are more vulnerable to soaking up negative vibes. For instance, early 20th century faith healers were renowned for being grossly obese to avoid absorbing their patients’ symptoms — a common trap modern-day healers also unconsciously fall into. Food is a convenient grounding device. Similarly, many people pack on pounds to protect against overwhelming vibes, massive or minute. Energy is at the root of an empath’s hunger.

Whether your sensitivity to negative vibes is minimal or intense, for a diet to succeed, it is important to develop alternative coping strategies other than overeating. You can learn to cope with negative vibes without abusing food. Whether accosted by an angry colleague or global threat, apply them immediately. Stick to those that work best for you.

Eight emergency interventions to halt energetic eating

When the impulse to overeat hits, try the following:

1. Identify an addictive craving from a true need. Addictive craving, a symptom of nutritional abuse, is a frequent response to energetic overload. Bottom line, you eat certain foods like an addict abuses drugs, and this can lead to obesity when cravings feel intense. Whenever you keep lusting after sweets and carbs, be suspicious. (When’s the last time you saw someone binge on Brussels sprouts?)

For instance, chocolate turns from a simple pleasure to a crutch when you gorge on it, use it to self-medicate stress or to achieve a sugar high. You also may be dependent on it if you experience mood-swings, sugar hangovers, cannot control your intake or it makes you sick. With cravings, you eat to relieve stress, not to build energy. Try to identify addictive foods, and limit them in your diet.

A true nutritional need lacks such “Sturm und Drang” (storm and stress): there’s no lusting or lunging for food to guard against negative energies. A true need comes from a centered place, has nothing to do with soothing our emotions (comfort foods) or obsession. Feeling healthily nurtured from food never involves mood swings — sedation or elation — but rather an even feeling of satisfaction. A true need lets you enjoy your meal, optimizes energy and does not lead to obesity.

2. Quickly pinpoint energetic stressors that trigger addictive cravings. Immediately ask yourself, “Have I been exposed to bad vibes?” Examples could include an encounter with a loudmouth neighbor, the ordeal of passing through airport security or a siege of overbearing phone messages. Do not write off the smaller incidents which notoriously send empaths motoring to the refrigerator. And most importantly, avoid panic. You do not have to be victimized by negative energy. Methodically pinpoint the cause and effect, and clear the energy as soon as possible once you have been impacted by it.

3. Breathe negativity out of your system. Take a five-minute break for damage control. Slowly inhale and exhale. As you have learned, breath activates positive energy and releases negative vibes. Notice if the negativity gets stuck in a specific part of your body and identify your vulnerable points. Then practice this visualization: as your lungs take in oxygen and expel toxic carbon dioxide, you will breathe in light and clarity and breathe out stress. Breathe in vitality. Breathe out fear.

Also visualize negative vibes exiting through the spaces between the vertebrae in your lower back. Breathing out toxic vibes is a proactive cleansing process. You are in charge of the flow. Allow well-being to permeate every inch of you. Repeat this exercise until you are free of negative residue.

4. Pray to release the addictive craving. If you are gripped by a craving, go into prayer mode. For a few quiet moments, breathe slowly. Bring your awareness to your heart, and aim for self-compassion. The craving may feel impossible to handle, but that is okay. In this calm state, ask your higher power to lift it from you. No mental nudging is necessary. If you surrender your ego-involvement, this simple heartfelt request works like a charm. What you are doing is calling on a cosmically influential positive energy to supplant a material-world negative drive.

5. Take a bath or shower. A speedy way to dissolve negative vibes is to immerse yourself in water. My tub is my refuge after a busy day — it washes away everything from bus exhaust, to long hours of air travel, to personal unpleasantness. While you relax, water works on you. It has alchemical cleansing properties which purify your physical body and energy field.

6. Burn sage. Even though vibes are invisible, they can still cause you to eat. Try burning sage to counteract negative energy anyone deposits in your office or home — a strategy that has kept pounds off those who have a lot of people contact occurring in their space. Vibes accumulate and can cause stress if not eradicated. You may not realize that left-over subtle energies trigger addictive eating patterns, but these vibes subliminally wear at you. Sage was used by the ancients cross-culturally to purify locations. Burn it, and the desire to eat due to lurking negative vibes will wane.

7. Visualize a protective shield around you. Visualize white light surrounding you from head to toe so that negative energy cannot penetrate this shield and deplete your energy.

8. Eat with attunement. Develop a diet that satisfies your energetic needs. Letting energy motivate the reasons you eat is more important than taste or any dietary dogma — a priority is imparting this to our children. Before you put something in your mouth, run it by your energy meter; see what truly nourishes or depletes. Even foods you have shunned become more attractive when you experience their energy lift.

Eating is no time to be passive. These interventions will allow you to take an active stance in eating healthily. You do not have to let poisonous energy lodge itself inside you. To stay on top of your eating, do a daily check-in. Stay alert for cravings prompted by negative vibes. If you watch your responses, I promise your eating habits will change.

Judith Orloff, M.D., is a psychiatrist who specializes in intuition, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA and an international workshop leader. This article is excerpted from her book, Positive Energy: Ten Extraordinary Prescriptions for Transforming Fatigue, Stress, and Fear into Vibrance, Strength, and Love. www.drjudithorloff.com.

Reprinted from AzNetNews, Volume 26, Number 2, April/May 2007.