Stress, Anxiety & Binge-Eating Recovery Podcast

EMBODIMENT - The Surprising Tool To Help You Stop Binge-Eating

June 09, 2021 Shelley Treacher Underground Confidence Recovery Season 2 Episode 8
Stress, Anxiety & Binge-Eating Recovery Podcast
EMBODIMENT - The Surprising Tool To Help You Stop Binge-Eating
Show Notes Transcript

Bessel van der Kolk said, “You can be fully in charge of your life, only if you can acknowledge the reality of your body, in all its visceral dimensions”
 
In this episode

  •  I introduce you to how to quit emotional eating, by becoming more aware of your internal body experience.


Your next podcast episode: Reset your Autonomic Nervous System - for anxiety or depression

Citations
Bessel van der Kolk 'The Body Keeps The Score'
Maci Daye - 'Passion and Presence' 

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0:00:08 - Speaker 1
Hi, this is Shelley Treacher from the Binge And Over-Eating Recovery podcast. Today I'm going to be talking about how to feel a little bit more at home in your body. But first a question. Somebody's asked what exactly is a comfort food? It's quite an interesting one. It might seem obvious, but there are actually a few things to consider. So the first thing to note please don't think that you are completely alone in liking comfort foods. I'm pretty willing to bet that most people on the planet have at least one comfort food. It's just that some people have more than others, and for good reason. 

A comfort food is usually quite a simple food, and it's often actually something that we associate with a memory or have some kind of psychology attached to it. Usually this is in early childhood, but it could be from any early time. I, for example, could not stop thinking about custard creams for a very long time in my life. Custard cream biscuits were something that I much coveted when I was a child. My mum always had them in the biscuit barrel. I can see and smell that biscuit barrel still to this day, and I associate love and warmth and homeliness and security with custard creams. So my comfort foods kind of are along the same sort of flavouring. There's kind of a vanilla sweet, creamy biscuity. That kind of food makes me feel happier just thinking about it. But so what kind of comfort foods do you associate with your childhood, and does that relate to the kind of things that you crave? now I'm not really sure that I have a definitive idea of what a comfort food actually is. 

I'm not sure there is a dictionary definition. There might be, so you might want to look that up. But really, to me, a comfort food is something that you choose when you need comfort. It's as simple as that, and it's usually a food that will alter your state in some way. So if it has sugar in it, then it's going to give you a bit of a lift and it might numb you out as well. So it's just quite basic. Really, a comfort food is going to change your state And it's also probably going to be a little bit addictive. So there's the addiction to the feeling of comfort as well as to the substance. 

But actually the thing I'm going to talk about today being more embodied or being in touch with your body and your experience is something that you can start to question in terms of what a comfort food is. So I'll start by asking is it actually really comforting? And if it is, in what way is it comforting? And if it's not, in what way is it not comforting? So let's turn to today's subject. In the last three podcasts I've given you several different techniques to help you calm your nervous system down and to self-regulate when you recognize that you actually feel discomfort or emotion just before you eat. Today's podcast goes a little bit deeper. Today I'm going to start talking about embodiment and becoming more at home in your body. This is a big subject, so today I'm going to explain a little bit about what becoming embodied means and then next week I'll take you through an embodiment experience. 

Bessel Van Der Kolk, who is a researcher into body-centred psychotherapy, said you can fully be in charge of your life only if you acknowledge the reality of your body in all its visceral dimensions. In my work you'll hear me guide you to how something feels in your body. Quite often This is because I believe it's the root to healing on a deeper level. This, as far as I know, is the best way to get in touch with your unconscious and actually to heal through that. Getting in touch with your instincts, your drives and your needs leads you to treat yourself with better care and to experience more satisfaction. But I do recognise that this is really hard for the overeater because, for one thing, the culture and society that we live in most of us are encouraged to be quiet about feeling vulnerable and, for another thing, because it's human nature to avoid pain and discomfort. This might be another survival instinct, but also there's a disconnection and a dissociation involved in soothing ourselves with a substance or with food, and there's also the habit of turning away from the self. So I know it's really scary for a lot of people to start to get in touch with their unconscious and body, but it is essential to recovery because it is the source of inner strength and resource and you simply don't have access to that if you're not in touch with what you're experiencing. 

Recovery through getting in touch with your body's experience happens in approximately these four stages The first is becoming aware and sensing your body's experience. The second is naming and labelling your sensations and feelings. The third is bringing compassion and honour to your experience And, lastly, redirecting your body's energy to something more positive or resourceful. So let's start with number one Here. Rather than trying to ignore the anxiety, you're encouraged to acknowledge it in your body, to be interested in where it actually is in your body and what it feels like physiologically. Sometimes just staying with a feeling or naming it calms the nervous system down and helps it to shift. Often it's actually the fear of feeling rather than the feeling itself that is the difficulty. Here I'm going to quote one of my favourite mentors. I've been blessed to have so many great teachers in somatic psychotherapy and Maci Day is my absolute favourite. 

So in talking about defensiveness which overeating might be for you she says To see what's driving our protective or defensive behaviours, we must also be willing to touch into the helplessness, grief, confusion or fear, whatever pain our protector or defence is trying to prevent us from feeling, in an open, curious way. This open stance allows new information to emerge from the depths of our being. The longer we linger, the more information emerges As memory surface. Sometimes we get only a general understanding of our wounded part. Here are some of the things we might investigate in mindfulness. She says What kind of state is this? What emotions come along with this? What is my body expressing in this state? How old do I feel right now? What earlier situation seems connected to this state And what am I expecting as I protect myself like this? These are questions you can start to be curious about. 

To do with your comfort, eating, understanding and bringing compassion to what a feeling wants, and meeting that need is next. Your feelings always have a message. Uncomfortable feelings like frustration, irritation, upset, hurt, worry and shame are always pointing to what we care about in life, but also to what needs compassion and possibly deep healing. I talked a little bit about this in my last podcast. It sounds counterintuitive, but it's actually really helpful to do something we call support the defence. This is where, if you feel resistant to something, for example, if you really don't want to practice mindfulness you might need to allow and get curious about what your block is to it before you can remove it. In the case of practicing mindfulness, you might think it takes hard work or take too long. On exploration, you might actually see that you'd much rather rush around cleaning the house or sit down and watch TV. On exploration of this, you might realise that you need to let go and relax, but you're afraid that you won't be able to do that. This might be because it will put you in touch with how you feel. All of this deserves compassion and understanding and has a message for you, and it's often once we've done that that the block melts away and we're able to choose a more healthy option consciously. 

I have an example from my own life this week about how I put this into action. I actually put this into action pretty much every day, but here's a really concrete example. So a couple of weeks ago I decided to embark on a massive new marketing project Because I really want to reach more people with this stuff, because I just don't think enough people know about it. But it involved making a huge time commitment and a financial commitment And I wasn't even sure that it would work. So I was really frightened. Just as a first excitement, i was thrown into fight off-light, i became super activated. This was obvious because I was having trouble sleeping and I was craving junk food. So I recognised and named it as an overactive nervous system or overstimulated. 

Then, starting with step one, i observed it. I explored the intensity of feeling in my body And it was intense. I had a tightness in my stomach and my belly and I was breathing really shallowly. I was also a bit manic and fast. Moving into step two, i started to explore what the fear was all about and what it wanted. What was I actually afraid of? Here? I found that I was afraid of failing, but I also found my ultimate goal, which is to reach more people with what I believe in Using some of the resources I've mentioned. Over the last few weeks, i brought my nervous system back down, actually used mindfulness and calming, slowing down with helpful audios And then, moving into step three, i started to bring compassion to how I felt By allowing it to be okay that I was scared and by giving that some time and attention. 

I started to look after the teenager inside me that had actually seen my mother fall into bankruptcy in self-employment. This had made my mother really ill. No wonder I was afraid, but I realised by doing this that I'm not my mother. I've had access to so many more inner and external resources than she ever had in her life. I reminded myself of the support I already have specifically for my business, but also for my soul. This is bringing more compassion. I researched support for expanding my business. It made me feel liberated. actually, this is bringing more compassion. 

And finally, moving into step four, i decided to use the physical energy I was carrying in this fear and the excitement, i decided to embrace it, to enjoy it, even maybe even to have fun with it. I channeled it into actually doing something and it felt really good. You can do the same as this Next week. I'm going to take you through your own experience of this, but first, for today, just sense into your body how you feel after hearing my story. Did you feel sympathy for me when I talked about my mother? Did you grieve with me? Did you feel liberated when I said that I felt resourced and that I had so much support and felt excited? All of these experiences might be in your body and they might resonate with something that's familiar for you. 

What we're doing here is trying to explore what's really going on for you. Your body stores in every cell, in every body, in your nervous system, in your muscles. Your body stores your experience. So if you got stuck somewhere in tension, your body is still holding that. So what we're doing here is trying to access that experience, to see what wound your body carries and to work through it to find healing. We bring it out little by little, bit by bit, rather than all at once, which would be too traumatic, and we work through it to heal it. Today I've talked about starting to see yourself and your defences as something to explore and be curious about, rather than to suppress or to fix Healing from a lifetime of comfort. Eating is not a simple process, but it is possible through gradually getting in touch with what it is that you suppress about yourself and finding other ways to manage so that you can flourish as the person that you were always meant to be. 

Just to give you a bit more of an example of how this stuff works in the body, i'm gonna tell you how I feel right now. I actually feel quite emotional after saying that because I really believe it. It's so important and vital to me that I've got a little bit charged up. I feel kind of nervous in my belly, just below my diaphragm. Some people might call that area the chakra. That is, the sense of yourself, so that fits And I also feel kind of nervous. Excitement in my chest. I'm breathing fairly middle, sort of deep and shallow, because I'm excited. I'm also nervous because I want so desperately for people to understand this And it's through this kind of activation that I'm getting to do my job's, life's work, so, as you can see the benefit And this is what I hope to teach you. 

So I'll be back next week. I'll be back on Wednesday. As I said, this is coming forward every Wednesday from now on. Next week, i'll start to take you through an experience of your own in your body. So please join me next Wednesday, and I'd still very much like to hear your questions or comments. So if you have anything you want to pass on to me, please be in touch and know that everything I ask here, all the questions that I put forward from you, are completely confidential, unless you tell me explicitly that you want to be named. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you next week.