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.
[00:00:25] Hey. Hey. Welcome back. I am starting a new series around the core four wounds of narcissistic abuse.
[00:00:33] And this came out of the training I did last week. I did mention this, and I had thought about doing a separate workshop or webinar about this, and then I thought I might as well just start to drop these as different podcast episodes. Because healing from toxic relationships does impact your weight loss journey.
[00:00:53] And one of the key areas that it impacts is your self belief because of the self doubt that you either grew up with or experienced while with the dysfunctional or toxic person.
[00:01:08] And what happens here is that they use past evidence against you. They use self doubt as a way to try to control you, as a way to put you down so that they can feel better about themselves.
[00:01:23] It's how they get to feel bigger, better. Because with these emotionally immature people, which is essentially what they are, they are like emotional toddlers, your success threatens them. It's like success is a zero sum game. It's like a single pie. And so if you get some of that pie, if you get some of that success, it automatically takes away from their success.
[00:01:45] So rather than something like a rising tide lifts all boats, it's when you win, I lose. And so this can be really difficult, especially when it's a parent and you're like, I don't get it. Why does my parent feel like I'm threatening them? Why does it feel like my parent doesn't want what's good for me or what's best for me or doesn't seem to want me to succeed? There are things that logically don't seem to make any sense. And it's because your success is a threat to them. Your success takes away from theirs, which, again, when it's apparent, it's like it's totally backwards.
[00:02:20] But that's what happens when we live with dysfunctional people. We live in upside down world. We live in this land where up is down and down is up and things are confusing.
[00:02:31] And so what happens is the Narci person is going to plant seeds of doubt and they doubt you, they doubt your ability. They look to the past and they use it against you.
[00:02:41] And the challenge here is that this snarky voice now becomes your own.
[00:02:47] What happens is that you hear it multiple times, you hear different flavors, different versions. And so you start to have the self doubt. You don't believe in yourself, you use past evidence against you and you look to the past. And rather than looking at the past as, here's how I have been successful, here's why I can do new things, hard things, better things, bigger things, it's oh, here's how I've failed in the past, here's why I can't do it, here's how I wasn't successful, right? So it might look like, here's how I lost the weight, but I couldn't keep it off or here's why I'm not going to be able to keep it off in the future. And we end up using this against ourselves.
[00:03:30] And so I've done a few episodes around belief and self belief. Episode 5 is called Wrestling with Belief, right? So just like really at the very beginning of this podcast, bringing in and introducing this concept around, like how you think about yourself and what's possible for you really plays such a strong impact in your ability to truly lose the weight and keep it off. Episode 41 is conditional belief, right? So when we make our belief condition or like conditional based off of the results that we create, right? So it's like we'll all believe, but only once I lose a certain amount, only once I start losing weight, only when and I'll own. And it's like the moment the scale stays the same, the moment the scale goes up, we don't believe anymore. So that that belief that we have is very conditional on the results that we see on the roof that we see and what we're creating.
[00:04:25] Episode 78 is another really good one on changing your self concept. And this is really a key part of this is like how you see yourself, who do you see yourself as? What are you? The type of person? And when it comes to narcissistic abuse, this really gets warped, right? We see ourselves as not being smart enough, doing enough, pretty enough, thin enough, like we are never enough. And so this self concept is often like, it's almost like it's play DOH in the very, very early stages. And then it starts to harden and then it gets really hard and really hard then to reshape and remold. One of the bigger challenges is really, truly changing how you see yourself, how you believe in yourself, how you believe in being able to do new things.
[00:05:13] This is where we let the narc keep winning in our life when we continue to believe these old lies, these old patterns, episode 117 is from, I think, December of last year.
[00:05:28] The magic of Believing New things.
[00:05:31] And this one, I talk about how we have to believe first before we can achieve any goal. And it's always gonna feel the hardest when we believe before we have the ev.
[00:05:42] We believe before we have the result, before we have the outcome. And that always will feel hard. And I think especially hard when you've experienced narcissistic abuse in any type of relationship for any amount of time, even if it was 5, 10, 20 years ago that you experienced it, even if it was a parent and they've passed away, even if it was a spouse and you've been divorced for over a decade, this has such a deep, deep, long standing pattern in our life. And believing before we have evidence, that's what we need to achieve any goal. And yet it is so difficult when we've been in this dynamic because we rely on proof and evidence to prove that we can do something. Our past has been used against us and so we have to have positive past experience to try to use for us. But so often we are looking at the negative and so much is riding on this thing that we're trying to achieve. We are trying to prove, we are trying to earn, we are trying to justify that we are somehow good enough. I have to somehow prove to this person that I am good enough. That's often a shame trigger. We'll talk about that in an upcoming episode. Because at the core, that's how I see shame, is I'm not enough.
[00:07:00] And it makes a lot of sense because I had this long standing pattern and this longstanding belief going back really early into childhood, almost like as far as I can remember, of feeling like I am not enough, something is wrong with me.
[00:07:13] And we end up with these two almost contradictory beliefs where it's like we're told I'm not enough, and yet I'm also too much at the same time. And that becomes really hard and really confusing because we are put in this little box of how we're allowed to show up, the emotions that we're allowed to have, how we're supposed to behave, all of these aspects. And so when I have to believe before I have the proof, and we're used to our belief being conditional, we're used to looking to that proof, looking to justify why we can do this.
[00:07:49] We often have so much riding on that because it is deeply ingrained in this is what will make me good enough. This is what will make this person finally believe in me or finally love me or finally treat me the way that I want to be treated.
[00:08:04] I don't want any of these episodes to be about trying to diagnose anybody, about trying to blame or label your experience. You know, what you have been through. And now it's about looking at and addressing the impact that these relationships have had on you. We want to look at the impact of what are you still carrying around?
[00:08:24] How has this made it harder to lose weight, harder to release emotional eating, harder to be consistent with habits? Because that is ultimately what we can control and that's where we can really find our ownership and our personal responsibility of I am just responsible for me.
[00:08:45] Part of this idea of getting their voice out of your head is now recognizing when the doubt and the disbelief is now your voice, when all of those negative thoughts and those narcy voices have become your own because that other person is maybe not saying them to you anymore. Maybe they're not in your life. You're not in that dynamic and we have to be able to let that go. It becomes easy to want to blame the other person, of wanting to blame them, of, oh, they told me this three years ago, they told me this 10 years ago. We still hold onto it, but really you are the one telling yourself this now.
[00:09:23] This is now your voice. I can't go back and change the past. I can't change what they said. I can't change what they did. I can't change what's happened.
[00:09:32] What I can control and what I can change moving forward is me, my thoughts, my emotions, my own radical responsibility.
[00:09:42] And this is what's important here because we need to bring in this level of compassion and awareness for the abuse and the trauma that we've been through and how it is impacting, achieving any goal, but especially weight loss and emotional eating. And when we can bring in the compassion and we can bring in this other angle. Now we also understand there has to be healing, like the deep inner healing in order to create the external change of weight loss.
[00:10:09] There needs to be the awareness, the compassion, the willingness to take your time with that.
[00:10:16] I'm throwing out a bunch of past episodes here to go back and listen to, but episode 88 is actually from May 17th of 2023. This is one of the last episodes that I recorded and posted before taking my break and my hiatus for the divorce. So this is one of the last episodes, if not the last, that I did while still married, which is fascinating. And it's called Creating Safety and Weight Loss. And I'm going to create a 2.0 version of this. Because there is so much on a deeper level about the fear and the resistance, not just of why it can feel hard to lose weight, why we might struggle with can we keep the weight off? Right? There's a lot of doubt. And I would say doubt often comes up as questions. Can I really do this? Who am I to think that I can?
[00:11:05] Maybe this won't work for me. Am I really sure? Can I really keep this off? Can I really keep this consistent? Habit? Can I really keep doing this? Long term, there's so much doubt. And we see it in the form of questions. And what we have to do is we have to start answering the questions, number one, and we have to start poking holes in those statements, in those things and looking for evidence as to how that is not true, how it is true that we can lose weight, that we can keep it off, that we can be consistent.
[00:11:35] And then looking at the other times when we have not created the results that we want to see and to find the message and the meaning. And what is the lesson that we needed to learn here?
[00:11:48] Because that's what's happening every time you fall off the wagon or jump off the wagon, every time you emotionally eat, you overeat. There's a lesson in that every time you make a plan and you eat off plan or you don't follow it, there's a lesson to be learned here. Are we willing to learn the lesson?
[00:12:06] And we can only learn the lesson when we let go of that shame shawl and we stop cuddling up with it.
[00:12:13] But this is how you create bigger, better things. This is how you create new things, things that you haven't done before.
[00:12:20] And we can look back at other areas of life as to where we've done something for the first time, right? Where we've ridden a bike, we've driven a car, we've gotten our own apartment, paid our own bills, planned a wedding, got divorced, right? Had a baby, whatever. It is like there are so many things that we have done for the first time, even if it's not in the weight loss space, we can look and find a lot of this evidence to support, okay? I've done hard things before, I've done things for the first time, I've done new things. I can do this here. And we really have to now rebuild this muscle of self belief and self trust that becomes the solution. That is the antidote to self doubt.
[00:13:06] It is rebuilding self confidence. So it's self belief and self trust. I'm going to believe in myself.
[00:13:13] And I'm going to trust that I can handle anything that comes my way. And part of this is I am going to believe and I am willing to feel disappointed if I don't hit my goal.
[00:13:25] I'm willing to feel any emotion that might come up if I don't succeed or I don't succeed in the timeline that I want to.
[00:13:33] It's the willingness. Because so many times we preemptively fail, we quit, we don't fully believe, we don't fully commit, we don't fully go all in on what we want, we don't give ourselves what it is we truly want because we're so afraid of failing. We're so afraid of how we're going to beat ourselves up.
[00:13:53] And we have to take a huge stance and say, that is, I'm not going to do that anymore.
[00:13:59] That stops right here, right now.
[00:14:02] I can be sad, I can be angry, I can feel all kinds of emotions.
[00:14:07] And giving yourself the time and space to also sit with and process through any shame, it's safe to feel the shame, right? So when we're creating safety and weight loss, a lot of what the safety we need to create is like the safety to feel any emotion, the safety to feel like we're doing it wrong, like we're making someone uncomfortable or we're making them mad or we're hurting their feelings. It can get very nuanced. But there's layers to this. The more that we can heal from these dysfunctional patterns and dysfunctional habits, the more we can heal our relationship with food, the more we heal our relationship with ourself and we learn to trust ourself again.
[00:14:48] We build it one small habit at a time. And that is one of the biggest things is starting with small, simple habits that we can do. That is what starts to build your self trust. I'm going to make a plan and I'm going to do it and I'm going to follow through with it. So it is realistic. I have my own back.
[00:15:06] And a large part of this, a part of healing from narcissism, is also rebuilding your self concept and your self confidence.
[00:15:14] So much of this is stepping into that bigger version of yourself, that dream life that you truly want to create. No longer playing small in order to try to keep other people happy. No longer allowing yourself to be put down so that somebody else can feel bigger and better than you.
[00:15:32] But we have to understand the role that we played in these dynamics as well. We can understand how they were operating, but we also need to understand, okay, how was I operating? How was I showing up in this? Because it's not just that I attracted this into my life. I wasn't just attracted to it, but then I stayed. So there's multiple layers. And I'm gonna. We'll dive into this a little bit more as we get into the summer here. But when I think about relationships and dysfunctional relationships, we can question and wonder, okay, why does this keep happening to me?
[00:16:06] And you could even ask this about weight loss. Like, why does this keep happening to me? Why do I keep regaining the weight? And it's because there are lessons that you have not yet learned, and we need to start asking better questions. And so from the relationship dynamic, it becomes, now, why am I attracted to these Narci types of people? What is it about them that I'm attracted to? How did I attract them into my life? Like, what. What did I do to attract them in, to call them in?
[00:16:35] And then how was I minimizing, justifying, excusing their behavior?
[00:16:41] And usually it's because it's not all bad.
[00:16:45] It was really good at one point, it was really good. And we can get back there.
[00:16:51] But then we mold and pretzel ourselves into these different positions and it really becomes like, who do I need to be?
[00:16:57] And so often it's, who do I need to be in order to survive?
[00:17:01] And when we can break out of this survival mechanism, we can then step into thriving. But you cannot thrive when you are consumed with self doubt, when you keep holding yourself back with how you are thinking and how you are talking to yourself.
[00:17:17] This is a wound that needs to be healed.
[00:17:20] And self doubt, I would say, is normal, right? Not fully believing in yourself, not fully having confidence that you can do something or achieve something or do something new like that is normal. It's a part of having a human brain.
[00:17:32] But when you've been through this type of relationship, this type of dynamic, especially when you've grown up with a parent or a grandparent, like a caregiver who has these traits, it's even more difficult because it has been ingrained at such a young age and for so long, like over such a long amount of time, and you were responsible for making other people happy. You were responsible for anything bad or negative happening. And so you had to be responsible for fixing it, for making things better. And that is not yours to own.
[00:18:09] Now we get to step into rebuilding again. We are going to build it like brick by brick. This is not something where we can have the awareness. And now all of a sudden, things are different. Like I can have an awareness if I have an anxious attachment style that doesn't change anything. That didn't change how I showed up in relationships. Just knowing that there is a level of healing and integration of now what, how do I do this differently and that's what I can help you do. That is what coaching is all about. It's not just about giving you information.
[00:18:42] It's helping you create the transformation that you want.
[00:18:46] So that you can go out and create this big, badass, amazing, beautiful life that you want. So that you can create the life and the body you crave. So that you have a life full of joy and fun and adventure and pleasure and freedom.
[00:19:00] So that you can find and create healthy, successful love and partnership. So that you can be an even better parent. So that you can be an even better friend, an even better friend to yourself.
[00:19:12] This is what it's all about. But we have to do this internal healing work and this will directly impact your ability to lose weight, to break free from emotional eating. Because part of emotional eating in healing, it's my willingness to feel any emotion.
[00:19:28] It's the safety of I am safe to feel any emotion.
[00:19:34] Because the core problem is really under feeling. It's not an overeating problem, it's not a binging problem, an emotional eating problem. It is not a food problem. It is an under feeling problem.
[00:19:47] And that often is so heavy in people who have experienced a narcissistic parent or a narcissistic spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend.
[00:19:58] Whether it was a year or five years or 30 years or maybe you've been with them like your entire life, it's just been one after the other.
[00:20:09] So now we've got to rebuild some of these neuropathways. We have to rebuild how we think on purpose. And we can allow the self doubt to be there, but it no longer gets to have the last word. We can allow the default thoughts to come in, but that is not the final say.
[00:20:29] We now talk back to the doubt. We now talk back to the fear. We now talk back to those narcy voices in your own head.
[00:20:38] If you want to break free, if you don't just want to create the body, but the life that you truly crave. A life after divorce, after narcissistic abuse, after the trauma that you have experienced, then I'd love to help.
[00:20:55] Your next best step is to schedule a free consultation. You can visit www.bodyucrave.com schedule link will also be in the show notes in the description as well. But find a day and time on my calendar. And let's have this conversation and see how these cycles are playing out for you and how to start to break them because this is really important.
[00:21:18] If we don't break these now, they will keep coming back in different forms. Your worthiness will just keep jumping from one thing to the next. You can lose the weight and then it's going to be based on how much money you make and then you can make more money and it'll be based on your house and you get a different house. And it's like you're always striving, always achieving, never enough.
[00:21:37] And it goes back to one of the first things that I ever really said in my coaching business, which was this never ending cycle of never feeling good enough.
[00:21:47] And that comes from narcissistic abuse. That comes from the trauma we experience, especially in childhood.
[00:21:55] That's what we get to break.
[00:21:58] So if you are ready, if you are ready to step into this new level of belief and conviction and confidence in yourself, I can help you.
[00:22:08] I've got the process, I've got the methodology, I've got the belief that you can borrow and that is not a problem.
[00:22:15] But I'm going to help you to build your own self confidence, your own self belief.
[00:22:20] But we've got to break down and really see what is at play underneath and really create a lot of safety around emotions.
[00:22:29] Safety to lose the weight, safety to keep it off, safety to believe in yourself, safety to believe new things.
[00:22:38] And part of this then plays into, it's like safety and healing around the other three core wounds that you experience.
[00:22:47] So we are going to keep diving into that over the next several weeks, but this is your opportunity to get started and truly change not just how you see yourself, but what is possible for you. How you want to keep living who you want to be and not let anybody hold you back. Don't let them keep winning. Don't let them stay in your head.
[00:23:10] It's time to kick them out once and for all. So if you want some help with that, if you want some help getting those narcy voices out of your head, I can help you.
[00:23:21] All right, y' all, I hope you have a fabulous week. Here's to creating the life and body you crave.
[00:23:32] 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.
[00:23:52] 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.
[00:24:07] it's time to break the cycle. I'll show you how.
