“I can’t seem to hold my anger in, I am horrible and I don’t know how my family put up with me…I want to feel normal again.”
What’s happening here is the specific inability to manage intense feelings like anger.
Emotional dysregulation often leaves you feeling out of control, as if your emotions have taken over and you’re powerless to stop them.
This can be especially overwhelming during midlife, when hormonal changes (aka menopause), physical pain, and life transitions pile on, making it harder to feel “normal” or balanced.
So, imagine you’ve had a long day filled with stressors – work pressures, family demands, maybe even joint pain that makes simple tasks feel like climbing a mountain.
Then something small happens, like your partner saying the “wrong” thing or your kids leaving dishes in the sink.
Suddenly, you explode with anger. It’s not just about the dishes or the comment – it’s the weight of everything bubbling up, and you’re left feeling ashamed, wondering why you can’t hold it together.
This happens because your brain is in overdrive.
In midlife, the combination of hormonal shifts, like declining estrogen, and your brain’s survival instincts can intensify emotions.
Estrogen helps regulate mood, and when levels drop, it can make feelings like anger harder to manage.
Add to that the stress of big life changes, like becoming an empty nester or dealing with the loss of a loved one (ie. one of many midlife transitions), and your emotional bandwidth literally becomes stretched thin.
Your brain perceives all these transitions as threats, flipping into fight-or-flight mode even over small things.
For women who struggle with emotional eating, this anger spiral often leads to a familiar escape…food.
You might find yourself turning to snacks late at night, not because you’re hungry, but because eating feels like the only way to calm down.
This creates a vicious cycle – eating to soothe the emotion, then feeling guilt or shame afterward, which only feeds more emotional dysregulation.
But this doesn’t mean you’re “horrible” or broken.
What’s happening is that your brain, body, and emotions are trying to navigate this storm of midlife transitions without the tools they need.
Understanding that your anger isn’t a flaw – it’s a symptom – can help you start making changes.
Learning how your hormonal changes, brain instincts, and even past patterns play a role in emotional dysregulation is the first step toward feeling more balanced.
And you’re certainly not alone in this.
Many women in midlife feel like they’re unravelling, but the truth is, this unravelling is an opportunity to rebuild – to learn new ways of handling emotions, balancing hormones, and soothing your nervous system.
Feeling “normal” again doesn’t mean going back to who you were…it means becoming someone stronger, calmer, and more in control of your emotions and choices.
The key to changing, healing, or solving emotional dysregulation – and by extension, the anger and shame spiral – is learning to recalibrate your nervous system and retrain your brain’s survival instincts.
This isn’t about managing emotions by sheer willpower or finding quick fixes like venting or distraction.
Instead, it’s about understanding what’s happening beneath the surface and addressing the root cause: your brain and body’s overreaction to stress.
Here’s the insight that might surprise you: the answer isn’t about controlling your anger – it’s about creating safety in your body and mind.
Your anger, as overwhelming as it feels, isn’t the enemy. It’s a signal that your brain is in survival mode, reacting as if you’re in danger, even when you’re not.
The path to healing starts with calming that overactive survival response, not just trying to “be less angry.”
Most of us were taught to handle emotions in ways that don’t work.
Maybe you were told to “count to ten,” “think positive,” or “let it out.” You’ve likely tried those things, but they didn’t bring lasting change.
That’s because they don’t address what’s happening deeper in your brain.
Your primitive brain – the part wired for survival – is driving the emotional overreactions.
It’s been trained over years of stress, life challenges, and even societal expectations to see ordinary events as threats.
Counting to ten doesn’t help if your brain still believes you’re in danger.
The deeper work involves rewiring this primitive brain response, and here’s how it differs from anything you’ve likely done before:
Learn to Pause and Regulate: When you feel anger bubbling up, instead of reacting or suppressing it, the first step is to pause.
This might feel impossible at first, but even a few seconds of stillness can start to break the pattern.
Techniques like slow, deep breathing, or grounding yourself by noticing what you can see, hear, and feel in the moment, send a signal to your brain that you’re safe.
Over time, this rewires your nervous system to stay calmer under stress.
Work With Your Body, Not Against It: Emotional dysregulation isn’t just in your mind – it lives in your body.
Hormonal changes in midlife add fuel to the fire, making your body more sensitive to stress.
Movement like gentle stretching, walking, or even dance can help release built-up tension.
Practices like yoga or somatic exercises teach your body how to feel safe again, calming the storm before it takes over.
Understand Your Brain’s Patterns: Your brain has likely learned to react a certain way to triggers over decades.
For example, if you grew up feeling unheard or judged, your brain might interpret your partner’s offhand comment as a personal attack.
By identifying these patterns, you can start to respond differently – not from the heat of emotion, but from a place of clarity.
Journaling, therapy, or mindfulness can help you uncover these patterns.
Reconnect With Your Deeper Needs: Anger often masks other emotions – like sadness, fear, or feeling unworthy.
It’s not just about the messy kitchen – it’s about feeling unseen, unsupported, or stretched too thin.
When you give yourself permission to explore these deeper needs, you can begin to meet them in healthier ways.
This might mean asking for help, setting boundaries, or simply showing yourself the kindness you’ve been giving everyone else.
Stop Looking for Instant Results: This is a big one. You’ve likely tried “solutions” that promised quick relief – a vent session, a sweet treat, or maybe just ignoring the problem and hoping it goes away.
The difference here is realising that lasting change takes time. It’s about building a new relationship with your emotions, step by step, rather than looking for a magic fix.
And here’s what you might not have realised about yourself yet – your deepest desire isn’t just to “stop being angry” or “feel normal again.”
It’s to feel safe and whole.
Beneath the surface, you long for peace – not the kind that comes from ignoring your feelings, but the kind that comes from embracing them, understanding them, and working with them instead of fighting against them.
When you shift from trying to control anger to creating calm and safety in your life, something powerful happens.
Your emotions stop feeling like a storm you have to survive and start feeling like signals guiding you toward what you truly need.
Healing isn’t about never feeling angry again – it’s about no longer being afraid of your emotions and knowing how to respond to them with compassion and strength.
This approach is different because it’s not about fixing the symptom (anger) or even the immediate behaviour (emotional eating).
It’s about rewiring the root cause – your brain’s survival instincts – and learning how to nurture yourself in a way that brings peace, clarity, and, ultimately, the freedom you’ve been searching for.
When you start to work on calming your brain’s overreaction to stress and learning to respond to your emotions with compassion instead of judgment, something incredible begins to happen: your whole life starts to feel more manageable.
And this is the key to achieving the bigger outcome you’ve been longing for – breaking free from emotional eating and finally losing the weight that feels impossible to shed.
Right now, when you feel angry, overwhelmed, or ashamed, your brain is stuck in survival mode.
That stress triggers the same old coping mechanism: reaching for food.
You’re not eating because you’re hungry – you’re eating because it’s one of the few things that feels comforting in the moment.
But then, after the eating, you’re left with guilt or frustration, which just keeps the cycle going.
By calming your nervous system and creating safety in your emotions, you start to break that cycle.
When you feel a surge of anger or sadness, you’ll have tools to pause and soothe yourself without turning to food.
Over time, as you retrain your brain, the urge to eat emotionally will lessen – not because you’re forcing yourself to stop, but because you don’t need it anymore to feel okay.
As emotional eating fades, you’ll notice other changes, too.
Your energy will stabilise.
Your body will start responding to the healthier choices you’re making.
You’ll feel more in control – not just of food, but of your day-to-day life.
This doesn’t happen overnight, but with consistent practice, you’ll see progress within a few weeks and deeper transformation over a few months.
Here’s what that overall outcome looks like:
Your emotions will feel manageable. You’ll still feel angry or upset sometimes (you’re human, after all), but you won’t fear your emotions. You’ll know how to respond to them in ways that actually help you, instead of ways that leave you feeling worse.
You’ll feel a sense of calm around food. The cravings that once felt overpowering will lose their grip. Eating will become about nourishing your body, not escaping your feelings. Over time, this balance will naturally support weight loss.
You’ll feel stronger and more confident. As you learn to care for yourself emotionally, you’ll notice it spills over into other areas of your life. You’ll feel more present with your family, more patient with yourself, and more capable of handling challenges.
How long will this take? It depends on your starting point, but here’s a realistic timeline:
Weeks 1-4: You’ll begin practicing simple tools to calm your nervous system and notice small shifts. You’ll feel more aware of your triggers and start catching yourself before you react.
Months 2-3: Emotional eating will begin to ease as you find new ways to soothe yourself. Your confidence in managing emotions will grow, and you’ll feel lighter – not just in your body, but in your mind.
Months 4-6 and beyond: These new habits will become second nature. You’ll notice lasting changes in how you feel, how you eat, and how you relate to yourself and others. This is when you’ll see steady, sustainable weight loss – not from restriction, but from finally aligning your emotions, body, and choices.
The beauty of this process is that it builds on itself. Each small win – choosing to pause instead of react, or listening to your body instead of ignoring it – creates momentum for the next. Over time, these small shifts add up to a huge transformation.
And that’s what makes this different. It’s about creating a new way of living where you feel calm, in control, and deeply connected to yourself. When that happens, weight loss becomes more than just a goal – it’s the natural result of a healthier, happier you.
My 34kg weight loss over 8 months didn’t just happen by itself. It took dedication to transforming research and personal experience into impactful insights to help me figure out what was going on, whilst at the same time, healing in the process.
The thing that many programs and coaches miss is connecting it all – the brain wiring, neurodevelopmental challenges, emotional dysregulation, menopause, metabolism, midlife transitions, anxiety, depression (and more)…that all interweaves with each other and significantly impacts emotional eating.
Which is why Midlifestyle School is more than just about weight loss – you create a vision of who you want to become, a new self-identity – a person who is in control of their emotions, their decisions, their choices, navigating midlife’s challenges without overwhelm by calming their nervous system…who then has the confidence to do or pursue whatever it is they want in their second half of life.
Midlifestyle School has become my life’s purpose to lead by example and inspire other women to realise “you’re not too old, and it’s not too late”.
Hand on heart, I truly care about you and I want you to live your second half of life better than ever before. I feel our first half was devoted to putting others first. Isn’t it fair to say it’s now our turn to focus the same level of devotion to ourselves?
I have so much conviction and belief in you, to be able to do this, to turn your life around so you can absolutely enjoy your second half, to be strong, fit and healthy – and independent to your last breath.
This is why I’m here, doing what I’m doing.
I’m a visionary with a big heart and a huge mission. If you’ll let me, let’s make peace with our past and design a second half of life worth living for!
