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“How can I stop stress eating? is a frequent question I get asked. In today’s episode, I share a more powerful question that’s necessary to ask – “What’s eating you?” – to get back in control of food for good. No white knuckling required.
I share my own current story work related to my burn-out that caused my body to fall apart (and keep 30 pounds of post-pregnancy weight on), answer some listener questions, and offer some client examples for you to get crystal clear on your own stress eating.
In this solo episode, I share:
- The 3 phases of awareness you need to resolve your stress eating
- The “elephant in the room” causing your out of control and out of alignment with your goals eating
- The role our stories play in stress eating
- How story work gets misunderstood and misinterpreted, creating more tools, work, and “feeling bad for feeling bad” that leads to lackluster results.
- Two powerful coaching questions to get you started on resolving your stress eating today.
Mentioned in This Episode
Transcript
[INTRODUCTION]
[00:00:05] AS: You went vegetarian, then paleo. You stopped restricting. You’re trying to love yourself more, but nothing seems to be working fully, and you might feel hopeless about ever feeling good in your body. And every time you fail, you trust yourself less.
As the larger world feels increasingly in peril, caring about how you feel in your body may feel frivolous and even more hopeless. We are at a time when our individual and collective stories about what to do for our bodies, health, and the world are crumbling. Because these stories we have, they aren’t working for how our bodies or our world actually works. And I believe centering our bodies, all bodies, not just thin, white or “good” bodies. And what all of our bodies need to thrive will help orient us in a better direction.
There’s no one-size-fits-all diet, exercise or way to bio hack. Good health is much less about willpower or discipline and more a complex inter-web of our societal structures, food choices, emotional history, environmental exposures and privilege. There is a great loss of certainty in safety when we initially have to face what is real versus the half-truths we’ve been fed. But the loss of these stories creates an opening. If this opening is pursued with curiosity and discernment, we can discover our awe-inspiring ability to create and embody a new body story for our physical and political bodies and the earth.
I’m Ali Shapiro, and I host the Insatiable podcast, so we engage in the type of conversations that will lead us to radically new body stories for ourselves, each other, and the earth. To do that, we discuss a more truthful approach to freedom from cravings, emotional eating, binging and being all or nothing. We explore the hidden aspects of fighting our food, our weight, and our bodies and dive deep into nutrition and behavioral change science and true whole health.
But fair warning, this is not your parents’ health care or the conspiratorial crazy of the wellness world. This is a big rebel gathering to those who want to hold nuance, context and complexity in order to lead the way to a healthier future for all, because our lust for life is truly insatiable.
[INTERVIEW]
Hello everyone. Ali here with a solo episode today!
Welcome back to our Food as Safety season. In Episode 1, we established how food arises as physical, emotional and even spiritual safety.
If you haven’t listened to Episode 1, circle back after today’s episode. It’s one of my favorite episodes. The feedback has been extraordinary.
Moving forward, each episode of this season will represent a pillar in my Truce with Food and Truce Coaching process, which is designed for us to cultivate the safety we need so we have other accessible forms of safety that support us in ways food cannot.
Today, I’ll discuss the first pillar we work through in Truce with Food and my Truce Coaching Certification: getting clear on what makes us feel unsafe and turn to food. We often call this stress and stress eating, especially when we aren’t clear on the root causes of our stress.
Today’s episode focuses on what I mean by psychological safety or lack thereof. In Truce with Food, we do focus on physical safety because eating the right foods for our bodies is essential. Yet this season the focus is on psychological safety.
My clients experience of psychological safety is, “I don’t feel the need to be ON.” These are the times and places you can be real about how you are, say the bold thing, the true thing, or honor what your body is asking of you, including the need for rest, to do less, movement, etc.
An example of psychological safety I love is from a TWF client who shared, “I was at this work event and the statue in the room looked like a vagina. I wanted to see if anyone else thought the same and discuss?”
More formally, psychological safety is feeling like you can belong, take risks, and challenge the status quo. And if you’ve worked with me or listened to Insatiable for more than one episode, you know I have a passion for challenging the status quo. If you can’t tell, normal is the upside down.
Psychological safety is not sheltering yourself. Rather, the type of safety I develop with my clients is a deep trust in ourselves, when we are out in the jungle of the world. That we know how to listen to our body, with what it’s asking of us. To make sure we have our own backs. That we’ll figure it out and be on our own side with what unfolds.
And the more we can show up as ourselves, with our ideas, our truths, the more psychological safety we build. And the best part? We don’t need to white knuckle our food. It becomes obsolete because we have more fulfilling sources of safety.
Psychological safety is a primal need, so we can’t tweak that end of the equation. But how we source our safety is what we can control.
Today’s episode is about how it’s not our stress in and of itself that causes us to eat. Rather, the real quest is discovering “What’s eating you?”.
My goal for this episode is to get you more clear on what that is for you. With this work, it’s one thing to listen to these episodes. I know they’ve been so helpful to so many of you. I don’t want to dismiss those breakthroughs. I love hearing about them!
And, making the deep connections in your own life and having tools to continue is really important. So if you really want to move the needle on your relationship with food or life really, I’m hosting a Free Food as Safety gatherings. The first one is next Wednesday, November 9. You can register at alishapiro.com/food-as-safety. Link is also in show notes where you listen to podcasts. Also just a freaking nourishing time. Help you apply the first two episodes to your life.
So today’s episode is all about clarity. Specifically, identifying “What is eating you?”
I’ll go over the three levels of awareness that are essential to arriving at your answer to get to the root of your stress eating. Otherwise, you’re working on the wrong root issue. And then you think it’s you versus the lack of clarity about what is the real work.
Because if food is your thing, it’s so much more of an invitation than trying to become more disciplined or working harder.
As Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, author of Women Who Run With the Wolves says, “The doors to the wild self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”
Most of us had or have deep scars around our food and body. And, this deep scar happens to involve an old, old, story, which I’ll show you today.
With the right process, your food and body battle becomes a spiritual invitation into being more of who you are and who you are becoming.
One more note as I’m talking about addressing “What’s eating you?”:
Stress and overwhelm get tossed around consistently these days. And for good reason. But I want to put an * here that there’s an important difference when related to embarking on a process like Truce with Food or even what you learn in these episodes:
The past few years have not affected each of us equally. Some of us have been in a pretty consistent state of overwhelm. If you are in a state of overwhelm, and all you feel you can do is listen to this episode and not take action, I see you.
I was there myself three years ago, right after my son was born. And I am slowly, slowly, coming out of one of the hardest periods of my life: being a first time Mom at 41 (I get why nature wants you to have kids young!), my breast milk never coming in, being postpartum and going through menopause at the same time, and all this in a pandemic with insufficient childcare and running a business. This doesn’t even touch on dealing with the physical discomfort of my body breaking down from all angles.
I am still wrapping my head around how much I’ve been in the crucible of life. I heard an interview where a woman Tanya xxx said if cis-white men went through menopause, it would be considered a spiritual transformation. I’d say YES and, same with childbirth. So I’ve been through two portals, three if you consider the pandemic which some people do!
As a result, it took me nine months post-birth to even have space to go from overwhelm to “what is accessible to start to change here?”, with my issue being burn-out, not food.
I share this because while we often never feel totally ready to make the changes we need to change, if we are in an onslaught of overwhelm, now might not be the best time to take action.
It doesn’t mean you are playing a victim. It doesn’t mean you don’t want change bad enough. It just means maybe the work is to have deep compassion for being where you are right now. And knowing that is enough. You are enough.
I know rebuilding my body and life has required the spiritual work of slowing down. How we heal, not what we do, is as important as the changes we make, if not more important.
I was only able to get out of my own overwhelm once we found a Nanny, about nine months postpartum. Her watching Eça and cooking meals for us gave me a tiny bit of space amongst being a new Mom, running a business, and sleep deprivation brought on by my son and menopausal insomnia.
And thankfully because of my Truce with Food tools and having resources (this is also important, we don’t all have the same resources), I was able to take advantage of that space. Specifically, I worked the process I’m going to share with you all today and throughout this season. For me, my old old story was around my work as I have a great relationship with food.
But, I was still using busyiness, productivity, and overworking. These are safety drugs, just like food.
So if you’re in a space where you have space, even a tiny opening, take what you want from today’s episode.
And if you are in overwhelm, I understand on some level having your entire life being blown up from multiple angles and am sending you all the self-compassion.
Ok. With that context, let’s proceed.
Remember we are focusing on the metaphor: what’s eating you? And I’m going to break this down into three levels of awareness that are essential to actually working on the root issue:
These awareness levels are:
Phase 1: Symptom aware
Phase 2: Trigger aware
Phase 3: Story aware, which is the root cause of your stress eating and what’s actually eating you.
Let’s start with Phase 1: symptom aware.
This is when we are aware that we have discomfort or a challenge around our food or body. We can admit it to ourselves that hey, this is a thing to me and I need help.
Yet in symptom aware, we think the issue is food or our body. I was stuck in this phase for 18 years so I get being in this place.
Or for me with my most recent overworking issue, it took me a year to finally be willing to say Hey, you can’t keep working like you used to. It’s the only thing you have control over at this moment.
So I was symptom aware for about a year before I was willing to really address it. I kept trying to slow down with work but just couldn’t do what I knew I needed to do.
Here’s two examples of Phase 1 level awareness from two lovely listeners who wrote in with these questions I’ll use as examples:
First listener question wrote:
“I know my patterns but how do I change them? For example, “I’ll tell myself if I just work this extra and skip my workout I’ll be ahead tomorrow. Or I travel so routine gets lost and then it’s hard to get back in.”
I so get both of these! I am so routine driven myself and of course, the choosing work over working out. Did it for years!
So, these are probably two different stresses or “What’s eating you?” issues.
Phase 1 symptom awareness is, “I skip my workouts to get ahead at work” and “I lose my routine when I travel”.
I’ll circle back to what we do with this when we get to Phase 2 Awareness Level.
The next listener question was, “I have Hashimotos and should not eat gluten / dairy to feel good. I am also 15 months sober (this go around). Why then when I am stressed, instead of using alcohol do I immediately want cake and gluten etc.?”
First of all, congrats on 15 months sober and your tenacity in resuming. It’s rare for anyone to break an addiction on the first try.
Now through the lens of food as safety, this makes so much sense. Because you aren’t drinking, you’re going to feel a lot more. One protective armor layer is gone.
This is what happens to my clients too! They stop turning to food and now, they have to deal with everything that is bubbling up that makes them feel unsafe.
And if you don’t know what is actually eating you and then how to work through that, food often provides the most accessible comfort to “what’s eating you?”.
So, you turning to gluten and dairy when stressed is symptom aware or Phase 1 awareness.” Here you need to be open to the possibility that your stress eating is the symptom. The food is actually not the problem or root-cause.
So these are all examples of Phase 1 awareness: symptom aware. My clients usually come to me when they realize there’s something deeper going on but they don’t know what. Their symptom aware is their eating feels out of control, or isn’t in alignment with their goals and they are thinking about food more than they want to be.
So they are ready to move deeper into Phase 2 and Phase 3 awareness.
Phase 2 awareness is being behavior or non-behavior aware.
This is “what is the behavior that is causing my symptoms to appear?”
Now this phase can be tricky, because often we feel like life is just happening to us here. And we aren’t clear what specifically triggers our food noise or actually stress eating.
So in my example, I was aware of my overworking. The behavior I was doing was “I override my body’s needs to stay ahead with work.” And I knew what I needed was more rest, alone time, and movement.
I could easily identify this because I’m practiced in this.
Let’s return to our listener’s examples.
Phase 1 awareness for our first listener was “I skip my work-outs to get ahead with work”. To move to Phase 2, we need to understand why you need to get ahead with your work. What is the behavior that you are choosing to do to work more?
Now ideally I’d be coaching with you. But, I’m not so I’m going to offer some initial thoughts:
The behavior might be as simple as “I work to stay ahead.” But I’m suspect there because “Behind” and “Ahead” are often our own perceptions. And this language presents the Compete pattern we work with in Truce with Food.
And the Compete pattern is all about winning, getting ahead, and ultimately, more, more, and more. So I’d be curious about the behavior of how you gauge and decide on what is getting ahead with work? This would involve being curious how you determine what goes on your to-do list and when it’s due.
Or, you could be working more because you don’t ask for help. Or if a project is taking longer than expected, you might not explain that you’ll need more time or inquire if the deadline is negotiable. There could be a lot of behaviors involved here and I’ve given you some threads to consider.
For all of us, you can see this has little to do with working out.
And you can see that many of us overwork yet there will be different behaviors unique to each person depending upon their situation.
Now back to the second stress of “I lose my routine when I travel”. What behavior makes you lose your routine when you travel?
Do you not choose a hotel that doesn’t have the same equipment you need? Or like many of my clients, do you not do a version of your routine because you can’t do it perfectly, so why do it at all?
Again, there could be many different behaviors. So I encourage you to get curious again.
And for all of us, we don’t want to use reasons when we are trying to arrive at Phase 2 awareness. A reason is “There’s no time.” Because there is time. And we might be choosing to spend our time differently, which is fine. But we want to get clear on our role.
For teaching purposes, I’m going to use the “I don’t attempt my routine if I can’t do it perfectly” behavior because perfectionism is a common approach my clients struggle with. It’s really a safety strategy, which we will get more into later and in Episode 4 of this season.
For our Hashimoto’s friend, I want you to get curious on where and when you specifically turn to gluten and dairy when stressed. Another way to say that is what triggers you to turn to gluten and dairy?
Because I can almost guarantee it’s not all the time.
For example, a recent Truce with Food client realized after a morning of her Mom falling and her walking her dog when an unleashed Pitbull was coming at her, that she was able to handle both stressful situations really well and without food.
But, her boredom at work made her stress eat. The behavior was “I disengage from being present at work” because boredom results from when we disengage. It was really eye-opening to her she could handle considerable stress but it was a specific stress that made her eat.
So this Phase 2 awareness is critical. It makes us realize what we are actually choosing, even if it doesn’t feel like a choice. And it sets us up to accurately understand the root cause of our stress eating or answering, “What’s eating me?”.
So now we can move onto Phase 3 or story level awareness.
And this is when we connect how our often “makes no sense behaviors” make total sense when you discover they are attached to a story around what you have to do to belong.
Phase 3 level of awareness isn’t about the external world. It’s about what’s happening inside us when we do the behaviors we do at Phase 2 awareness level.
Specifically, what’s the story we think is playing out when we do these behaviors. In my example, what story did I think was happening when I was overriding my body’s needs? What story was happening for my client when she was disengaging from work? What story is happening if we do things perfectly?
Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen says in Kitchen Table Wisdom, “Stories are someone’s experience of the events of their life, they are not the events themselves. All stories are full of bias and uniqueness; they mix fact with meaning. This is the root of their power.”
What’s key here is these stories are rooted in the past and arise from real experiences. And what we made those past experiences mean about us – that feeling or story – lives in our bodies.
While working on this episode, had a great client example arise. We were working on her eating to “wind down” from the tension of her day. The tension was in her neck and back tension.
Yet what was creating that tension was the perfectionist strategy of protection in her story. So the eating to unwind was Phase 1 symptom aware but we were able to address the root of the story creating the tension.
These stories create an emotional software, running past programming that has secured our psychological safety. And we need this software because psychological safety is a primal need. And so these stories control our behavior in ways to secure the psychological safety we have secured.
To give you a metaphor of how influential these stories are on every facet of our lives, imagine riding an elephant. The elephant represents the emotional weight these stories have and are really running the show around our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
And on the elephant, you have a tiny driver, which is our logic brain. We all think we are rational and in control. Yet we are all on an Elephant we don’t even know we are riding on and is the one most in control.
Or to use a food visual, think of a sausage. Our logic is the casing and our story is the emotional meat of it all. In other words, our logic is formed by our emotional past.
So in my example, if I imagined doing the opposite Phase 2 awareness behavior and listen to my bodies needs, I felt unproductive. And my story was, “If I’m not productive enough, I’ll fall behind. And if I fall behind, I’ll be unexceptional. And if I’m unexceptional, I’ll miss out on the challenges I love and the life I most want to live.”
And I had this story because working a lot has gotten me many exceptional things in my life: I went to the Penn State Shreyer’s Honors College for undergrad, leadership corporate position living and flying all around the world, Paris at 23, Ivy League grad school, a career that has so much meaning to me (very rare), TV spots, etc.
So you can see why slowing down and working less was so freaking scary to me! It threatened so much of what I deeply love and appreciate about my life! Overworking was what I believed was protecting me and all I had in my life.
Now, I’m not sure what our other listeners stories are. This takes going through the first Truce with Food coaching exercise. However, you can start to begin to unearth your own story and get to Phase 3 awareness by thinking about what would be at risk if you didn’t do your own Phase 2 awareness behaviors.
With the listener question around working, see if my own example provides some inspiration to think about. Especially since you use the word “getting ahead”, which signals using the Compete stress reaction. And those of us with Compete patterns love to challenge ourselves, overachieve and love being exceptional. Not always of course. And, giving you some things to consider.
If we consider the travel disruption exercise example, and again this is all conjecture, but let’s assume the Phase 2 awareness behavior is “I won’t do a routine I can’t do perfectly”. What if you do things imperfectly? What feels threatening about imperfection? For many clients, the story is “Well it won’t be enough”. And by enough in this case they usually mean calories. And if it isn’t enough, I won’t reach my goals. And I’ll fail. Again.
So not doing an imperfect routine opens up a story of failing. Again, this might be someone’s Phase 3 awareness of their story or there could be something else based on the person and their unique life, based on when imperfection was dangerous in the past.
However, I want to point out, which I think many of you can see, that by not learning how to feel through and work through the imperfection, we fail anyway. And our story about imperfection and failure builds rather than is changed.
And this is the bitter truth about our stories! If we don’t become aware of them, examine them and change them, they end up becoming more true or self-fulfilling prophecies.
And my TWF client who was disengaging from work? If she were to engage in work, the story she had was “I am missing out on my purpose in life”, because her work wasn’t aligned with that purpose. And of course, disengaging guarantees we won’t feel purpose!
Yet the boredom eating and telling herself, “Once I lose weight, I’ll have the confidence to more consistently pursue my passion” was a safety strategy to not having to engage with reality.
Because reality is messy and complex. And most of us are stuck in all-or-nothing in our stories, making it even harder to navigate nuance and context. Like if we can’t do something perfectly, we are failures. And the false idea that perfection guarantees success.
Some past Truce with Food client stories are, “Nothing I do matters”, “If I don’t keep the peace, everything falls apart and it’s my fault”, and If I’m not in control, I will be misunderstood.”
So in Phase 3 awareness, you get clear on your internal, emotional software and how it creates resistance to change.
A way to think about this and get curious in your own life is “When I feel x, I worry that…”
As we work through our story, we follow through on what is important to us, which includes eating well and making new choices in our lives that fit what is most fulfilling today.
For example, when you are first starting a business, you have to work hard. Most people I know, do. However, I’m 15 years into my business. I don’t need to work at the same level. And many of my goals have changed. By seeing why I felt working hard was so important – that exceptional story – I can now be conscious of when I want to challenge myself and when I’m doing it because I think I have to.
Before moving on, I need to put a giant asterisk on the ideas of what our stories are, because most people, including coaches, are unclear and miss the linchpin in all of this:
A lot of coaching, even some therapy, thinks the “story” is what we tell ourselves at Phase 1 or 2 awareness. For example, I told myself, “I shouldn’t be struggling”, “There has to be something I’m missing”, “I’m getting ahead”, “Now I’m behind,” etc. to basically justify my behavior to myself and keep myself safe in my story.
Some clients refer to this as the angel/devil, good cop/bad cop voices. We need to go deeper, to the story generating this “good” and “bad” binary.
Which is why a lot of my clients have done CBT and it’s only taken them so far. Because it’s not about food or those Phase 1 or 2 awareness thoughts, feelings, or behaviors! I’ll get more into why you need to address the story in a minute.
But first, a sidebar for the health coaches or healing professionals working with food or body image. Have you ever wondered why people need so many tools? Or don’t use them? Or why do people have to tap so much with EFT?
It’s because client’s stories generate ENDLESS stressful thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, which are often only at Phase 1 or Phase 2 level of awareness. And many stories generate shame, which makes it really hard to take care of ourselves, no matter how many tools we have.
And then, if we aren’t aware of how these Phase 1 and 2 thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are actually protective and make so much sense, we then tell client’s not to trust their thoughts or feelings! This often generates more self-doubt, guilt and shame! And clients feeling bad for feeling bad.
Ugh. It can be a real Cluster F@#$ out there. Amazing any of us get out of this body stuff alive!
Ok, back from my tangent
So not only does this story need to be addressed for a sustainable solution, but also because it is determining how we make meaning.
In other words, our stories determine what we think the TLDR or “morale of the story” is to what happens to us. So if we don’t update this emotional software or shrink the size of the elephant we are riding, you will never be able to sustainably manage your stress because your story will continue to generate endless stress!
In my example, it seems like my story was just around work and working hard to be exceptional. WRONG! Yet because I valued being exceptional, “normal” or “average” felt risky.
This meant I often questioning “Was I doing enough?”. Yes with work. But also, with my own health. My parenting choices. How much money I make.
And again, I want to emphasize that say wanting extraordinary health in a culture where normal is pretty subpar health isn’t bad or what I have to give up. It’s being conscious of when I’m over doing it or going above and beyond and 1) I really don’t need to and 2) I don’t actually care anymore. In other words, I can now consciously choose when I really want to challenge myself and have something exceptional.
Or my TWF client who was disengaging from life. Guess what? This just wasn’t happening at work. It was happening when she felt bad about her body. Or not going to certain family gatherings. So then more pressure built on her passion to be her purpose instead of all the ways we can have purpose on the very things she was disengaging from.
So you can see how myself and my client, the TLDR of our stories was generating a lot of stress everywhere.
And most of us do this with our body, as we have a story that our weight and looks are the reason things are or aren’t happening. Meanwhile, there’s lots of other factors that contribute to the cause and effect of our lives. But until that story software is changed, you’ll keep bringing everything back to your body.
This is why it’s so important to figure out the story and the way we make meaning because otherwise, you will keep replicating your stress over and over again, coming to the same conclusions. This is what’s really happening when we are stuck. We are keeping ourselves in the same story.
And this is what eats at us: an outdated story of who we have to be to belong to secure psychological safety. You can also think of PS as prestige, status, and power. And so it’s belonging where we want to belong.
As a result of this Phase 1, 2 and Phase 3 awareness confusion, then a lot of Instacoaching says, “oh your stories aren’t true.” Because what they are most often referring to is the thoughts and feelings at Phase 1 or 2 level of awareness.
But we have to go a level deeper in Truce with Food because we don’t want to survive. It’s also unsustainable. I want you to thrive.
And you can begin to do that by accurately identifying “What’s eating you?” based on what I shared here today. And to get more clear, come to our first Food as Safety gathering where I’ll be taking you through a coaching exercise to support you in getting to these deeper levels of awareness.
OK, a recap, some power questions, and send off with some inspiration:
We’re all riding on an elephant where we think we are the driver and in control but really, our emotional stories about how to belong and be psychologically safe are controlling most of how we show up in our lives.
Phase 1 aware: food noise or body image issues: symptom aware.
Phase 2 is behavior or non-behavior aware: what do I do that feels like the bad behavior?
Phase 3: what is the story driving you to protect yourself with your “bad”/really protective behavior?
And two power questions here to start to get to that Phase 3 level of awareness:
What feels at risk if I try and do what I want to be doing? Again, for me that was work less. It might be doing an imperfect workout routine on the road. It might be engaging more when we feel bored.
And then, ask yourself, what am I making it mean about me if I do this?
This will start to reveal the TLDR or “moral of the story” that is running a lot of how you are taking in the world around you.
Now some inspiration:
To return to Dr. Remen’s quote, I love that she includes our stories “bias and uniqueness is the root of their power”. Because what I interpret her to mean, and I see how powerful this is for my clients, is that same bias and uniqueness of our past that created our stories is also the same creative potential we all have within us, that can create new meaning to change our stories.
Because spoiler alert: the meaning you currently have in your story, did not come from you. Those angel devil, good cop, bad cop voices that are trying to protect you and keep you safe in your story? They aren’t really yours. Although you’ve internalized them as yours.
Instead, these judgements and opinions mostly come from our families. The school/peers in our lives. Our work environments. And church.
Except we don’t think the voices in our head are an opinion or judgment. Instead, many of us think that what we are thinking is “how it is” and the truth. Versus an opinion on the truth.
Because of developmental psychology, in adolescence, we make these influences of families, school/peers, religion, and work authoritative. We think they “know” or “this is how it is”.
I’m here to tell you with 20 years of personal experience and 15 years of professional experience, they don’t have a monopoly on the truth. Your truth. And learning to listen to your body, to disrupt your story, is one initiation into living your own truth. And that’s where not just food freedom lies, but access to the Wild self Dr. Estes talks about.
And some closing inspiration from Dr. Estes again, to encourage you to do the brave work of working with your stories:
“I hope you will go out and let stories, that is life, happen to you, and that you will work with these stories… water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom.”
Ok, that’s a wrap!
Join me and a special bucket list guest back here next episode, where we dive deep into how Protestantism and Puritanism has shaped our cultural values by trickling into family, school and work life to inform how we decide what makes a good or bad body and life, even if you don’t consider yourself religious.
And remember to join the Food as Safety gatherings at alishapiro.com/food-as-safety. First one is November 9. Will work around these three phases of awareness around your stress eating or as you know now to ask, “What is eating me?”
[OUTRO]
Thank you, health rebels and visionary storytellers for tuning in today. If you know someone who would benefit from this episode, please share it with them. And remember, we have transcripts of our episodes at Alishapiro.com/podcast for your non-audio friends and family. And if you can, I’d love it if you can leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps more people find the show. And both actions, reviewing and sharing with others, helps us change the cultural narrative around food, weight and our bodies.
Thanks for engaging in a different kind of conversation. And remember, always, your body truths are unique, discoverable, profound, and liberating.
[END]
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