Diane Petrella, MSW | DianePetrella.com

May

MY NEW BOOK: Healing Emotional Eating for Trauma Survivors

Heal the trauma at the root of your emotional eating.

Were you emotionally, physically, or sexually abused a child?

Did you suffer a tragic loss, live in chaos, or endure other adverse experiences?

And when you feel overwhelmed and in pain, do you use food to cope?

If so, my book will help.

Healing Emotional Eating for Trauma Survivors: Trauma-Informed Practices to Nurture a Peaceful Relationship with Your Emotions, Body, and Food reveals the connection between early traumatic experiences and emotional eating.

Perhaps you never thought that your emotional eating challenges had anything to do with experiences from your past.

They do. My book will help you understand why and offers steps you can take to heal.

You’ve probably heard all your life that all you need to do to stop emotionally eating is more willpower. But that’s not true. Early trauma affected your nervous system in such a way that you became hypersensitive to stress. When you feel triggered and gripped with anxiety, fear, or sadness, it makes sense that you use food to ground and soothe yourself.

You’re just trying to cope in the best way you know.

Healing Emotional Eating for Trauma Survivors is the culmination of my nearly 40-year career working with children and adults who experienced childhood trauma and use food to soothe and comfort themselves. It helps you understand that emotional eating is not your fault and you do not lack willpower if you’re having a hard time stopping.

My book teaches you about the effects of early trauma on your nervous system, how trauma shaped the beliefs you hold of yourself and your world, why food helps calm and ground you, and how to embrace and honor your feelings without using food to numb them.

You’ll learn practical and powerful strategies rooted in trauma science to help you create a more harmonious and respectful relationship with your body, food, and your feelings. You’ll also learn how to connect with your inner wisdom—your Wise Self—for guidance and support on your journey.

You can learn more and order here.

My hope for my book is that it be a reminder that you are not alone with your struggles and that healing is possible.

I wrote it for you, with love. ❤️

Apr

Stress Eating: It’s About Your Brain (not the food!)

Diane Petrella

Do you compulsively overeat and struggle with your weight?

And, were you abused and traumatized as a child?

If you answered yes to both questions, you’re not alone.

Research shows that people who experienced emotional, physical, or sexual abuse in childhood are twice as likely to have a food addiction in adulthood as those who were not abused. If you suffered abuse or other adverse childhood experiences growing up, chances are your ongoing weight-loss difficulties stem from this past trauma.

Mainstream weight-loss programs entice you to buy their food, follow their diet plan, and count points or calories. While they may be helpful, they cannot offer you a path to permanent weight-loss if they don’t address the underlying reasons you overeat.

You may be surprised to learn that your continued struggles with emotional eating and coping with triggers most likely has little to do with food, although this is important. The deeper reasons behind your stress-related eating are neurological, rooted in your nervous system’s response to stress.

Let’s start with a mini crash-course on brain science and trauma that will help explain why you feel triggered to eat and hold onto extra weight. (more…)

Apr

Decluttering Tips for Self-Healing

Diane Petrella

One of the simplest things you can do to support your emotional eating and trauma-healing journey is to declutter your life. Here’s why:

Everything is energy, and we hold energy in different ways: in the cells of our body; in our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs; in the tangible objects we own; and in the unseen space radiating out from our physical body, which is referred to as our energy field.

We are attached to our living space and personal belongings—home, vehicle, purse—by invisible threads of energy flowing around and through us. You can’t see them, but they affect you nevertheless because everything you own is embedded with and reinforces the energy of your beliefs.

This is why even objects from a traumatic childhood can hold you hostage to your past. The concrete, visible world of our “stuff” and the invisible world of our emotions and energy field are one.

It’s all connected.

When you release objects from your outside world that no longer serve you, you energetically release what no longer serves you on the inside as well.

For example, by letting go of outdated clothes from an earlier—and perhaps, harder—time in your life, you begin to let go of outdated beliefs about yourself too. You essentially release the energy held in those pieces of clothing—from the outside and inside of you.

Think of it this way:

Change and self-growth happen from the inside out as you shift your thoughts, beliefs, and feelings.

Change and self-growth also happen from the outside in as you release the heavy energies of clutter—especially trauma-related clutter—from your life.

Our homes and belongings are like mirrors reflecting to us the beliefs we hold of ourselves. As you look around your environment, what do you see? Do you see order or chaos ? Do the objects in your life uplift your spirit or drain you? Are you reminded of loving memories or painful ones?

Sometimes we’re so used to having items in our lives for a long time—especially sentimental ones from childhood—that we don’t “see” their deeper meaning or “feel” the effect on our spirit.

I’m not suggesting that you let go of everything from your past, although you may choose to. What I’m inviting you to do is look critically at what you own, release items associated with painful experiences and memories, and keep only those items that bring joy and comfort to your heart.

Below are some categories of items for you to consider releasing as you embark on your emotional eating and trauma-healing journey from the outside in: (more…)