Bonus Replay: When you 'know' what to do to lose weight, but...

[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. All right, so today is going to be a replay of the webinar I did in June that was all about why it is that we can know what to do and yet struggle to do it. And there are three key areas that this comes up with. So there's the aspect of habits and what we actually think is required to lose weight, and following through with our plan and the decisions that we make. There's the emotional side of things and the emotional eating. What feels hard, why we struggle to follow through, or why we can know to stop and ask ourselves, am I hungry? But we don't always do it. And then the bringing in and talking more about how toxic relationships and trauma play a role in this. I put it all together in one spot so that you can easily listen and enjoy. All right, here we go. [00:01:12] Welcome to today's workshop. We are going to dive into one of the. One of the most common challenges and the most common phrases that I hear, which is I know what to do to lose weight. I know what to do in order to be successful, to hit my goals. I've done it before in the past. I know what to do, but I'm just not doing it. And typically, it looks like either I'm not doing it, I have a hard time getting started, and I'm not able to start to take the action that I want to take, or it's, I can get going for a couple of days, and then I fall off track. It might be I can get going for a couple of weeks, but then I slam on the brakes, and something is always putting us in this. Start, stop, start, stop. And one of the perspectives that I want to offer here is that anytime we feel like we're in this situation and we can feel really frustrated, we can feel stuck, we can feel confused. [00:02:01] Anytime that you are in this spot, I want you to. To start to reframe this of I'm not stuck. My brain is keeping me safe, because that's what's happening. Our brain likes to latch on to anytime we feel stuck, anytime we feel frustrated, anytime we feel confused, because we don't have to face the reality of what's happening and what's coming up. And maybe the reality is, well, we don't know what's going to work or what is supposed to work now. [00:02:29] And that can feel really scary. We lose our certainty and it can bring up a lot of guilt, shame, regret, self loathing. But shame being the biggest one. And shame is going to be one of the. The biggest obstacles that we have to overcome, especially when we've been in toxic or dysfunctional relationships. Shame was the number one way that the other person could get you to do the thing they wanted you to do. And so I'm sure many of us are familiar with the abuse cycle. We may go into that a little bit today, but I want to also reframe it is. It's not just. It's not just an abuse cycle. It is the shame avoidance cycle cycle because it's people's shame getting activated and triggered. And then the other person as well as ourselves, we start to do things and take action in order to get us out of the shame. And so it makes a lot of sense that when we've been in that dynamic, when we grew up like that, when we married into that, when we've experienced that for years, maybe even decades, that our brain is really hardwired against feeling shame. [00:03:33] And so now we bring in weight loss and we bring in a lot of our worth and value and being thin enough and pretty enough, we bring in so many of these different aspects and we can feel a lot of shame if we can't lose the weight, and we can feel a lot of shame if we gain the weight back. And so what we're going to talk about, one of the core themes for today is really understanding how our brain is wired to keep us safe and how our brain sees safe as alive. So if it can keep you safe physically, mentally, emotionally, it will keep you alive. Which is why we want to avoid the things, avoid the triggers that might be unsafe and how to reframe this because just because that's how it's been in the past, it. It doesn't mean that's how we have to do it in the future. So I can understand and notice, okay, when I experienced shame in the past, this is what I did. This is what I said. This is what I was told by somebody else. This is what I've been telling myself and I now to start telling a new story. I can't go back and rewrite history, but I don't have to let their voice, their words be the loudest in my head now. And that takes some intentional listening and intentional new thought creation and just deciding like, I am no longer doing this. [00:04:52] So let's, let's dive in. Okay. So that's, that's kind of what we're here to do. The way that I see it is weight loss is like a puzzle. [00:05:01] And so everybody is going to have a different puzzle. And I think from, you know, kind of being in the weight loss space in this industry, a lot of diets, programs, philosophies are going to tell you, I have all the puzzle pieces you need to be successful. So do this diet, follow this protocol, follow this plan, and you can be successful too. [00:05:21] But it's not actually true. It doesn't work like that. [00:05:25] Everybody has their own puzzle that they are going to be figuring out. And we are looking at like what piece fits, where and when and how. And this is like a really kind of crazy looking puzzle. I'm putting together right here, some really funky pieces. But this is what we want to do is we want to start to recognize what are the different key pieces of the puzzle. And knowing that everybody's puzzle looks a little differently, even people who have the same emotional eating or binge eating habit, even the same people who have been in toxic relationships, their puzzle looks a little bit different. And even if weight loss has felt like it's been maybe stressful, triggering, frustrating, you felt stuck. Even if that's been the case for weight loss, it may not be that way for all areas of your life. But this is where we want to start to find the patterns and start to see what is really at play. And so we're going to start and we're going to cover a couple of these pieces today. And then this becomes your homework and your challenge. And, and really I don't want to, not a challenge in terms of a bad way, but like, want you to think of it as like a fun experimentation, like that word better. This is going to be your experiment is to figure out for you what are the other puzzle pieces and what are the nuances of the pieces that we're putting in today. [00:06:42] Because my goal is to help you, number one, create a weight loss plan that you don't need a break from. [00:06:48] Right? Because how you lose the weight is what you have to do to maintain the weight. So how you lose it is how you'll keep it off. So we need a weight loss plan that we don't need a break from. Something that's flexible but still gives us parameters and we feel like we know what we're doing. [00:07:05] And also a life that you don't need an escape from because so often that is why we are emotionally eating or binge eating is we are trying to escape a situation. We're often trying to escape emotions. [00:07:17] And so when we don't need that escape, when we don't need that break, we can really create the long term sustainable habits that we actually want that are going to create the results in our lives that we can keep and now maintain with ease. Because it's not enough just to lose the weight once. We want to be able to keep it off in a way that feels calm, relaxed, easy, not, oh, I hope I can do this. I have to white knuckle and cringe through it. [00:07:47] So we're going to start from the beginning. Now for those of you who have been around and in these parts for a while, some of this may sound familiar and we're going to just dive a little bit deeper into some of the nuances of this. But step number one and shift number one that I want to offer for how to break this, I know what to do, but I'm not doing it. Cycle is that we've got to end the war with food. And so if you've been with me long enough, you'll know that I teach a philosophy where food is not good or bad. It is not toxic, it's not evil, it's not poison, it's not off limits. Nothing is ever going to be a never. Can I eat this? Because the problem is that when I moralize food, I end up moralizing myself based on what I'm eating. [00:08:29] So for this first puzzle piece here, I'm going to put end the war with food right here. That's going to be one of the big pieces that we have to put in. So I this really flies in the face of most diets that wants to tell you certain foods are good, certain foods are bad, eat this, avoid that. These are the healthy foods, these are the unhealthy foods, right? And I bet if I asked, you know, 10 different people, we would all have some similar lists about what was healthy and what was not, right? We could all say like, okay, well, chips and pastries and donuts and maybe even like sugary cereal. Like we put that in the less healthy or not healthy category, right? Like we have kind of a general idea of these foods typically are healthy. You know, we know protein and vegetables and fruits and stuff like that. So there's a lot that we can agree on. But when the food is bad and now I'm bad for eating it, what happens is now I often that that will trigger a couple of different emotions. Number one, I feel guilty, I feel shame. I feel like, oh no, I've done a bad thing right? Or I am a bad person. [00:09:41] It might trigger up this feeling of like, well, I ruined my diet. I've like, screw it, I've ruined it. So now I feel a little apathetic or maybe even helpless or powerless of like, well, I can't fix it, I can't do anything now, so screw it. I'll start over tomorrow, I'll start over on Monday, I'll start over on the first of the month. And we kind of put ourselves in these positions where it's either good or bad. [00:10:06] So we're either all in on the good stuff or we're all out on the bad stuff. And we get caught in this push and pull and this tug of war game. And so it's really hard to moderate when you still have these thoughts about food being bad. [00:10:21] And I say this with so much love because it is hard to deprogram gram your brain around food not being bad. [00:10:29] We have been brainwashed. It's like getting out of a cult. It's like waking up to narcissistic abuse. It is that level of such a toxic dynamic that we have with food. We have literally gone to war with it. We have a dysfunctional relationship with it versus seeing food as being neutral. And I can plan it and I can, and there's still some parameters, right? So it's not just, I eat whatever I want, whenever I want, however much I want, right? Because a lot of times when I think of intuitive eating, and especially in the past, that's what I would think about. And I felt like that was always just a breeding ground for emotional eating or binge eating. And so there do, there are going to be some parameters around this of I do want to have a plan. I do want to be intentional with what I'm eating. I do want to be mindful of like, am I actually physically hungry? Right? And so a lot of times the fear that comes up around food and saying, well, if food's not bad and I can eat it whenever I want, now I'm just going to go hog wild. Now I'm just going to stuff my face with, with all of the bad foods. And a core aspect here is that you don't trust yourself. [00:11:33] You don't trust yourself around food and you don't trust your body to be able to give you the right hunger and satiety signals and to be able to even just process food. And so it is different if you have a Food allergy, a food sensitivity. If there are things that actually hurt your body where you feel uncomfortable, don't, right? Like you don't eat those foods. If you're lactose intolerant or have more of like a dairy allergy, or you just find you don't feel good when you eat dairy, don't eat it. Right. It's like it is a very much specific to you and your body, but it doesn't mean that it's bad, it doesn't mean that it's off limits. But now you start to make the decision of like, I don't like the aftermath of this. I don't like how I feel after I've had it, so I'm not going to eat it. And it becomes a very conscious, powerful decision that you are making. Not that you can't eat it, but it's. I don't like what happens afterwards. I don't like the repercussions of this. [00:12:28] So we really insource and bring that power back because. And this is where I'll be weaving in a lot of the trauma and like the narcissistic types of relationships of like when we are in a narci type of relationship, we feel very powerless. That is one of the like the core wounds, the core triggers is feeling powerless. So we don't want to feel powerless around food. [00:12:51] We don't want to feel like we can't or never can I ever. [00:12:55] So we have to find a way of thinking about food in a slightly different way so that we are not thinking, well, screw it, who cares. [00:13:05] But one of the challenges here is that we've been taught that, well, if I want to hurry up and lose the weight, I need to restrict. I need to like, the harder the I can lose or like, like the harder I can restrict, the faster I can lose the weight and the faster I get to feel the way I want to feel. And so we kind of learn, well, if I can do something super restrictive, lose the weight really fast, then I can feel really good about myself and then I can get to feeling good about myself faster. Because we prevent ourselves and we don't allow ourselves to feel good about ourselves right now. [00:13:38] And so this restrictive plan and restrictive, like weight loss plan that you might be following could be one of the reasons why it's like, you know what to do, but you're not doing it because it's not sustainable either. It's not something you want to do. It's not something you know that you can keep up with. It's something that you've done in the past, but then you regained the weight. And so your brain is kind of like, well, why would we do that again? Why would we think we could do this and have it work the way that it would in the past? So we might think we know what to do, but not always because we're wrestling with what we've heard in the weight loss industry. Or maybe what, how your sister lost weight or your mom or your best friend or, you know, Becky from 8th grade on Facebook is posting about, right. Like we, we are just inundated with this. [00:14:24] And it really comes down to, can I love myself now? And all the way down the scale, which feels really hard because we often think we have to punish ourselves in order to get us to do the thing that we want. It's like, if I don't shame and punish and beat myself into submission, I'm not going to actually create the result that I want. That's a very nar dynamic. That is something that is a narc trained brain way of looking at it. And so if you've ever been in a narcissistic relationship, if you've experienced emotional abuse or emotional neglect, you likely have a narc trained brain, which, welcome to the club. I've got one too. [00:15:02] So this is not something that we have to fear or feel bad about. It's just something we want to be aware of, of. Like, we are so used to trying to punish and our way into like being thin, being skinny, or it's, I need to kind of beat myself into submission or, or something about me is bad and wrong about the way that I am now. So I can't love myself now. I'm not allowed. I have to look a certain way. I have to be a certain way. And that can come from ex boyfriends or girlfriends or spouses. It can come from what we learned growing up from parents or grandparents or siblings. It can be also the subtle undertones of what we learned. It doesn't have to be that somebody overtly said that to you or they said that you were fat or overweight or you needed to lose weight. It could have been something. Subtle cues, subtle things that they said, looks on people's faces, things like, oh, are you, are you sure you want to eat that? [00:15:57] You know, stuff. Stuff where it's like they, they may have had good intentions, but it may not have come out the right way. And the way that you interpreted it was not useful, not helpful. [00:16:09] And so this is where, again, we don't want to be making excuses and minimize what we experienced and what we've been through. But we do want to start to take ownership of it now. So that way it's no longer I'm a victim my past, I'm a victim of my trauma. It is this happened. Here's what I've made it mean all these years, here's how it's impacted me today, and here's what I'm going to do about it. Because that is where you find healing and growth. It is not from just trying to find a label or throw shade. Like I am not here to diagnose anybody in your life. And really I think we've all spent enough time trying to do that. And at this point it's like, you know the truth, you know what you've been through, you know what you've experienced. [00:16:50] Now what are we going to do about it? And this becomes the opportunity for change. [00:16:56] So this is why though, letting go of our food rules and this war with food can feel a little tricky, is because we're used to restricting. We're used to trying to make it hard so we can hurry up and feel good about ourselves and lose the weight quickly. And we also feel like life has to fit into then this like in itty bitty living space, right? And I actually have. Oh, you know what, I'm going to grab it real quick, right? So you know, the little, like the little like cake, cake containers with a little dome, right? It's like this is what we think life should fit into, right? We need everybody. We need to control everyone and everything around us because we need just the right set of circumstances so that we can be perfect and follow through on this diet. Which is why sometimes in January we might see some progress. But then there's Valentine's Day and then there's spring break and then there's Easter and then we've got holidays and backyard barbecues and beach trips and all the things, right? And life doesn't fit so neatly in here where we're not going out to eat and we're not traveling and nobody is sick and you get nine hours of sleep every night and you know, the dog doesn't puke on the carpet and your boss loves you and sings your praises, right? It's very hard to get life to fit in this nice little neat bubble, right? [00:18:15] We don't live here. We can sometimes get life to fit in here. It, it really sucks though. We create a life that we don't love. We create a life that sucks, that's not enjoyable and I want you to have a big, beautiful, wonderful life that is full of nuance and full of inconveniences and full of curveballs because that is real life. And you've got to learn how to lose weight in that life. Not in this life. Not in this little bubble life where like everybody's on their best behavior and there's never any traffic and you don't break down on the side of the road and like nothing ever happens and your ex just co parent so easily with you and all the things that's not real life. [00:18:54] Right. And yet we keep trying to fit life into this and fit weight loss into this. [00:19:00] And then when weight loss doesn't fit neatly into that, we just put it to the side. [00:19:05] Well, I can't lose weight right now. [00:19:07] It's too busy at work. Kids are out of school for the summer. We've got this travel coming up and one after another after another, we go month by month by month. We hit more and more roadblocks of like, summer's coming, well, then I'm going on vacation. I don't want to be on a diet when I'm on vacation. That would suck. [00:19:25] Yeah. Because most of the diets that we try to do suck. [00:19:29] So why does it feel hard though to let go of the food rules? Because this is something where it's like, oh, this sounds so good in theory. This sounds like such a wonderful thing. Like, almost sounds like a pipe dream of like, I could eat the foods that I like and that I enjoy and still lose weight. Yes, sign me up. [00:19:47] However, we have a lot of cognitive dissonance around this for two reasons. [00:19:53] Number one, the food rules are often what creates safety in weight loss. [00:19:59] Tell me what to eat so I can eat it and I can lose the weight. Tell me what to do in the gym. Tell me how much water to drink. Tell me when to go to bed. Like, tell me how to live my life so that I can lose the weight and create the result that I want. [00:20:11] And we have misplaced certainty into these food rules. [00:20:15] Okay, it's not a bad thing. It's just the way that we've been programmed and wired so we can understand. Like, oh, I keep looking for certainty, which is why I keep looking to these diets and these programs and these plans to just tell me what to eat. [00:20:29] When really the certainty comes from within yourself. And it comes from this self trust that has been eroded over the years to where we now often have very little to none. Okay. So it makes a lot of sense why we are Clinging on to something else in order to create that safety, in order to create the belief that you can lose the weight and keep it off. [00:20:51] And it makes a lot of sense too, because we don't want to spend time, effort, energy, money on something that's may or may not work. Right. [00:21:00] No, we want that. We want the certainty. But rather than, I guarantee my certainty, I'm putting my faith, my confidence, my belief, my certainty into something else. And often it gets put into the diet rules. [00:21:14] So the more that we can see that, the more we can see this is why we have a hard time letting go. [00:21:19] This is why for the people who even come to work with me, they still might be tracking calories, points, macros. [00:21:25] And it's not, it's not to. I don't say that to shame them in any way. It's more of just, this is a hard pattern to break. And part of it is because of that certainty aspect. [00:21:36] But just even having this, like, well, this is healthy. This is not like we've just been trained, we've been programmed for so long about what is healthy, what is not healthy, and we, we just, we have these emotions, we have these feelings, these physical sensations come up when we are doing the bad thing, when we are eating the bad food, right? And so this is a way that in these narci dynamics, the narc was able to maintain control and maintain power. [00:22:05] They knew how to get. They knew how to push our shame button to get us to shut up and sit down and behave, do what they wanted. And so anytime that shame button gets pressed, now that's what we do. We often will recoil. We. It. It tends to lead us to shut down. [00:22:23] So if you have not listened to the podcast recently, there was one about the shame shuts you down. I don't remember the, the number recently, but it was so then the last, like month or two, I can't remember exactly, but it was recently. If you have not listened to that one, that is a really important one to recognize or to go back and listen to, because that really is. Is such a key aspect here. Okay. So it's hard to let go of these food rules because they create certainty in us. And now we also often in our minds have evidence as to how. Well, when I had the food rules, I lost the weight in the past, and then when I didn't have the food rules and I just ate whatever, well, then I gained the weight. And we attribute that to the food rules, right? So it was like, oh, I can't eat carbs for A long time, told myself I couldn't eat carbs and lose weight. And then I started to eat some carbs. And then one day, like one random day, the scale may have been up like £2. It would have just been water weight. Who knows why? But that sent my brain into fight or flight. And I was like, oh, nope, see, I can't eat carbs and lose weight. When really I was also heavily binging at that time. It's not that I couldn't eat carbs and lose weight. It was that I kept overeating and emotionally eating and binging. [00:23:35] That was actually more likely why the scale was up. Or it could have like, it could have been salt, it could have been water. There could have been any number of reasons, but my brain just attributed it to the food rule. And so if your thought, if the. If the belief is, well, every time I let go of my food rules, that's when I gain weight. Now it's like it does create that dissonance in our brain of like, well, that doesn't make any sense. Like, it feels really hard. Like, well, how on earth could I let go of my food rules and lose weight if every time I try to do that, I gain weight? And so we look at past experiences, we have to go back beyond just the food rules to look at what else is happening, what else is going on, what else is at play and recognizing the level of stress that we are under in different relationships and in. Especially if you grew up in a dynamic where you had a parent who was maybe very narcissistic, emotionally unavailable, emotionally immature. [00:24:32] It. It's like we grow up in this fight orf flight response pretty heavily as a young, young kid up through teenage years. And then if you get into these types of relationships and often there's usually not just one. Typically there's multiple. And so it's really understanding how our body and our brain have really been wired into this fight or flight. That stress response is activated. And when your body is in that state and the stress response is activated, it is not going to prioritize energy for digestion and fat burning because it's very primal. It's very primitive in how it works. It's thinking, I might need to run away from a bear. I might literally need to do something that, to save my life. And if my life is hanging in the balance, I'm not going to be burning fat. I might need those fat stores. There could be a war, There could be a famine. There could be, you know, an alligator coming out of the Swamp to get me. Like, we don't know. [00:25:29] But that's how our brain and our body is responding and is in such a primal way to try again to keep you safe and to keep you alive. And that's why I think there's been more conversations around stress and how stress impacts weight loss and why that can also feel a little. Maybe a little frustrating and out of your control if you feel like, well, I can't control my stress or I don't know how, or my stress is due to somebody else or something else. [00:25:56] So we always want to look at where we do have control of that. [00:26:00] But just noticing, like, when we get into that fight or flight response, whenever that gets triggered or activated, your body's not going to want to burn. Fat has nothing to do with your food rules. [00:26:10] It has everything to do with. With what's happening under the surface. [00:26:15] So the end, the war with food can be a little bit complex, it can be a little bit hard. It can feel really scary because now you're going to learn to trust yourself and trust your body. [00:26:27] And when we have grown up and we haven't done that maybe ever, we haven't done it in years, we haven't done it maybe since we were a young kid, it's gonna feel really unsafe and uncomfortable because it's new. [00:26:41] And often new will feel dangerous, new will feel scary. And that's okay. We can hold space for that. But this is what we want to step into and recognizing, okay, it sounds lovely to just eat the food that I love and lose weight. Why does that not feel as easy in practice? Or what do I have a hard time letting go of? And this is a key area that I help clients is really understanding and unpacking all of the food rules and the food habits and the beliefs around what is required to lose weight. What's a healthy food, what's an unhealthy food, what they should or shouldn't be eating. And really learning to let go of the shame and the guilt and the. And the judgment. Because often when we are afraid of receiving that from somebody else, we're already thinking that first. We already have that towards ourself first. And then we project it onto other people. [00:27:32] So we have to understand. It's like always bringing it back to, where am I in control? What can I own? Not owning somebody else's emotions, somebody else's words, somebody else's actions, but for me, what can I own in this? [00:27:49] So that is. That's step one. It's going to be the let Go of the food rules and then also why that can feel really hard. [00:27:56] And this is helpful because as we start to plan and as we are thinking about, okay, here's what I want to eat, I want to eat when I'm hungry, stop when I'm satisfied, right? Like follow some simple principles. We now can start to recognize where are you emotionally eating? And this is going to be shift number two and really understanding that emotional eating habit. [00:28:16] So let me pick a new color here. [00:28:20] Emotional eating. And this could be binge eating, this could be emotional drinking, this. I mean there are a lot of other coping mechanisms that we have. I feel that for most people outside of your true alcoholic people who are emotionally drinking, they are emotionally soothing with alcohol. They're trying to feel better with alcohol. It may not necessarily be an addiction. So I think there are some big distinctions. [00:28:47] I also don't think that you're addicted to food, but we'll get into that. So what is emotional eating? Let's just start there. We're going to do kind of a high level view of this, but in this, it's where your brain has learned that food creates a rapid, reliable and effective sense of relief. That's how I see emotional eating. So we are eating, we're turning to food to meet an emotional need most often when we are not hungry. Okay. So there are going to be times when you are hungry and you are emotionally eating. Okay, those are maybe that's going to happen 10% of the time. We want to focus our effort on what is typically the case, which is I'm eating, I'm turning to food to meet an emotional need and I am not physically hungry because that's where we're going to find the most success and the most win. [00:29:34] So we do this to self soothe, to feel better, to take the edge off. [00:29:39] Right? And so food is not the problem here. And this is really important. [00:29:44] Food is not the problem. So food cannot be the solution. We cannot go to war with food. We cannot make food the problem or food the issue. We can't just try to solve for the food and expect the emotional eating habit to go away because it's simply a habit. And this is a great thing because when it's a habit that we learned, it's a habit we can unlearn, whether it's around food or money or men or alcohol or like anything, right? Like religion, we can. If it's a habit, we learn it's a habit we can unlearn. And this brings all of the power, all of the ownership Back to you. [00:30:21] So we want to understand what is actually happening and what is not. So there are a few myths around emotional eating. [00:30:29] One of them that really gets me is when people say things like, oh, we'll just eat more healthy food and you won't emotionally eat as much. It'll either eliminate it, it'll. It'll reduce it. Like, it'll fix this habit of like, just eat healthier foods. [00:30:43] No, no. Because it's not an overeating problem as much as it's an under feeling problem. [00:30:49] So again, it goes back to that food piece. It's not the problem. It can't be the solution. [00:30:55] Right? So if we're trying to solve an emotional eating habit by just changing the circumstance, and there are nuances here, because there are times when I will recommend to clients and I'll say, hey, you don't like, we can work on how you are feeling in this job, with this person, in these, you know, friendships. We can work on how you're thinking and how you're feeling, and I can help you to think better, to feel better without changing the circumstance. But there are also times when we do want to change that, when it makes more sense. But we don't want to make our emotional eating habit dependent on something like a job or like, well, I just need a different job. I just need a better job. I just need to live in this certain location. I just need this type of house. I need, you know, my kids to be out of this phase of life. We keep trying to change the circumstance without understanding the internal world that is creating that habit. Because that's what we have to change, right? And it's. I know it's so cliche, but it's the whole, like, change starts on the inside, it goes inside out. [00:31:54] That is how we see it. When change happens internally in your internal world, you will see it manifest in your external world. But often it takes time and practice to get those internal changes going, to build up that compounding effect, to actually see the external change. [00:32:11] So this is where we have to hold a lot of space and compassion for ourselves as we're in the process of changing this habit, of recognizing when it comes in or what's coming up for us and how we want to break it. Because we break it by catching it sooner and sooner. It doesn't mean, like, I see the habit once, I see the pattern once, and now I never, ever do it again. It's, I see it once and I think about how I want to handle it in the future. I see it a second time. And I think about, how could I catch this sooner next time? I'm always looking at how do I catch it a little bit sooner? How do I notice what's really happening here? How do I truly understand the real emotional triggers that I am eating over? [00:32:50] Because typically it's that I am eating to avoid a negative emotion. [00:32:55] So one of the things here that I forgot to mention was to grab some water, have something to drink. Let's take a sip. We need to be drinking our water here. [00:33:06] But let's see. I drew this kind of big. You know what? We're gonna erase this for right now. [00:33:12] And we've got our emotional eating model. [00:33:19] So what happens here is we have a trigger event. [00:33:24] And there. Right, like who? Like, there could be all kinds of triggers, right? It could be traffic, it could be kids, it could be something somebody said. It could be an email, it could be a colleague at work not doing their job. And now you get stuck with extra work or you have to stay light, stay late. There's all kinds of things that could trigger it. But what happens is there's some kind of event, and then we have a story. [00:33:47] We have a story about the event or about yourself. [00:33:54] Yourself. There we go. [00:33:58] Okay, so we just have thoughts about it. We tell ourselves a story. Oops, there we go. [00:34:05] This story or event will often, not always, but typically, if we're going to be eating over it, it's going to create a negative emotion. [00:34:13] Something that we don't want to feel, something we want to avoid. [00:34:18] Doesn't always have to be shame, but shame is often a big one. It's a big trigger. So it could be guilt, frustration, irritation. [00:34:26] And when we can find the pattern in these emotions, that's huge. [00:34:31] Okay, but what do we do? We turn to food to feel better. [00:34:40] So sometimes the emotion is what's happening that day, that week. It's happening kind of more in, like, in real life. [00:34:47] Sometimes this emotion or the story that you're telling yourself has more to do with this undercurrent of belief of like, I'm not enough, I'm not good enough. I'm not thin enough, I'm not pretty enough. I'm not doing enough, I'm not smart enough. It's. It's like this deeper core wound that we don't want to feel some level, some version often of shame, abandonment, fear that we don't want to experience. [00:35:14] And so it doesn't. It doesn't take a single trigger. And on a day, it's like, that is the Story that is the current, that is running constantly. And when we're in these dysfunctional relationships, those beliefs, not only did you have them kind of ingrained as a kid, you had that in your own mind, but now you have somebody else who is reinforcing that belief. Especially when you have a dysfunctional or toxic partner, spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend. Like when they are. When it's now a romantic partnership. And you have somebody who's always telling you that you can't, who's poking that shame, who's reinforcing that belief. [00:35:53] No, you're actually really not that smart. [00:35:55] You're really bad with money. [00:35:57] You would be so pretty if you could just lose a little bit of weight. [00:36:00] I like. Or, you know, saying things like, how did you let yourself get this way? You were doing so good. [00:36:06] You really want to be eating that, right? Like all of the douchey, narcy comments that we get, right? And some people in our lives are just going to be jerks, but some are more than just emotionally unaware, they are emotionally abusive. And this is where we have to be aware and understanding the pattern. And so this could be why this pattern often will show up when you are in a narcissistic relationship. It's why it can come up afterwards also, because that is how your brain has been wired. [00:36:37] So even when you have left the person, you've left the boss, you've left the work environment, whatever that that dynamic was, you may have left it to some extent. [00:36:47] You still have that same voice, those same conversations running in your head. [00:36:53] And we want to eat to feel better. [00:36:56] And so the work isn't just to take away the food. It's not just to say no. Because often, again with these diets and the restriction, all we're doing is taking away our coping mechanism. [00:37:07] We're taking away sometimes the only way your brain knows how to feel better. [00:37:12] And not just to feel better from the emotions, but sometimes it's used to regulate your nervous system to break you out of that fight, flight, freeze, appease, response. [00:37:24] This is really important to recognize. This is why it's not just a simple solution. It's not just to eat healthy foods and then you'll be fine. [00:37:33] No, because most of the time we're eating and we are not actually physically hungry. [00:37:40] There's more that goes into it. [00:37:42] But often what happens is we feel so much shame about this, especially when we're emotionally eating or binge eating. We do it in secret. We try to hide the evidence. We don't want to talk to anybody about it. We carry so much shame that we can't look at it, we can't evaluate it and so we can't learn from it. And so a big thing that I do with clients is learning to drop the shame. It's something that I've had to work a lot on. I still am working on this in various areas and just noticing the default thoughts, the default judgment that wants to come up and not letting that have the last word and really being able to retrain my brain and to retrain my ability to number one, allow and sit with any shame that might come up and then to be able to move through it, to be able to decide like okay, and now I'm done, like now I'm done beating myself up, I'm not going to do this anymore. [00:38:37] And there, there are different points that you're going to hit where it's like the more that we can understand this and work it backwards because there'll be times when you catch it and it's after you've eate then you're going to catch it and you're going to notice it like towards the end of your maybe binge or emotional eating session and but you stop and maybe a few bites, you like you leave a few bites there then you're going to catch it halfway through eating. Then you're going to catch it as you start to eat. Maybe you go through the drive through at McDonald's and you start to eat the food and then you're like oh wait, what am I doing? [00:39:09] Then you're going to catch it as you are on your way to McDonald's then you're going to catch it when you're in the drive thru, right? It's like we're going to catch it sooner and sooner we're going to start to catch it when we're in this negative emotion we're going to start to catch it because we're going to notice the patterns of like oh I feel, I have one client who she feels when she feels irritated or aggravated, especially with, with work she notices like ah, that's when I want to snack, that's when I want to go to food. So we know this, this is the pattern. She can now start to catch it because she knows the pattern of the emotions that often drive the eating. [00:39:44] And then we were, we want to work on now identifying the default stories and then working on changing them. And we work on that because the trigger event here may still trigger some default stories. Default emotions. Default might activate that fight or flight response initially in you and it's being able to self soothe and to calm and to think differently without needing the food or without needing alcohol or without needing a dating app or without needing a new man to tell you how beautiful you are without needing right insert whatever buffer, whatever coping mechanism you might go to. [00:40:24] But this is how it like what we want to understand. This is often why you can know what to do. You can know what food you want to be eating and what foods are on plan and the moment that trigger happens and you so quickly jump into that story and have that emotion and that like rejection and like repulsion of like I don't want to feel this. We are so quick to reach for anything to make us feel better. [00:40:47] And when our brain has learned food does that and it's quick, easy and efficient and it's all over, it's all around us all the time. [00:40:55] It, it of course we're not going to stick with our plan. Of course we know what we want to do. Of course we know we don't want to be eating this or we want to be eating more of that. [00:41:03] But we don't do it because our emotions have taken over and sometimes even activated our nervous system. [00:41:10] And when we are now activated and in that fight or flight response that's when we have to learn to self soothe and comfort in ways where we can finish that activation cycle. We can get that cortisol and get the energy out of our body and bring like re regulate and bring ourselves to a state of calm. But it may not happen like all at once. Sometimes we have to like there's I don't know if you've ever shake like been shaky. My body will shake because there is like cortisol and energy in my body and I can't control it. But if I've been activated, especially if I've been like scared or something triggers and I typically will appease first, then I run away. It's like appease then flee. I very rarely will fight occasionally but it's very short lived. And then it's appease and flee. And even afterwards, even after it feels safe, it's seem safe. My body still is shaky because it's trying to process and get through and, and like get out that nervous system response that's a trauma response. This is important to recognize when we use food to try to soothe something like that and not making that wrong, bad or mean anything about you. [00:42:22] So a couple other things here to note like food here it's just a band aid on a bullet wound, right? It's that temporary sense of relief. It is very short lived because the story, the emotions, they are always there for us when we get done eating. [00:42:38] And so the more that we can have the courage and the self love and the compassion to sit with any of the emotions that come up that we typically want to eat over, the more we can work through this without turning to food. [00:42:53] So with emotional eating there are two aspects typically that we're going to be working on. [00:43:00] Number one is going to be how do we say no to the food in the moment from a place of self love, right? So it's handling that urge, that desire, that in the moment desire and wanting for food. So that's one piece. [00:43:13] The other piece is really understanding, decoding and then being able to process and allow the emotions that are driving the desire for food. [00:43:24] Like the deeper underneath emotions. [00:43:27] So there have to, we have to look at things from multiple angles. We have to identify how do I make it easier to say no without willpower. And also what is it that I'm really trying to avoid, what is it that I don't want to feel, what is it that I'm telling myself and what am I telling myself about emotions. [00:43:45] And typically when we grow up with emotionally unavailable parents, or at least one who is emotionally unavailable, they don't know how to regulate their own emotions, how to process their own emotions. They can't teach us how to do it either. [00:44:00] So we just kind of recreate and do the same thing. We never learn. And so now as adults we get the chance to reparent ourselves, to break cycles, to teach ourselves new ways of doing things. [00:44:14] And this is, this is what it comes back to, is no longer staying emotionally stunted, relying on something or someone else to make you feel good, to make you feel better. [00:44:25] And that leads into shift number three and this aspect around trauma and really creating safety to lose weight. And so in order to create the safety, we have to heal from our dysfunctional relationships. And this is something where just leaving the, the marriage, just leaving your parents house, just leaving the work dynamic or the company or the boss, just like getting out of that situation while that is like so good and so helpful, it is not the end all be all. Like that is the beginning of your healing journey. That's not the end, right? I think a lot of times we're trying to make sense of it. When we're in that dynamic, we're trying to make sense of like what's happening, what's going on, what do I believe can they change, right? We have so much hope and belief and, like, desire and wanting things to get better. So we stay there in this cycle for a long time, and then we break out and we think, oh, okay, now I'm free. [00:45:24] But most of us have not done any true healing work on the dynamics that got us into it to begin with, right? So there's. When we look at, especially with a romantic partner and romantic relationship, we don't often and I don't. I'm. [00:45:39] Your journey is your own. But for me, I know, like, I was not looking at, why was I attracted to my ex? Why did I attract him? Why did I stay so long? [00:45:50] Right? Like, there are certain things, certain questions that I can ask myself. [00:45:54] And when we look at emotional eating is I'm going to rely on food to meet my emotional needs. When we stay in these dysfunctional relationships, it's. I'm relying on another person to. To meet my emotional needs. [00:46:06] And so the more that I can understand what are those needs that this person met for me, I now can create more healing for myself because I learn how to meet those needs. [00:46:18] Same thing goes if it's a parent or a grandparent or a sibling or somebody that you grew up with as a kid. So it could be like, what? Especially if you're having a hard time cutting them off, but even if you have, right, it's like, often it takes a long time to get there, right? It's not just, oh, we learned this one piece. Or it's like, oh, this is not healthy. So now we're going to shift and like, oh, nope, low contact, no contact. It's very hard to make that move. And so we want to look at what is it like, what emotions are they creating in us? And sometimes it's also, if I leave, if I stop talking to my mom, if I stop talking to my dad, if I cut my sister off, now I am a bad person. Now I am the bad sister. Now I am the bad daughter. Now I. Right? It's like we look at, like, what does that make it mean about me? [00:47:11] And this is how we want to really understand and rewrite the stories. Because these types of relationships, these dynamics often that we grow up with, have wired your brain and they've rewired it to seek safety over success. [00:47:28] And this is really important to recognize because again, when our brain, our habit brain in particular, it wants to keep you safe, and safe means alive. So if it can keep you safe, it can keep you alive. If there is anything unsafe, it's also thinking you might die like that's literally how it is processing things. It's not actually true, especially when it's an emotional aspect. But. But that's what it has learned. That's. And that's where our habit brain is not fully in line with the conscious brain. So we got two parts of our brain. I usually talk about this earlier on in workshops. You may have heard me talk about your brain as a mullet. Okay? Business in the front, party in the back. So your business brain, here's your thinking, your prefrontal cortex. This is with your. This is where all of your language, logic, problem solving, analysis is done, right? It's all of our goal setting and visioning. And I'm going to start this new plan and I'm going to commit to this. Right? All done in your thinking brain up here, newer part of the brain speaks a different language, very different language than your habit brain. Okay. Habit brain is speaking Chinese while you're thinking brain up here speaking English. They don't communicate. [00:48:35] Your habit brain wants to seek pleasure and avoid pain via the path of least resistance. And the pain can be real or perceived. So it could be the threat of pain. Not even pain you experience. It might not even be emotion that you experience. It's the, the threat of emotion. It's the fear of the emotion. [00:48:55] And so it's emotional, physical or mental pain. [00:48:59] Right? And what we've learned is that the parts of our brain that light up when your arm is cut, for example, and there's physical pain because your arm is cut, those same parts of your brain light up when you feel embarrassed, when there's the fear of embarrassment, when there's the threat of embarrassment, when there's any type of emotion, especially a negative emotion that we typically don't want to feel and that gets activated, same part of the brain, so we can have a lot of compassion and understanding for ourselves of like this and these toxic dynamics and toxic relationships that we've been in, they are wired to keep you in a survival mode. [00:49:36] Just survive, just get by, get by with the bare minimum. And survival is often safety. [00:49:43] So we're prioritizing safety. What feels safe over success, even after you've left the relationship, even after you've left the job, even after you are no longer. Maybe your parents may not even be alive right now. And this dynamic is still at work in your brain unless you have done the work to actually heal it and change it. [00:50:07] And again, so most of us, we leave the dynamic or we cut somebody off or we get divorced, we limit their contact or our contact with them. [00:50:16] But the dynamic is still there, those neural pathways are still there. [00:50:21] It's still a habit in terms of our brain and our consciousness of this is what I do, this is how I survive. And we survive as pleasing as appeasing, being perfectionists, not asking for help, becoming hyper independent. There are all different ways in which this plays out. [00:50:39] And so the more that we can understand and see the patterns of oh, this is how my brain is trying to keep me safe. [00:50:47] These are the core wounds and the core triggers that have me not wanting to follow my plan, right? Because again, it's like, well, if there's the threat or the fear of I could gain the weight back, I might experience shame if I do. [00:51:02] There might also be a threat of if I lose the weight and then I get unwanted attention, I get attention from people I don't want, I might get into another toxic relationship and I really don't want that. And so rather than have to deal with potentially upsetting someone, disappointing them, they, you know, you being responsible for their emotions, right? It's like rather than that, it's like, well, nope, I'm just not going to lose weight at all. [00:51:29] And so your brain is like, nope, nope. Doesn't matter how much we know we're not doing it, doesn't matter how simple we make it, we're not doing it. [00:51:37] And so as we look at this process and making weight loss feel simple and sustainable and doable, we let go of our diet rules. We have to make the steps and what we're doing small and simple enough to where we can get started, not doing too much too fast. [00:51:54] But we also want to make sure that it's effective. And often we think, well, if it's small and simple, it's not effective, right? So our brain is like, well, if it's small and simple and it feels doable, well then it's not going to, why bother? It's not enough, it's not good enough to actually help me lose weight. [00:52:10] But if it's big and it's scary, we don't want to, it shuts us down. So we're still not taking the action. [00:52:17] But we get caught in these double binds, these no win situations, and that's what we have to unwind. [00:52:24] We have to recognize how in the past your success threatened the narcissist in your life. [00:52:32] Your success and, or even the potential of success was a threat. [00:52:38] Even if it was a parent, right? Even if it was somebody you grew up with, even if it was a sibling, somebody that you maybe didn't feel in rivalry with or in competition with, but they felt it as a competition because it's always a competition. It's always a zero sum game. [00:52:55] And so if you are winning, it means they are losing and they're not having that. [00:53:00] And often for these types of people, they have to put you down in order to make themselves feel better about themselves. [00:53:08] Even now, I've experienced this, like being years out. It's been almost two years since my divorce and I still have experienced this. [00:53:17] It's not uncommon. This is, this is a normal, just emotional, immature way of being. [00:53:24] And that's okay, right? I don't want to take that on though. I can look at now what do I want to do about this? [00:53:31] But it's hard, especially if it is like your mom or your dad and you're. And you're like, well, why wouldn't they want me to succeed? [00:53:39] Why would they keep blaming me? Why would they make me the problem? [00:53:43] Why am I the one who's responsible for this? Like, it doesn't make any sense. And it, it can bring up a lot of grief and a lot of longing. [00:53:53] And it often brings up some abandonment wounds. Because typically if you have a, especially with a parent who is narcissistic or any type of caregiver, anybody who's close, it could also be like a sibling, especially if they were a lot older to where they felt almost kind of like they had that parental role. We can feel a lot of abandonment when we get the silent treatment, when we don't feel wanted, when we feel like we're the one to blame when we're told, you are the problem. [00:54:22] And abandonment is one of those core wounds that we experience after narcissistic abuse or throughout it. [00:54:31] This is why there is abandonment. As a kid, you could have a lot of abandonment in relationships. You may not really want to date somebody, but you don't want them to leave you. You might start dating somebody and you can see, like, you know, it's not the right fit, but you also, you don't want to let them go. [00:54:47] There are different things that it's like they trigger and poke this just like shame. [00:54:52] So your shame button gets activated and poked, which is why we tend to please appease, try to be perfect, try to fix it, fix the situation, fix their emotions, get things back to normal. [00:55:04] Right? It's the same dynamic. And we just get caught in this. [00:55:09] And we are now like, our brains now become hypervigilant. And so it's not just a dynamic around how it impacts Weight loss or how we see food, or how we do habits, it's how we do everything. [00:55:23] It's how we, it's why we might minimize our success. It's why we devalue what we've already accomplished. It's why we keep moving the goalpost. It's why we're like, oh yeah, sure, I lost five pounds last month, but I don't know that I can do it again. [00:55:37] It's the self doubt that's like constantly there because so often that's what kept getting triggered from somebody else. [00:55:46] And it's going to be often it's different people at different times in our lives. [00:55:51] But usually it's like I, I think until we get to the point where we are really awake, we, we all have like at least one narc in our life. If you've got one, you probably have multiple and usually there's, there's a couple going on at the same time. [00:56:06] And it's really being able to understand these aspects of like the abandonment, the shame, the powerlessness that we often feel and the self doubt, excuse me. And how those all play into weight loss, but goal achieving in general and how it is that we see ourselves, what we think we're capable of, what we think we should be doing. [00:56:33] We really have to learn how to rewire and re and think on purpose. [00:56:39] Because so often we take their thoughts, we take their beliefs, we've now adopted them as our own. [00:56:46] So anytime that you feel like you have your ex's words, your ex's thoughts running through your head, right? It's like I've got his voice in my head and I can't get it out. [00:56:56] That's now your thought. [00:56:59] And that's the good thing, right? When it is your thought, you now have power and control over it. It is no longer his voice, it becomes your own. [00:57:09] And this is where we take back our power and we decide that we are no longer going to be the narc in our own life. We are no longer going to be the last narc standing. We are no longer, we're going to recognize what are these toxic traits, what are these dysfunctional patterns, how have I played into them, what was the role that I played? And how can break these moving forward? [00:57:29] And sometimes it starts off so simply as like telling the truth, even about small things, no longer lying, no longer telling white lies because you don't want to hurt somebody's feelings, right? It's like learning that you are a good person and you can be honest and you can say no. [00:57:47] It's okay for other people to feel disappointed, but it takes practice and it takes time and it takes that willingness of like I'm willing to feel like a total right now. [00:57:58] I know I'm not right. Or it's like I want to believe that I'm not, but I might really feel like that. [00:58:05] And this is all the work, all the process. [00:58:08] But when we can understand how we are turning to anyone else or anything else to meet these emotional needs, we can learn what it is that I have to meet for myself. [00:58:19] What do I need to insource? [00:58:22] How can I create? Like, where do I have control instead of a false sense of control? [00:58:28] Like, what, where is mine? What is mine to own? [00:58:33] How do I create safety in this situation? [00:58:35] And a lot of times safety for like mental emotional safety. It's I no longer beat myself up, I no longer throw myself under the bus. I no longer tell myself I can't. I no longer. Right, it's like a hard stop. I no longer say these things. [00:58:52] And at the very least we start saying, I'm working on believing this new thing over here. I'm open to believing. I'm. I really want to believe this. Or you might tell yourself, like, this is simply a habit that I've had. It's a habit I learned. It's a habit I can unlearn. [00:59:09] We take it in steps and we learn how to create safety. As we are on our way to the goal, we have to think differently about it. We have to tell ourselves different stories. But we first have to uncover what feels unsafe like, and why it feels unsafe. And often that is hiding in our subconscious because for most of us, like, well, duh, of course I want to lose weight. You might want to, you might need to for health reasons. So it's like, well, of course I want this, but there's a level where it's not safe. And until you can create that safety level of it's safe to lose weight, it's safe to take this small step, it is safe to take action and not get the results immediately because I am not giving up on myself. I'm not going to shit talk myself anymore, and I'm not going to throw myself under the bus. [00:59:59] A lot of times the safety actually comes into how we beat ourselves up when we don't hit the goal that we set that week, that month. [01:00:08] What happens when you make a mistake, how you talk to yourself, how you think when, when you fail, how you think about failure and redefine. It's. [01:00:17] That is really what's at stake here, that is the safety. [01:00:21] It's got to be you and you internally. And so often we're just working against years of beliefs from other people that have been adopted and brought in as our own. [01:00:34] That's why it can feel hard. [01:00:36] That's why it takes practice. [01:00:38] And that's why I believe this is best done with a coach, with a therapist, with somebody by your side. Because what we, like, how we operate is so deeply ingrained. We don't see anything wrong with it. [01:00:51] We don't see the people pleasing, you know, like, we don't even realize we're doing it. It's just such a, an auto response habit. [01:01:02] And when we don't see the people pleasing, we don't see the alternative options. We don't see the other, like, what else could we do in that situation? [01:01:13] So this is normal. [01:01:16] This is, you know, our brains wanting certainty. And again, just with this narci dynamic, our brains want certainty of, like, I want to make sure this other person stays happy so I don't get the backlash. I want to make sure this, you know, the house looks a certain way. I want to make sure the kids behave a certain way so that we don't, we don't get yelled at or we don't get the silent treatment. [01:01:35] Right? Because that is a form of abandonment and that triggers that. [01:01:40] So it's like we're always looking for, okay, well, what do I need to do? How do I make sure? How do I create the right environment so that I can stay safe? [01:01:49] This is normal pattern for us. And we have to start to recognize and step out and notice, like, there's going to be some, there's some parameters, there's methodology, but it's not just a simple do this, not that. [01:02:03] So there's a lot of layers to this. There's a lot of nuance here. And we have to bring in the trauma, we have to bring in the abuse that we've experienced in relationships, because this is a key piece that is holding you back. [01:02:15] So my goal for us today was to really understand these three areas. The food rules and ending the war with food, the emotional eating and what is actually happening there and how trauma and abuse and narcissistic relationships impact you. Excuse me, hold on. I've got a little tickle in my throat. [01:02:41] But we really want to see, you know, like, how is this truly holding us back? What is really happening? Because again, it's not just about creating the body that you love, the body that you crave. It's not going to mean a damn thing if you don't have a life that you love. [01:02:58] And so we've got. We can't be doing this in a bubble. We have to look at this holistically. We have to see everything for what it. For what it is. [01:03:06] And so this takes time, it takes practice, it takes a little bit of work, but it is possible, it is 100% possible for you to lose the weight and be able to keep it off long term. [01:03:17] I actually lost the weight and stopped emotionally eating while in a dysfunctional relationship and have kept it off consistently for the last three and a half years. [01:03:29] Like, it's if and it's something that I'm mindful of, but it doesn't take all of my time, all of my energy. It's not something that I'm constantly thinking about. I've really been able to release all of the mind drama around food. I can go out to sushi and not pick all the rice off of my sushi because I'm terrified of eating carbs. Like, I've learned to trust myself around food. I learned to trust my body with food, and it's so much freer. I, you know, I may have only lost 25 pounds of physical weight, but I lost a hundred pounds of mental and emotional weight. [01:04:04] So this is possible for you, too. [01:04:08] And you have to be willing to believe and to believe in yourself, Right? Remember your parent, your ex, that boyfriend or girlfriend that was really hard to leave that you stayed with for years, hoping, praying, wishing, wanting things to be different. [01:04:25] Like, you believed so hard that they could change. You believed so hard in their potential. [01:04:31] And yet so often we are not believing to that same extent in ourselves. [01:04:37] We give up so quickly and so easily on ourselves. We'll believe in other people for years, for decades, and then we give up on ourselves like that. [01:04:48] And we have got to flip it. [01:04:51] We have got to start believing in ourselves like we did believe in that toxic person that we kept hoping and praying and thinking could change. [01:05:00] Start believing in yourself with that level of conviction, with that level of confidence, and I guarantee you'll be able to work through all of this. [01:05:08] But we got to be willing to face the emotions. [01:05:11] We got to be willing to face those shadow sides. And one of the things that I think when it comes to, like, real growth is I. I can tell my growth because I can look back at different relationships and I can see my toxic traits. I can see my narci traits coming out, because you can't grow up with a narci parent or Step parent or sister or brother or like somebody important in your life like that. You cannot grow up with a narcy person like that in your life and not also have some narcy traits. [01:05:39] That is normal. [01:05:42] The question now is what are you going to do about it? But the fact that I can look back and I can see like, oh yeah, no, like I was the narc in that relationship, not that they were perfect, right? It's not about being perfect or anything or being fully healed or fully healthy. [01:05:58] Everybody's gonna have different traits. But I can look at, at some and say, oh yeah, no, like, yep, I was the, the primary dysfunctional one. I was the emotional toddler in that one. [01:06:11] And now that I have grown and I'm an emotional adolescent, maybe emotional teenager, getting better and better at this, but now I have the bandwidth to keep going and to keep growing and the willingness to, to see all of these sides of me, all of the habits, all of the, the emotions and the willingness to sit with myself through them as long as it takes. And when you stop fighting and you stop resisting, you process and work through it so much faster. [01:06:42] When you stop fighting the emotional eating habit and you start to learn from it, from compassion and a place of self, love, you can work through it and stop that habit. You can break that habit so much faster. [01:06:55] But we've got to get out of the shame. [01:06:59] And that's now your choice. [01:07:02] You can leave the boss, you can leave the work dynamic, you can leave the spouse, you can leave the parents, you can leave these people. [01:07:10] But when they still in these patterns and these habits still live in your brain, you are going to keep repeating them over and over again. [01:07:18] So if you really want to break free and you truly want to create something new, a new life, a new body, new habits, a new way of being, new confidence, new self belief, new self trust, then come work with me. [01:07:34] So the best place to get started is with a free consultation. And what I'm offering for this call in particular is a break the cycle call where we can walk through together and look at what are these cycles and these dynamics playing out in your life. Because food and emotional eating are important and these are important things to be looking at. But we also need to look at the relationships, we need to look at your childhood, we need to look at the trauma, we need to look at the things that often we can be turning to food to soothe and food to comfort. Because again, just having the body isn't going to mean a damn thing if you keep getting into these Toxic, dysfunctional relationships. [01:08:11] And. And if you want a healthy person in your life, we don't want to just be alone, right? And I think a lot of times that that's what we end up doing is we're just like, well, nobody's healthy. No, there's no good men out there. Nobody is healthy. So I'm just gonna be by myself. I'm just going to be hyper independent. [01:08:28] When really maybe you do want somebody, but you don't trust yourself and you definitely don't trust men or women, right? And so it's really working through this. It's finding, it's creating the healing. And so what we do with these cycles is really understanding what's at play and where the healing comes in and what is necessary in order to break free, in order to start, like, to see the cycles, to see the patterns, to understand how this shows up in your life in different areas and then where you have to break it. This is really important because it's understanding the cycle where you break it. And then it's actually, then here's the work, right? The work of healing. [01:09:09] And when once we've left that dynamic, now the real work can begin so that you can change your patterns, your habits, so that this all becomes new and deeply ingrained. But right now it's going to feel like, you know, might feel like you're walking in the jungle with a knife, with, like a pocket knife, right? You don't even have a machete. We're just going at it with a pocket knife. [01:09:31] But it gets easier and easier. It gets. It's a smoother path. It becomes better and better. [01:09:37] But this is why having somebody like me in your corner, who has gone through, who has walked this, who has processed through, not just with myself, but with many clients, with dozens and dozens of clients, with the weight and the relationship piece simultaneously, I promise you can do this, too. And it becomes so much better, so much more fun, so much more enjoyable when you have somebody to work with, to process with, somebody to guide you, rather than blindly going at it in the dark or trying to piecemeal stuff together. [01:10:08] Because so often we can try to rely on podcasts or YouTube videos or other things, and really, it's like those are kind of like the bunny slopes. [01:10:16] They get us started, they get us moving, they get us starting to think about things differently, but we want to keep advancing. We want to get off of the bunny slopes and go to the next. We want to go up the mountain. We want to improve our skills, we want to get better and better. [01:10:31] And when it comes to these types of things, we need somebody who is trauma based, trauma aware and understands the dynamics and the cycles of these two things individually and then how they play together. [01:10:44] So if you would like some help with that, I will make sure that the link is available here in the description and below this video, below this replay. But you can Visit me at bodyyoucrave.com forward/btc for Break the Cycle. And that's exactly what I'm going to help you do. And if you get on this call and you're like this is awesome, like I'm good, I'm all set, wonderful. But part of why I do this is because it helps, helps people to become aware of like what their, their cycles are, what the patterns are. They get to know me a little bit better and some will go on to become clients. [01:11:18] So it's never a high pressured environment. It's all there to help you understand what's really at play and to put that ownership back to where you really feel in control and powerful, in charge of your own life. Because that's often what the narc took from you. [01:11:35] You felt so powerless, so helpless for so long and it's time to flip that. [01:11:41] All right, I hope you all have a fabulous week. [01:11:44] Need a little more water here, but have a great night and I can't wait to talk with you all soon. Questions, Comments? Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or comments about what we covered in this as well. You can always bring that to a call and we will discuss it there as well. But this is very specific to the nuance so. [01:12:03] So yeah, thank you all. Have a wonderful day. [01:12:10] 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. You'll walk away way 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.bodyucrave.com BTC. [01:12:45] It's time to break the cycle. I'll show you how.