"People Say I'm Too Hard On Myself" - What SELF-CARE Is & Is Not

The kind of relationship you have with yourself determines whether you give up binge-eating or comfort eating. Because, the habit is really all about how you treat yourself.  What is self-compassion? To be able to answer this question, we need to explore your relationship with yourself, & we need to look at what compassion is not.

In this podcast

• Q & A section (questions provided by you). 
• Why your relationship with yourself matters with quitting comfort eating.
• What self-compassion is not, and how it affects comfort eating 
• What self-compassion is and how to be kinder to yourself.

 Listen to my podcast, to find out more.

Your next podcast: How Do I Stop Self-Criticism?

Citations & Further resources
Therapycat 30-second video on self-esteem
Therapycat video on self-criticism on feeling nervous about coming out of lockdown.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/incoming/gallery/study-reveals-women-criticise-themselves-7112990
Robert Holden quote
Kristin Neff
Tara Brach 

Transcript

Hi, this is Shelly Treacher from the Binge and Overeating Recovery Podcast. Today I'm going to be talking about your relationship with yourself, probably the most important relationship you are ever going to have. And I'm going to be talking about how to be compassionate with yourself.

But first, I have a question that's come in. It's a really good question. I'm so glad this one has come up because it's actually quite a popular subject. Often my clients come in and their first concern is what they're translating to their children or what they're passing on to their children about eating.

So the question has come in of how to talk to a child who overeats. This is such a great question because in answering it, it's going to address some of the issues that we have as adults. It's just there's a couple of more things that you can specifically do with children and in your family. I'm also going to recommend a couple of books on this subject in the information part of this podcast.

But this is a subject that I'll return to later in the podcast in a couple of weeks as well. So, just as with you, the first thing to try and understand is what's behind the eating. It might be something physical or physiological, but it's also most likely to be something emotional. So as an ongoing question, keep being curious about what's going on for your child that they might need to comfort eat.

So that's the first thing. Secondly, you probably already know that I am anti portion control, because it's shaming, and it's going to make someone feel worse. This is no less with children. It's actually our default mechanism to want to control and to help our children, so sometimes we might panic and think, I need to restrict how much they eat.

But that's actually the worst thing that you can do. I mean, you know what it's like when you've been to the doctors, or your personal trainer, or you've sat around the dining table with your parents, and somebody has said that you should eat less, or that you might want to eat less, or let's help you eat less.

That's portion control, and it doesn't feel good, does it? It never feels good. How do you feel when somebody says that? So that's how your child might feel if you start telling them to eat less or that they're eating too much. They're going to feel shame and it's highly likely that they'll carry on eating, it's just that you won't see it because they'll do it in secret.

The unfortunate consequence here is that you won't actually be able to educate them anymore because they will have switched off to you. So you've got much more chance of doing that if they're sitting in front of you overeating. The third thing to do is to not make food a bad thing. Food is a good thing.

We need food to survive, and it can be very pleasurable to eat. But that's kind of the point. You know as a binge eater that you don't really take pleasure in overeating anymore, do you? It usually goes down quite quickly now, doesn't it? Is that right? The thing here is to start educating your child on eating slower.

Perhaps there's a family eating more mindfully around the dinner table. This is also a subject that I'm going to talk about in a podcast later. The fourth thing is to start educating your child around when they might be responding to hunger or to something else. Just like educating yourself on this.

Obviously, educating yourself is the first thing to do. This might actually be something that you could learn together. You can also educate your child and yourself around the fact that in this culture we rely on external substances or each other rather than our internal resources for reassurance and comfort.

You can start to teach your child as an ongoing project that there are other ways to manage how you feel. I am also going to be talking a lot more about this next week. The best thing though that you can do is to learn it for yourself and then to pass on that education. Trust me actually, once you start learning this, you won't be able to help but pass it on.

It's difficult to not want to talk about this stuff once you start learning it. So start with your child by explaining that this is what we all do, to some extent. We instinctively squash uncomfortable feelings with something else that makes it more tolerable. Chances are that the more you say things like this, the more they'll understand that they might have inner resources to deal with stuff.

But lastly, there's another thing that you can try. So, when you notice that your child is about to overeat, is about to ask for seconds, or wants more food, try introducing something else that they might find comfort from. So get to know what your child enjoys, get to know what your child is enthusiastic about, get to know what makes them happy, what makes them excited, what gets them motivated, and see if you can do that thing together instead of overeating.

It's likely that you'll both develop inner resources around doing this. And it's, it's also quite likely that what your child values most is time with you. So give that one a go. I have an example from my own life in this. I'm not going to go into too much detail, but I have a couple of friends who I visit quite regularly and we always eat.

But we also always have seconds. And this is something that I don't actually do on my own at home. I never think to have seconds. And I started to get really curious about why I do that when I'm with my friends who I'm really close to. And I realised that You know, even in my life still, it's subtle how there still might be an emotional anxiety or a insecurity or something underneath that's making me want to eat more.

So with my friends, I decided this week to not eat seconds and to express how I felt instead. And I did this this week and it, I've gotta say it was really enjoyable. It's none of my business that they still eat seconds. I might share with them that this was my experience, but I would never expect them to change their habits.

I'm not in the business of criticising anybody for overeating, or, you know, it's not even my place to say that is overeating. That's completely individual, isn't it? But I just thought it was really interesting for me to recognise that There is still an emotional element to eating for me and, and usually expressing myself, especially in company where I feel really safe to do that, it fixes it, it makes me feel better.

So this is something that you and your family might want to discover together. Uh, you might also want to be really curious about what your family dynamics are around food and what you might be communicating to your children about food. And then introduce this idea of just getting to know each other a bit better, especially with things that are pleasurable.

So that's it for the questions this week. You know I'm really happy to hear any more questions. I'd love to hear if you've got anything that you want to be answered. I would love to attempt to answer it. Please be in touch with that. But I'm also looking for people to come on the podcast. So if you've got anything you want to share with us about how your life is with eating or any questions that you have, get in touch with me because I think it would be really great for people to hear from you.

But, good questions to me, in the meantime, are all good too. Thank you!

So we've just been talking about curiosity, with yourself, and that leads in nicely to talking about your relationship with yourself and today's topic. One of the questions I've been asked recently is what is compassion? To be able to answer that question, I believe we have to explore what your relationship is with yourself.

We need to look at what compassion is not, first of all. The kind of relationship you have with yourself determines whether you give up binge eating, because the habit is really all about how you treat yourself. The first thing to say about this is that how you talk to yourself, and how you behave towards yourself, are largely unconscious and automatic.

So you have to become aware of how you're talking to yourself internally. That's the point of many of my podcasts, making the unconscious slightly more conscious. We all do this. We all have unconscious thoughts that we're just running with all day long, and we don't really notice them unless we call ourselves to notice them.

And that's what I'm asking you to do. Most binge eaters don't realise that you're putting yourself down all day long. Other people might say that you're really hard on yourself, but you might not even be aware that you're doing it, because you're so used to it. So the thing to do is to start to watch how you talk to yourself, just in everyday life, with everything that you try to do.

And then to evaluate whether you're being kind to yourself, Or whether you're actually being quite mean, self critical, or even really nasty. Are you being really stressed out with yourself? Are you frustrated with yourself? That's the one that I see the most often. I've talked a lot about the binge eater being frustrated with themselves for eating, and how this can lead to eating more.

But it's also highly likely that if you're frustrated with yourself for eating, that you're frustrated with yourself for lots of other things as well. The most common thing that I see with emotional eating is a constant frustration with yourself for being human, for having feelings, 2, 000 women in the mirror shows that we criticise ourselves on average of about eight times a day.

Here are the 20 most common self criticisms. See how many that you say in a day or how many you recognise. See if you have more than the average woman. I'm too fat. I'm overweight. My hair's a mess. My belly looks big. I don't exercise enough. I feel scruffy next to other women. I'm not earning enough money.

I'm having a fat day. Not wearing a certain item of clothing because you don't think you can pull it off. Or wishing you were photogenic. Deflecting compliments by saying something negative about yourself. Worrying about people talking about you behind your back. Feeling underdressed. I'm not stylish enough.

I don't have enough sex with my partner. I'm not as creative as other women. My bum looks big. I'm not as organised as other women. I don't spend as much time with my friends as I should. I'm not wearing enough make up. And I'm not as attractive as my partner. Apologies to the men listening, this was a study done amongst women.

Obviously you may have the equivalent and many of the same things. It's really all about finding the balance of self care and responding to what your body actually needs to sustain it. So now let's talk about what compassion is. The idea here is to imagine or to treat yourself the way you would other people, especially someone you love or a child, or how your best friend would treat you.

Your best friend would never criticise you for talking too much, for being sensitive, for being emotional, or for wanting what you want. After having a problem with something, they wouldn't push and control you or criticise you. They would understand. This is compassion. This is what you need to emulate.

Your best friend would encourage you to buy that dress, to take that holiday, and to rest when you need to. The Merriam Webster definition of compassion is sympathetic consciousness of another's distress together with a desire to alleviate it. I love this definition because it really speaks to how I feel we should treat ourselves.

Self compassion is to do the same thing and to be concerned about your distress and to want to help you and support you so that you feel less distressed and calmer. So I'm gonna quote two of my favorite experts on compassion because they've made their life's work about compassion so they can say it better than I can, or in a different way at least.

So my favorite people on this subject are Tara Brack and Kristen Neff. You'll find lots of free meditations and lectures on compassion by these two if you just search. So first, Kristin Neff. Having compassion also means that you offer understanding and kindness to others when they fail or make mistakes, rather than judging them harshly.

When you feel compassion for another rather than mere pity, it means that you realise that suffering, failure and imperfection is part of the human shared experience. Self compassionate people recognise that being imperfect, failing and experiencing life difficulties is inevitable. Self compassion involves acting the same way towards yourself when you are having a difficult time.

When you fail or when you notice something you don't like about yourself. Instead of just ignoring your pain with a stiff upper lip mentality, you stop to tell yourself This is really difficult right now. How can I comfort and care for myself in this moment? Instead of mercilessly judging and criticizing yourself for various inadequacies or shortcomings, self compassion means you are kind and understanding when confronted with personal failings.

And Tara Brack, she says, There is a wonderful expression that says, Be kind. Everyone you know is struggling hard. It doesn't matter what age we are, if we're in these bodies and on planet Earth, it's not easy. That doesn't mean that we're always slaving away or that life is bad, it just means life can be really challenging at times.

Because we are conditioned to pull away from suffering, awakening a compassionate heart requires a sincere intention and a willingness to practice. It can be simple. As you move through your day and encounter different people, slow down enough to ask yourself a question. What is life like for this person?

What does this person most need? And that's the end of the quote, but I would ask you to ask that question of yourself. What is life like for you? What do you most need? Compassion is about replacing the negativity we talked about with something kind and understanding, all day, every day. Especially around overeating because there's so much aggression and criticism and shame around it.

But it also needs to be directed to how you feel. That's it for today. Thank you so much for listening again. I'll be back next week and I'll be talking about inner resourcing and the strength that you have inside and how to access it and embodiment in a good way that you might feel good in your body.

As usual, I'm really happy to hear any questions, so please keep in touch with me. Thank you for listening. See you next week. If you want to explore your relationship with yourself a bit further, or you want to learn how to be kinder to yourself, let me know. You can join my new support group that's opening soon.

There will be limited places, so do get in touch with me soon. I'd love to help. Thank you.