How do I stop this? How do I control my eating? How do I lose weight and then maintain it? How do I know what I want to do and be in the world?

These were the questions running on a continual loop just below the level of my everyday consciousness. Monitoring and calculating everything I ate; doing ‘well’ for 2 to 3 weeks at a time and then stopping at the supermarket on the way home, eating biscuits / cakes / sweets in the car, disposing of the wrappers and coming home to eat dinner with my husband as if nothing had happened. The guilt, the shame, the disgust, the horror that I, an intelligent and self-aware woman, couldn’t stick to a plan, couldn’t be the person I thought I should be, couldn’t even bring myself to tell anyone what I was doing and ask for help.

And then I did a Mindfulness course and something shifted. I began to notice that I was feeling emotions and those emotions made me uncomfortable and I didn’t know how to deal with it. So I ate. Eating temporarily distracted me; it was an excellent avoidance strategy. Except it wasn’t because now I could add the distress from overeating to whatever I was trying to avoid in the first place.

Dynamic eating psychology has been the doorway to healing my relationship with food. I have learnt that the answer to all those “how” questions lies in being Honest Open and Willing to examine all aspects of my life and try new approaches. Starting with accepting myself as I am now, identifying and acknowledging the emotions I feel, slowing down and being receptive to what the Universe has to offer. I have finally found the thing I want to do when I grow up and it’s to help other people with their food and eating challenges. Because if I can feel better about food and life, anyone can!

Susan Taheri

Honest.Open.Willing.

My name is Susan Taheri. I’m from Ireland and live in Scotland with my husband and I’ve had issues with overeating, emotional eating and binge eating since I was a child. It’s only now that I’m working on my emotional self-development that I realise that life doesn’t have to be a continual cycle of eat, guilt, shame, repeat. I am finding the joy and pleasure in food and learning to love my body for the first time (and I’m in my late 40s!) and it’s a revelation. I want this experience for everyone struggling with weight and relationship with food; if I can do it, so can you!