In my work with women, often senior leaders who carry immense responsibility, I see a recurring theme. These are brilliant, capable, high-achieving women who lead teams, run businesses, and hold the weight of the world on their shoulders. Outwardly, they embody success. Inwardly, many of them are exhausted, running on empty, and turning to food as the only pleasure and source of comfort.
And here’s the pattern: when discomfort around eating arises, the instinctive response is to control. Eat less. Exercise more. Tighten the reins. Push harder. Achieve discipline here, too.
But it doesn’t work.
Why? Because the problem was never food. The problem is the absence of space for joy, softness, and rest in a life dominated by proving, striving, and doing.
The real work is not about more restrictions, but about something far harder: turning inwards with compassion.
The mindset around eating: why control fails
When food becomes the only outlet for pleasure, adding more restrictions only deepens the struggle. Control and willpower create short-term results, but they reinforce the cycle of guilt, shame, and rebellion. The more tightly you grip, the more likely you are to swing back into overeating. Shifting the mindset away from punishment and control is the first step to real freedom.
Building a healthy relationship with food
A healthy relationship with food isn’t about perfection – it’s about trust. Trusting your body’s signals, trusting that you don’t need to micromanage every bite, and trusting yourself to find joy in other areas of life. When food is no longer the only comfort, it can take its rightful place as nourishment and occasional pleasure, without being loaded with guilt or pressure.
Emotional eating and the inner child
For many women, emotional eating is not a sign of weakness – it’s a survival strategy. Often it’s rooted in a younger part of the self, the parentified child who carried too many responsibilities and never had space to feel, play, or rest. Food became the one safe place for comfort. Healing means giving that part of you what she really needed all along: gentleness, safety, and permission to just be.
The healing isn’t about battling food. It’s about gently setting down the burdens that were never truly yours. It’s about learning to feel safe in rest, in joy, in simply being.
Food as the only pleasure
And when that shift begins – when you allow love, compassion, and play back into your life – food loses its role as the only source of comfort. You no longer need to eat your way into moments of relief, because you are slowly weaving pleasure, rest, and joy into the fabric of everyday life.
That’s the real transformation. And you don’t have to walk this path alone. Coaching with me means having a fellow traveller by your side – someone who can help you cultivate self-compassion, explore new ways of being, and gently heal the relational wounds that keep you stuck. Together, we create space for the joy, rest, and freedom you’ve always deserved.
