Emotional triggers are what lead us to turn to food for comfort. Triggers can be a certain person, place, or situation. They hijack our body and experience, and can make us feel anxiety, pain, stress, overwhelm, or a bunch of other sticky feelings that we’d rather numb with some Netflix and junk food.
 
In order to overcome triggers, it’s important to identify them. This is how you learn to manage them without using food to suppress them. Triggers are our teachers. They are indicators of what you need to address and heal in your life.
 

 
The best way to identify triggers is through observation. You need to dig into WHY you react the way you do. Do this without judgment or self-criticism. Instead, be curious about your triggers. More importantly – be present with your triggers. Recognize that you are being triggered, allow yourself to feel into the pain or overwhelm, and then dig into why you were triggered. You can do this by asking yourself a bunch of questions like: why you reacted the way you did? What happened? When did it happen? How did it make you feel in the moment? How did you feel after?
 

 
Observe and do the inner work instead of numbing the pain with food. The truth is that you can’t transform if you aren’t curious about why you operate the way you do in the first place.