Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Ready to lose 40 plus pounds without giving up happy hours, weekend brunches, or date nights. Then it's time to uncover the hidden link between binge eating and toxic relationships. And finally break free from both. Welcome to the Hungry for Love podcast with Jillian Scott. Y' all ready? Let's go.
[00:00:24] Hey. Hey. Welcome back.
[00:00:26] All right, so I took a couple weeks off from the podcast, and I realized at the beginning of May that I was just feeling drained. And it has been just kind of a weird spring.
[00:00:37] Just seems more emotional and heavier. And a lot of what I was doing just felt like, shoulds I should be doing this, I shouldn't be doing that. This should and shouldn't be happening. It was just a lot of forcing. And while I really love the podcast and I love talking, I love sharing these ideas, I also felt like it just was feeling a little forced and I needed to take a step back. And it didn't feel like it was something I could do. I should do was the right thing to do. And yet it was exactly what was needed. And this is why it is so helpful and so important to have somebody that you can talk to, like a trained professional, a coach, therapist, someone that you can get support from. And while best friends are great, parents are great, siblings can be helpful, we really need somebody who is trained to help us recognize our blind spots. And that is one of the things that I love about working with my coach and having been with her for over three years now, is she knows me, she knows my nuances and the like, the challenges and the things that I typically run up against. We've built a lot of trust over the years as well. And taking some time away has really helped to recharge and rejuvenate me. And so now I'm back to talk a little bit about a new way to think about failure.
[00:01:53] And I was listening to a podcast. I think this is going to be really important because as I talk about self sabotage over the next couple of weeks and get into some other topics, we're going to come back to this topic of failure. Because so often this is what we're trying to avoid. We try to avoid failure like the plague. And so often it's because we never learned how to handle and learn from failure.
[00:02:14] And so we just learn to avoid it. That's it. That's all we're ever taught how to do. Especially like in school, right? It's memorize this information, regurgitate it on a test. Now you get the right answer, you get the result you want, but that doesn't create results that we want in life. So often we can feel like I'm doing all the right things, yet I'm not creating the results that I want. And it's maddening. And so I wanted to talk about failure because I heard it said in. In a specific way where it just. It blew my mind.
[00:02:45] Okay. And so it was the idea that failure can strengthen your belief in yourself. And can you allow it to strengthen your belief in yourself rather than using it as ammunition as to how or why you should believe less?
[00:03:01] And I had never heard of it phrased that way before. Right. It sounds so counterintuitive. Right? Like failure strengthening my belief. What?
[00:03:10] No, failure. And my whole long track record of failure is why I shouldn't believe, why I can't believe instead of why I can believe more.
[00:03:21] And so often, outside of certain very small groups and fields, failure is seen as such a bad thing. Right. It's like, failure means I'm not good at something. Failure means I should put this down and move on to something that I am good at.
[00:03:38] And sometimes we take it to an extreme and it's, I'll never be good at it. I'm not meant to have it, I'm not meant to pursue it. Versus some of the things that we hear. Like, failure is something every successful person feels or se something every successful person goes through.
[00:03:53] And while yes, it's true, sometimes we want to just punch those memes in the face. Okay? Like, it's not fun. It's not fun to experience failure. But this is where, like, the evaluation piece comes in, right? And this is where it's like, we really have to learn a useful, productive way to evaluate. Because I believe that when you are productively, usefully evaluating, it will have you excited to try again.
[00:04:20] Not from, oh, I should be evaluating. And this is what I'm supposed to do. And I have to do it the right way because we put ourselves in so many boxes. And I was actually. I hired a new therapist a couple weeks ago, and one of the things that she brought up today was how it's like, I'm not supposed to feel something if it doesn't fit into a certain narrative. And one of the things we've talked about over the last couple of weeks since my first session has been feeling like I have to fit in this box and everything has to fit in a box. I do A, I get B, I do this, I get this outcome, and life isn't that way. And yet that's what I've been trained and My narc trained brain has been really wired to where it's if I show up in this way, in this good, positive, healthy, or not even healthy, but like this positive way or in this one particular stance, I now make other people happy. I can please others, I manage their emotions for them, right? So it's like I always have to be in this box, in this performance, playing this role. And if I do it right and do it to a T, then this other person over here now is happy. And then they, it's like I'm meeting their needs and then they can meet my needs. And I've grown up my entire life doing that. And it has been a really hard habit to break that I am now, like, I can see it so much clearer now and have really started to step out of that role, but it still lingers like I have nearly four decades of doing life this way. Of course, course it's going to take some time to rewire this habit, but the idea here that like, failure can be useful, it can be good, I can learn from it. I don't just sit in shame, because this is what would often happen is I would fail. And usually there was like a big failure or it was a lot of failure and then it was sit in shame, spin out as to why I shouldn't do this. I'll never figure it out. I suck, I'm a loser. What am I even doing with my life? Like, my brain likes to go to the very big extremes. But one of the things that I think is so profound is when we can look at a quote, failure, when we can look at mistakes, when we can look at when we aren't creating the results that we want in any area of life and then recognize and see, oh, like this is how I need to do it differently. And when we have a useful, productive evaluation process to see what we want to do differently, maybe where we went wrong or something new we want to try, it has you excited to go again, excited to try something new.
[00:06:53] But we can't evaluate when we're sitting in shame, when we're beating ourselves up, when we're trying not to look at the thing right, When I don't want to look at the overeat or the binge or the five pound weight gain, when I don't want to look at the divorce or that maybe the toxic boyfriends I was dating. Then thereafter, when I can't look at it, when all I can do is beat myself up and live in shame and regret, I can't learn from that.
[00:07:16] And I've said that multiple times before, but it's like it really, it just brings us down right when we are sitting in shame and self loathing and disbelief. Failure can't strengthen our belief, right? It is just ammunition that has us believing less.
[00:07:34] And this is how we need to shift our thinking. Because so much of what we do in life requires trial and error. It requires testing, tweaking, maybe having a method or a framework that we're following and then giving ourselves permission to put our own spin on it, to do it our own unique way.
[00:07:52] Failure is not meant to push you to give up. It's designed to help you learn so that you can achieve what you truly want. And so the more that we can reinforce and get into our thick skulls, that failure truly can help you get closer to your goal. That every failure you learn from is getting you closer to the end result that you want. But we have to be able to learn from it with curiosity and a lot of self compassion. And learning doesn't mean I tried this once and it doesn't work for me because I failed.
[00:08:28] It means that we are going to learn through the all of the missteps. We are going to hold space for the shame and not let that have the last word. We are going to hold space for the regret and the self loathing and whatever else might be coming up and the disappointment, right? Because sometimes it's as simple as like feeling disappointed, feeling frustrated, and not letting it trigger this downward spiral of now I'm not going to hit my goal and maybe I'll never hit it. We just like to go off into this like worst case scenario.
[00:09:02] But we also have to recognize again, most of us are not taught like in school. We're not taught how to learn from failure, learn from mistakes. We are taught simply to avoid it. And we're taught a method to get good grades in school that does fuck all to help us in the real world. It really does. Apologies, I should have said earmuffs. But I get so worked up because school does not help you succeed in life. And I think we do an incredible disservice to our young folks, to our kids, and it's really teaching them how to develop the grit and perseverance and resilience that they need in order to create the success that they want and to have the confidence that they can also maintain it. Because that is also something we don't often talk about, and I talk about all the time here on the podcast, is not just losing the weight once, but feeling comfortable and Confident and at peace and at ease that you can keep it off.
[00:10:00] Because losing the weight just to feel terrified of gaining it back every single day is a shitty way to live.
[00:10:08] So failure can be an incredible tool, an incredible resource if we choose to learn from it. And it's a choice. And there are gonna be times when we might have to throw a pity party and we might have to be really upset. We might have to sit in the shame, feel it. And then we decide intentionally, I'm no longer gonna beat myself up for this. I'm no longer going to use this against myself. I'm no longer going to use this as a reason why I can't have what I want. I am no longer going to feel like I've completely ruined it.
[00:10:40] Right? And that becomes our turning point. We can hold space for the emotions. We can feel them. And we can also recognize when that just is a habit that no longer serves us anymore. Shame was a weapon that the narc in your life used against you to control and manipulate you.
[00:10:58] And now you have learned to use that against yourself as well. And we have got to put it down. We have got to stop being the main narc in our lives. I guarantee you have cut out parents and step parents. You have gotten divorced. You've cut out ex boyfriends or girlfriends. You have left narcy people. And yet those narcy voices are still in your head and they've become your own. And this is what it's all about. It's not just about having the right meal plan or the right tactics or the right methodology to lose weight. It's not just about learning how to stop emotionally eating those. Both are important pieces. But you are missing a big piece which is healing from your relationship trauma that for so many of you, you have grown up with. And it's learning step by step, bit by bit, where they still have control and power over you because their voice still lives in your head. And it's now become your own voice. And it's learning to take that back. It's learning to not let that have the last word.
[00:11:58] It's not letting failure define you and what you're capable of. It's not letting it be the reason that you stay small, the reason you keep yourself in the box, the reason you dim your light, the reason you make yourself smaller and lower and lesser than to try to keep and allow other people to be bigger.
[00:12:18] Right? That we don't gain any value from failure if we just see it as a way to decrease our belief in ourselves and so this is where we have to be really aware and really onto ourselves about the pattern. Because failure is in the eye of the beholder. Right. I have gone through times where, like, I didn't make the soccer team. I remember in seventh grade, and somebody could see that as a failure, and I didn't. I saw that as. That's okay. I actually needed a break from soccer at the time, and I was doing gymnastics and cheerleading and running track in the spring. And so I really didn't care. I had so many other things that I was doing. I was totally fine not playing soccer and not making the team, maybe even a little bit relieved.
[00:13:01] And so to me, it's that it wasn't a failure. Right. Like, sometimes failure is in the eye of the beholder, I would say all the time it is. Right. And so it's really looking at. Are you making it mean failure? And maybe you don't want to.
[00:13:17] Maybe you just want to decide, like, that wasn't a failure.
[00:13:21] I hear this all the time with women in divorce that they have failed their husbands, they've failed their kids. They've somehow failed the marriage. They've failed by getting divorced.
[00:13:31] And y' all, I'm gonna do a separate podcast on this. But I am proud of the fact that I got divorced.
[00:13:38] I am proud of the fact that I am breaking cycles.
[00:13:42] And most Christian women will not tell you that they are proud of their divorce. And I am.
[00:13:48] And I heard a story of a woman who was talking about her parents, and she said that her dad was very abusive. And then a couple sentences later, it was. And by the grace of God, my parents are still married.
[00:14:01] And I. I don't think that's the grace of God. I think that's a tragedy.
[00:14:07] How tragic that her mom is still putting up with an abusive man decades later. I think that's horrible.
[00:14:15] One of the big reasons why I chose to get divorced was because I didn't want my son growing up the way that I did, because it was miserable. And I felt like I was suffering in silence because there's literally nothing I could do about it.
[00:14:29] And so this is where we take back control. We take back that power.
[00:14:34] And so sometimes we need to redefine what we see as failure, and we need to decide this is not failure. And you may not get to the point where you think your divorce is a good thing. Right? That's okay. You may not get to the point where you are proud of getting divorced.
[00:14:53] I'm not saying that you have to feel that way.
[00:14:56] I am Very proud of a lot of women for choosing divorce, though, over staying in a toxic relationship.
[00:15:05] And again, it's in the eye of the beholder, right? Like, you get to decide the story that you want to tell.
[00:15:12] The same thing is true of all of our, quote, failures. Whether it's in relationships, it's in parenting, it's in career or business or body or weight loss.
[00:15:25] You get to decide the story that you tell.
[00:15:27] And you are the one who like the story is most important to forget what everybody else thinks. What do you think about it?
[00:15:37] And if your first instinct is to just shame and belittle and loathe yourself, we've got to work on that.
[00:15:46] We've got to get to the point where we can learn from the mistakes, we can learn from the setbacks, and we can understand the message that it's trying to teach you.
[00:15:57] And this can be hard, it can be challenging because so often we just want to hurry up and get there already.
[00:16:03] We don't want the lessons, we don't want any of that.
[00:16:07] And there, there is a message in all of this. There's a message in your emotional eating, there's a message in your binge eating. And we have to decode it and understand what is it trying to do? It is trying to tell you something. It is trying to get your attention.
[00:16:21] Are you listening?
[00:16:25] And I think so often we can get value from books and videos and podcasts, but it's theory, right? Consuming information, even listening to this podcast, it is just theory until you go out there and you actually implement it and you see what works for you, what works for your lifestyle, for your situation, for your body, your taste, your preferences.
[00:16:47] This is a huge reason why I don't tell you what you can and can't eat. Because it's not about the food. It's why we're reaching for it when we're not hungry.
[00:16:56] And it goes so much deeper than just knowing what to do.
[00:17:02] Our trauma that we grow up with, the childhood trauma, the trauma we experience in relationships, plays such a pivotal factor in this. And this is exactly why I'm hosting a new workshop in June.
[00:17:14] So on Thursday, June 5, I'm going to do another live workshop. It's going to be a one day event instead of a three day thing like I did last time. And this one is going to, I'm going to really dive into these three concepts and we are going to talk about relationship trauma more specifically and how it really impacts your mindset and your thought process and the methodology behind losing weight and why this can truly block us, why it can stop us. Because so often we know what to do.
[00:17:43] Even listening to this podcast, you know what to do, but you're just not doing it. And so we really need to break through this all or nothing thinking this start, stop, start, stop, cycle of doom, right? And we just, we get stuck in these cycles over and over again and we want to learn how to lose weight and stop falling off track during real life, right? When real life kicks in, we don't lose weight in a vacuum. And we've got to stop holding ourselves to some kind of ridiculous standard that it has to look a certain way because life is never going to be this quote, picture perfect setup for what we think is required for weight loss. Because if you have to lose weight in a vacuum, if you need that vacuum in order to lose the weight, you're going to need that vacuum and you're going to need to maintain that vacuum in order to keep the weight off.
[00:18:41] And so often we can't do it.
[00:18:45] That's not how it works. And so we really want to understand how to break out of this all or nothing thinking how to really get to the root of our emotional eating, decode it and understand and have the skill skills to be able to do that so that you're not just relying on willpower.
[00:19:04] And then to truly understand how past narcissistic relationships have wired your brain to seek safety over success and how to rewire it.
[00:19:18] That is what this workshop is all gonna focus on. I will link the description here or the registration page in the description. It's is the page is not ready yet. So by the time this airs, it might be. But if it's not in there now, you will get an with the link to register and to sign up for it. It's happening again on June 5 and there will be a replay available afterwards. Because I know not everybody can make it to this kind of lunchtime hour and event. But this is all about giving you the tools and resources and the awareness to understand what's truly blocking you. Because I think that's one of the most frustrating pieces is when we keep repeating the same patterns, the same things over and over again. We know that something's off, something's not quite working, but we also don't know how to break the cycle. We don't fully understand what is fricking blocking us. Right. It's so hard to be in that place.
[00:20:10] So I would love to have you join me for that event. And if you would like some help, decoding these patterns in your own life. Then schedule a free consultation. You can jump on my calendar at www.bodyucrave.com forward/schedule and let's talk through this. And I'm going to help you understand how all of these pieces truly come together for your specific life so that you can break free and create the life and body you crave with ease, with peace, with so much food, freedom and real true healing. That comes when you have the willingness to look at those shadow sides, to look at the dark sides that you've been avoiding.
[00:20:53] And I'll be there with you step by step.
[00:20:56] And I think that has been one of the biggest pieces for me is to truly recognize, is to get to one of those rock bottom moments and realize I can't do this on my own. I can't keep going like this anymore.
[00:21:08] And we have to allow ourselves to get the help, to get the support and to find it with the person who's going to resonate with us. And so that's why I will always tell people, especially at the end of the day, podcasts and workshops and webinars and things is get support. And if you don't resonate with me, that's cool. But find somebody that you do resonate with because this is important work and just trying to eat healthier, just trying not to buy the quote, bad foods is not the solution, but I'll show you what is.
[00:21:42] All right, y' all, I hope you have a fabulous week. Here's to creating the life and body you crave.
[00:21:52] 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.
[00:22:12] 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.bodyucrave.com BTC it's time to break the cycle. I'll show you.
