Service Description

Have you ever promised yourself that this time you'll do better with food, only to find yourself falling into the same patterns? Maybe you've tried setting rules, being more disciplined, or relying on willpower. And when those approaches haven't worked, you've wondered what's wrong with you. But what if emotional eating isn't a problem you need to conquer? What if it's something you can begin to understand? In this four-week experiential course, we'll explore a different way of relating to food, emotions, and yourself. Rather than focusing on control or trying harder, you'll learn to approach your eating patterns with curiosity, compassion, and greater awareness. Together, we'll explore: **Week 1: Understanding Emotional Eating** Discover why we turn to food, what emotional eating may be doing for us, and how understanding can begin to replace judgment. **Week 2: Making Space for Urges and Emotions** Learn to recognize urges, explore the feelings and needs beneath them, and create space to respond rather than react. **Week 3: Befriending Your Inner Critic** Explore how shame, perfectionism, and self-criticism keep us stuck, and practice responding to yourself with greater kindness. **Week 4: Moving Toward Choice and Trust** Bring everything together as you explore what it means to make choices from self-compassion rather than control, and begin building a more trusting relationship with yourself. Each session includes guided reflection, experiential exercises, practical tools, and opportunities to connect and learn in a supportive environment. You don't need to have everything figured out, and you don't need to change your eating before you begin. **You can start right where you are.** **Four live online sessions** Mondays, January 25 – February 15, 2027 6:30–8:00 p.m. Pacific $199 for the complete four-week course Facilitated by Erica Thomas, LMFT, a licensed therapist specializing in emotional eating, body image, and self-compassion. Please note: This course is an educational and coaching experience, not psychotherapy or mental health treatment. Participation does not establish a therapist-client relationship with Erica Thomas. The course is not intended to diagnose or treat mental health conditions or replace individualized mental health care.