Insights From a Friend

Join me for an inside perspective from my best friend, Corinne Crabtree, as we explore my experience of the binge eating recovery process. Hear personal stories that I rarely share with anyone, and get a real look at what the road to recovery from binge eating looks like. Delve into a personal account of healing, resilience, and overcoming shame. Discover valuable insights on embracing progress and the path to wholeness.

If you want to know what the journey to healing from binge eating really looks like, you won't want to miss this episode.

Check out the episode I reference in this podcast:

Episode 15 – A Candid Conversation With My Husband

Discover the #1 reason behind your binge eating and what to do about it at janepilger.com/quiz.

*Please pardon the sound in this episode, we had some mic issues. 

Define Your Food Freedom Workshop

Have you ever defined what food freedom actually means for YOU? Knowing what you don't want isn't enough. It's important to know what you are working towards and to make sure that your definition is supporting you, not sabotaging you. 

Join me live October 5th - Save your spot.

Want to know why you struggle with food and what to do next? Start watching The Food Freedom Mini Series today. 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to Binge Breakthrough, a podcast designed to help you finally break through the barriers that keep you stuck, feeling out of control around food. I'm Master Certified Coach Jane Poker, and I want you to know that no matter how long you've been struggling or what you've tried, food freedom is possible. And I'm here to show you how. After years of therapy, eating disorder treatment, restrictive diet, and reading all the books, I was still stuck in the on-again-off-again cycle of restricting thinking and how I was able to see it all from a new perspective at change everything. Each week I will share the strategies, tools, and mindset that allowed me to overcome my decades-long battle with binge eating. Your journey to body trust starts now. Let's dive in. Hello, trusted listener. Welcome to Binge Breakthrough. I consider you a trusted listener because I trust that you are listening to this podcast for a reason. I trust that you are going to hear something today that is insightful and impactful on your journey with food. So we're going to do something a little different today, and I'm bringing you a conversation. I'm bringing you a conversation to give you an inside perspective on what my journey to get to this point in healing from binge eating has looked like. She is the CEO and founder of Nobs Weight Loss and No BS Business Women. But most importantly, she's my best friend. And I'm bringing you this conversation to help shed light on often hidden struggles and challenges that people experience on their path to healing from binge eating. I know you're going to get a lot of value out of our conversation. And I want to dive in. But I want to just give you a quick heads up. In this episode, you're going to hear us talking about Marco Polo. And if you don't know what that is, it's an app where basically you can have a conversation with someone else. So it's kind of like FaceTime, but the conversation isn't in real time. So I can get on Marco Polo and have a one-way conversation with Corinne. And then she listens when she wants to, and then she responds when she wants to. So we have these long, deep, and meaningful conversations on a daily basis, but they happen in our own time and at our own convenience. It's actually a really amazing way to keep in touch with people without having to set a specific time or date to talk. If we had to do that, Corinne and I would not talk very much. But because of the way that Marco Polo works, we are able to communicate with each other on uh often a daily basis. So I hope you find this episode impactful and helpful. And if you like this type of episode with more of an inside perspective of what it's like to really see or be really close to someone who is struggling with binge eating, you can also check out episode 15 of this ep of this podcast, which is a candid conversation with my husband. And as always, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show, as this is how we can make sure that this podcast gets into the hands of more people who need to know they aren't broken and that there is a perfectly good reason why any of us do what we do with food. All right, without further ado, here's my conversation with Corinne. All right, so today I thought it would be fun on the podcast to have an interview with my best friend. So so far on the podcast, I have had one other guest, and that guest has been my husband, Todd. And we had a great conversation about his perspective, what he has seen on my journey through all of the challenges and the struggles and everything with food. And I thought it would be great to also bring in my best friend because she has also been able to have the insider perspective on this journey. She has seen me literally at my worst. She has also seen me at my best, but I thought it would be great for her to be able to just share what she's seen through the perspective and just see where this conversation goes today. So my best friend is Corinne Crowtree, and I found Corinne back in 2008. I remember it so well. It was February 2008, and I was at a very low point in my binging. My husband was working a lot, I was binging a lot, and I was desperate to find an answer. And I was looking for answers everywhere, and I found uh her weight loss program, her website, and I joined right away, and we became initially, she was this person who I thought was going to be the answer to all my problems. I thought she was going to fix me. Um, and one of the things I really remember is that I thought this woman is gonna change my life, and she has. She has changed my life, but it was not in the ways that I really thought would be. Um, but anyway, we became friends over time, and over time we became such good friends that I became willing to let her in on areas of my life, areas of my binging, areas of my food that I literally had never talked to anyone about. So Corinne's here to uh to just share her own perspective on all of this. And uh so welcome Corinne to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Well, thank you. I actually have a question for you. So um this is so interesting because like Jane and I talk literally every morning, and I probably talk like in my membership, I talk about Jane all the time. I'm always telling clients, like, the other day I'm Marco Polo and Jane, and I'm just you know moaning and groaning about this and crying about that. Um something though that's been coming up a lot just with my own clients that I bet you have the same, is one of the things you said is she's gonna fix me and she's gonna be the answer. And so um when you like when you go back and you think about like what is it that like once she gives me this magic answer and once I'm fixed, then I'm gonna feel what? What would you say that is?

SPEAKER_01 6:46

Oh, that's a really good question.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

Uh then I'm gonna feel I would say I was probably looking for confidence. I think I I think that's what I would say is that I was looking for confidence, but I was for sure looking to be fixed. So maybe I would be, maybe I would feel fixed, I would feel whole, I would feel complete, confident, something, something like that.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

I think whole and confident are great feelings. One of the things I've been working with my my clients on, because so many of them, um, they're like your clients. They they come to us because they want some kind of like specific outcomes. Like yours, I want to stop binging. Mine is like, I want to always wait. And I always say, like, that is never what you really wanted. Like, it's so important for people to hear that. And the reason I wanted to ask you is because I literally was the answer. Not because I did it, but the one thing you really wanted was you never wanted to stop binging. What you really wanted was to feel whole and complete in life. And just as your best friend, I will just like to say, um, that is not Jane's problem anymore. Like Jane literally, like when we talk and stuff, I know she like every time we're having a conversation, even on our like, you know, like days where it just is like it's not a good day, and this is just, you know, whatever's going on. She does not talk from a place of I'm somehow incomplete, and this is why this is happening. And she never says anymore, um, like, I can't figure these things out, or you know, I just don't know if this will ever happen. She's always talking from that. So I just think it's always so interesting when someone, we always think what we want is what we want. I was just using as a purse the other day. I said if we go to Target and we are looking for a purse with lots of pockets, no one wants a purse with pockets. Somebody is saying, I want ease to my crap. I want organization, I want quickness, like I want to be able to put my hands on it. And like if I go to Gucci to buy a purse, I'm not going there because I just love donating to the brand. Like I'm going because like I want a purse that says something. I want people to be thinking, like, ooh, she has great taste. Like, I want to feel luxurious. So I just like I loved when you were saying that because like going back and listening to your story, just on how you found me, what you were really seeking, and just to let your audience know, you know, you found the feelings you wanted. And I think once you found those feelings that you wanted, then your binging started really changing.

unknown 10:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I totally agree with all of that. It's like it's so fascinating to really look back and see the perspective, what what it was that I thought was missing, what I was, you know, really I thought, I thought I just need to stop binging. Like that's what I really want. Then when I stop binging, then I will feel these things. But it never works that way. It's never in that order. It's like we have to figure out what are those things you think you will feel when you hit X, Y, Z, whatever your goal is. It's like then how do you then cultivate those now? And then that thing that you want will end up happening, but it's it never happens in yours.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

And it doesn't. And one of the things that I keep watching clients go through is um, I had one, I actually I was working with someone who binges just this week. And she's she had had like weeks of not binging and just doing great and all these things, so like really applying herself and challenging herself and like working through a lot of emotional stuff. I wish I still had the notes because there was um, she said, but I'm just gonna tell you I'm a failure because this week I binged and I said, Really? And so I was asking her about why she joined. And I said, because it's not to stop binging or to lose weight. Why did you join this? And she said, Well, I just want to trust myself to know that I'm changing. I said, Okay, well, let's just go back. What ought like I had her make a list of what are some of the things that have changed? And I said, You know what your biggest problem is? You're waiting until you quit binging to allow yourself to believe you're changing. I said, You have exactly what it is you want right now, and you have this idea that until this happens, I shouldn't feel this way. And I was like, that's never gonna happen until you allow yourself to see you already feel this way now, and that you create safety in feeling it. And I just think that's important for everyone listening, is it, you know, like all of us coaches, we get it, like we understand that because we have gone through it, but it's looking for the little moments of like identifying whatever it is you ultimately want to feel at the end. Where am I denying myself those feelings right now? Where in the micro moments am I not celebrating things? Where in the micro moments am I not recognizing confidence must be building in me because today I didn't walk, like I didn't walk into the gas station to buy all the snacks. Today I was confident enough to say no when I really wanted to. Like that takes balls, and it was so often, like we'll say, like, well, I'm still having urges. Like, I just watched, like, I remember watching you in particular. There was a little while when you were this was way back, like way back in your early um like throws of binging and stuff. Even when you would make a little progress, it was painful to watch you cry and fight to feel like it was okay that this binge wasn't as bad as the last one. Because your whole thing was perfectionism for it was like either I'm not binging, or if I even get the whiff that I started, then I am messed up. And I just I watch so many people, it's it's amazing how often we're terrified to feel good until this problem is a hundred percent eradicated.

SPEAKER_02 14:25

Yeah, and it it that is the perfectionism, and the perfectionism it ends up on both sides because there's this perfectionism on well, if I didn't, if I didn't eat perfectly, if I ate too much, well, then I had this, I had this imaginary line, which I never put if you asked me before, like what so what exactly constitutes a binge, which would change, of course, depending on whatever you know I decided that day. But I have this imaginary line, and once I ate to this imaginary line, then I would decide, oh, well, now I'm binging. And if I'm like all in on everything that I do, then if I'm all in on the binge, then I might as well like binge perfectly too, which means all the way until I literally cannot eat anymore. And so yeah, it's like that perfectionism really showed up like in all aspects of it.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

I do remember that. I remember asking you thousands of times, like, like, like, why do you have to why do we even have to really have like this like line? It's like, so you can't stop if you cross the line. And I don't and I knew that you like it wasn't a matter of um emotional dysregulation. It was more of a like, so if you cross this, like now that equals it must go. It's like, why can't it does like why can't we make it not matter where you stop? Yeah, and that took you a while to get. But I do remember one of the first times where you were cautiously optimistic and ready to share. And you had ate, I believe it was, I believe you were eating cereal, and you had you were astonished that there was a box of cereal that you didn't finish because you were always like, I have to finish everything, like just get it all out. You were just like, Yes, I'm so proud. Like, and I don't remember if it was two and a half, but it was basically like this time it's two and a half boxes, not all three. Like at some point, you decided, and I think this is important for your listeners. At some point, we have to start uh moving around the imaginary lines for our own good. Like there was a period where your lines were moving, where it was like, okay, well, I can't feel good about it because I only stopped here. It's like you actually had moved the imaginary line, got a win, but you were still determined to beat yourself up. It was like you had to break the habit of beating yourself up to be able to start saying, like, okay, it's good when the imaginary line is moving around instead of it only being this now. That's a big step forward. I just like I think that's the thing that I think most people don't understand. It's hard to see looking in that I I got to see because like we literally talk every I mean, the only time we don't talk is when Jane's on vacation. If Jane is somewhere and on vacation or whatever, that's about the only time. And then that's when she comes home to four to three, four to like four to five hours of Corinne's Marco Polos that have stacked up. I always apologize towards the end, like I'm just gonna stop leaving messages at this point because you'll never catch up. But getting like being able to hear you so often, I got to see where all of the little pivots and wins were coming. And then sometimes like helping you see them. But I will say one thing that you were that I think that helped you so much is you really worked on that part of you because you're an A-type personality, and A-types are the worst ones at seeing themselves as winners. We see ourselves as hard workers, we see ourselves as finishers and stuff, but we rarely take a moment to like just acknowledge what's working. We're so busy to for the next thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:19

Yeah, I think for me too, what I can see, I can see a couple of things. I can see that there, I had this, I had a hard time pulling apart the existence of a binge and the shame and the judgment. Like they just were so they had happened so many times together, and I would go into shame and judgment that to be able to create separation from the existence and to pull away the shame and judgment, I feel like that was as over time I was able to pull those apart, like that, then I was able to more celebrate, you know, kind of things moving or things changing, we're seeing the progress and all of that. But it's like it's one of the things I talk about so often is that shame and judgment. It's like it just prevents you from seeing anything and really being able to look under the hood to see what's going on in the first place. Do you want to tell people about um our our little emoji back in the day?

SPEAKER_00 19:17

So back in the day, so Jane had many um many flavors of tolerable allowance into her world that I was uh allowed into. And so just like any relationship, as you get to know each other more, you start trusting the other person to be able to be more vulnerable, be more open and things like that. But when we first when we first started really becoming friends, um I knew Jane would binge when I wouldn't get a text from her in the afternoon. Like she had these patterns, and I live across the country. Like she's in, you know, New Mexico, I'm in Tennessee. And all the way in Tennessee, I'd be like, ah, she's binged. Because if she was quiet between one and three, I was like, Yeah, something's happened, or I would start reaching out, you okay? What's going on? And eventually we agreed upon um that if she was starting to binge or wanting to binge or something was triggering her, whatever, or she had binge, she would send me an umbrella, and that meant it was raining doo-doo in the land of enchanted skies, or what do y'all call it? The land of enchanting. Yeah, it wasn't so enchanting if the umbrella came out. But she did that for a long time, and that was I thought that that was always like when I think about your history, that was such a big step for you to just let someone in just a little bit. And I would text, and all I would say is like, you know, if you need me, I'm here. Because one thing we had agreed on when she first um started doing it was she didn't know if even if she alerted me, if she was even going to be open to talking. Like it was she was still in the like shame shawl. I I always like to say it's like there's a gremlin that lives in your house and he has a shame shawl, and you never know when he's coming. He just throws it on and you next thing you know, you're like, Oh my god, I'm wearing my shame shawl. And back then, Jane had not done the separation work yet. Like one of the first steps for her wasn't even releasing shame. It was, and I guess it to some degree is, but it was the willingness to say, I'm I'm in distress.

SPEAKER_02 21:39

Yeah, yeah. Just yes, even that was huge for me because I never talked about it. I would never there were there were so long that this was my, you know, this was my thorn, this was my cross to bear, and I would not share it with anybody. And I I think part of what what really, if I look back on it, part of what kept me hiding was I had so much loathing of myself and so much judgment. And I knew how I was responding to myself, and I was certain, positive, that anybody else would have the same response to me, that same loathing and the same judgment and the same disgust with me. And so it was like it was protective for me, like, oh no, no, nobody else is coming in here because I was just convinced that anybody else would have the exact same experience of it that I had of myself. And so it was like show when I when I first told Todd, like that, like seeing him respond to me in a way that was so different was like, oh wow. And I think for you, it was it was similar where I had to go through enough moments of just an emoji to kind. Of really develop that true like belief and trust that oh, she really still is going to like me and love me and accept me and not think any worse of me because this happened. But it was like I needed like for me, it was like I just needed that evidence that it really was going to be okay and that it you weren't going to see me differently or worse or whatever. And then once I saw that, then I was like, oh, maybe this isn't so bad. Then I would start opening up a little bit more. Then I would start to realize like, wow, I actually feel better when I talk about it. So then, like, then it was like kind of like that the hole was was opened up, and then I was was willing to kind of really see the more I talked about it, the more I felt better. Then it was like, okay, I then the time would shorten. So I what I remember is like it was like we went from emoji to maybe like I'd come back, you know, I'd come back into the hole like two days later, and then I would talk about it, and then it would be like one day, and then it was just like, all right, like as soon as I'm done, like I'm literally talking about it right away. And so that whole that whole process, like it's really interesting for me to like look back and see, see how it evolved.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Well, and there's so much relief in the processing, and there's not any in the hiding in the shame. That's right. And I think that like one thing that I'm kind of like as we look back on how it all happened, is when your brain started one, seeing this isn't that bad, it kind of started normalizing that okay, like other people see this differently. Maybe it's not everything I think it is, because I know your thoughts were so real for so long, but I do remember when your brain was just kind of cracking the door open to it, wasn't like you were suddenly believing this is all okay and now it's just let's just process it and blah blah blah. That never happened. It didn't like it evolved into that. But the early stages was like, I think when like when I was never freaking out, because my thoughts about you were so different, so I came at it so different, like every single time, like I had a lot of compassion for you. Like the friend in me often felt compassion, like I don't want my friend to feel this way, not because of what you did, but just like she's hurting. So like it was, and it wasn't that I hurt, but I would have like overwhelming compassion of just like, okay, like my best friend's hurting, and you know, this sucks for her, you know, like that was kind of where I was at. But because of that mindset, I was coming at it of like, well, let me ask you some questions because in my mind there was always going to be a solution. There was always something like I really believed one day this wouldn't be the thing that would be controlling your life. Like because I will be honest, I've always I always challenged you from the get and maybe a little too soon in your journey, but I'm a little bit of a challenger to just be okay with maybe you'll binge the rest of your life, but it won't be like this. Yeah. And if that was the case, like if it wasn't miserable and it just happened every now and then, and we wasn't like a shameful thing, like then like like then what would life look like? And it would look like you know, being whole, being complete, being confident, moving on with your life, doing great things, like starting a business, doing all these other things. But I remember back then, like I think a lot of it was when you started seeing somebody else's response to this completely differently than I do. It kind of has to, it almost has to break your brain just a little bit on maybe I'm wrong. It feels so real, but maybe I'm just wrong in some of this. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:08

And and I think that's where like all of this, it's like it's like these little things that kind of come in. It's like, huh, maybe, maybe. Like it just kind of starts to like wiggle a little, like the things you held on to for so tightly for so long. And if I look back on it, I think one of the things that I held on so tightly was I was convinced that I was broken, and a binge was evidence of brokenness. So it's like, here's the equation binge equals broken. So until like there was never a binge ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, then until that day, then therefore I am broken. And it's like, I think once I really realized, and I think it took me a long time to get to the place where I really truly in my heart of hearts was like, actually, I'm not broken. Like this all makes so much sense, but it's I I think it was holding on to that, like binge equals broken. And so then, if then when I would binge, then I'm feeling broken, then then that takes you straight into the shame spiral because shame is broken. I mean, that's like the that is the sentence that equates to the feeling of shame. So it's like all of the kind of all of that combined in there was I think I was really holding on to.

SPEAKER_00 28:28

I think another big like pivot and shift for you that as we're talking about like through this, because I really I always have thought that the reason why you're such a powerful coach and why you are where you are now in it is because you really untangled the shame piece, which is the part people just want to stop binging and they don't want to work on that shame piece, which I will just tell all the binge eaters, even if you stopped binging, if you don't work on the shame piece, then you'll just be living in fear that it's gonna come back, and you'll just be ashamed that you live in fear. So it's like you better, you might as well work on the shame piece because you're not gonna escape it until you figure that part out. But one big shift that I noticed that I think a lot of people don't understand about moving out of shame is you didn't move into feeling good about yourself and you didn't move into um like just being a scientist and stuff. I remember so many Marco Polo's from your bed with you and Ginger laying there crying, and you were not ashamed of the binge, you were just disappointed that you were still doing it, which is so different. It was like, I know nothing's wrong with me. I'm just disappointed that you know, that I'm full. I'm disappointed that I'm gonna have like, I'll have to deal with this today. And I'm just disappointed that, you know, like I had planned these things and I ate anyway. Like, I think like what people don't understand about like moving through stuff is we don't always go from really bad feelings to all of a sudden positive. Most of the time we're gonna move through a series of emotions. And you know, when when you're in the throes of a shame and ashamedness, um being disappointed feels a lot better. It's not easy, but it allows for a more cleaner version of hurt because I always tell people it's like, well, I want to be disappointed in me sometimes. Sometimes there are just things where it's like, well, yeah, I thought this would happen and I'm disappointed. I thought I would do this and I didn't do that, and I'm disappointed, but that doesn't mean I can't carry on and it doesn't mean I can't figure it out and stuff. I always think that it's like disappointment is one of those really healthy, um, more of the like other side of the emotions. I I don't mind calling them negative. Some people don't like calling them negative, but I just think negative, positive, it doesn't matter. One's not better than the other, they just have labels, and so it's on the more of the negative side, but it's one of those things that you're like your brain and your like your soul is alerting you to I'm disappointed only because I know we're gonna fix this. And today wasn't the day. And then, like when we look at it, as there's something I said not too long ago that one of my coaches loves now, and she says it all the time that some of our scariest emotions are our benevolent messengers. They're really there trying to like like they may talk like a jerk sometimes, but they're really trying to tell us like I just believe in us so much and trying to get your attention. That's all I'm really trying to do here. But I watched you go through the stage where it was like you didn't beat yourself up anymore, but you were definitely sad and you were definitely disappointed, but you weren't ashamed anymore. It's like I know nothing's wrong with me. But there's a part of me that wishes that I was handling things different. There's a part of me that wishes I didn't, you know, eat so much food because I know I'm gonna feel like butt for the rest of the night. And then you would cry and you would you would Marco Polo me as you were drifting off into crying, sleep in a nap, and then you would Marco Polo me when you woke back up.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:30

And I think all of that would be hard really and it absolutely. And I think a lot of it really came through the changing of the internal dialogue. It's like as the internal conversation changed, then you know, the shame and the judgment weren't weren't front and center. It's like, oh, okay, we can have there can be a different, there can be a different conversation, even if they're still eating way more food than feels good in my body. Like the what happens afterwards doesn't have to be the same. It's like it doesn't have to equal broken, it doesn't have to equal shame and judgment and you know, all of the like beatdown that then just keeps you in the cycle doing it over and over again to just get away from yourself.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

Well, and now like it's a freaking nothing burger. Like we don't process it no more. James took away all my fun. We don't have all that coaching that I get to do. But no, like now, like if she ever binges, and it's honestly it is few and far between now. I mean, I hope you definitely recognize that because I definitely do. But every now and then she'll just be like, she literally, if she eats more food than she wants or binges or whatever, she's always got an errand to run after. She's usually in the cars, like, well, I ate more food than I needed, but I'm off to the post office now. And you know, I know why it happened, and you know, no big deal. Like I would give anything if we had a Marco Polo of a version of like if we had a like phase one, umbrella, phase two, laying in bed crying with ginger, phase three, I'm going to the post office.

unknown 34:11

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 34:14

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's been pretty remarkable to watch. It has been. It's been it's it's been a journey. It's been interesting for me too because I remember first like going through the initial process. I remember you were like, I don't really know. Like, because our food stories, our individual food struggles are so different. So Corinne definitely, you know, knew what it was like to be overweight and you know lost 100 pounds, but she Corinne never was a binger. And so I remember initially she was just like, I don't like, I don't understand. I don't, I don't understand binging. It is not my I have not lived that experience, but she certainly understands it now because she got the inside scoop of uh um uh way more seeing all of the details of way more bingers than probably anybody else would experience who is not a binger, um, who is not a binger themselves. So yeah, it's interesting to kind of reflect on that too.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

Yeah, it's like watching a case study. Like one of the funniest things we ever, well, it's not funny. Well, it's kind of we laugh about it now. Wasn't funny when it was happening, but we, you know, Jane and I got certified together at through the life coach school back in 2015. And one of the things that we had to do that week was uh we had to like eat a scary food, essentially. Like, what is a food that we're afraid of? And I was coming out of some bodybuilding trauma years, and I had an awful relationship with peanut butter. Like if I started peanut butter, I was overeating peanut butter. Like it was like my story was like it was just like in a magic elixir, and I just wasn't gonna be able to stop. And we went to a grocery store and we had talked about it, about how you were so excited. Like we were like, Oh, like, oh boy, it's gonna be great. We're gonna do this. And so we go to the grocery store and you were like, I'm gonna get food just like if I was binging, like if I'm gonna do this, we're gonna treat this like a binge. So she was really determined in the beginning. And then we go to the grocery store, I just grab my jar of peanut butter, and she's like meticulously looking for things. And then she's like, Okay, no, if I was binging, this is what I would get. And so, like, she's doing it. Well, then I'm just kind of watching her, and as we're going further and further into this buying of things, excitement and determination was waning, and it was more like, this is gonna be real. Oh my god, now everyone's watching me. And so we had gone to a restaurant to like she'd bought all of her bench food that she was gonna like eat in front of all these people. Like, we were all eating together doing this experiment. And by the time we got to the restaurant to pick up dinner for ourselves after, Jane's crying, bawling as we're standing in this restaurant, and this hostess is looking at us like, what is wrong with these ladies wanting to go food?

SPEAKER_02 37:13

It was it was yeah, that was such a powerful experience for me because it was all every everything related to a binge had always been done in secret. Even before that, you know, at this point, we we were past, we were probably past the we were past the like emoji days, but still, like I, you know, I would never talk to anybody like while I was binging. And so this was the closest, this is literally the closest that anybody got to experiencing a binge with me. And I felt so I felt vulnerable, I felt exposed. It was um, it was a really a very powerful experience. And and what's so cool now is I do similar experiments um often with my clients, and I have them bring in, you know, I have them bring in their scary foods, and it's just it's so powerful to actually have this experience with your scary food in a way that's so different than anything that you've ever done before. Because when we're in a binge, it's like you're on your like autopilot, you're pretty much shut down, you're disconnected, you know, you're really like, well, you are acting as if nobody else is watching. But then when you do it, where it's like, okay, like lights are on, I'm here, there's other people here, I'm experiencing this in a new way, like it really can bring up a lot. So yeah, that was that was so powerful.

SPEAKER_00 38:33

It did bring up a lot for you because I'm I just like you were ashamed before we even got started in that way. You know, like we had another friend with us, Amy, and I just remember, I I remember both of us. I well, what was I don't even know if you remember all this, but like as like when we got to that restaurant to pick up our like we all thought we would be binging and just eating our faces off, and the exercise was very different. It was a very slow, methodical process of eating the food and really thinking through and listening to yourself. So, main reason why we were buying some dinner was because we figured, hey, we're gonna want dinner, it's gonna be a few hours later. When we got to dinner in our room that night, do you remember crying so much? Like talking about oh my gosh. So that night when we finally went to dinner, that exercise was so hard for you because we were all in a room together and you actually tried to leave your seat to go eat by yourself in the room, but you were trying to find a corner in the room to be able to eat because we couldn't see you, and then you were like, No, I'm just gonna stay here where everybody else is, and you did your work. And then that night it was like like everything went fine during the exercise, and you were you were fine and whatnot. But when we got back to the room, you cried an awful lot. And I remember you talking about how you just didn't even realize how much shame you really did have. Like it was like I even tried to hide in a room full of people. Like my my gut reaction was no one should ever see me eat like this. Yeah, yeah. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 40:15

Now that you say it, I do it was a wild day. I do remember I remember sitting at the I remember sitting at the table without food in front of me, and I remember like at this, I just had this like I wanted to get up and go in the corner. Like I did not want to be in this room and seen, you know, eating, eating these things. Yeah, it was yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:35

I just I like I think uh like if there was like one key takeaway for your people, it would be to just see you were willing to do a lot of uh scary thinking. You were willing to challenge things that you like. I think one of the hardest things as a human to do is to challenge something we really believe. Just to really challenge it. Because even if what we believe about ourselves is terrible, like I'm broken and stuff, it's very certain. The hardest thing for a human to ever do is face uncertainty. And if you don't believe that, like if you're very uncertain that you could be whole and accepted and all these other things over here, we hang on to pain just to hang on to certainty. And like you really challenged a lot of stuff that made you rethink everything. And that's that's a long process, it's not an overnight process, and it's also not something. I mean, I mean, you tell me you it's not like now you have all these amazing thoughts about yourself and that you never doubt yourself, and that you never like I know for me, like I don't know if I I don't ever consciously think I'm gonna regain all my weight. Like I really a hundred percent believe I won't anymore, only because it's been 16 years. Like there's been enough practice of that and enough lived experience where I've been able to let that part go. But I still have urges, I still overeat, I still have like um instances where I'm like the old version of me. I just don't believe I am her anymore, and I don't believe she's coming back. I just know like these things are always gonna happen, and it's probably like everybody else.

SPEAKER_02 42:30

Yeah, yeah. It's like there's remnants, right? You see like little kind of like leftover pieces where it's like, oh, look at that. But yeah, it's not who I it's not who I am. I do not see myself as that person anymore. Sometimes it's like sometimes like little things pop up here and there, and it's like, oh wow, that's fascinating. But then it's like it's almost like you go out in your yard and it's like there's there's a weed, and you just kind of pull the weed and you toss it, and then you just keep going, and your yard looks great. Like it's not like oh my gosh, it's now overrun. It's like no, just a few little things here and there. But it that is not the like lens with which I see myself anymore.

unknown 43:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:09

Well, I'm proud of you, and I love you, and you know all that. Yes, and um, I am sure I will see you on Marco Polo. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 43:20

Probably tomorrow. Exactly. Well, thank you for sharing uh the insider scoop of of the journey. I think it's um it's just so helpful. I think for anybody to hear, like, oh, this doesn't happen overnight. This takes time, and to really see like there are so many, so many things in the journey that can feel terrible, can feel like you know, going backwards or whatever. It's like all of it matters and it's all so important. And literally every single step in the journey, no matter which direction you're going or what it feels like, it all matters and it's all so important. It's like just like keep holding that vision of who you want to become and that thing you think you're gonna get at that goal. It's like that's what you really want to cultivate now.

SPEAKER_00 44:07

So exactly. Awesome. Thank you. You're welcome. Bye then.

SPEAKER_02 44:15

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