When food becomes the mother you needed

In this week’s episode, I’m exploring the connection between food and mother, and why food can come to mean so much more than food. When I say mother, I mean the mothering we needed: the warmth, the holding, the soothing, the feeling of being seen and delighted in. For some of us that came from our mum, for some of us from someone else, and for some of us it didn’t come in the way we needed at all.

This isn’t about blaming mothers. Most did the very best they could with what they had. I also share my own story, of a mother who loved me dearly but was broken by grief when my dad died, and how food became the one who came for me. My intention is that this episode helps you understand why letting go of binge eating can feel so frightening, and begin to find other ways to be held.

You’ll learn:

• Why our first experience of food was relational, and how the body links food with being cared for
• What we needed from mothering, and what happens when it was missing or inconsistent
• How food becomes the mother who always comes
• Why letting go of binge eating can feel like losing a mother’s love and support
• How to begin mothering yourself, and letting others mother you too
• A gentle practice to help your body feel held

And lots more!

FREE self assessment to discover what’s driving your binge-restrict cycle?

Access here (takes 2 mins)

Ready to go deeper? Book a Root Cause Consultation.

In this 60 minute session, we map your binge–restrict cycle and look at what your nervous system has been protecting you from all along. You’ll leave understanding what’s driving your pattern, how to work with your nervous system instead of fighting it and clear next steps so you can finally stop feeling so lost, confused and end the cycle of binge eating.

Book your consultation here.

What is your craving trying to tell you?

In this week’s episode, I’m exploring food cravings, one of the most misunderstood parts of our relationship with food. So many of us have been taught to fear our cravings, to control them, and to feel ashamed for having them at all. But cravings are communication, and when you learn how to listen, they can tell you so much about what you need.

My intention is that this episode helps you meet your cravings with curiosity instead of shame, and begin to understand what your body has been reaching for all along.

You’ll learn:

• The five reasons we crave food, and why none of them are wrong
• How your cravings can help regulate your nervous system, and the up-and-down see-saw so many of us get caught in
• Why pleasure isn’t something to fear, and how suppressing it can drive compulsion
• Why, when you’re not physically hungry, your body is often looking for the support on the other side of the food
• A gentle practice for listening to a craving the next time one arrives

And lots more!

FREE self assessment to discover what’s driving your binge-restrict cycle?

Access here (takes 2 mins)

Ready to go deeper? Book a Root Cause Consultation.

In this 60 minute session, we map your binge–restrict cycle and look at what your nervous system has been protecting you from all along. You’ll leave understanding what’s driving your pattern, how to work with your nervous system instead of fighting it and clear next steps so you can finally stop feeling so lost, confused and end the cycle of binge eating.

Book your consultation here.

Welcome to Part 3, the final part of my series on people pleasing and binge eating. In this week’s episode, I’m sharing how we can start moving beyond fawning, slowly and gently, in a way your body can hold.

If you’ve ever tried to “just set boundaries” and found your whole body bracing against it, this episode will help it make sense. My intention is that you come away with a few small, practical places to begin, and a little more compassion for why this takes time.

You’ll learn:

• What the dual expression is, and how to start feeling the gap between what’s happening inside you and what you show on the outside
• Why building capacity for someone else’s disappointment is at the heart of fawning less
• How to practise in low-stakes, safe spaces so your body doesn’t get flooded
• A somatic practice called pendulation, to help you respond from a place of more space in your body
• How all of this begins to change your relationship with food

And lots more!

FREE self assessment to discover what’s driving your binge-restrict cycle?

Access here (takes 2 mins)

Ready to go deeper? Book a Root Cause Consultation.

In this 60 minute session, we map your binge–restrict cycle and look at what your nervous system has been protecting you from all along. You’ll leave understanding what’s driving your pattern, how to work with your nervous system instead of fighting it and clear next steps so you can finally stop feeling so lost, confused and end the cycle of binge eating.

Book your consultation here.

Welcome to Part 2 of a 3-part series on people pleasing and binge eating. In this week’s episode, I’m exploring the connection between the two, and why the way we are in our relationships so deeply shapes the way we are with food.

If you’ve ever been “good” all day and then found yourself binge eating at night, this episode will help it make sense. My intention is that you come away seeing your binge eating as your body doing everything it could to look after you, and that you can meet it with more compassion as a result.

You’ll learn:

• What happens in your body each time you fawn, and why it builds pressure
• How we first learn to feel safe through other people, and why food steps in when that’s missing
• The different jobs food does for someone who fawns
• Why binges so often happen in the evening
• How shame and restriction keep the cycle turning
• A gentle practice to start noticing what food has been carrying for you

And lots more!

FREE self assessment to discover what’s driving your binge-restrict cycle?

Access here (takes 2 mins)

Ready to go deeper? Book a Root Cause Consultation.

In this 60 minute session, we map your binge–restrict cycle and look at what your nervous system has been protecting you from all along. You’ll leave understanding what’s driving your pattern, how to work with your nervous system instead of fighting it and clear next steps so you can finally stop feeling so lost, confused and end the cycle of binge eating.

Book your consultation here.

Welcome to Part 1 of a 3-part series on people pleasing and binge eating. In this week's episode, I'm exploring the fawn response, a survival response that often shows up as people pleasing, and one of the things I see most often beneath binge eating.

So many of us would never call ourselves people pleasers, which is exactly why fawning can be such a blindspot. My intention is that this episode helps you recognise it in your own life and meet it with compassion, as the survival intelligence it is.

You'll learn:

• What the fawn response is, and why it exists
• The everyday ways fawning shows up, and how it quietly becomes your personality
• Why fawning is so common in women
• What fawning feels like in the body
• A short practice to help you notice it as it happens

And lots more!

FREE self assessment to discover what's driving your binge-restrict cycle?

Access here (takes 2 mins)

Ready to go deeper? Book a Root Cause Consultation.

In this 60 minute session, we map your binge–restrict cycle and look at what your nervous system has been protecting you from all along. You'll leave understanding what's driving your pattern, how to work with your nervous system instead of fighting it and clear next steps so you can finally stop feeling so lost, confused and end the cycle of binge eating.

Book your consultation here.

Summer is approaching, holidays are booked, and for many women, the pressure to “get your body ready” can feel overwhelming.

If you’ve found yourself thinking:

1. “I need to lose weight before my holiday.”
2. “I have to get my eating under control.”
3. “Maybe I just need to go on one more diet.”
4. “This summer has to be different.”

…this episode is for you.

In this episode, Alex explores why going on another diet may feel like the solution - but is often the very thing that keeps binge eating going.

You’ll learn:

1. Why summer can trigger urgency, shame, and body anxiety
2. • The critical difference between healing binge eating and pursuing weight loss
3. Why diets create the exact biological and emotional conditions that drive binge eating
4. The two-phase approach to achieving both freedom with food and sustainable weight loss
5. The one practice that begins to calm the binge-restrict cycle: consistent, adequate nourishment

This episode will help you understand that binge eating is not a willpower problem.

It is a nervous system response to scarcity, stress, and emotional overload.

And when you change the conditions your body is living in—by creating safety, consistency, and support—the cycle can begin to soften.

Because you don’t need another diet for summer. You need a different relationship with food. And that begins not with more control, but with safety.

FREE masterclass: Register here: https://thefoodfreedomtherapist.mykajabi.com/freemasterclass-april2026

Connect with Alex

Website: https://thefoodfreedomtherapist.com

Instagram: https://instagram.com/thefoodfreedomtherapist

In this episode of Beneath the Binge, somatic practitioner Alex Bottomley invites listeners to ground in what physically supports their body, then explore loneliness as a felt sense of disconnection that can show up as collapse, fogginess, or an empty “void” often sensed in the belly.

From her personal experience and client work, she describe how early differences, shame, and losses can shape a nervous system “map” of belonging, and how chronic loneliness activates threat circuits similar to physical pain, increasing cortisol and disrupting dopamine, making binge eating more likely especially with low emotional regulation.

Food can become a predictable substitute for co-regulation, and recovery involves grief, being emotionally met, and building safe connection. Alex offers practices to notice connection/disconnection, recall supportive beings/places, and hold a soft object to the affected body area.

If you are looking for more community and support, Alex is hosting a group retreat to Portugal in July for women who are struggling with binge eating and haven’t yet been with others through this journey.

For more information, visit www.thefoodfreedomtherapist.com or @thefoodfreedomtherapist.

In this episode of Beneath the Binge, I reframe binge urges as urgent body-based communications from the survival nervous system rather than a problem to fight.

I explain that urges feel overwhelming because they arise as physical sensations and activation that demand immediate resolution — fighting, distracting, analyzing, using willpower, or immediately giving in can intensify urges or reinforce food as the only path to relief, embedding an automatic loop in the nervous system.

I suggest creating small pauses to relate to urges with compassionate curiosity by noticing where and how they appear in the body (shape, color, movement), which builds capacity to be present with discomfort and supports regulation.

I also note that some feelings may be too big to hold alone and recommend support from a practitioner, my self-study course Foundations of Food Freedom,, and my six-month group program Find Your Freedom — plus I invite your questions and close with a body check-in.

For more information, visit www.thefoodfreedomtherapist.com or @thefoodfreedomtherapist