It wasn't about food or stress eating

I wasn’t hungry.

Not really.

But there I was again—

standing in the kitchen,

letting bhujia spill into my palm

like it could hold the parts of me

I didn’t know how to touch.

Some nights it was chocolate.

Some nights it was ice cream straight from the freezer—

cold enough to sting,

soft enough to distract.

I never remembered the first bite.

Only the relief that came with it—

that tiny drop of quiet

in a day that felt too loud.

Because when the house finally went still,

that’s when the real noise began.

The ache in my chest

I had pushed down between meetings.

The loneliness

I had ignored while “being productive.”

The truths

I kept turning my face away from.

Food was simple.

Food didn’t ask questions.

Food didn’t reflect anything back at me.

And honestly?

Some nights I just needed something—anything—

to make me feel less like a person who was falling apart on the inside

while looking “fine” on the outside.

But when the last bite was gone,

the ache came back—

like it had been waiting politely

for me to finish.

For the longest time, I told myself it was just stress.

Just habit.

Just “something to do.”

But there was one night—

late, everyone asleep—

me barefoot on the cold kitchen floor,

chocolate wrapper softening in my hand—

when a question rose quietly,

almost shy,

but sharp enough to reach me:

If I’m not hungry…

what am I trying to feed?

And that question didn’t shame me.

It softened me.

It showed me what I wasn’t seeing.

Was I reaching for comfort?

For proof that something sweet still existed in my day?

For a moment where I didn’t have to be strong or efficient or “fine”?

Or was I simply delaying the truths

I didn’t want to meet in the dark?

I didn’t stop emotional eating overnight.

No one does.

Healing is rarely a switch.

It’s a returning.

But I started noticing

what came before the craving—

the lump in my throat,

the restlessness in my hands,

the heaviness I kept trying to out-eat.

And slowly,

food stopped carrying a weight

that was never meant for it.

Even today—

when my mind reaches for chocolate

and my hand instinctively moves toward the bhujia—

I know something inside me is whispering,

“Pay attention.”

And now I do.

Some days I journal first.

Some days I journal after eating the chocolate.

Both are allowed.

Both are human.

But the part that changed?

I no longer choose numbness as my home.

I don’t disappear inside the food.

I return to myself.

Because the hunger was never in my stomach.

It was in the places

where I had stopped tending to myself.

Maybe you know this hunger too—

the one that shows up at 11 p.m.,

when the world goes quiet

and your heart gets loud.

If this feels familiar,

you don’t have to meet those moments alone.

This is the work I hold—

in my 1:1 spaces

and inside my practitioner trainings—

helping you turn toward the ache

instead of running from it.

Helping you meet the part of you

that’s been asking to be fed all along.

If you feel the pull,

you can reach me on WhatsApp at +917016500451