The One You Feed - Julie Simon on Emotional Eating

Episode Date: September 19, 2018

Julie Simon on Emotional EatingSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Emotions and bodily sensations are signals. They're like street signs and they point us in the direction of our needs. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter.

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Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Julie Simon, a licensed psychotherapist and life coach with over 30 years of experience in helping overeaters and imbalanced eaters stop dieting, heal their relationships with themselves and their bodies, lose excess weight, and keep it off. themselves and their bodies, lose excess weight, and keep it off. A lifelong fitness enthusiast, Julie is also a certified personal trainer with over 25 years of experience designing exercise and nutrition programs for various populations. She is also the founder and director of the popular Los Angeles-based 12-week emotional eating recovery program. Her new book is When Food is Comfort, Nurture Yourself Mindfully, Rewire Your Brain, and End Emotional Eating. Hi, Julie. Welcome to the show. Hi there. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to have you on. Your book is called

When Food is Comfort, Nurture Yourself Mindfully, Rewire Your Brain, and End Emotional Eating. And I know this is a topic that a lot of listeners will be interested in, so I'm looking forward to jumping into it. But let's start like we always do with the parable. There's a grandmother who's talking with her granddaughter, and she says, in life there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the granddaughter stops and she thinks about it for a second and looks up at her grandmother. She says, well, grandmother, which one wins? And the grandmother says,

the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. That parable actually is so important to the work I do, because as you know, or you may not know, for nearly 30 years, I've been working with overeaters, who are primarily emotional eaters. And really, the work I do is truly all about what we feed ourselves, both literally and figuratively. And pretty much every day of our lives, I think we have experiences, both pleasant and unpleasant, and we have reactions to our experiences. And I think these reactions include emotions and bodily sensations like muscle tension or butterflies, and our thoughts and the things we say to ourselves. And our emotional

reactions can lead to self-defeating thoughts and vice versa. Our thoughts can lead to, you know, pleasant or unpleasant emotions. They can lead to moods like anxiety or excessive sadness, hopelessness or despair, self-rejection or low self-esteem. So basically, our reactions to our experiences can either feed a bad wolf, and you know, that would be the unpleasant emotions, the self-defeating thoughts, the low self-esteem, or we can develop habits even in reaction to our experiences, we can develop skills that would feed the good wolf, which would mean things like self-compassion, self-acceptance, self-love. And so really, the work I do is all about teaching people the skills that will help them feed the good wolf. Yeah, that's wonderful. And the book really does have a lot of focus on skills. So let's go ahead

and jump into a little bit more detail here. You say that the primary cause of our emotional eating is disconnection from ourselves. Can you explain that a little bit more? Well, you know, one of the most common causes of overeating and weight gain is difficulty regulating our emotions, our moods, our thoughts, and even disruptive impulses and behaviors. when we're experiencing self-defeating thoughts. Many of us, if we haven't learned particular skills when we were young for regulating and processing through those emotions and regulating our nervous system and reframing those self-defeating thoughts, many of us just disconnect from ourselves because we just don't know how to handle kind of the storm that's going on inside of us.

And we disconnect in many ways. So some people turn to food to disconnect. Some people turn to drugs and alcohol. Some people turn to behaviors like gambling or sex addiction, drama. So we're basically trying to do something to regulate the pain that we're experiencing. And those examples that I gave are a form of disconnection. And so the problem with disconnection is that we never build any skill. We never build any skill for handling what life throws us, right? Yeah. And you talk about how to a large extent, this starts with early interactions with our caregivers. The skill of self-regulation that is not working real well if we are eating emotionally or, really kind of define what self-regulation means,

we're really referring to our ability to manage our emotions and moods and regulate our nervous system so that we can control or redirect our impulses and our behaviors and we can think before we act. And basically, in order for us to master the skill of self-regulation, we need to have parts of our brain, the upstairs part of our brain, the logical, soothing, comforting part of our brain, well-connected or properly wired to the downstairs part of our early social and emotional environment plays in the development of imbalanced eating patterns. So what we found is that when we don't receive consistent and sufficient emotional nurturance during our early years, then our brains and nervous system become wired kind of for high reactivity. That lower brain is triggered more often, and it makes it difficult for us to soothe ourselves,

and it certainly leaves us at greater risk for seeking comfort from external sources like food. Right, and you say the book is not about blaming parents and caregivers. It's really about understanding what we may have missed out on when we were younger and the effects that that has had on us today. And so you talk about two sort of key things in early childhood development, attunement and attachment. Can you talk briefly about those two areas? Yes. And those two things that we're talking about are really crucial in terms of brain development as well. So basically, when we're an infant and we're experiencing emotion, we don't have any labels for that emotion and we certainly don't know how to regulate what's happening to us. in his or her body and just starts crying. And mommy kind of swoops in, mommy or daddy or whoever

the caregiver is, kind of swoops in and calms and soothes. She uses her voice and her tone and her eye contact and her behavior, her touch to soothe and comfort, kind of tune in. We call that attunement, tune in to what's happening with the baby so she can kind of figure out what's that cry about. Is that cry I'm hungry cry? Is that my diaper is dirty cry? You know, is that I'm sick cry? I don't feel well cry? What kind of cry is that? So mommy swoops in, she tunes in, she's well attuned to her baby's different cries and she regulates the baby and calms the baby down and soothes the baby. And this will happen, you know, thousands of times in the baby's infancy. And as the baby becomes a toddler and mommy will kind of swoop in, she'll use, again, her words and her tone and everything to comfort and soothe the baby.

And now she's going to start to teach the toddler words. Like when the toddler, you know, know is upset she might say I see you're feeling sad that's sadness oh you're mad right now she'll also use her words to help the baby learn things like corners of tables are sharp so it's best not to crawl near them putting your hand on that hot surface doesn't feel good so she's going to tune in to what the baby's doing she's going to regulate the baby's emotional baby's doing. She's going to regulate the baby's emotional system. And as the child develops, the child's going to begin to co-regulate. So the child will begin to say, you know, I'm sad. I could use a hug or, you know, the child will

co-regulate with mommy. And this attunement is wiring the brain in a particular way. It's wiring those parts of the brain, the self-soothing, regulating, logical function with the emotional brain. It's creating neuronal pathways among those and between those different parts. And while the caregiver is offering the child good attunement, she's creating what's called a secure attachment with the child. So the child is developing trust that the world is safe and that if anything happens, there's someone there to help. And that attachment is also very important in terms of the brain getting wired. And not only just the brain connections getting wired, but also the chemistry of the brain, the structures that create

all those good chemicals like dopamine and serotonin, all those structures are being created in the presence of good attunement, secure attachment, and a sufficient, consistent emotional nurturance. So, it's really critical. That's why I always say I'm not blaming caregivers because, you know, parenting is one of the hardest jobs in the world, but it's also a very critical time in terms of brain development. And so caregivers didn't get their needs when they were young, so perhaps they're missing some skills. Maybe that's like a caregiver who, you know, when you come home from school and you're very upset and your caregiver says, well, let's go have ice cream. I know you had a rough day. Let's go have ice cream. But not really tuning in to your emotions and not really helping you understand how to process through them. So that can be a very

well-intentioned caregiver who's missing some skills. You could also have a caregiver who's depressed or a caregiver who's having to work long hours. You know, in today's modern world, or a caregiver who's having to work long hours. You know, in today's modern world, kids don't have the kind of village that children once had in terms of exposure to other elders. So, you know, we're seeing a lot more brain imbalance. Right, and you talk about it's not the result always.

It can be, but it's not always the result of something horrific or terrible or traumatic, although those things have severe impacts. And, you know, we've talked about that on this show before, but you quote the British psychoanalyst Winnicott, I think that's the way to say it, who says, you know, it could be caused by nothing happening when something might profitably have happened. And this makes me think of an earlier episode when we were talking with somebody who's done a lot of study about our inner voice. What is the inner voice? Where does it come from? A lot of people believe that the inner voice is simply we hear outer voices,

and then eventually that's how we learn to communicate with ourselves. And we bring those outer voices internal. And if those outer voices are not ones that teach us how to regulate, then we bring those voices in and that's kind of what we end up with. And we don't have the skills to regulate our emotions. And you say that disordered eating patterns represent resourceful survival strategies for regulating emotion or physical arousal. And I think that's so important to think about with addiction, with eating emotionally, is that this stuff works in some way. It's a coping strategy that has worked for us in some way, shape, or form. It's just become maladaptive. And you say

that understanding this takes the shame out of the emotional eating, the recovery, and shows us a way forward. Yes, I think that's so critical because I think all people who are struggling with any kind of addictive behavior feel a level of shame about it because they feel out of control. And I like to help them understand that, A, it's not their fault. that, A, it's not their fault. You know, often there were early childhood experiences that are at play here, as well as genetic, you know, biological, neurological, and there are also genetic factors at play. So, it's not your fault. And also, you know, these are very resourceful coping strategies. So, not only is it not your fault, but you're also really creative in terms of finding a way to comfort and soothe and pleasure yourself. You know, either you found that food does it, or maybe you found that gambling does it, or drinking does it. And clearly, people come to see me and, you know, seek out help because ultimately,

Usually people come to see me and, you know, seek out help because ultimately it's not working. But when we start turning to these substances and, you know, process addictions, it's because we're resourceful. We've hit on something. I know in my teens, for example, I smoked cigarettes. And I didn't really understand it then. I only understood years later that I had low dopamine levels and nicotine increases the release of norepinephrine and ultimately dopamine. And so I was self-medicating. I was self-medicating a low-level depression that I had, but I didn't know that.

I mean, I just kind of gravitated towards the cigarettes like other teens did. And for some reason, I gravitated and became addicted and others didn't. I didn't know anything about why until years later when I began to understand that, ah, so that for me was like taking an antidepressant. You know, it was adjusting my brain chemistry. And that's a pretty resourceful way to adjust your brain chemistry. It's ultimately damaging and has health consequences, but it was resourceful. Right. Yeah. I often think about addiction or the things that we do that are addictive, get us to a point, help us to survive, whatever it is that's happening that gets us to a point when we are then able, if we're lucky, to develop coping mechanisms that are useful.

They're a tool that gets us to a point, and they need to be discarded, but they are very useful for a period of time. And I think that's an important understanding in why we do the things we do. There's one last piece of understanding about this that I want to talk about, and then I want to go into your skills that you teach for how to do the regulation. But I think this is another important piece. And you say that when we are eating emotionally, or any of these other things we're doing, numbing out or distracting ourselves, that that part of us in that moment is a very, very young part of us. So we are not in those moments when we're trying to disengage, we're dealing with a very young, fragile part of ourselves in those moments. And that part of the reason it can be so challenging

is that that young part of us doesn't respond to reason. So we're trying to reason with ourselves with like, well, I shouldn't do this because of blah, blah, blah, blah, and laying out these logical arguments. But the part of us that's kind of in charge at that point is this very young part of ourselves that does not respond to reason and logic. Yeah. And I think that that's an important concept for people to understand that when there's a situation that's triggering distress and you're a person who didn't have sufficient and consistent emotional nurturance in your early years and so your brain got wired a little bit more for high reactivity. You have a situation that's causing distress. You just had an argument with a

co-worker. You had an argument with your spouse. Something went wrong during your day. Somehow you're very, very upset. You're emotionally dysregulated. Because you're missing skills, because you're missing those self-care skills that we're going to talk about, you are stuck in, the best way to think about it is you're developmentally derailed. You're stuck in an earlier phase of development and you feel very young at those times. You know, You want to scream, you're frustrated, you're overwhelmed, you're mad. And most people know this state that I'm talking about when you're just in a bad place and maybe you're hurt, you're angry, you're lonely, you're frustrated,

and you're experiencing a lot of emotion, maybe you're even aware that your body is feeling very dysregulated. It's very hard to try and reason with yourself at times like this. So let's say you're feeling like that, and you're just ready to drive through Jack in the Box or McDonald's, you know, you're ready to go through a burger joint, you're going to get a cheesy burger and fries and a shake. And like, because as we said before, you know, intuitively that that will quiet the storm. If you eat all of that, it's going to quiet the storm. And you also know that no matter what you say to yourself, because you've tried, I mean, most people who are working on these things have tried to resolve these issues.

So you try to talk to yourself about what the boss said or what someone else said, but the urge to disconnect and numb yourself out is so strong because that part of you is very, very young. And what hasn't developed is a very mature, wise, kind, loving, nurturing part. That's the part I call the inner nurturer. That part is usually very undeveloped. What you have generally very strongly developed is an inner critic voice, maybe beating you up for what the boss said, and an inner indulging voice. That's a voice that said, yeah, let's just go to the drive-thru. Let's just get that burger and we'll deal with dieting later or eating healthier later. So, you're under

the influence of an emotionally dominant part of the brain. It's called the amygdala. It's like the size and shape of an almond. And you can't reason with that part of the brain. That part of the brain doesn't respond to reason. So, that's when you're going to get yourself in trouble. And that's where the skills come in, in terms of learning how to build that voice that can help regulate you help calm you down soothe you help you look at what's going on help you address any self-defeating thoughts you're having and perhaps even reassure you comfort you and give you hope so we've got some skill building there that has to happen. Thank you. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden.

And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth.

Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really No Really, sir.

Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really No Really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com

and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You've got seven skills. You say to develop this inner nurture or to nurture ourselves inner nurturing consists of the following seven skills and i'll just read them real quick there's

no way we're going to get through all of them in this interview that's why i just want to kind of get all seven of them out there now and we'll talk about a couple of them in a little bit more detail but the seven skills are, number one, you call pop the hood. So name and track the emotions and bodily sensations that are occurring. Step two or skill two is to practice self-validation. Skill three is to reinforce the alliance and offer love, support, and comfort to ourselves. Skill four is to get clear on needs. Skill five is to catch and reframe self-defeating thoughts. Skill six is to highlight the resources that we have and provide hope to ourselves. And skill seven is to address the needs and set nurturing limits. So let's start with skill one, which is really the fundamental skill we have to start with.

You call it pop the hood. Give us a little more detail on what we're doing here. Yeah, it's a really, basically a really simple skill, but one that I would say many, many, many people, not just emotional eaters, are missing or have poorly developed. Really, it's all about what I call self-connection. It's going inside into your internal world and just like a master mechanic, listening for distress. And we're basically going to be looking, we're going to be exploring our emotions and our bodily sensations. And I find people can come at this in one of two ways. Some people are not very clear on what they're feeling, what their emotions are, not so great at labeling.

So, with those people, I like to start with the body. What are you noticing in your body? So you just had that argument with your coworker. What are you noticing? Shoulders are tight, fists are clenched, jaw is tight, stomach is kind of gurgly and tight, or other people are very good at identifying emotions. I'm really angry. I'm really hurt. I feel betrayed. I feel sad. I feel lonely. I feel frustrated. I feel overwhelmed. So the very first step is to become aware of some of your most precious signals, your emotions and your bodily sensations. And I teach people that it's important to become aware of these. So, some people say, why should I feel all that stuff? A lot of it's unpleasant. Who cares? Well, emotions and bodily sensations are signals. They're like street signs, and they point us in

the direction of our needs. So, if you really want to solve issues, and of course, you need to figure out what you need, The best way to figure out what you need is to begin with what you feel and let that take you to what you need. So we pop the hood, we pull away from the situation that's causing distress. Maybe we're at that drive-in, ready to get some food. So we pull in the parking lot, just grab a piece of paper and start by popping the hood, writing down, what am I feeling now that I just had that argument with the coworker? What are the feelings I'm having? And what are the bodily sensations I'm having? Okay. Yep. And it's a very basic step. And it's a critical step is that you begin to understand what's going on inside of yourself, what's underneath the hood.

Yeah. And there's a couple of nuances here that you talk about. One is that a lot of us have a tendency to move away from unpleasant emotions by focusing on our thoughts. So we think we are identifying the emotions and sensations, but what we're really doing is we're touching them for a second and then we're immediately back into our thought process. Can you describe kind of what that looks like and what to watch out for and how to handle that? Yes. I mean, I'll often have people say, I'll say, okay, so you had that interaction with your husband and, you know, didn't go very well. What were you feeling? And so they might say, well, I'm feeling that he's a jerk and things will never get better. And I'll say, okay, so that's a thought. He's a jerk. That's not a feeling. So when you had the argument with him, do you recall what you were feeling or what you're feeling in the moment now that we're talking about it? Well, I guess I'm feeling angry.

Guess I'm feeling sad. I guess I'm feeling like our marriage will never get any better because he's not going to change. Okay. So we're back into the thoughts a little bit. So let's come back just to the feelings. So I'll say, you know, feelings are just one word, sad, mad, glad. Let's just stay with the feelings.

And then I'll, especially for someone who jumps away to their thoughts so quickly, I'll say, when you're telling me that you feel sad, I'm wondering if you're feeling that in your body, or that's just kind of up in your head as a concept. And often people will say, well, I'm not really feeling it. Okay, so let's go back. So, sad. Where do you think you might feel sad in your body? And often if we slow down, we will feel it. So, the person might say, oh, now that you're asking me, I kind of feel like a heaviness in my chest. Okay. So emotion basically presents in the body first before we have labels for it. And it's great to notice the sensations even more than to find the labels because actually labeling our emotions is a cognitive act.

So even labeling them kind of takes us a little bit away from them. So we go back. takes us a little bit away from them. So we go back. Our goal is to stay present to what's happening in the body and notice how we're experiencing our emotions. And if we tend to jump away to our thoughts, say to yourself, I'm going to write down those thoughts later. I'll address those thoughts later. Right now, I want to go back to what am I feeling after I just had that discussion with my mother? Okay? So, we just stay present. We're working on building the skill of not only identifying emotions and sensations, but tolerating them, being able to sit with emotions and sensations, even the big ones like

shame or guilt, you know, or serious grief, right? Being able to tolerate emotions, noticing they're not going to kill us, right? We can actually experience them and move through them. And that's where real recovery is. Right. And you mentioned also that there are some times that we are too emotionally overwrought to really do this process very well. And you recommend in times like that, that we use what you call soothing behaviors to restore ourselves to calm, not to distract us from our feelings, but to get us back to a place that's a little bit more calm so that we are able to pop the hood, as you say. What are some examples of soothing behaviors?

Or explain how someone might know, okay, you know what? I can't pop the hood just yet because, you know, there's a ton of smoke still rolling out from underneath the hood. I better soothe this a little bit first. When do you know when that's a good idea? And what are a couple of things that we might do that are soothing, but not distracting? Well, I think you would know basically if you're having really big feelings, right? And you feel kind of like, you know, even just labeling them, you're so dysregulated. So let's say, I'm thinking of an example of a client who came back from a work situation where she felt like someone kind of attacked her and shamed her in a meeting.

And so she was feeling very anxious and kind of chaotic inside. is feeling so dysregulated, so anxious, agitated, that she can't clear her head to do any of this kind of work in the way we're talking. So with someone like that, I would want her to perhaps do a little grounding work, sit in a chair with her feet flat on the floor, maybe her hands on her lap, and just begin to take some deep breaths, really noticing the breath going in and the breath going out. And she can stick with that or she can even start a little bit of relaxation,

like noticing what's happening in her feet, kind of tense and relax the feet, tense and relax the calves. You're just doing a little guided relaxation in the body. Even things like getting into some comfortable clothes, making a cup of tea, sitting in a comfortable chair. For some people, just listening to a little bit of soothing music is a good way to start. We can even use what I call soothing gestures. You can touch your face, you can stroke from your shoulders to your elbows, you know, just kind of gently giving yourself like a hug. Anything that begins to calm you. You might lay down in a fetal

position and just kind of hold yourself. For some people, that's just getting still. Anything that's going to calm the storm a little bit. The idea here is not to do something that's distracting. So we don't want to just go read a book, although if a little reading calms you down, that's fine. But our goal isn't to just go do another activity. Our goal is to calm down enough to begin working our skills. So to begin popping the hood. Great. Let's talk about skill number two, to practice self-validation. Well, you know, all of these skills are strategically developed and they go in a

particular order because what I want my reader to do is to begin connecting to herself, okay, and at the same time begin to develop that inner nurturing voice. So, as I said before, the majority of emotional eaters, and I would say the majority of people who use any kind of an addiction typically do not have a very well-developed inner nurturing voice. And so, how are we going to develop a voice like that? If we didn't hear enough of it when we were younger, we didn't have enough exposure to it, how are we going to develop it? We're going to have to kind of fake it till we make it. So we're going to have to practice a voice. So all the skills that I teach are designed to help you slowly build that voice. So after we pop the hood, we're going to practice skill number two

called self-validation because that's going to get you talking to yourself from breaking yourself apart into two parts, if you will. So there's that young part that says, you know, I feel really sad and I feel really lonely. And then there's that nurturing part that's going to say it makes sense to feel sad and lonely in this situation.

And it's okay to have those feelings. So we're going to accomplish a lot of things with that self-validation. A, we're going to be building that voice that's critical. We need to build that inner nurturing voice. But we're also going to be soothing ourselves. Self-validation is soothing and comforting. So we're comforting ourself, we're soothing ourself. At the same time, we're building the voice we need to build.

Right. And this is such a useful step to be able to develop that internal voice that speaks to ourselves more kindly, that, as you say, offers understanding and also says, you know, it's okay for what's happening to be happening. Yes. And I, you know, I call validation, I say validation is development significant, meaning most of us didn't get enough validation. We didn't get enough of someone saying it's okay to feel that way. And it makes sense. Understanding and acceptance is what validation is all about. So we're going to learn how to validate what we feel and what we think. And we're going to learn to say that every emotion is valid. Every thought is valid. Every sensation is valid. They're all understandable in a context. They're all acceptable to have. I'm Jason Alexander.

And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you

and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome

to Really No Really, sir. God bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really No Really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast

or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really No Really and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. One of the things I like about the book is it has a lot of useful phrases in there for those who don't know how to do this. You know, what sort of things should I say to myself? Like I said, if we haven't really got a lot of experience in either doing it for ourselves

or having somebody do it for us or seeing it modeled, you've got a lot of phrases in there that we can use and try on for size. I wanna talk about another piece of this that you bring up that I think is really, really useful. You say, how can I practice self-validation when I'm disappointed in myself? So for example, I've just eaten an entire carton of ice cream or polished off a tray of brownies.

In those moments, it feels difficult to do self-validation because we really feel bad about what just happened. And you talk about how it's important that we're validating the feelings behind the behavior, not the behavior itself. Right. So we're not saying, you go girl, you rock, eat brownies every night. That's the thing to do. You know, we're not validating the behavior. We're validating that, you know, the reason you baked the tray of brownies and ate the whole thing is because you were feeling so lonely on Friday night and you were feeling so upset with that conversation with your father. And that's why, you know, you didn't feel like

there was any other way that you could comfort yourself. And that's okay. That's okay. You know, we're learning skills and it's okay that that's what you were feeling, right? So we're not so much validating the behavior. We're not, we're not making it terrible and wrong, you know, to have slip ups either. But basically, we're validating what we're feeling and that we were going through a pretty rough time. And that's why we turn to our favorite source of comfort. Right. And I think this is such a key point though

because when we disappoint ourselves by acting out in whatever our addiction or bad behavior is, it's such a fine line to find that middle ground where we're not berating ourselves endlessly over the behavior. And yet it doesn't feel okay at the same way to be like, oh, it's fine. No big deal. Right. And, and I like this because it threads the needle right through the middle way of that, which is, all right, I'm acknowledging that there's something going on emotionally that is causing me to act that way. And I'm validating that, that it was okay to feel that way, that is causing me to act that way. And I'm validating that it was okay to feel that

way, that it's normal to feel that way, but not the behavior itself. And I just think that's such a useful point. Right. And even being able to say, as we did earlier, the behavior even itself was resourceful. You know, it's not what I want to be doing. It's not what I want to continue to be doing. But it's still an old resourceful way, thing that I turn to until I've got these skills built. It's how I've been learning to take care of myself. And I think what I want to highlight here, what self-validation is all about, and the reason it's not so much about condoning the behavior, but what it's really all about is self-compassion. And it's about self-acceptance. Like, I accept me right where I am today. And today, I'm still using food. And so, I accept that that's where I am now. And I have compassion for myself with where I'm at.

And that doesn't mean I'm not moving forward or I can't move forward, but I accept did something that I feel worse about myself. And the way that I deal with feeling worse about myself is to eat or do drugs. And then I do that. And then I feel worse about myself. And now I make that worse by, you know, you know, attacking myself again, and on and on and on. And this is a way to sort of break part of that cycle. We may not be at the point where we can fully break the behavioral part of the cycle, but we start to break the emotional part of the cycle, and we start to try and process emotions in a different way. Right, and that's why, you know, the skill number three that's coming up is so critical, which is where you're going to reinforce the alliance between a loving, kind, nurturing, wise part of yourself. Even if you

don't even feel like there's anything like that inside of you, you're going to begin to develop that and you're going to form an alliance between that part of you and the part of you that says, you know, I'm stuck in this vicious cycle. I can't, I can't stand the way I feel. And I turn to food or alcohol or drugs to numb it out. And then I feel so terrible about myself. And then I'm going to do it again because I feel so terrible about myself. And then there's this part of you. And over time, this part of you may even morph into a spiritual part of you, maybe a higher self, or maybe even your angels or God or whatever you would call it. Part of you that's there with you down in the bottom pit, right?

Sitting down in the pit with you saying, I'm right here with you, babe. I know how terrible it feels. You're not alone. I love you. I care about you. I'm with you. We're going to get through this together. You know, and I think that is so critical to develop that part of yourself, a higher part of yourself, whatever that looks like to each person. But a part of you that when you're in the darkest nights of your soul, that you don't feel

alone. I agree. That is such a critical thing to be able to do is to offer love, support, comfort to ourselves when we're in the midst of difficult situations. It's great when we can get it from others. And later in the book, you talk about that. And so this isn't like a, oh, I have to do all of this myself all of the time. But an essential skill is to be able to deliver it to ourselves in moments of crisis when maybe there aren't other people available, or we don't have those sorts of resources in our lives. Or even if we do, we risk draining people if we're coming to them all the time, you know, to do the comforting and soothing work that we need. You know, I found in my own journey, I certainly didn't have a lot of people that I could turn to for that. And I tried, I tried to

pull it off of people, you know, at different points in my life, tried to get it from other people. And when I was really beginning to turn within and building that inner supportive voice, what I started to feel was that I, and it became kind of consistent that I always kind of wanted to go home first and take care of my own needs. I processed through what I was feeling and kind of get clear on everything, even before I shared it with anyone else. And to this day, when something's bothering me, I typically don't want to talk to anyone until I've kind of sat with it and really kind of figured out all that I'm feeling and brought my inner nurture in and soothed and comforted myself. Because then I talk about this in the book, you know, typically when we go to other people, they often offer a lot of advice and problem solving.

And many people are not that great at helping you process through your emotions. So you turn to other people and sometimes you don't really learn the skills you need to learn. Well, we are at the end of our time here, Julie. I will have links in the show notes to where people can find your book where they can learn the rest of the skills. You and I are going to continue the conversation in some of the post-show conversation. I specifically want to talk about catching and reframing self-defeating thoughts. You know, how do we work with the self-defeating thoughts that come up? You and I will continue.

Listeners, if you're interested in that, supporters of the show, get access to the post-show conversation. You can go to oneyoufeed.net slash support and get access to that. And you can listen to it in your podcast player. But Julie, thank you so much. The book was really, really helpful. And as I said, there will be links in the show notes to where listeners can get a copy of it. It's been my pleasure. I'm glad that I could join you today. Thank you so much. Okay. Bye. Bye. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to the One You Feed podcast.

Head over to oneyoufeed.net slash support. The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you?

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