Really great question, Mark. It can be hard to see the positive intention of the parts of us that want to feel more pleasure, no matter what it costs.
(By the way, these parts are typically called "Firefighter Parts" - you can read more about them and the other types of parts in this article: https://medium.com/the-family-within-you/access-greater-healing-by-getting-to-know-the-family-inside-of-you-9f27d47e6fe7 ).
As for the part of you that wants more and more pleasure, regardless of the health risks -- there are a few things I'll note here but I HIGHLY recommend you fill out the Meet A Part of You Worksheet for this part so you can get to know it more personally. Because it is in that conversation between you and that part where you're going to collect the most helpful data about this part and your inner dynamics.
It's first important to validate the helpful *intention* of this part to give you more and more pleasure. That's something ALL of us humans want, we are pleasure-seeking creatures.
And now a couple other notes:
- Parts get stuck at the same age in which they had to take on a more extreme role (like when you were in the thick of your trauma and/or going through a very overwhelming and confusing time). Very often, when we get to know our emotional eating parts, they turn out to be ten, eleven, twelve year-olds that are just doing their best to try and feel good. Ten year-olds aren't great at paying attention to the long-term costs of their behavior. Instead of shaming this ten-year-old inside of you for not being more of an "adult," a more effective way to help him grow up is to re-parent him. To validate his overwhelm, and to help him realize how old you are now and guide him into a less extreme role. I created an entire course dedicated to helping you do this with ALL of your parts - it's called Parts Work Academy and you can check it out right here: https://www.jordinjames.com/pwa
- Like most Firefighter Parts, this part is most likely protecting you from feeling a deep inner pain. It might be that this part of you is afraid of that pain coming to the surface if they aren't constantly seeking more and more pleasure. So it's not a matter of him wanting to kill you with food, it's that he's afraid of what would happen if he stopped. When you can go to the underlying pain that he is protecting you from feeling and resolve it, he doesn't have to play such an extreme role of eating more and more because there is no longer anything to protect you against. (Parts Work Academy will help you do exactly this).
So, that was a lot :)
(Can you tell this is my favorite thing to talk about?)
How is this landing with you, Mark?
