Four Pillars of Creating Peace With Food

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you could create peace with food?

In this episode, I talk about the four pillars of creating peace with food. This is important because the pillars become the foundation. If your goal is food freedom or being able to eat with ease, there are some components that have to be in place for this goal to be achieved and sustained.

Some takeaways from this episode:

• The four pillars of creating peace with food are clarity, connection, compassion, and confidence.
• You don't have to be perfect at all of these items.
• Imagine what might change if you improved even a little bit in each of these four areas.

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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. 

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Transcript

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Welcome to Binge Breakfast. The podcast design to help you finally break through the barriers that keep you stuck, feeling out of control now. I'm Master Pike Coach James Poker, and I want you to know that no matter how long you've been struggling, or what you've tried, freedom is all up. 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 you are listening for a reason. I trust that you are going to hear something today that has an impact for you on your food journey. So let's dive in. Open up to what you might hear, to what insights, what takeaways that you are going to be able to apply for your own journey. All right. So today we're going to talk about the four pillars of creating peace with food. This is important because these pillars become the foundation of everything that we're doing. If your goal is food freedom or being able to eat with ease, there are some components that have to be in place for this goal to be achieved and sustained. This process, it's about changing who you are as an eater. It truly becomes an identity shift. This is not just changing the food that's in your pantry. It is changing who you are, how you show up, how you are in the world around food. And if you want to go deeper into this concept of your identity as an eater, you can go back and check out episode 24 of this podcast. But if we go back to this concept and what we're talking about today with these four pillars that really do become the foundation, think about this. If you were going to build a new house, you would want to make sure that the foundation of your house was solid. So that everything you put on that foundation would have a much better chance of handling any excess load, any stress, or extreme conditions. The foundation is what helps us sustain. The same is true when creating peace with food. We need to understand what creates a solid foundation that can stand up against stress, against pressure, and the ups and downs of life. We don't want to create a situation where, okay, I'm quote unquote good with food, except when life gets hard, except when I'm really stressed out, or when life happens or things don't go the way that I expect. That is not an identity shift. That is sometimes I act one way, sometimes I act another. We are talking about true peace with food and the foundations that are required. Okay, so if you've been around me for a while, you might know that I love word hippo. Word hippo is uh both an app you can download onto your phone as well as a website, wordhippo.com, where you can look up definitions of words and you can get different definitions. You can get synonyms. I love using word hippo for um, I love it for emotional capacity work when you are trying to figure out what am I feeling right now? What is the word? What is that, or what is the definition of this word? I often use word hippo. So I went to word hippo to look at the definition of pillar. And the definition that really resonated for me in the reference of what we're talking about today is this pillar is a person or thing regarded as reliably providing essential support for something. Now, I love this definition because what we're going to talk about about these four pillars of creating peace with food, these pillars are reliably providing essential support. Essential support for what? For creating peace with food. So this is why we're calling them the four pillars. This is why it's important. Now, now that we understand what these pillars are, they're a foundation. They're providing essential support for creating this new identity as somebody who has peace with food, who is calm, trusting, relaxed around food. Okay. So what are the four pillars? Here they are: clarity, connection, compassion, and confidence. We're gonna go into each one of these four pillars and just talk about them briefly and why they are so important. Now, I want to clarify, these pillars might be different from someone who currently experiences food freedom and maybe let's say they have either always experienced it or they've experienced it for a very long time. Now, one of those, if if you have somebody who's like, oh yeah, like I have no problems with food, these four pillars may or may not resonate with them. But for somebody who has gone from a place where they used to feel out of control with food, they used to have no trust around food. Now they feel in control, they feel calm, they feel relaxed. These four pillars are the key foundations, the key essential support to get to that place. Clarity, connection, compassion, and confidence. These are the essential support. All right, so let's dive into each one. Number one, clarity. In order to get to a destination, particularly one you've never been before, you need to know where you are going. So you get in the car. Let's say you just get in the car and you're like, oh, let's take a road trip. If you don't know where you are going, how do you even know where to drive? Clarity allows you to set your GPS. Let's say we're gonna go to Florida. If we're gonna go to Florida, that now I know Florida is my GPS, but it's not just Florida. Florida's a really big state. I could get going in the right direction, but if I know exactly very specifically what part of Florida I want to go to, that helps me even more. So there's really three points of clarity that I like to look at. There's clarity of destination, clarity of your decisions, and clarity of direction. So clarity of destination is literally where am I going? What city in Florida am I traveling to? This is where we get into the work of the identity. What is this future identity I am creating as an eater? You can go back. I have another podcast episode about your identity. It's getting very clear on that. Then it's clarity of your decisions. How am I going to make decisions between now and then? For me to get, if I were to drive to Florida, it would take me at least two days, maybe longer. So, in these decisions, how do I figure out what is most important? How will I decide? I could drive all night long. It could take me, I could get there much faster if I decide I'm going to drive all night. I'm going to limit my bathroom stops. Or maybe I want to take my time. Maybe I want to um stop and visit a friend or some family on the way. Maybe I want to uh go have a picnic. I need to get very clear on how I am going to make decisions along the way. What is most important to me and how will I make those decisions? Then clarity of direction. Which route am I going to take? There are several routes that will get me to Florida. I could take the scenic route. I could take the most direct route. I could, I may have to see, oh, you know what? I might want to go that way, but there's road construction. Maybe that road is closed. So what direction am I going to take in order to get there? Three points of clarity. Very important. So the way this applies to food is where am I going? What is this vision of who I am becoming, who I want to be as this person who is calm and relaxed and peaceful with food? How am I going to make decisions around what to eat, around these choices? What direction am I going to take? What's this process? Okay, that's number one. Pillar number two, connection. Connecting with your body. This whole process with this connection with your body is really understanding, distinguishing between the communication of your body, the communication of your mind. They are two different, it's all happening within your body, but the communication from your body itself and from your mind are very different. So can you distinguish that? When you are more connected with your body, you truly have more connection and understanding with your signals, your signals of hunger and satisfaction. You have an awareness of how certain foods feel in your body. You make decisions from a place of what feels supportive. You understand what your body needs, and you're able to discern its signals. So many of us that feel out of control with food use food to disconnect to ourselves. So this connection with your body, with what your body is trying to tell you. Your body is always communicating with you. So it's knowing, being able to discern what is it saying and how am I responding? One of the other components of connection is your emotional capacity, an expanded emotional capacity. I've talked about this on the podcast before, but your emotional capacity is your ability to be with any emotion. So it's being connected to yourself and your emotions, being able to notice them, to name them, to allow them, discerning the messages that our emotions have for us rather than thinking that they are a threat or something to be scared of or avoided. This literally is the most important skill we can cultivate. Whether it is for the goal of creating food freedom and that peace with food, or whether it is just for life. You are a human being with a wide range of emotions. Every single one of us is. If you can cultivate the skill of expanding your emotional capacity, understanding your emotions, being able to be with them, to name them, to be able to get into word hippo and really understand and discern what you are feeling. It is so, so powerful and will impact every single area of your life. And the last part of connection is the nervous system connection. It's having this awareness of your nervous system. Now, again, you can go back to a previous episode and learn all about the nervous system, the different states of your nervous system. And true connection is understanding where you are within your nervous system at any given point and understanding the tools that will help you calm and regulate your nervous system when you are activated so that you won't need to use food to soothe. You have other tools available. All right, that's pillar number two, connection. Pillar number three is compassion. The first component of compassion is self-understanding. It's understanding what is happening within you. Understanding what you really need. Now we can't always do this in the moment. Sometimes we can. And with more practice, the more you practice the skill, the more you will be able to do it in the moment. To be able to discern what is going on for you. As you expand your emotional capacity, as you expand your nervous system connection, as you expand the connection with your body itself and the signals that it's sending you, you start to have more understanding for yourself, what's going on, what you really need. Ah, okay, I see this is happening within my nervous system. I see I'm feeling really activated. I know these tools are available. Here's how I can take care of myself. It's this understanding, like, oh yes, I understand how my brain works. I understand why I might be freaking out right now. I understand why this is happening, this experience that I'm having, I understand it and I know what I need. So component number one of compassion is self-understanding. The second component is self-kindness. And self-kindness means speaking nicely to yourself. It's that voice that you hear inside your head that it's kind, that it's gentle, that it understands that you're human, that sometimes you show up in ways you might not prefer. Sometimes you make choices you might wish you didn't make. Sometimes you just don't feel like doing certain things. You are human. You are allowed to have a human experience. This self-kindness, it's the voice that you hear inside your head. This is a component of compassion. Some people, particularly people who have a very challenging relationship with food, the voice they hear in their head is harsh. It's critical, it's mean, it's judgmental. So, what do we want to do when we hear that voice? We want to get away from it. How do we get away from ourselves? We disconnect. We disconnect from our bodies, and often we do it with food. So this component of compassion, this pillar of compassion that is so important is includes self-kindness, speaking nicely to yourself no matter what. This does become a process. This is part of the work that I love doing with clients because I sometimes for clients, my kind voice, my compassion, my understanding, and my support for them is the first of any of this type of compassion that they have ever received, particularly when it comes to food. And so sometimes we have to see it from somebody else before we can start giving it to ourselves. That totally makes sense. So self-kindness, an important part of compassion. The other important part of compassion is self-support. It's being able to address your needs. So we identify the needs within the self-understanding. And in that self-support, it's addressing our needs. Sometimes we have the ability and the tools and the resources to address our own needs. And sometimes we don't. And when we don't, that's okay. But what we can do is reach out for support, reach out for somebody else to support us. So one way that we can be self-supportive is to seek outside support because you are the person who first has to reach out for support. Nobody is going to come and knock on your door and just say, Hey, would you like some support? I think you might be struggling. Nobody's going to do that. Well, maybe somebody might. It would be amazing. It is not likely. So one way you can support yourself is by knowing, you know what? I have no idea how to support myself, but I do know I need help. I need support. You can reach out for external support to be able to give you the understanding and the kindness and the support that you literally may not have the capability to do just yet. And that's okay. That is a form of compassion. It's getting it from someplace else while you learn how to do that for yourself. And pillar number four is confidence. This pillar is so important because confidence looks like the ultimate self-trust. It's trusting yourself to make decisions on what, when, and how much to eat. It's trusting that your body is going to communicate with you regarding what it needs. And trusting that you will listen when your body does communicate with you, that you will respond. It's the two-way trust that I talk about. You trust that your body is going to communicate with you, and your body trusts that you are actually going to respond, listen and respond accordingly when it communicates, that you are no longer going to ignore the signals from your body that you may have been ignoring for a long time, like many of us have. Confidence also looks like having safety with food, with any food, being able to be around any food, whether it's at a party, a buffet, a holiday event, or the grocery store, and knowing that you have full authority and agency to make any decision. Food has no power or charge. It's enjoyable, it's pleasurable, but it has its own place that leaves you with a lot of mental space left over to pursue other interests and passions in life. Confidence also looks like a growth mindset. So this concept of a growth mindset came from research by a woman by the name of Carol Dweck. The question is this how do you encounter obstacles? Or when things don't go like you planned or you expected. With a growth mindset, you thrive on challenge. You learn from your mistakes and you use them as an opportunity to grow. So you embrace challenge. You persist when you have setbacks. You see effort as a path to mastery. You learn when things go wrong. And you find lessons and inspiration in the success of others. So what does a growth mindset look like after a binge or an out-of-control moment? You've had a moment with food where you are just like, you were out of control. Maybe you just turned the lights off on yourself. All of a sudden you ate a whole lot of food, way more food than you were planning on. Maybe you went and you bought extra food. You are just surrounded by all kinds of rappers or fast food or whatever it is. A growth mindset looks like I am going to figure this out. That is, it looks like you saying that to yourself. Huh. I wonder what happened here. How can I use this situation as an opportunity to learn? There is a there's a reason for this. This is my light on the dashboard. What am I gonna learn from this? How does this make sense? How do I learn from this? What else is going on? It's how we approach ourselves. A fixed mindset is the opposite of a growth mindset. A fixed mindset sounds like oh, I can't believe I did it again. I'm broken. There's something wrong with me. I'll never be able to figure this out. It's this idea that we are fixed. Your situation with food is fixed. It can't be changed. It can't be improved. I do not believe that. I do not believe that for you. I do not believe that for anybody. But having a growth mindset, knowing that it's through these obstacles, it's through these moments where you show up with food in the ways that you would prefer you didn't. That is how you grow. That is how you figure things out. That is how you make adjustments. If you have the right mindset to approach them, approach these moments so that you can grow from them rather than using them as evidence that you are wrong or broken or will never figure this out. It's so important. All right. Those are the four pillars. The four pillars of creating peace with food, clarity, connection, compassion, and confidence. So I want you to reflect on this for yourself. How would you rate your pillars? Do you have a clear vision of what food freedom looks like for you? Are you connected with your body, your emotions, and your nervous system? Do you have self-compassion, self-kindness, and self-support? Do you have confidence that you can trust yourself and that you can grow and learn from any setback, no matter how big it might seem at the time? Now, you don't have to be perfect at all of these items. Just imagine what might change if you improved even a little bit in each of these four areas. This is the foundation of the work I do with my clients. Now, if you are listening to this episode when it airs live in July of 2023, I would like to invite you to my upcoming virtual event where we are going to do a deep dive into several of these components. It's going to be an interactive experience where you will walk away with a clear picture of where you are going, awareness of your nervous system, and we are going to create confidence together as we go through and exercise with your binge food live during the workshop. It's going to be amazing. This is one you are going to want to attend in person. Not just hope that you remember to watch the replay at some point before it disappears. So you can sign up at janepilger.com forward slash event. That's janepilger.com forward slash event. This is coming up at the end of July. Check it all out online and get signed up today. All right, that's what I have for you. Remember clarity, connection, compassion, confidence. Pick one of these pillars. Pick one thing to work on. Change happens best with small shifts made consistently over time. Leave the all or nothing thinking behind and pick one thing that you heard today that you can implement for yourself. Even if it doesn't feel like enough, it really is if you repeat it. I'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to Binge Breakthrough. If you're a smart, successful woman who is ready to go from triggered to trust with your binge food, you won't want to miss my two-day virtual event where I will teach you how to work with your brain, body, and nervous system to create a peaceful relationship with food. This is not another class. It's an interactive experience where you will get to learn about and work with your nervous system in live time. And on day two, you'll bring your binge food, and I will walk you through an exercise that just might change everything for you. The only cost to you is your time. Sign up today at janepilker.com forward slash event.