117. Exploring Shadow Work and Emotional Eating with Yas Hussain
In this episode, we’re joined by Yas Hussain, an emotional eating and spiritual weight loss coach. Yas shares her powerful journey of transformation, exploring how shadow work, healing from past traumas, and addressing emotional eating have shaped her path. We dive into the connection between emotional eating and other numbing behaviours, the pivotal role shadow work plays in personal growth, and how understanding your triggers can pave the way to healthier coping mechanisms
01:16 Yas Hussain's Journey and Insights
03:33 Understanding Shadow Work
09:52 Emotional Eating and Self-Sabotage
15:28 Practical Tips and Personal Development
Watch the full episode below:
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Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Money Mindset Hub podcast. I'm your host, Carla Townsend, a Money Mindset and Success Coach for female entrepreneurs. So today I have the beautiful Yas Hussein with me. Yas is an emotional eating and spiritual weight loss coach. Her work is centered around mentoring and guiding women back to themselves through shadow work, embodiment, and also spiritual practices. Yes. Believes your relationship to self and your internal landscape sets the tone for how you relate to everything, including food in her world. The goal isn't to just overcome emotional eating and shed excess weight, but it's also to create a life that you don't want to numb or escape from. Welcome. Yes. Welcome back. Yes. I should say, because you've been on the podcast before.
Yeah. So, thank you so much for having me
Well, you know what? Things have changed in your world. So obviously we've known each other for a couple of years now, and I know things have sort of changed, but you've really landed in this space. So I think what a beautiful time to have this conversation, to talk about your journey and where you're at and how you're supporting women these days.
So I'll pass it off to you to do a bit of a. Reintroduction to yourself and where you're at.
Amazing. Thank you. So, yeah, it has taken me a hot minute to land here, in that the, the journey has led me here and it's pure magic, right? Because everything happens for a reason. So, and what's beautiful about this world and this work is that we get to provide our wisdom to others, to help them with their inner journeys and transformation.
So for me, emotional eating has always been something that I have done, but it wasn't a pain point or problem because I used other things To cope as well. So I've always been someone who historically numbed, disassociated, was always an avoidance and, sort of projected this very bubbly, happy personality, which I genuinely am, but I carried a lifetime of suppressed emotion.
grief from my early years and teenage years. And it got to a point when I stopped drinking, I stopped smoking and historic ways of using, you know, alcohol and things to numb where food became my primary source food and online shopping, if I'm sure it'd
Yes. Yes. I'm aware of that romantic side of you who are online shopping.
So we'll talk about this a little bit later, but the synergy between money and food, like typically when you overeat, you tend to be an overspender as well, or you'll use one of the two. So after I went through a journey of my, what I call my spiritual awakening, I really focused on. My healing, and part of that was healing my relationship to food and really learning to build my emotional resilience capacity.
I use my divorce as a catalyst to not just heal from the divorce, but heal from early, trauma in the way of my parents divorce and just unpack everything. So I wasn't only grieving my divorce, I was grieving everything that I hadn't graved throughout my life and just letting go of a lot of suppressed energy and stagnant energy and emotions.
And then I got to a point, Carla, where. I just generally shed about 10 or 12 kilos. I was feeling really good. And I got to a point where I just plateaued and I knew exactly what to do. Like I'd studied holistic pop coaching. I knew what to do. I knew what to eat. I knew how to move my body, but there was something in me that kept self sabotaging.
And so I got curious and that's where shadow work came in. So I used shadow work to really uncover what I was holding onto. So generally with emotional eating, you tend to eat because you're bored. Tired, stressed, lonely, sad, when they are surface level, reasons, there's generally something deeper. So if you're someone who is a chronic emotional eater or you're carrying excess weight, there's generally something there because weight, the way I look at it from a spiritual lens, it's energetic protection.
Yeah.
And so I really got curious and I uncovered and I just kept exploring what was it about the weight and my self sabotaging patterns with emotional eating. It was around keeping me safe. So it was no coincidence that I gained weight as I was leaving my marriage. So I was leaving a relationship that I felt physically safe and protected in and I was becoming a newly single woman.
So my body, my subconscious. Packed on this energetic protection because there was some trauma from my teenage years that I hadn't fully dealt with. I had intellectualized, but I hadn't processed on a cellular and somatic level.
Oh God. That is, there is so much. There isn't there to unpack. I absolutely agree. I feel like your body knows you better and it knows when you feel unsafe. And so of course it's going to do everything and it's possible, everything that it possibly can to be able to try and keep you safe. And of course that is retention retention of the food of the water of all of it, because that is normal. And on the other side of. What is normal? What is known? What is familiar? Is the unfamiliar and is potentially the unsafe? So of course your body is doing that. And I love that now you've gone and taken this lens to blend through shadow work into it because it does, it goes so much deeper than that and understanding and uncovering your shadows. Which I'd love you to dive into more. I think that that is the key to your evolution. It's the key to understanding your true identity and who you want to be. And peeling back those layers of what you believe that you should be or what is always normal for you, what's been safe for you, what has been familiar for you, but let's talk about shadow because it is very, very, very deep and. Let's just start there.
Yeah, absolutely. And shadow work has become a bit of a buzzword like of late. So I fell into shadow work, not knowing I was doing shadow work, to be completely honest. So six years ago, I started doing personal development work, which ended up being shadow work and in child healing and the lives, but shadows essentially, Really bring to light the parts of us that we suppress, repress, deny and are also unconscious to.
So there are parts of you that you are not aware of, right? So in doing the shadow work and really exploring, because ultimately a shadow is Looking at why you have the current circumstances. So why don't you have the life or the relationship or the relationship with food or whatever it is that you desire and why you end up in the patterns that you are in that either are keeping you safe, you are unconscious to because you are on autopilot or you haven't integrated.
So we, you know, we talk about being happy, healthy, whole, you can't be happy, healthy, whole, and free within yourself and externally, if you haven't. Integrated all parts of you and own all parts of you. And it's not about just integrating the shadow to then be light. It's owning your light and your darkness because we live in a nuanced world.
We live in a world of duality
hundred percent. I love that you actually started off by saying that you didn't know that you were doing shadow work until later on because neither did I. So it would be 10 years ago, maybe more, 10, 11 years when I started getting into personal development and uncovering what are my triggers. That was the first one. What are my triggers? What am I getting frustrated about? Who is frustrating me? Why are they frustrating me? Is there certain words? Is there certain circumstances? I'm in control of me and my actions and my reactions. And I say that to everybody, but that is a beautiful place to start. In my opinion, to start to notice what is actually pissing you off, because it could also be what is not just pissing you off within yourself.
But if you're jealous, great shadow, if you're, if you are frustrated or if you can't wish everyone success, like if there's someone that you like, you just want to bring them down a notch. Shadow. So it is massive in personal development and I think everything honestly in personal development ties back to your shadow in some way or another, but you are right.
It's become a bit of a buzzword. And I know even when I've spoken about shadow, when I have a shadow work module in Richard resilient, it goes deep into that, like into your money and your shadow, it's all integrated, but so is
personal development as a whole, it's all integrated into that. So I love that you start there and just for anyone listening who of course has heard it. Being plastered around everywhere. Shadow work is just personal development, but there's obviously different nuances to it, and it's about going into the areas that you don't necessarily want to, or they feel really uncomfortable. That's probably my easiest way of explaining it.
Cause there's developing yourself, but then there's going into the areas instead of avoiding the areas that make you feel really uncomfortable. And I feel that's
more when we get into the nitty gritty of the shadow.
Yes. Yes. And the other thing with shadow work, it can sometimes feel really heavy and yes, it can be at times. However, we should always approach shadow work with playfulness and curiosity because otherwise you'll end up in shame and judgment cycles as opposed to just holding yourself with grace.
And what I learned with shadow work is last year, I did a shadow work immersion through the gene keys. And that was really fun because it was really intense, but I went into it, right? It's such a curiosity and playful lens, although I unpacked a lot of heavy
Oh, for sure. I can imagine. Actually, I remember you telling me about it. It was a lot.
It was intense, but the curiosity and the playfulness brought some light to it because personal development doesn't always need to be heavy and serious. It can also be, you know, playful and light where it can
a hundred percent. It's always that coming back to getting clarity on where you're going and what you're standing for. So
let's tie into the shadow work in terms of your overeating too. Let's talk about that there for a bit because I think that that is something, obviously that is a behavior. Overeating
is a behavior that is prompted from somewhere. So what would you say to someone who is, I suppose they're falling into those self sabotage behaviors. Now, if overeating, emotional eating, isn't something you're triggered with, I would think just swap that phrase out for whatever it is that you know your pattern is.
And this conversation is still very relevant. So let's start there.
100%. 100%. So for me, I never really over ate, but I would emotionally eat. So I'd be relatively healthy through the day. And then at the end of the day, after working my nine to five on my way home to my disconnected relationship, or I was feeling unfulfilled, I'd stop at KFC and have a burger and chips. So it wasn't over eating, but it was emotional eating.
So it was numbing me. It was suppressing the emotions. It was giving me a temporary dopamine hit and the way gluten in particular, for me personally, I reacted to, it would give me like a high. I would always get like a feeling of having a joint by eating a
Yeah, no, I get that. I do get that. You get that hint of like, Oh my God, this is delicious. Same with sugar. Yeah. That's for me. Sugar. Like, Oh my God, I'll eat all the sugar. And I'm like, that is fricking delicious. I love that. I needed every bit of it. 20 minutes later, I'll be like, why did I do that to myself?
Yes,
exactly. So I was having a reactivity, which is part of shadow work reactivity. I'd be in a triggered state. I'd react with eating foods that didn't love me back or didn't support my, my longterm wellness desires. And I gained weight. So I gained about 20 kilos in the space of four years. I was like 20 kilos heavier than I was at the end of my pregnancy.
And then through doing this, I've shed over 25 by no diets, no calorie counting, no, I didn't even exercise. Like I walked, but I, there was no like over exercising or training or anything like it is purely creating safety in my body. So dressing my shadows. Looking at my reactivity patterns, creating a new blueprint through actually practicing restraint and creating a new behavior.
Cause like you said, it's a habit. So creating new habits, finding ways to bring pleasure and joy into my world as well. Because generally when you're in an emotional eating state, you're mostly looking to feel sadness, Loneliness, things like that. That said, there are people who will emotionally, even when you're happy, because happiness is unfamiliar
Yeah. Yep. Which,
Yeah,
can you explain that Yas? Because I think that one, people will be listening and going, what? We're talking about happiness is unfamiliar. So can you please explain what that might mean?
so similar to money work, right? Where you have your threshold, like you have your ceiling, same applies to joy, happiness and pleasure. So depending on what your early years might have looked like in the way of your home, teenage years and things like that, you have a certain capacity within your body to hold joy, pleasure, things like that.
So when you experience too much of it, you can look at it with a lens of almost ungratefulness. That's like, Oh. I'm feeling good, but it just feels wrong. So I'm going to try and find something to not be happy about or use food or use alcohol or whatever it is I use to cope because it feels completely unsafe and unfamiliar in the body.
And we sometimes don't feel worthy. So at a fundamental level, we don't feel worthy of it. So we'll self sabotage by eating, drinking, smoking, whatever your vice is overspending.
hundred percent. Yeah. So that's the thing. I mean, it does apply to everything. If you feel like you've reached your threshold, I always call it your energetic threshold of whatever that might be, whether it may be being happy and feeling joy or feeling grateful, having just massive wins in your life or whether it be a monetary thing or success or whatever it is when you've kind of reached that threshold on the other side of that is really uncomfortable. And so again, like we spoke about, you're going to fall back into those habits. Those behaviors that are self sabotaging, they're not actually supporting you getting to where you want to be, but they've been a vice
for you to feel safe, to feel numb, to escape whatever it was. Even if, you know, logically you think, but if I'm really happy and I've hit all these goals and everything's going fine, like amazing, why would I then resort to the habits that I used to do to numb out when I felt sad, but it is the same cycle.
Exactly. And this is the way straddle work is so powerful in that it helps you catch yourself in the behavior. So I remember there was times during my divorce where I found this beautiful community bakery, right? That does organic sourdough deliciousness. And I would go there under the vice of I'm eating organic food.
And there was a beautiful community there. But then I noticed through during the shadow work, that was when I was feeling lonely, I'd go there, I'd get connection through the community, but I was also numbing the connection I was receiving because I didn't have the capacity to hold that connection at that time during my
Oh,
By eating
so interesting.
So I could, I could see myself, like I'd be sitting at home, feeling lonely. My son was with his dad and I'd end up going to the bakery. It was like an autopilot. And then as we're doing the shadow work, I can see myself like while I was driving, I was like, here I am, I'm doing it. So I would pivot.
I'd go somewhere else. I'd go to the reservoir. I'd go for a walk. I'd go to the beach. So by doing shadow work, you gain the awareness that you are unconscious to you see your, how you're reacting and you can catch yourself in the moment to make a better choice.
It's so interesting. So, so interesting. So what would you say to someone who's in that beginning stage how would you support them? Yes. A
Yeah. So whether it's overspending, emotional eating, if you're in a state where, you know, you've got a problem, you can see yourself in the same cycle, you've got some awareness, you're not completely oblivious to it, but you have awareness of your triggers and your patterns, it is time to do.
It is time to do shadow work because willpower, motivation, the right mindset, all that's great, but it's not going to help you completely overcome and integrate that on a somatic level because the awareness is one thing, but then, you know, similar to the likes of hypnosis and what have you, you can actually just create a new blueprint by practicing.
Using a different choice, which I call embodiment. So by embodying the new identity or the new behavior thought pattern, you are essentially reprogramming and re patterning it into your mind and
percent. It's that repetition. Repetition is the thing that's going to change everything for you, whether it is your mindset, your habits, your behaviors, your reactivity, all of it. It is that repetition, but repetition is what changes those neural pathways in your brain and creates new ones. So then it becomes automatic. I think sometimes it can
feel a little bit overwhelming too for people though at the beginning, because especially if they're just beginning on this journey. It's
very overwhelming when you start to think, where do I even start?
Hmm. Hmm.
what we're talking about here.
It's just being aware of what is triggering you. What are you reacting to? Who are you reacting to? In what circumstances? When are you pointing the finger when an actual fact you should be probably putting it back at you and going, what is this saying about me? What am I feeling right now? Because this, if,
if there wasn't any sort of truth, In the things that were annoying you, whether it's something that someone said, or whether it's, you know, someone else's killing it. And then you feel like you're not like, if there's not anything wrong,
Hmm.
subconsciously, it wouldn't bother you. If there was no truth to it, it would not bother you. So I feel like that's like the perfect spot to start. And I feel like we're very similar in the sense that that was where we began. Like this whole journey was, you want to better yourself. So now let me actually just start pointing the finger back at myself and going, what's going on here? Why am I angry?
Yeah. And that takes courage. That takes courage because in order to sit there and, you know, be open to, to that feedback from yourself and, Feel what you're feeling in the moment as opposed to ending up in the reactivity pattern that you normally would. It takes courage. It takes a level of self leadership as well, right?
Like we're, we're, we're, we are leaders. We're leading ourselves through our lives day to day, but it takes a certain level of personal leadership to say, okay, I'm going to sit with this. I'm going to listen to what's coming up. I'm going to observe my thoughts. support myself through it without shaming or judging myself.
And so many people get caught in the shame and judgment cycle because they have high expectations for themselves, which is nothing wrong, nothing wrong with, like nothing wrong with having high expectations for yourself, but then they end up self sabotaging because it's too difficult to sit with it. And what's interesting is like as humans, it's fascinating because We try to avoid the unpleasant emotions.
We try to avoid the pain, but we will go watch a sad movie knowing that we're going to cry at the end. Yes.
But it makes no sense, but we need to unlock that within ourself. We're obviously holding onto something cause we know,
Yeah. Energy it takes to hold onto something that we know we need to address is takes far more energy and effort. Then it does to just sit there, feel what we're feeling. Cause nothing's, you know, everything's temporary. Feelings are temporary. So if you can spend five minutes just sitting there in what you're feeling, whether it's anger, grief, frustration, sadness, it takes so much less energy to just sit there for five minutes and let it go, then hold it and suppress it and numb it for decades
yeah. Oh, a hundred percent. I feel like too, sometimes people don't know how to let it go though, which that is the, that can sometimes be the challenging one, but also I think we can overcomplicate it at the same time. Or let's say, you know, say,
if you're feeling any of those emotions, you might even feel. numb. You might feel numb, right? Because you're, Yeah.
So I feel like if you are in any of those sorts of states, there is always something you can release. Whether it be
through, I know, probably yours and my favorite sort of toolkit is to go to whether it be meditations, hypnosis visualization and energy clearing.
I was literally just rewriting my energy clearing script earlier and it may, I felt emotions come up writing it out. And I was like, Oh, even that
EFT is so powerful, EFT is so powerful. And what I will say though, like in this world of personal development, we have become codependent on healing modalities. And I love healing modalities. Like I love me a healing modality. But we also need to take personal responsibility because what I've seen in clients is they go to kinesiology, hypnosis, cognitive behavioral therapy, and they look for that to be the answer to solve their problem as opposed to using it as a tool, as you very lightly called it, to support them in the full process.
So that becomes another addiction because then you're just looking for another dopamine hit. I'm going to have a session, I'm going to feel like high, I'm going to feel like this big breakthrough, and then I'm going to keep chasing the breakthrough. Instead of actually dealing with what
Oh my God. Yes, I swear to God, just before we got on this call, I shared a post on my stories that I wrote months ago and it said, and because I had a few comments on it and one was
like, boom, like your biggest block could be the fact that you are looking for a block. And it's through this. And
it truly is.
I was like, whoa. So that's come up now. I'm like, Oh, that's just divine timing. But it is crutches. We're looking for a crutch and I don't care what it is, whether it be whatever you think, if you feel like there is a particular routine or rhythm, Of things that you do. And that makes you feel centered and grounded and whatever you do.
You, I feel like you've got to find what works, but if you're constantly going for, I've got to do this, I've got to do it, learn that it's like trying to be, even when you're starting your business, I need to do this certification, this, this certification, this education. I need to do all the things before I can do anything, but it's actually stopping you.
ends up being a distraction.
This is a distraction. Yeah. Yeah. That's
exactly right. But agree though. I do find, honestly, those ones. easiest ones, but often it's literally just journaling out what the hell's going on in my brain.
Or just moving your body in a supportive way. It's not in terms of like, I need to go build muscle or work on my cardio.
walk.
Do you remember when I was coming back into my body? Cause when you tend to overreach or emotionally or binge eat and you're carrying excess weight in any way. You also suppressing emotion, which is energy in motion.
So I found when I started doing a static dance and yoga, I would cry. I would walk and cry. I would do yoga and just break down because it was releasing, the movement was releasing it. And then that can be also triggering to some people because they don't know how to hold themselves through it. So then they then avoid movement, nourishing and end up punishing themselves through.
We were exercising in different ways. I want to suppress the emotion coming, coming through through
Yeah, I honestly think that exercise in general is a very underrated thing. If you are mentally going through something, emotionally going through something, the number one thing that you should do is move your body.
Move your body in whatever form that you enjoy. You might actually be surprised. So try, whether it is just
walking, whether it is joining a gym, a community, whatever it might be, just move your body.
A dance class, who knew? That could be
your thing.
So if you're someone who's doing cardio and exercise, not saying, you know, throw your fitness out the window, but slow down, maybe do yoga, maybe do Pilates, or if you're someone who enjoys running, maybe slow down and walk because It brings you back into your body.
Exactly.
But if you're currently doing yoga, maybe try a HIIT session. Cause it's the opposite of what you're doing. It's generally the, the one that's going to shift the emotion
it so interesting? That is so interesting. So I know that you do actually have a program that's coming up called the liberated woman. Can you tell us more about that?
Yes, this feels like my life's work highlight in four weeks. So it feels like the work I've done throughout my life in terms of personal development and particularly over the last four years in terms of shadow work and really getting into the depths of my soul to overcome. Emotional eating and online shopping is packed in this program.
So what took me four years, you can do in four weeks and then have that for life. So essentially it's a four week shadow work immersion, where I'm going to take you on a journey to really uncover your shadows so that you can apply it to emotional eating. Find food freedom, really develop a really nourishing and grounded, neutral relationship with food and liberate yourself for life.
Because as we talked about throughout this podcast, you can apply it to any area of your life, not just food. So the program kicks off mid January, 2025 enrolling now. And when you enroll now, there are certain bonuses and things that you have access to, to binge on before we kick off in Jan.
And of course I'm going to include all the links and things in the show notes as well. And yes. Where can everyone connect with you?
Yeah, best places. Instagram. One of my favorite places to hang out. I do have a podcast that I've just relaunched called happy, healthy and whole. So you can find the link in colors podcasts as well for that. And I'll include my website details for with color as well as you can jump on there, your call to as well.
Well, thank you so much for coming on. And I'll be talking to you as soon as always, but thank you so much. This has been wonderful.
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. And if you did, I would absolutely love it. If you could please leave me a five star review and let me know your thoughts. Remember everything you desire and deserve is just on the other side of your own resistance. So take that next step.