Urge Surfing. The Tool You Need to Learn to End Binge Eating
When it got to a point where I felt like something needed to change with my patterns of binge eating, one of the steps I took was when I felt the urge to binge I would put on music and move my body.
At the time, I was living by myself in a small 1 bedroom apartment. I would put the music up as loud as I needed and move in ways that I probably would not do in front of other people. I would get down on the floor and throw a temper tantrum. I would cry and cry and cry.
What I didn't know I was doing at the time was something called urge surfing. Urge surfing is a term that comes from the mindfulness world. It's the process of noticing when an urge arises to engage in a behavior you know isn't supporting you anymore and surfing the ebb and flow of that wave. In the space between reaction and action where you're surfing, you can fill that time with other regulating non-food acts. Just like a wave doesn't keep getting bigger and bigger, the same goes for your urges and cravings. They will eventually crest and return to gentle waters again.
The thing about urge surfing is that when you stop choosing food to help you regulate or stuff down or numb out from your emotions, all those reactions, emotions, sensations, and thoughts will start coming up in that space. I feel like that is one of the lesser talked about things when healing patterns of binge eating or emotional eating. As you practice sitting with the urge to engage in a behavior that has absolutely been supporting you for potentially a very long time, that means that all that discomfort that food came in to support you in navigating will need to be sat with and processed in different ways. Just the act of not engaging in your habitual self soothing behavior will already feel intense.
I want to normalize that this will be a non-linear, messy, sometimes confusing healing adventure. It's kind of like when a caterpillar goes into its cocoon, it dissolves into liquid only leaving key structures intact like it's breathing tubes. It literally breaks itself apart to build itself back up again into something entirely different. Urge surfing is kind of like that. It's you in a dark cocoon, dissolving away what is no longer serving you, to create a new expression of you in the world.
When you begin practicing urge surfing, sometimes it's going to look like surfing the urge to judge yourself after you've completed your binge eating experience. Other times it will be stopping yourself right in the middle of your binge eating and getting curious about what's coming up for you. And then every now and then you might pause as soon as you feel the urge to eat out of emotional hunger reasons and explore what your body is trying to tell you through the urge to reach for food.
So what do you do in the space of urge surfing?
Some things you can explore can include:
Journaling
Describe how your body feels
Putting on music and dancing around
Getting down on the floor and throwing a temper tantrum
Describing your environment to show your body that whatever it's perceiving as threatening is not actually happening here and now
Your urge to binge or emotionally eat is your body's way of talking to you. It's telling you that something has been triggered, that some emotion or part of you wants your attention to be digested and assimilated, it's letting you know that you're outside your window of tolerance. Your urges, cravings, and impulses are bodily communication. This is all happening inside your body which is why trying to mentally talk yourself out of an urge doesn't work. The body is what needs to be attended to.
Urge surfing is not a one and done kind of situation. It's a practice that when you're healing your relationship with food needs to be practiced again and again and again. Healing your relationship with food is often a journey of healing your relationship with your nervous system and making a commitment to show up for your body when it feels dysregulated to support it every day in feeling safe.
So much can arise as you engage in this practice and you never need to be on this adventure alone. As a reminder, my Somatic Eating™ Program begins on November 4th. You will learn more about urge surfing and receive support in this practice. Sometimes we just need to feel like someone is there for us as we explore something new. Healing is meant to happen in community and I'll be there for you every step of the way in discovering a relationship with food that feels safe and secure.
Want to chat and see if the Somatic Eating™ Program is a good fit for you?
Email me at support@stephaniemara.com and we can talk some more. And if you're ready to sign up today, go to somaticeating.com and you can sign up right now.