
Identify the trigger–body shift–urge–eat loop driving emotional eating, learn to create space in the loop, and relate to the emotion to reprogram automatic nervous system responses.
Engage a body-based approach to emotional eating and food habit repair, emphasizing trauma-informed nervous system regulation. Practice at home with routines and tools to discover what works for your integration.
Learn to catch the moment before eating by sensing early body signals in the SOMAR sense step, bringing awareness to the automatic loop and enabling change.
Apply awareness by using a micro pause and future pacing to translate moment signals into real-time self-regulation for emotional eating.
Practice guiding you to orient to safety by validating and relaxing the body, using breath to hold mild discomfort, notice sensations, and shift attention to a pleasant present moment.
Learn three practical ways to regulate your nervous system: titration, breath, and grounding, that safely connect you with discomfort, reduce dysregulation, and undo suppression of feelings.
Use the orienting tool to shift away from intense discomfort by looking around the room, noting five things, and grounding yourself in the present moment as a safety valve.
Explore a body-based safety tool to regulate the nervous system, cultivate micro pauses, grounding, and breathing, and observe urges to reduce emotional eating.
Map the pattern of emotional eating by identifying bottom-layer triggers and situational cues, build safety and awareness to pause, anticipate the sequence, and empower change.
Map the emotional eating sequence by identifying the trigger, the emotional feeling, body sensations, the eating behavior, and its relief, focusing on one pattern at a time.
Expand your awareness of recurring emotional eating patterns, identify underlying feelings, and insert safety and validation to dissolve the automatic loop and craft new responses.
Identify the deeper need behind urges using the SOMAR process and the five core needs, and learn to attend to that need to reframe emotional eating.
Identify the five core needs beneath emotional eating—regulation and calming, emotional comfort and love, stimulation, distraction or escape, and reward—and learn to meet them with healthier, body-based strategies.
Practice being present with yourself to meet core needs in new ways, cultivate self-love and self-compassion, and use safety tools like grounding, breathing, and validation to hold discomfort without eating.
Guide a body-based practice for emotional eating and food habit repair, attending urges without food using breath, safety tools, and self-compassion to identify and fulfill underlying needs.
Learn the final step of SOMAR: repatterning through flexible, compassionate repetition in real time. Embrace trial and error, self-compassion, and consistent practice to strengthen new habits.
Attend to core needs for safety and comfort, then use a primary replacement with grounding and easy secondary replacements—healthy foods or non-food actions like walking or journaling.
Simplify your practice into a three part loop of noticing, supporting, and responding, and use an anchor to access your replacement behavior in the moment.
Offer a seven-day protocol with daily focus on sensing, pausing, validating emotions, anchoring, and replacement behaviors to implement in real moments of emotional eating.
Practice the SOMAR process daily with a five-minute inner check-in and movement to release energy. When you slip, pause, observe with compassion, and stay in the process to learn.
Develop a body-based approach to emotional eating by listening to your signals, pausing, and responding with non-judgmental care to foster a new identity that trusts your body.
Recognize the pattern behind emotional eating, regulate your body by creating space and safety, and respond in new ways as your habits shift toward a more compassionate, empowered self.
If you've tried diets, willpower, food rules, or mindset techniques and still struggle with emotional eating, stress eating, comfort eating, cravings, or overeating, the problem may not be a lack of discipline at all. Emotional eating is often a nervous system regulation strategy, not a personal failure. In this course, you'll learn a trauma-informed somatic approach that helps you change the deeper patterns driving emotional eating by working with your body and nervous system rather than fighting against them.
What Makes This Course Different?
Most emotional eating programs focus on controlling food.
This course focuses on understanding and changing the underlying patterns that drive emotional eating in the first place.
Using the S.O.M.A.R. Method™, you'll learn a practical step-by-step process that helps you:
• Recognize emotional eating patterns earlier
• Create space between cravings and automatic eating
• Regulate your nervous system during moments of stress and overwhelm
• Understand the emotional, somatic, and nervous system patterns driving food habits
• Build a healthier relationship with food without relying solely on willpower
• Develop sustainable habits that support long-term change
What You'll Learn
• Recognize the early body-based signals that often precede emotional eating, cravings, stress eating, and overeating
• Understand emotional eating as a nervous system regulation strategy rather than a lack of willpower
• Distinguish physical hunger from emotional and stress-driven urges to eat
• Identify the emotional, somatic, and nervous system triggers behind food habits
• Use the S.O.M.A.R. Method™ to interrupt automatic eating patterns
• Increase awareness of body sensations, emotions, urges, and nervous system states
• Apply nervous system regulation tools to create more choice around food
• Use mindfulness to respond differently to cravings and urges
• Work with emotional eating patterns through self-awareness and self-compassion
• Repattern food habits through awareness, regulation, and repetition
• Build a sustainable practice for long-term emotional eating recovery
This Course May Be Helpful If You Struggle With:
• Emotional eating
• Stress eating
• Comfort eating
• Food cravings
• Emotional overeating
• Binge eating tendencies
• Eating when you're not physically hungry
• Using food to cope with stress, anxiety, loneliness, boredom, or difficult emotions
• Feeling stuck in cycles of dieting and relapse
• Feeling out of control around certain foods
The Approach
This course combines:
• Trauma-informed principles
• Somatic practices
• Nervous system regulation
• Mindfulness
• Habit change strategies
• Mind-body healing perspectives
The goal is not perfection.
The goal is building greater awareness, nervous system regulation, and new patterns that make lasting change possible.
No Prior Experience Required
You do not need any previous experience with somatic work, mindfulness, nervous system regulation, or personal development to benefit from this course.
Whether you've struggled with emotional eating for years or are only beginning to understand the pattern, this course will give you a practical framework for understanding what's happening and a clear path toward change.
If you're ready to stop fighting yourself and begin working with your body and nervous system instead, this course will show you how.
What's Included
• Step-by-step video lessons
• The complete S.O.M.A.R. Method™ framework
• Guided somatic awareness and nervous system practices
• Practical exercises to help you apply the material in daily life
• Downloadable worksheets and resources
• Lifetime access to all course materials
• Certificate of completion from Udemy
• Official accredited certificate of completion from Inner Wellsprings Academy
About Your Instructor
Shana Neril is a somatic therapist, mind-body healing practitioner, and naturopath with over 20 years of experience helping people work with stress, emotional patterns, nervous system regulation, and lasting behavior change.
Her work combines somatic approaches, mindfulness, nervous system regulation, and trauma-informed principles to help people create change by working with the body and nervous system rather than relying on willpower alone.
A Final Invitation
If you've spent years trying to control emotional eating through discipline, dieting, or self-criticism, this course offers a different path.
The goal is not to fight yourself.
Instead, you'll learn to understand the deeper patterns driving emotional eating, work with your body and nervous system more effectively, and begin rewiring the habits that keep you stuck in cycles of stress eating, cravings, and overeating.
If you're ready to build a healthier relationship with food and create lasting change from the inside out, this course will show you how.
Disclaimer: This course is intended for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical, psychological, nutritional, or mental health care. Always consult an appropriately qualified healthcare professional regarding any medical or mental health concerns. If you are experiencing a medical or mental health crisis, seek professional support immediately.