Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Ready to lose 40 plus pounds without giving up happy hours, weekend brunches, or date nights. Then it's time to uncover the hidden link between binge eating and toxic relationships. And finally break free from both. Welcome to the Hungry for Love podcast with Jillian Scott. Y' all ready? Let's go.
[00:00:24] Hey. Hey. Welcome back.
[00:00:26] All right, today we are gonna dive into the topic of why diets and relationships have felt so hard and really explore what's underneath it, why it feels hard. And this is something that I feel comes up frequently is relationships are hard, diets are hard, and often there's this general assumption of, like, yes, and that's how it's supposed to be. I do believe that there are going to be aspects that feel hard because it challenges our survival mechanisms is really what it comes down to. And so that is one of the core aspects is for the women that I work with, but also for the men, our origin story is this wound around abandonment. And we learn to abandon ourselves for fear of being abandoned by somebody else, right? So we had to abandon our personality, our style, our dreams, our desires, our wants, our needs in order to try to feel safe, loved, accepted, chosen to be the good girl, the good boy, the one your parents didn't have to worry about. It was never about the food. It was never about the partnership. It was the identity that you were forced to develop in order to survive. And I sum it up as diets failed, relationships failed, things were hard. Not because you were weak, not because you were less than or not good enough, but because your conditioning was stronger than your self worth. And every time we kept trying to build our self worth, we kept looking for something outside of ourselves. We kept attaching our self worth to the body, to the weight, to the size of our pants, to these external things. And this is where we get stuck. These are the patterns and really this ball of yarn that we have to unwind. And so anytime that you maybe tried to lose weight, create consistent habits, express your needs, stop people pleasing, anytime you tried to set or enforce boundaries, it all collided with these old survival strategies of being the person they wanted you to be. Who do you need me to be to be likable and agreeable, to not upset anybody? Don't rock the boat, don't take up too much space, don't be too needy, don't be too sensitive, Learn how to take a joke. And whatever you do, don't ever let them see you cry. We develop this identity of being the good girl, the perfect one, or the, quote, dream girl for everyone else. But this is incompatible with, with becoming the woman who sets the world on fire, with becoming the woman that you were designed to be. It really falls in conflict with being able to say no, to set boundaries, to heal from emotional eating, to be able to leave that toxic relationship and truly to believe that you deserve better beyond anything else.
[00:03:04] Not because you think you're better than anyone, but because you no longer have to settle for good enough, to settle for people who want to treat you like shit and pretend like they are God's gift to you.
[00:03:17] When your nervous system has been wired to keep you safe by keeping the peace and managing other people's emotions, you literally could not choose yourself.
[00:03:28] This is the basis. It's like we had to abandon ourself. We had to abandon our needs. We couldn't choose ourselves otherwise. We were then deemed selfish and wrong and a terrible wife, a terrible child. How dare we?
[00:03:42] It's this subconscious learned pattern, learned behavior.
[00:03:46] And I think this is why December is actually a great time to be doing this work. Because it will trigger those old patterns. And sometimes it's going to trigger them hard. And that's okay, because we need these triggers to come up to the surface so that we can see them, so that we can address them. We want to see it come up in other areas. We want to not just identify the toxic, maybe romantic relationship that we've been in and why we've been in it, why we stayed for so long, why we thought this was acceptable. But we also want to start to wake up to the other dysfunctional patterns that we see, maybe with our parents or siblings or our in laws or that work environment with your boss or a certain colleague, maybe with certain friends.
[00:04:31] This is the blessing and the curse is that as we start waking up to dysfunction and toxic patterns, we start to see it everywhere.
[00:04:38] And usually there's not just one dysfunctional person we have in our life. There's a whole plethora, we've got a whole handful of them. And that is not a problem.
[00:04:49] This is going to be a slow refining process.
[00:04:53] And as you refine and you learn to let go of people who are not helping you, who are not serving you, who are not wanting to grow with you and wanting to keep you down, hold you down, keep you stuck, this is where we learn to let go of them.
[00:05:07] And sometimes it'll feel like a wave, like we're trying to let go of a lot all at once.
[00:05:12] Sometimes it's gonna be more one at a time.
[00:05:15] But this is where we start to step into our New identity. We reclaim that vision and desire and who we really are, the person that we're meant to be, the woman that you are meant to be.
[00:05:28] I've broken this up into some different sections.
[00:05:31] We'll talk about how these really come together, like this shared route between the dieting struggles, weight loss struggles, and relationships. And then we'll talk about each of them individually as well. The first aspect, though, is really this core theme around relationship with weight loss struggles and why both can feel so hard and so often. I think they can feel like separate issues, right? I think this is what even some people have told me is, no, no, no, these are two separate things. Love versus body, love versus weight loss, two separate issues. But really they come from the same wound. And most of the time that wound is something of the flavor of I am not enough. Just as I am right now. So it might be I am not smart enough, thin enough, pretty enough. Something about me is not enough. We try to band aid it. It's more of who do you need me to be? I'll be her. And then not only will she meet your emotional needs, but if I can succeed at meeting your emotional needs by being this person, now you can meet mine in return. If I can be good enough, if I can succeed at being her and being this woman that you want me to be, this girl that you want me to be, maybe then you can meet my needs too. And this is why I talk so much about. Codependency is a two person street. It is not just a narcissist and a codependent. I hate it when people use that as a distinction or like a way to describe a dynamic. There is a narcissist or an abuser, and then there's often a pleaser. There is somebody who then fits those needs, who tries to meet those needs. But we learn to shape shift.
[00:07:08] And so often this happens at a young age. As we learn these patterns, they are so deeply ingrained survival mechanisms. We learn to shape shift for love. So I never learned how to choose myself. I never learned who I really was.
[00:07:22] And I thought, really this who do you need me to be? I'll be her. That was very much my approach. I felt like I was a chameleon for much of my teenage years into my twenties. And I thought it came from moving around and going to five different high schools, spending time both in the states, but also abroad, but also when I was in the States, in different states, different locations, very different cultures even.
[00:07:47] And I thought that was where this really stemmed from. Was from that experience.
[00:07:51] But what I now see is that my childhood trauma actually primed me for this experience in high school. It primed me for how I was going to show up in adult relationships, both romantic and platonic, but mostly romantic when it came to men. It was, who do I need to be in order to keep his love, keep his attention, keep him here, keep him from abandoning me because he's meeting my emotional needs. That was something I didn't know how to do for myself. And when my worth and my value and somehow I was better or good enough because I was with this person, I couldn't walk away. And I couldn't let him walk away from me either, because part of my worthiness was caught up in my ex. It was like being with him made me special. I was chosen. It really played into I am better. And not only am I good enough now to be with him, but now I'm better because I'm with him. Almost this kind of weird brainwashing. And he would even tell me to my face, women would kill to be in your shoes. Women would kill to be married to me. No, we won't get into that.
[00:08:59] So anyways, this identity, though, makes someone deeply disconnected from their own desires, their boundaries, their emotions, their hunger.
[00:09:09] Your wants, your desires, your goals, your dreams, your ambition. At some point, I guarantee they were mocked, they were laughed at, they were shamed. You wanted something more for your life. You wanted something bigger and better, and you were shamed for it. If you didn't fall in line with the manual that they had of how they thought you were supposed to show up, they rolled their eyes at you, they put you down, they scoffed, they invalidated your progress and success.
[00:09:35] So even when you did start to succeed, even when you did do good, amazing things, it was never enough. There was always a reason or a way in which it didn't count, it didn't matter. And I remember this when it came to my business and in the early years, when things were starting to grow in 2022 and I was showing my ex and I was saying, look how much money I've made. Look how awesome this is. I'm really doing something here. And he would look at how much I spent and how much I had invested over the last three months now, I still made more than what I had invested, but he just completely invalidated how much I was making because he was like, you had to spend money to do that, and that's a problem.
[00:10:13] It was just like this complete invalidation of what I was doing. Didn't matter that I was living into my God given gifts and strengths and talents. It didn't matter that I was helping people. It didn't matter that I found such purpose and fulfillment. It was always invalidated.
[00:10:28] I tried to find a way to please both of us. It was like, how can I still build this business and also make him happy? How can I make him proud? How can I feel appreciated or help him to feel appreciated and then maybe he'll appreciate what I'm doing. I kept trying to make all of these decisions, but a lot of it was also I need to prove, I need to earn. I need to show him. Maybe if I just make more money, then maybe he'll see this as a good idea. Maybe he'll see that this is where I'm supposed to be. But it didn't matter how much money I made. It didn't matter how the business grew. It didn't matter all the opportunities that I had through the podcast and with speaking and with networking, it was just constantly invalidated. It was never enough.
[00:11:06] And that was so hard because not only was what I was doing was never enough for him, but I felt like I was never enough. And I wrestled with that. That was such a core deep wound from my childhood around. I was never enough. And it just kept this cycle perpetuating and getting deeper and deeper. And I would say that there were times where I did try to be myself, but I think there was always this subconscious programming, this like, subconscious undercurrent of who do I need to be to fit in, who do I need to be to make friends, to be cool, to get the attention of the boys, who do I need to be in this situation was really such an interesting thing. Especially then, even as an adult, still moving around a lot, moving different states.
[00:11:47] So when we moved to Alabama, this was moved like 17 and 23 years for me. And that was states or countries, big moves, big changes.
[00:11:57] So there's always this undercurrent of how do I make friends, how do I get plugged in, how do I be seen as a good, good Christian or a good person?
[00:12:04] It's interesting because there's this talk around toxic relationships and how people tend to lose themselves. And I think about it, for me and with my marriage, I don't think I really lost myself in the marriage because I don't think I really fully knew myself. I don't think I was really, truly authentically me since like 8th grade, really. It was like from the time I was 14 until almost 40.
[00:12:26] Like 14 to 38. There were times where the real me would come out, but it wasn't ever fully authentic, 100% all the time me. There were so many survival mechanisms at play throughout that. And then it just compounded, especially with all of the moving.
[00:12:44] One of the consistent aspects was my ex was my husband at the time. I would cling to him and I would want to keep things good between us because he was all I had in a lot of ways.
[00:12:56] But it really created this jointly codependent dysfunctional cycle. This is where we want to just better understand how this plays out and how this also then can really mess with our nervous system.
[00:13:09] Our nervous system learned to survive. We did not learn to trust it, we didn't learn to trust our bodies. We had to always override them. And especially when we are codependent on a person, but that person is activating our fight or flight and we feel really dysregulated, we feel really anxious, a lot of physical sensations on top of the fear that they might leave and abandon us. Now we have to try to override all of that because it's I need to stuff this down, I need to get through this, I need to make things better, I need to fix this in some way. And we never learn to trust ourselves to trust our bodies. We learn to shut it down, we learn to numb the pain, we learn to cover up the void.
[00:13:50] Food and emotional eating becomes such an easy way to comfort yourself after self abandoning all day long.
[00:13:58] Becomes really easy to comfort yourself after a fight, after an argument, when you're feeling really unsafe and uncertain in your relationship, when you've had a tough day, when work has been crazy, when the dog pukes on the carpet, when the kids are running around like wild banshees at 8 o' clock at night instead of going to bed like they should, it becomes so easy and so accessible just to reach for food. We want to have a lot of compassion in understanding this dynamic as well.
[00:14:26] One of the other pieces here is that toxic relationships, especially as adults, they are going to feel familiar because you already knew how to work for love. You were already trained, you were already groomed that you had to earn it, you had to achieve it. You were already conditioned to have to try to earn somebody's love and to be in this place of striving, proving, earning constantly.
[00:14:50] In fact, if you weren't in that position, you likely pushed that person away. If it was too easy, if it was too comfortable, if you didn't have to work to earn the love, if they just loved you Freely if they just loved you unconditionally, it didn't feel comfortable, it didn't feel safe. A lot of times we don't feel safe. We don't feel comfortable receiving love without having to earn it. And so we're going to question it and we're going to think things like they must not be the right person.
[00:15:16] The spark is gone. There must be something else at play. Because of our patterns, because of the way that we're wired to seek survival and to seek what's familiar and to seek these often these toxic sparks, these toxic traits, we push away really good people. And I think about one of the guys I dated before I dated my second husband and really great guy and I completely pushed him away. In large part it was because I didn't have to work and try to earn and achieve and prove myself with him, which is so ironic. But this is why we end up in multiple toxic relationships is because we don't fully understand the patterns at play. This is why you have a hard time trusting yourself. You have a hard time trusting men. Just like you have a hard time trusting your choice in men, you have a hard time trusting that you can choose a high quality man.
[00:16:06] And this is what's really important, is recognizing when somebody is not the right fit and we walk away versus it feels too good to be true. So I'm going to abandon them before they abandon me or things feel really good, but I'm not striving, earning, achieving, and that doesn't feel safe. So I'm going to now push them away. I'm going to go towards what's familiar. Even though it's painful, even though we can see the red flags, we're going to pretend like we can't, we don't see them, they don't exist.
[00:16:35] Maybe it's not really red, maybe it's just a little orange. We find ways to minimize and justify and excuse when we need that person to meet emotions for us, when we need something from them.
[00:16:47] And this is what it's all about, this is how we can see it at play. Yes, there will be emotions anytime there's a breakup or a divorce. But when you get to the point where you don't need them to meet your emotional needs. And for so many of us, we chose divorce because those emotional needs were never met consistently and they stopped being met for a while and we finally realized, I'm meeting my own needs for myself. I'm going to do this on my own. The trap and the challenge is that sometimes, and I'VE talked with many clients, especially female clients, to where they now believe that men are all just man children throwing fits, throwing tantrums. They are all 3 year olds in 43 year old bodies.
[00:17:27] And that is actually not true.
[00:17:30] There are really high quality men out there. And this is part of where I'm sad for the clients who just believe that all men are toxic, that all men just want power and they are abusive and they want attention and fame and they want to belittle you and control you and manipulate you. That is not all men. That might be the men that you've experienced, but that is not all men. Just like it's not all women. If you are a man and you've experienced women like that, not all women are like that. And I think this is one of the things that I really hate is when people on either side of the spectrum want to paint with these broad strokes. Because I also know some single men who have been hurt and who look at toxic women and they think that's how all women operate. And it's just not true. And it's so frustrating. But I have to also learn to let those people go, right? Like they're not my people. I don't need to try to change their mind. This has really shown me my growth too has been I'm not going to try to change somebody's mind. I'm going to let them have their thoughts, I'm going to let them have their beliefs and I'm going to let them be open to new ideas and new possibilities. But at the end of the day, if they don't want to change their mind, that's on them. I'm going to let them believe what they want. And now I'm going to let myself make the best decisions for me moving forward.
[00:18:48] All right, I kind of got off track there. But it's really interesting when I think about restrictive dieting, how restrictive diets mimic the emotional deprivation that you grew up with. I'm going to say that again.
[00:19:01] We are told that restriction equals weight loss. So the more you restrict, the faster you create what you want, right? The faster you can lose weight. Restriction equals weight loss.
[00:19:12] And it's interesting, that's also how the toxic person trained you in your childhood.
[00:19:18] The more they restricted and withheld their love, their praise, their presence, the more they could manipulate you. And the more dysregulated you were, the easier you were to manipulate, the easier you were to control. And as a child who does not really know how to regulate their emotions anyways, that is not helpful. And you often are looking for a parent to teach you how to regulate your emotions. You look for a parent to help soothe and comfort you when you don't know how to do that for yourself. And very few of us had parents who could do that. In fact, I would guarantee that the people listening to this podcast, you likely are in the same boat as me. And you did not have parents who could do that for you because they were emotional children and adult bodies doing the best that they could, that they just kept repeating the same generational patterns of trauma, that they grew up with the same survival mechanisms, the same coping mechanisms. All they did was just pass those down. So we learn to bend over backwards, we learn to pretzel ourselves in order to earn and achieve and get their love.
[00:20:25] And consistency is impossible when so much of your identity revolves around being perfect. When we look at this aspect of consistency and being consistent with habits, it is impossible. It is so hard to create consistency when so much of your identity revolves around being perfect.
[00:20:41] Because if you can be perfect, then you can meet their needs, then they can reciprocate and meet your needs. The perfection really stems from needing to earn and achieve and prove yourself.
[00:20:51] And now it's I have to be perfect. And that is where this all or nothing trap comes from. That's where we are all in or we're all out. That's when one mistake and we're like, screw it, I've blown it. I'll start over next week and it's only Wednesday.
[00:21:06] That's what we really have to take into account and to recognize. This is why so many of these patterns around food and relationships are actually so one in the same self. Sabotage isn't conscious. Okay? It is not a conscious thought of, oh, I'm going to go sabotage myself today and sabotage all my progress. No, it is your nervous system trying to protect you by choosing the familiar. Because to your brain, familiar equals safe. Even when that familiar is hurting you.
[00:21:35] Anytime that there is change, anytime there's something new, anytime there's something old, unfamiliar, it means it's not safe and therefore you might die. Even when it's what we say we want, even when we know it's what we want logically.
[00:21:50] So let's dive in a little bit more to why weight loss felt so hard. There are so many aspects to this, but one of the big pieces here is that lasting weight loss requires the belief that I matter.
[00:22:02] I am important and I matter. Your subconscious identity learned that you don't matter or that you matter. Last.
[00:22:11] And we see this around motherhood a lot, where a mom will prioritize her needs at the very bottom of everyone else's. And she thinks she's doing the right thing. She thinks she's doing the Christian thing. She thinks she's being a good mom by prioritizing everybody else above herself. But she just keeps reinforcing this belief that she's not good enough. She doesn't matter. She's a burden. She needs to earn and achieve love. You keep playing by those same survival rules.
[00:22:38] And this is why weight loss can feel hard. Because lasting weight loss requires boundaries. Boundaries with food, time, self care, the willingness to prioritize time and energy on yourself.
[00:22:52] Many of us, like, we never had permission to set boundaries. This is a whole new thing. Like, yes, it's a buzzword now, but this is a whole new world for every single one of my clients. This always comes up of, it was never safe to have boundaries, to set them, to enforce them. And it wasn't just the setting them. It wasn't just expressing a boundary. It was being able force it. Being able to say, hey, you've crossed a line. Hey, this is not acceptable. That is not allowed. It was frustrating too, when those lines kept getting crossed time and time again.
[00:23:21] And if anything, what we learned was actually boundaries got us in trouble. Boundaries made things worse. Boundaries weren't allowed as a kid. Boundaries weren't a thing. And then boundaries weren't allowed as an adult then in a relationship, in your marriage.
[00:23:35] We can see how these two pieces are so intertwined. Because lasting weight loss also requires self trust. Diets don't teach you to trust yourself. They don't teach you to trust yourself around food or during the holidays or on vacation. They only teach you to eat this, not that. Shame on you. If you're not perfect, try a little bit harder. Go back to the beginning. What you just did doesn't count. You ruined the day. Try over on Monday.
[00:24:01] And every week, we keep throwing away the week halfway through, maybe a couple days in, and we're like, ah, that's okay, I'll try again next Monday. But we never learned to trust ourselves around food, to trust our bodies around hunger and how much we needed. Just like you never learned to trust yourself. Your judgment, your decision making as a kid, as a young adult in your marriage. If anything, most of us learn that we can't be trusted. Our past mistakes were used against us. They were used as to reasons why we couldn't trust ourselves, why we were terrible with money, why we were terrible Decision makers why we were terrible at picking spouses or picking mates. This is such a common theme as to what has been eroded has been that self trust.
[00:24:44] That is a core aspect of what we have to reclaim and what we need to work on moving forward.
[00:24:50] You want to truly lose weight, break free from emotional eating, feel in control around food, at peace and at ease around all food at all times.
[00:25:00] To feel at peace and ease and in control around alcohol requires a lot of self trust. And I wouldn't say it's even a lot of self. It's like it feels like it requires a lot of self trust. It actually just requires a base level. But we don't have that. We have let other people erode that for us and we have just adopted and taken on their beliefs, their views.
[00:25:21] Because lasting weight loss also requires you to listen to your body instead of learning how to silence it as a way to survive.
[00:25:29] You didn't fail the diet, the diet failed you. The diet industry has failed us all.
[00:25:36] You kept using diets and extreme restriction to create your worthiness. But lasting weight loss requires you to be worthy now, just as you are.
[00:25:47] And that worthiness stays with you all the way down the scale.
[00:25:51] But you have to be good enough now. You have to be worthy now. This is why I say this is one of the hardest parts, is to be to love yourself now, to love your body now, even when you want to change it, you want to love yourself now, love your body now, and all the way down the scale.
[00:26:08] That is how you create lasting weight loss. It's not I get down the scale and then I can love myself. Because you never do.
[00:26:15] You will always poke holes in it. You will always find something to criticize. You will always still be less than. It will never be enough.
[00:26:21] And not only is it often never enough, but then let's say you magically do get to the point where it is finally enough.
[00:26:28] Now you are terrified of gaining the weight back and there is no level of safety and trust at that new weight.
[00:26:37] And so many of us, because we get there through extreme dieting and restriction, by the time we finally do lose some weight, we're like, thank you, Jesus, finally I can eat a damn burger again. Finally I can go out with the girls and go to happy hour.
[00:26:49] Thank goodness I can relax and ease up on my vacation.
[00:26:53] But we fall back into those old patterns because what we were doing was not sustainable.
[00:26:58] And then why relationships felt so hard again goes back to our old wounds. Because you magnetized partners who reinforced old wounds. Or to quote My dad, you found teeth to match the bite marks. And as a pleaser and perfectionist, you were the perfect puzzle piece to fit a toxic person because you already knew how to survive that dynamic.
[00:27:22] And it usually wasn't a flip of a switch. Sometimes it was like, for me, it felt like a switch flipped when we got married. And then it was like the mask completely fell off and it was like, what the hell? How did we get here?
[00:27:36] But it took months leading up to that point. It was a slow burn, a slow easing into this dysfunction. And even then, even after that first year where there was some kind of pretty big issue once a month, every other month for sure. After that first year, though, there was at least one big incident, sometimes two. But it wasn't that often. There were still enough good times to justify and excuse staying and to keep thinking, I just need to get these good times to last longer. I just have to mold and manipulate myself so I don't make them mad, so I don't make him angry. The other piece here is that often we fall into these caretaker and over functioning roles, we feel responsible for other people's actions, emotions, words. And let's not forget, they told you that you were responsible. They told you to your face, parents did this, grandparents did this, caretakers did this. But then your spouse did it and they made you responsible. And you took that on because that's what you knew, that's what you learned. And so it made sense. You were more likely to take that on and to not stand up for yourself, to not fight back against that.
[00:28:42] And I see often what happens with these toxic dynamics too is the toxic person is often very emotionally stunted. They are an emotional toddler, an emotional child.
[00:28:52] And so to some extent, they need you in that mommy role. They need you as that caretaker. And I'd say this is a common theme is husbands would look to their wives and want them to just pick up after them, to do their dishes, to make them breakfast every morning, to pack their lunch. And it was done from this place of I need a mommy and we have to break that cycle. That is what boys need. Boys need a mom. Boys need a mother.
[00:29:19] Men need partners.
[00:29:21] But too many men are afraid of fierce feminine energy.
[00:29:26] Too many men can't handle women. They don't know how to. They don't know how to handle emotions. They can't handle their own emotions, so they can't handle her emotions, so they have to make her smaller. And so many of us allowed that to happen.
[00:29:42] And we can hold so much love and so much compassion for ourselves. When we let somebody else dim our light, shove us in a box, we voluntarily got smaller so that somebody else could feel bigger. Most of the time it was an ex husband, the next spouse, an ex partner. Because at one point the relationship was good, the person was so good to you, maybe amazing.
[00:30:04] So even when things got bad, really bad, you kept thinking, you can fix this. You can get things back to when they were really good. You can get the relationship back to when things were really nice and really loving and they were meeting your needs because you were meeting theirs and you were playing by their rules and playing in this box.
[00:30:22] And so one of the big dynamics that I've already touched on a bit here of why relationships feel so hard is your fear of abandonment and shame. And you fear this. You fear the abandonment and shame more than unhappiness.
[00:30:34] All the core four narcissistic wounds all get triggered. And abandonment and shame, oh, such big ones. Not only would they leave and abandon you if you weren't good enough, shame, but now the abandonment creates more shame, more proof as to how you're not good enough. So it's I'm not good enough as I am now shame.
[00:30:53] So now they leave me and I'm abandoned, which creates more shame and more proof and more ammo that you use against yourself. Because your brain is caught up in this toxic pattern. Your brain is recreating these dysfunctional patterns and then sharing your needs or boundaries. Right? Being able to enforce a boundary, it was dangerous as a child.
[00:31:14] And that danger stayed with you into adulthood. And it still wasn't safe.
[00:31:19] You weren't choosing a partner, you weren't choosing your spouse. Your trauma was choosing that person.
[00:31:26] And there was a point where you thought they were a really good choice. Again, have so much love and so much compassion for yourself. You made the best decision that you could with what you had available to you at the time. And now that we know better now, we can do better now, we can teach our kids better now. We can break those generational cycles of trauma and abuse faster and also know that our kids are still going to have some cycle breaking to do. And that's okay because they can do hard things. And this is part of what molds you and makes you into the person that you are becoming.
[00:32:02] And that is part of what is going to make them into the man or the woman that they need to be. As moms especially, it's like we have this very protective spirit. We don't want our kids to struggle. I was just Talking about this on a podcast interview. I'm so excited for this one to come out. But as I was sharing and talking about, as a mom, I don't want my son to struggle to the point that sometimes I don't let him do things on his own. And I've really started to catch that. Actually. I had an ex boyfriend who my son was struggling with a Nerf gun and reloading it. And so I was like, oh, here, let me do that for you. Mom can do it. Mom can do it better, faster, easier. Let me fix this for you.
[00:32:39] And he was like, no, let him do it. Let him struggle. Let him try. Let him figure it out.
[00:32:45] And it was so helpful in the moment. I was like, oh, oh, okay. I didn't even realize that's what I was doing.
[00:32:52] And for my son, now who he's five, he needs a mom. He needs a mother. He needs me right now. And he needs that love and that attention and that affection.
[00:33:01] But in raising a strong, healthy young man, I also know that there's going to come a time where he's going to need other male adult role models and mentors and leaders in his life. There's going to come a time where he's not going to be looking to me. And I also don't want the first time that he really struggles and has to figure out something to be when he's 15 or 16 years old. He's got to learn how to start doing that now, to face disappointment, to face rejection, to face hurt, to face all of his emotions and learn what they are, how to feel them, how to process them.
[00:33:36] This is definitely on my mind, but I know that there's going to be some trauma that he's experienced he's already experienced, and he will experience in the future.
[00:33:44] There's going to be his own work, his own healing that he's going to have to do, but that is going to mold him and shape him into the man that he is going to become. It is going to be a gift to him in the end. And that's why I don't feel guilty. That's why I don't feel guilty about the divorce. I don't feel guilty about who his dad is. I don't feel guilty about the mistakes that I make, because I know I am doing the best that I can. And I know that part of this is for him to also realize it's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to get things wrong. And right now, we are in a stage where he makes a mistake. And he knows it. And there's so much shame that takes over him. He just bursts into tears.
[00:34:21] And I love on him and I hold him through that and I'm going to teach him how it's okay.
[00:34:27] I love that we can do this work now and we can pass this work on to our kids, onto our nieces and nephews, onto this next generation and we can hopefully help them start to catch the pattern sooner, start to break the cycles sooner.
[00:34:41] So let's talk about how do we change this? Like, the awareness is great, the awareness is essential. But where do we go from here? What do we actually need in order to change, in order to break free, in order to allow things to be easy, in order to allow yourself to be successful?
[00:34:59] Number one, you need to redefine your self concept. This looks like healing your self worth, really choosing and believing that you are worthy just as you are right now, which is a simple concept. But it doesn't feel easy. And I feel like that's what a lot of this is. They are simple concepts, simple things, but they don't feel easy, they don't feel believable. And it's like we want to, I want to believe that I'm worthy. And yet we have such deep rooted beliefs around our unworthiness. It's hard sometimes to believe good. It can be hard to believe better of ourselves, to believe good things, positive things. But you have to rebuild your identity, often outside of all the things that you used in the past to feel good enough. And that's what it's all about. Your self concept is how you see yourself. It's your identity.
[00:35:49] And so often we hang that identity on careers, so we hang it on jobs, on titles, on how much money we make, on the size of our pants. We hang it on our bodies, we hang it on a lot of things outside of ourselves. And when it's on the outside, we can lose it. This is why people have challenges and issues. Transitioning jobs, transitioning industries. And so much of our self concept in the past was likely around being a good Christian, being a good wife, being a good mother. And now that is being rocked, is being shaken because that identity wasn't rooted in who you are, just in and of yourself and the value and the integrity, the characteristics that you bring.
[00:36:33] In order to redefine and rebuild your worthiness, we have to redefine how we think of it and what that actually looks like.
[00:36:42] Self concept I see as this culmination of self trust, self belief, self esteem. It's like all the selves Right? It's the willingness to let that grow and let that evolve. It's the willingness to have that urge to criticize and talk shit about yourself. And you choose differently.
[00:37:04] And sometimes that first step is choosing neutral before we choose positive. But we get to the point where we stop shaming, we stop blaming, we stop the self loathing, and we learn how to neutrally assess and evaluate. We learn how to pivot, we learn how to do things differently. And a big piece of this too, in terms of like, how do we actually change? How do we grow? How do we make these two aspects feel easy?
[00:37:29] We learn to create emotional safety and to meet our own emotional needs.
[00:37:35] We have to increase our emotional capacity. We have to increase our capacity to feel negative and the willingness to feel negative emotions.
[00:37:43] But we also have to increase our capacity to feel positive emotions too, because there's a lot of trauma around. Good things don't last. When's the other shoe gonna drop? It's not gonna feel safe, because in the past it wasn't. It always changed. It never stayed the same. Learning how to meet your emotional needs allows you to stop emotionally eating, to stop binge eating, because you stop seeking your emotional needs to be met with food. You stop trying to put a band aid on it with a glass of wine. And you learn what those needs are and how to meet them for yourself.
[00:38:15] Just like you stop looking to another person to meet those emotional needs for you, you meet them for yourself. Which means it's easier to walk away from red flags. It's easier to walk away from dysfunction and toxic patterns. It's easier to see the signs, to see the writing on the wall, and to do an about face. This time that I have been dating has been so unique. I am actually, I'm gonna go back and grab some data, but it's been interesting to see there's this little gut instinct of, oh, no, no, no. This has the potential to be bad. This has the potential to leave me wanting more. The potential to get me into a toxic dynamic. And this is an automatic no. And to be okay with that I'm even getting to that point, was I had to be happy being single. I had to give myself time and space and create a life that I really loved and enjoyed. Being single, and it was hard and uncomfortable at times. There were a lot of ways where I made this year fun, but it was also hard. It was also challenging. It came with its own set of growth because I realized I had spent the previous 20 years practically in a relationship with somebody. The Entire time, I was inadvertently going from person to person, always dating, always in a relationship.
[00:39:29] There's nothing wrong with wanting a partner, wanting a spouse. Like I want to be married again.
[00:39:34] But I also know that in order to find my future spouse, I had to find peace and the willingness to be single as long as it took. Even if it took five years, even if it took 10 years, even if it took what felt like an incredibly long amount of time.
[00:39:51] And what's fascinating, what's so freaking wild about this, I went from being willing for it to take six months to being willing for it to take a year to two years. I got up to five years and I was like, what if it takes me five years to find my person, that's okay because I'll be 45 and hopefully I still have another 45 years left that I could spend with my future person, the man of my dreams.
[00:40:17] That's worth it.
[00:40:19] I'm willing for it to take that long. And a couple months later, who do I find?
[00:40:27] It's just wild. It is our willingness to go slow that will speed us up, I promise you. But it has to be true, it has to be genuine. It has to be a real honest. I'm willing for it to take this amount of time. I'm willing to say no to the good. I'm willing to say no to the good. Enough to leave room for the amazing and the mind blowing. What feels too good to be true sometimes. Ah, more on this later. But we learn to create our emotional safety. That is such a huge part of this.
[00:40:54] And I touched on this already. But self trust over willpower, we need true embodiment and the willingness to be still, to be in our bodies, to trust ourselves, to trust our bodies. Over willpower. And needing willpower, we have to break out of survival mode and really connect with ourselves, connect with our bodies, connect with that intuition and that deep knowing to start to pay attention to it in little ways. Little ways like what do we want to eat tonight? Where do we want to go this weekend? What are the little things, the little desires? Because so many of us don't even know what we want. We have such a hard time creating a vision for our life because so much of our vision has been around what do other people want? What would make them happy? Instead of really leaning in and looking at and asking what makes me happy.
[00:41:43] What we find here is that you now get to become your own dream girl.
[00:41:48] You become the girl of your dreams and you will naturally align with the person who will think that you are their dream girl too.
[00:41:57] So just like I touched on in the last episode, it's not about becoming his dream girl. Absolutely not. Never again. There's this deep conviction that I have of, I am not going back there. I am not going to try to be somebody else's dream girl anymore. I'm going to be my dream girl and I'm going to lean into my wants and my desires and this vision that I have for my life. And I'm going to trust that I will naturally bring in and attract somebody where he is going to be my dream man and I will naturally be his dream girl. Because I thought about being my dream girl first. That's what this is all about. It's reclaiming who you are, remembering who you are and reclaiming that. Reclaiming your voice, reclaiming your power. Reclaiming that passion and that fire inside of you, that spark, that natural personality and letting that shine and trusting that it will repel. This is the beauty of a magnet. A magnet has to simultaneously attract and repel. And I did a lot of repelling. There was a lot of repelling of various people and there were various people that repelled me. But that's perfect because it allows me also to attract the right person.
[00:43:06] Because I only need one. I don't need a bunch. I don't need a bunch of guys to date. I don't need a bunch of guys to marry. I'm just looking for one.
[00:43:13] And when we can see that. When now it's very much, this is who I am. And I think this was so cool to see with who I'm dating now. When he asked about where do I want to live and I was explaining to him and I was like, I'd actually really love to have a big enough house, but like more of a modest house and then have a mountain home to have a cabin somewhere on a lake in the mountains, somewhere not too far away. Something that I could still easily access. But I see myself living in the suburbs and then having almost like this retreat. It was so funny as I was talking and his face just lit up and it was like he couldn't wait to tell me that's exactly what he wants to. And I don't see it as a place from. He's trying to tell me what I want to hear. It's more of just this like, mind blowing natural alignment of, holy shit, you want that too? No way.
[00:44:00] Where this is just naturally what I want. Same thing came up when talking about kids and what's the role that I'm Looking to play and maybe future step kids lives. And what's the role that I'm looking, looking to play for a future partner and a future spouse. With my son's life, there was just this natural alignment and there's vulnerability there. Because with a five year old, I know that there are some men around my age, maybe a little bit older, who are about to be empty nesters. Their kids are getting ready to graduate from high school or they're already into college and they are done with the little kids scene. And that's okay. I think that's the beauty of it because it's not just me. Little man and I, we are a package deal. You get both of us. And so part of what I am looking for is you're not just signing up to be my spouse, to be my husband. You are signing up to be this father figure for my son and this mentor and this guide. It's not about replacing the father he already has. It's about being willing to take on that role and that responsibility. And some men don't want that with where they're at in life and that's okay. But when I know what I want, when I know what I'm looking for, when I know who I am, it will naturally call in and attract the right person at the right time.
[00:45:11] So whether it took three months or three years, I was going to stay the course and not settle. I was looking at how can I have fun, how can I give people a try, how can I recognize when little things are just off and it's a no. And be willing to make those decisions, be willing to let people show me who they are.
[00:45:30] The moment you stop trying to be someone else's dream girl and you become your own, everything gets easier.
[00:45:38] This is what it's all about.
[00:45:40] Stepping into the vision of the woman of who you are becoming.
[00:45:45] Not that she's necessarily better, it's not that, oh, I'm not good enough, but if I can hit these goals, then someday in the future I'll be good enough and then I'll be better and now somehow I'm worthy. No, no, no. This is about reclaiming who you've always been.
[00:46:02] We want to see the pattern, break the cycle, reclaim your life.
[00:46:07] That is what we are doing here. My encouragement is that you live boldly, you live wildly, you live unapologetically. And we have to have this deep sense of self confidence and self concept in who we are in order to do that, in order to let that come out.
[00:46:24] And this is what I'm doing with clients for the next year, we are going to focus on reclaiming yourself. Reclaiming your body, your voice, your power, your self trust, your self worth.
[00:46:39] Reclaiming relationship patterns, your emotions, your emotional regulation.
[00:46:44] You are going to reclaim yourself as a whole. We're gonna see the pattern, break the cycles, reclaim your identity, Reclaim who you've always been, who has always been there on the inside. But let her come out.
[00:47:01] And for some of us, it is this reinvention. In a sense, we get to play with reinventing ourselves. Now, who do you want to become?
[00:47:10] And really we can start asking ourselves the question of who were you before the world told you who to be? Who were you before your parents told you who you had to be? Who were you before your spouse told you who you needed to be? For many of us, the answer for a long time was I'll be whoever you want me to be. Who do you want me to be? I'll be her. Because it was a way to get our emotional needs met. It was a way to survive. But now we are going to break those survival mechanisms. We are going to step out of survival mode and we are going to focus on reclaiming the woman we've always been. The woman who has always been there on the inside. And we're just going to let her shine, we're gonna let her come out. And you are going to become the woman of your dreams. It's going to make everything easier.
[00:48:01] If this message speaks to you and you feel that pull and that tug, you feel some excitement and maybe also a little bit of fear, you are in exactly the right place.
[00:48:11] Your next best step is to come work with me. You can work with me in a group program or one on one where you also get access to the group. But come work with me and I am going to help you to reclaim your life after divorce, after toxic relationships, after years or maybe even decades of binge eating or emotional eating. And I'm going to help you create a life so good you don't need to escape it with food. You don't need to escape it with another glass of wine.
[00:48:38] You are going to reclaim yourself for who you truly are. And you are going to learn how to have that self confidence and build that self esteem and self trust and self belief. And you are going to show up as a radically empowered version of yourself.
[00:48:54] This light in the darkness, this woman who has such power and such capability.
[00:49:00] And I'm going to teach you how to tap into it, how to let it come out and how to better see Those survival patterns and mechanisms and how to break them, how to let them go. We're going to do it one step at a time. Bit by bit, day by day, it's this growth and evolution 1% better.
[00:49:19] And that's how we create success. That's how we create lasting change. That's how we create lasting results.
[00:49:26] Your next best step is to schedule a free consultation on the call. We'll talk more about where you are right now, where you want to be this time next year, and then we'll go through and talk about what are the actual obstacles and the challenges. What's actually getting in your way.
[00:49:41] I'm gonna show you how to break free, how to break the cycles, how to stop playing small, how to truly start to believe in yourself and what it looks like to do that with me in 2026.
[00:49:53] All right, I hope y' all have a fabulous week. Kind of went on some little tangents. I feel like this was like a game of Candyland. We kind of wove back and forth in between things. But ultimately, this is why things feel hard. And this is how these two aspects are so connected.
[00:50:09] It's those core wounds, those core origin stories.
[00:50:13] It's self abandonment. And when we can heal that, when we can recognize that and we can start to take steps in a new direction, we can radically transform our relationships with food, with alcohol, with people, with ourselves.
[00:50:29] And that's what this is all about.
[00:50:31] That's how we lose the weight. It's how we feel in control around food. It's how we can say no from a place of self love.
[00:50:38] It's how we stop binging and emotionally eating. It's how we stop dating from a place of getting a hit of dopamine and needing somebody else to make us feel good. It's how we stop turning to toxic partners and getting stuck in these same toxic loops. Dating the same person over and over again, just with a different face, a different name. It's how you create a life so good it doesn't make sense.
[00:51:00] If you want to join me on this mission, on this journey next year, I would love to help. I'm gonna go. No matter who's going with me. I'm already going. Come with me. Join me. Join me and the other men and women who are on the same mission.
[00:51:15] All right, y'. All. Here's to creating the life and body you crave.
[00:51:23] If this episode resonated with you, it's time to break free from destructive cycles around food, alcohol, and toxic relationships. Your next step, book your free break the cycle call where you'll finally see why your binge eating and relationship patterns are so deeply connected and how to break free from both for good.
[00:51:43] You'll walk away with fierce clarity and a game plan to step into a life full of fun, adventure and self love. Grab your spot now at www.bodyyoucrave.com forward/btc.
[00:51:58] It's time to break the cycle. I'll show you how.
