How Intuitive Eating and EMDR Can Heal Disordered Eating

Do you struggle with disordered eating? It is more common that you think and can show up in sneaky ways which includes constantly thinking about food, weight, or body image, having subconscious rules about how much, when or what you “should” and “shouldn’t” eat, labeling foods as “good/bad”, feeling guilt, shame, or anxiety after eating, emotional eating to cope with stress, sadness, or boredom, exercising to “make up” for what you ate and much more!

Here’s the truth: disordered eating is not just about food. Behind the rules, restrictions, binges, or guilt is often something deeper—unresolved emotions, trauma, or learned patterns that disconnect you from your body’s natural wisdom. Two powerful approaches that can help you break free from this cycle are Intuitive Eating and EMDR therapy. Together, they can help you rebuild trust with your body and create a healthy, peaceful relationship with food.

Step 1: Understand Disordered Eating

Disordered eating can show up in many ways—constant food thoughts, guilt after eating, following rigid food rules, or cycling between restriction and overeating. These behaviors are not character flaws; they are coping strategies your mind and body have developed to manage stress, emotions, or past experiences. They are incredibly common and normalized, but that does not make them healthy or helpful. Recognizing this is the first step toward healing.

Step 2: Reconnect with Your Body Through Intuitive Eating

Intuitive Eating is a compassionate, evidence-based approach that helps you listen to your body’s natural hunger and fullness cues instead of external rules or diet culture. By practicing Intuitive Eating, you begin to:

• Let go of food guilt

• Eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re satisfied

• Enjoy all foods without fear or guilt

• Find satisfaction and pleasure in eating

• Rebuild trust with your body

This approach shifts the focus from controlling food to caring for yourself.

Step 3: Heal the Root with EMDR

While Intuitive Eating helps you in the present day symptoms, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy works to heal the root causes. Many people with disordered eating have experienced trauma, shame, or painful memories that get “stuck” in the nervous system. These unresolved experiences often fuel the negative beliefs—like “I’m not good enough” or “I don’t deserve to eat”—that drive disordered eating behaviors.

With EMDR, we target and process these memories so your brain and body can finally release them. This allows you to feel calmer, more grounded, and free from the old patterns that kept you stuck.

Step 4: Integrate Healing for Lasting Change

When Intuitive Eating and EMDR are combined, you address both the surface behaviors and the deeper root causes. This means you can:

• Stop the exhausting cycle of restriction and overeating

• Heal the emotional triggers that fuel disordered eating

• Learn to trust your body again

• Create a relationship with food that feels free, flexible, and nourishing

You Deserve Peace with Food and Your Body

If you’re ready to move beyond diets, guilt, and the constant mental battle with food, I can help. As a therapist who specializes in disordered eating and EMDR, I have worked with many clients to rewire their brains, and reconnect with their bodies through a compassionate, trauma-informed approach.

✨ Schedule your free consultation today and finally stop the food guilt for food.