--- title: "Breaking Bread, Bearing Heartache: Cristina Simmons on Family, Faith and Finding Comfort in the Kitchen" description: Eat Your Feelings explores faith, resilience and family bonds—showing how shared meals foster connection, emotional wellbeing and quiet perseverance author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief) date: 2025-07-11T09:07:09.000Z updated: 2026-06-29T08:43:27.328Z canonical: https://richwoman.co/article/breaking-bread-bearing-heartache-cristina-simmons-on-family-faith-and-finding-comfort-in-the- image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/117eb098f92df5bf375c2958299759f8.jpg categories: Self-Development content_type: Interview region: Global publication: Rich Books about: - type: Person name: Cristina Simmons description: Cristina Simmons is an author, speaker and wellness coach who helps women over 40 reclaim confidence, energy and purpose without guilt. Her work, rooted in lived experience and faith, has been featured in podcasts, summits and publications that champion resilience and motherhood. Recently named one of the Women to Watch in 2025 by She Means Business Magazine, Simmons was also honoured as one of the Top 40 Speakers Shaping the Future in Voices of Change Magazine. url: https://cristinapsimmons.com/ --- ## EAT YOUR FEELINGS: How to Devour, Digest, and Detox Pain From Your Life ### Book: EAT YOUR FEELINGS: How to Devour, Digest, and Detox Pain From Your Life By Cristina Simmons Eat Your Feelings is a story of heartbreak and restoration. The Simmons family faced challenge after challenge over the course of 20 years, but through unwavering faith and a marital bond that refused to be broken, they built a life that stands as a testament to perseverance. Cristina Simmons has always believed that their trials were meant to serve as teaching moments for others facing similar challenges. Her prayer is that you find comfort in knowing that everything happens for a reason, and that your season of growth begins within the pages of this book. [Amazon](https://amzn.to/40Ng8Ki) Eat Your Feelings is a story of heartbreak and restoration. The Simmons family faced challenge after challenge over the course of 20 years, but through unwavering faith and a marital bond that refused to be broken, they built a life that stands as a testament to perseverance. Cristina Simmons has always believed that their trials were meant to serve as teaching moments for others facing similar challenges. Her prayer is that you find comfort in knowing that everything happens for a reason, and that your season of growth begins within the pages of this book. Some nights, the kitchen becomes the only place where silence doesn’t feel dangerous. Cristina Simmons knows this feeling intimately – the weight of setting the table when everything else feels broken, the quiet ritual of chopping vegetables when words have failed, the act of feeding people who might not be speaking to each other but still need to eat. For twenty years, Simmons used her kitchen as both sanctuary and battleground, a place where her family gathered not because they wanted to, but because she refused to let them scatter. Her recently released book, *Eat Your Feelings*, chronicles this long journey of keeping a family together through food when faith felt fragile and hope seemed rationed. The book has struck a chord with readers, reaching bestseller status on Amazon – perhaps because Simmons offers something rare in the crowded field of family memoirs: she doesn’t promise that everything worked out perfectly. ## Kitchen Table Survival Simmons writes about the meals that happened in cold silence, the dinners interrupted by slammed doors, the breakfast conversations that began with apologies from the night before. Her kitchen table witnessed fights about money, tears over disappointments, and those awful stretches when family members moved through the house like strangers. What made her keep cooking through all of it? Reading between the lines, it seems her motivation was more urgent than philosophical: someone had to keep the routine intact when everything else was falling apart. Research shows that [families often use food as emotional healing](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3907771/) during hardship, with comfort food providing familiarity and social connection that can alleviate feelings of sadness and stress. Simmons seemed to understand this instinctively, using meal times as anchor points when her family’s world felt unmoored. The kitchen table became her strategy for survival – not just feeding bodies, but insisting on connection even when hearts weren’t in it. She writes about setting places for family members who might not show up, keeping leftovers for teenagers who came home late, and the small victory of getting everyone in the same room, even if they ate in tense quiet. ## Choosing Faith When Answers Don’t Come Simmons’ approach to faith-based family memoir feels different because of her honesty about the long middle years – the time between crisis and resolution when nothing dramatic happens, just the grinding work of showing up day after day. Her book details a twenty-year journey that tested both her marriage and her faith, with no quick redemption arc or miraculous turning point. She doesn’t present faith as a solution so much as a practice. She writes about praying while kneading bread, finding God in the repetitive comfort of familiar recipes, and the act of grace that happens when you keep feeding people who might not deserve it in that moment. Her approach to faith feels practised rather than preached – less about dramatic interventions and more about [the quiet decision to keep trying](https://richbooksmagazine.com/article/finding-happiness-in-quiet-strength-real-family-and-the-small-miracles-of-everyday-faith). She describes seasons of doubt, periods when prayer felt hollow, and times when cooking was the only form of worship she could manage. The book’s narrative spans decades of persistent challenges, showing how [trusted food rituals play a key role](https://wearefamiliesrising.org/resource/healing-from-food-insecurity/) in creating emotional safety and resilience within families during difficult times. Simmons used this understanding before she could articulate it, creating stability through the simple act of regular meals. ## The Book’s Real Appeal Simmons’ storytelling stands out because she refuses to offer advice or neat conclusions. Instead, she shares what actually happened – the messy, ongoing, sometimes unsuccessful attempts to hold her family together. Her book doesn’t end with everyone healed and grateful; it ends with a family that’s still working on it, still gathering around the table, still choosing each other imperfectly. This honesty may explain why *Eat Your Feelings* has resonated with readers. Simmons’ approach relies on storytelling while encouraging readers to reflect on faith, perseverance and renewal without the pressure of finding instant answers or dramatic breakthroughs. The book’s success suggests readers are hungry for stories that acknowledge the long, unglamorous work of family maintenance – the years when nothing gets better quickly, when faith feels more like endurance than triumph, and when love looks like setting the table one more time. Simmons writes about the small moments that don’t make it into typical family memoirs: the way someone’s favourite meal can be both comfort and manipulation, how cooking for angry people requires its own form of courage, and the strange intimacy of feeding someone who’s barely speaking to you. ## Why Women Relate The book’s appeal seems particularly strong among women who recognise the invisible labour of family maintenance – the emotional work of keeping everyone connected, fed and functioning. Simmons writes about the exhaustion of being the one who always sets the table, even when you’re angry too, and the weight of nurturing hope when you’re not sure you believe in it yourself. Her story resonates because it acknowledges the complex reality of family love – that it’s often inconvenient, frequently thankless and sometimes practiced more than felt. She writes about [emotional eating and comfort food](https://withinhealth.com/learn/articles/overcome-emotional-eating-loss) as normal responses to family stress, without shame or judgment. Women readers seem drawn to her refusal to present herself as either victim or hero. Instead, she shows up as someone who kept cooking when everything else felt uncertain, who found meaning in [the repetitive acts of care](https://richbooksmagazine.com/article/happy-table-cooking-s-therapeutic-power) that often go unnoticed. The book captures something specific about female experience – the way women often become the keepers of family rituals, the ones who maintain connection even when relationships feel fragile. Simmons writes about this role without romanticising it, showing both its burden and its power. ## The Kitchen Now Twenty years later, Simmons still cooks for her family, though the dynamics have shifted. Her kitchen table has hosted graduations and heartbreaks, celebrations and quiet Tuesday dinners that somehow mattered more than the dramatic moments. She writes about looking at her family now – imperfect, still working on things, but choosing to keep showing up for each other. The book’s title, *Eat Your Feelings*, suggests both the problem and the solution. Yes, families use food to cope with emotions, sometimes in unhealthy ways. But Simmons also shows how the act of preparing and sharing meals can be a form of emotional processing – a way to work through feelings together, even when words aren’t enough. Her final chapters don’t offer resolution so much as perspective. She writes about the ongoing nature of family work, the way love requires constant maintenance, and the strange comfort that comes from knowing you’ll all gather around the table again tomorrow, regardless of what happened today. Published by Game Changer Publishing, *Eat Your Feelings* represents a different kind of faith memoir – one that finds the sacred in the ordinary, the spiritual in the repetitive, and hope in the simple act of keeping everyone fed. Simmons has chosen to extend her commitment to caring for others beyond her own kitchen table. A portion of proceeds from Eat Your Feelings supports [A21](https://www.a21.org/), a global organisation fighting human trafficking. It’s a decision that reflects the book’s central message about the power of feeding and protecting people – expanding her circle of care from family dinners to supporting vulnerable people worldwide. Rather than promising quick fixes, [Simmons offers something more radical](https://richbooksmagazine.com/article/quiet-strength-why-unpacking-the-weight-within-feels-like-finally-letting-your-guard-down): the suggestion that love might be found in the daily choice to keep trying, one meal at a time. Cristina Simmons shares her family’s story of faith and perseverance to motivate others facing difficulties, believing that purpose can be found in every season and that growth often begins during the toughest times. [Empathy and communication are powerful tools](https://richbooksmagazine.com/article/christina-marullo-found-her-strength-by-letting-go-of-control) in times of family change—see how they shape real-world legacy decisions in [family farm succession and land negotiations](https://richbooksmagazine.com/article/empathy-at-the-heart-how-amy-peterson-is-rewriting-the-rules-of-legacy-building) as explored by Amy Peterson. Everyone deserves [a real place at the family table](https://richbooksmagazine.com/article/breaking-the-emotional-triangle-a-fresh-stepparenting-view-on-belonging-and-building-real-bon) – discover how stepparents and blended families are building new bonds in Richard Ramos’s story.