The Self Led Woman Podcast: emotional eating and nervous system healing for self-leadership

In this episode, we’re talking about food cravings and what they actually mean. Most women have been taught to see cravings as a lack of discipline or willpower. But cravings aren’t random and they aren’t a personal failure. They’re information from your body and your nervous system. Sometimes cravings are physical. Your body might need more food, more carbohydrates, more magnesium, or simply more...

If you’ve tried plans, tracking, food rules, mindset work, resets, “I’ll start again Monday” — and you still end up back in the same loop… this episode is going to hit. Because emotional eating isn’t a behaviour problem. And the reason it keeps coming back isn’t because you lack discipline. It’s because it’s a survival strategy. In this episode, I unpack: Why most wellness and diet culture approac...

In this episode, I’m joined by UK-certified naturopath and yoga teacher Lottie Davies for a grounded and deeply validating conversation about hormones, cravings, nervous system healing, and cyclical living. We explore what it actually means to reconnect to your body — not through control, restriction, or more rules — but through understanding your natural rhythms. Inside this conversation, we unpa...

Recently I took time off Instagram and it changed a lot more than I expected. It didn’t just make me less distracted. It changed the level of presence I have in my relationship. It shifted my creativity. It brought back gratitude in a way I wasn’t even trying to practice. And it also showed me something confronting about my inner critic, my appearance, and how distorted our perception becomes when...

In this episode, I’m talking about something that’s been sitting in my system for a while. That my relationship with food was never actually about food, it mirrored my relationship to my emotions. For years, I thought I had a discipline problem. I thought I needed more control, more willpower, more consistency. But the deeper I’ve gone into this work, the clearer it’s become. Food was never the is...

At the time of recording, I had two cysts removed from my scalp, and the next morning I couldn’t stop thinking about how incredible the human body is. Because without instructions, without micromanagement, and without force, it immediately began repairing itself. And that’s exactly what your system is doing when you emotionally eat. In this episode, I’m unpacking why emotional eating is rarely abo...

What if strength training had nothing to do with getting smaller and everything to do with living better. In this episode, I’m joined by Naz Demirtas, certified strength coach and sports nutrition and health coach, to talk about what changes when women stop training for aesthetics and start training for capability. Naz shares how pregnancy became the turning point that shifted her from dieting and...

There’s a kind of tiredness I want to talk about today. Not the tiredness sleep fixes.  Not the tiredness a holiday fixes. But the exhaustion that comes from carrying too much for too long. If you’re someone who is capable, responsible, high functioning…  If your life mostly looks “together”…  And food is the one place where things sometimes unravel — This episode is for you. Because if emotional...

In this episode, I want to gently but firmly challenge one of the most damaging ideas we’ve been taught about our bodies. That our body is the problem.  That our eating is the problem.  That weight changes, emotional eating, restriction, or body hatred mean we’ve failed in some way. They don’t. Through an Internal Family Systems and somatic trauma lens, we explore how the body doesn’t just react t...

In this episode, I want to gently but firmly challenge one of the most damaging ideas we’ve been taught about our bodies. That our body is the problem. That our eating is the problem. That weight changes, emotional eating, restriction, or body hatred mean we’ve failed in some way. They don’t. Through an Internal Family Systems and somatic trauma lens, we explore how the body doesn’t just react to...

Content note: This episode includes discussion of eating disorders, including bulimia, and explores emotional eating through a therapeutic lens. Please listen with care and take what feels supportive for you. In this episode, I want to talk about something that gets missed in almost every conversation about emotional eating. Because food isn’t always just regulating emotions.  Sometimes, food is h...

Content note: This episode includes discussion of eating disorders, including bulimia, and explores emotional eating through a therapeutic lens. Please listen with care and take what feels supportive for you. In this episode, I want to talk about something that gets missed in almost every conversation about emotional eating. Because food isn’t always just regulating emotions.  Sometimes, food is h...

What if your body was never the problem. but the wisdom you’ve been missing? In this episode, I’m joined by Dr Anthea Todd, chiropractor, women’s health educator, and author of the bestselling book What’s My Body Telling Me? for a powerful conversation about symptoms, safety, and the intelligence of the body. Anthea shares why she believes symptoms are not something to fight or fix, but meaningful...

What if your body was never the problem. but the wisdom you’ve been missing? In this episode, I’m joined by Dr Anthea Todd, chiropractor, women’s health educator, and author of the bestselling book What’s My Body Telling Me? for a powerful conversation about symptoms, safety, and the intelligence of the body. Anthea shares why she believes symptoms are not something to fight or fix, but meaningful...

This episode is a straight talking, compassionate deep dive into why emotional eating doesn’t change just because you know what to do … and why willpower, discipline, and another nutrition plan are never the real solution. We explore the privilege of a regulated nervous system, how childhood support (or the lack of it) shapes your relationship with food, and why comparing yourself to women who “ju...

This episode is a straight talking, compassionate deep dive into why emotional eating doesn’t change just because you know what to do … and why willpower, discipline, and another nutrition plan are never the real solution. We explore the privilege of a regulated nervous system, how childhood support (or the lack of it) shapes your relationship with food, and why comparing yourself to women who “ju...

The Self-Led Woman is a podcast about emotional eating, the experiences that shape our relationship with food, and the kind of healing that unfolds when women reconnect with their sense of self. In this space, we go beneath behaviour, exploring trauma, the nervous system, nourishment, unmet needs, and mental health - with deep respect for the intelligence of the body. Hosted by Megan Darnell, Inte...

For most of my life, I believed my body was the problem. Not in a dramatic way. Not in a way I could easily name. Just in the quiet, unquestioned way that sat underneath everything — shaping how I ate, how I moved, how I looked at myself, and how much peace I felt in my own skin. In this first episode, I share part of my personal story with food, body image, control, and emotional eating. From die...

In this episode, we explore why emotional eating so often shows up in women who are high-functioning, capable, and already doing everything they can to cope. We look at emotional eating through an Internal Family Systems lens and unpack what’s actually happening in the nervous system when food becomes loud. Not as a lack of discipline, but as a signal that parts of you are working hard to regulate...

The holidays don’t create emotional eating. They reveal it. In this episode, we explore why this time of year so often activates old patterns around food, even when your life looks stable on the surface. Through the lens of trauma, the nervous system, and Internal Family Systems, we unpack how the body stores memory and how certain seasons, dates, and environments can reactivate responses learned...

For years, I believed my night-time bingeing was a discipline problem. Something I should be able to control if I just tried harder. But the truth was far more confronting and far more compassionate. In this episode, I share the story of the pattern I couldn’t stop. Waking in the night in full panic. Racing to the kitchen. Eating with a level of urgency that felt completely out of my control. What...

If food feels loud for you, it’s not a discipline issue. And it’s not something wrong with your body. Food noise increases when your system is under strain. Too many decisions, too much responsibility, not enough rest, not enough support. When capacity drops, parts of you look for relief wherever they can find it. In this episode, I unpack food noise through a nervous system and Internal Family Sy...

There are things your body does that feel confusing, extreme, or “too much” until you understand what your nervous system has actually been trying to do. In this episode, we explore why anxiety, shutdown, emotional eating, cravings, people pleasing, collapse, urgency, and overwhelm so often aren’t signs of dysregulation or weakness, but signs of an intelligent system trying to complete something t...

Emotional eating gets talked about like it’s one behaviour with one cause. It’s not. In this episode, I break down the different roles food can play in your life and why understanding which role it’s playing matters far more than trying to “fix” your eating. Because food isn’t always about avoidance or numbing. Sometimes it’s regulation. Sometimes it’s comfort. Sometimes it’s relief. Sometimes it’...

If food feels loud for you, it’s not a discipline issue. And it’s not something wrong with your body. Food noise increases when your system is under strain. Too many decisions, too much responsibility, not enough rest, not enough support. When capacity drops, parts of you look for relief wherever they can find it. In this episode, I unpack food noise through a nervous system and Internal Family Sy...