What Do You Do When Things Get Hard?

This episode is inspired by a recent experience that I had while doing a half-marathon. In this episode, we will be expanding on what I talked about in Episode 24 about your identity as an eater. We talk about what happens when things get hard. 

On our journey through life, we are going to have obstacles and challenges. Things will not always go the way we want them to. So the question is - what do you do when that happens?

Here are a few takeaways from this episode:

• Thinking that we need everything to be in control is an attempt at protecting ourselves.
• There are many things we can't control - but one thing we can always control is our reaction to any circumstance. How we show up and who we are in the face of whatever happens in our lives.
• The way you think about your urges and the way you relate to them is everything. If you can shift one thing - see your urges as a challenge, as the opportunity for growth and new pathways.

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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Welcome to Binge Breakfast, the podcast design to help you finally point through the bearing. Feeling out of control, my food. I'm about to be poker. And I want you to know that no matter how long you've been struggling, what you've tried. And we all need to put all the new perspective. Each week I will share the strategies, tools, and mindset that allowed me to overcome my decade-long battle with binge people. 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, this episode, at this moment for a reason. I trust that you are going to hear something today. Maybe it's a new concept that you've never heard before. Maybe it's a concept that you've heard before, but you have a new insight, or it's exactly the thing that you know is going to help you on your journey to breaking through from your eating patterns. So this week we're going to talk about, um, we're going to expand a little bit on the conversation that we had in episode 24 about your identity as an eater. And this episode was also inspired by my own experience during a recent half marathon. We're going to talk about what you do when things get hard. I think many of us subconsciously want a life where nothing is hard. Things just go the way we want them to. We don't have any challenges or obstacles, and life follows our instruction manual. It's this idea that life should be rainbows and daisies all of the time. Now, this may sound very nice and noble, but the problem is it's just not reality. That is not how life works. We are going to encounter difficulties. Life is going to be hard sometimes. We're going to have obstacles and challenges, and things will not always go the way we want them to. So the question is, what do you do when that happens? I want you to think about this for yourself right now. When life gets hard, what do you do? When someone says something about you, or someone shows up in a way that you don't like? What about when someone gets sick, injured, or even passes away unexpectedly? When your kids have a meltdown, or your partner is struggling emotionally or physically? Maybe your parents are getting older and having health challenges, or maybe you are the one with the physical or emotional health struggles. What do you do? What do you think about yourself as a person in relation to hard things? Do you think of yourself as someone who can do hard things? Or do you think of yourself as someone who is only okay when things are together and happening according to plan? When things get hard, do you use that as an excuse to disconnect from your experience of life? Maybe an excuse to go binge, overeat, or eat in secret? Do things feel so overwhelming sometimes that you think you just can't handle it? And when you think you can't handle it or that everything is out of control, what do you do? I'm gonna guess you might eat in a way that reflects the feeling of out of control. You prove to yourself that things are out of control and that you are also. Thinking that we need everything to be in control is an attempt at protecting ourselves, but it often backfires because we simply aren't in control of so many things that happen in this world. I know for me, I used to, I used to like be okay if everything was going according to my plan. But if the plan did not go accordingly, or my schedule changed, or something happened, I would often use it as a reason to binge. It's like, well, things aren't going according to plan. I might as well just make it really not go according to plan. I had a very hard time when things weren't exactly as I thought they should be. And when we're talking about control and what we are or aren't in control of, one thing that we absolutely aren't in control of, but many people try to control is our bodies. And specifically how much food or drink we need to take in on a given day. We simply can't know that answer. And that answer is not exactly the same every single day either. But we think we can control it by counting our calories or our macros and ignoring what our bodies are actually trying to tell us. So we think if we do that, that we will protect ourselves from feeling out of control around food. But the irony is that the exact attempt to control is what leads us to feeling out of control. And if you want to hear more about this topic, you can check out episode nine of this podcast, where I talk about how to develop two-way trust. And in that episode, I'm talking about the number six reason why you binge, which is the attempt to control. So there are a lot of things that we can't control. But one thing we can always control is our reaction to any circumstance. We can control how we show up and who we are in the face of whatever is happening in our lives. Now, I want to take a brief pause and say if we are truly in a survival response, our nervous system is completely dysregulated because it is feeling a threat in some way. In those moments, we are not always in control of that. So I want to acknowledge that. So I want to acknowledge that there are times when we are in that response, kind of feels like, oh, I have no control. Sometimes when that part of the brain is activated, it does um, it, it does, it can be, it can be that way. But who do you want to be as a person when things get hard? Do you want to be someone who escapes, who thinks they can't handle it, who feels weak and powerless? Every single one of those thoughts will likely lead you to turn to food or to some other source of false pleasure, like social media or Netflix or shopping or alcohol? Or do you want to be someone who knows they can do hard things? Someone who sees obstacles as a catalyst for growth, someone who sees discomfort and challenge as where we grow stronger. Do you want to lean into the discomfort and allow it to be a part of your experience so you can become stronger and more resilient than you were before the hard thing? Or do you want to run away from it, thinking that you can't handle it and ultimately gathering more evidence that you aren't strong enough, that you aren't capable, and that you need to escape? There's actually some really amazing research in this field about the difference in our human physiology when we view stress like an obstacle or something, a hard thing as a challenge versus when we view it as a threat. And it makes sense when we talk about that nervous system response. If we view something as a threat, our nervous system is likely to see it as a threat to potentially our survival. It will take us into that survival response. But if we see it as a challenge, it's something to overcome. It's something that we can figure out. It literally, the way that our brain, our body, our nervous system is going to respond will be very different. So let's think about this specifically. Think about this for yourself. Now let's talk about the urge to binge, to overeat, to eat in secret as the challenging thing. So you might be, if this is happening, you might be experiencing some really loud thoughts in your brain. You might have these sensations in your stomach, in your head, your kind of skin might feel like it's kind of buzzy. You might literally think that you could die if you don't eat something right now. This urge is your hard thing. So, what do you typically think about yourself in relation to handling the urge? Do you think you can't do it? That it's too hard? What do you think about the urge itself? Do you think it's big, overwhelming, and scary? I was coaching someone the other day who talked about it as the urge monster. I pointed out to her that thinking about it as a monster is going to make it so much bigger and more powerful than it needs to be. Who wants to fight a monster? Nobody. This is an example of seeing a challenge as a threat. Do you see your urges as a threat or as something you want to get rid of? This will often lead to fear and resistance, two things that will grow and get bigger. And as a result, you begin to give the urge so much more power with your thinking. And giving that urge more power reduces any power you have to just let it be a part of your experience. This is why you may have thoughts that you're fighting it, struggling with it, or resisting that desire to eat something or a lot of things right now. What might be different if you thought about the urge as a challenge, as the opportunity to create a new relationship with it and to develop a new response to the urge? What if I told you that the urge didn't have to go away and that you didn't have to fight it or resist it? What if it could just simply be a part of your experience? And that if you allowed it to be there, knowing that it was ultimately going to create growth and the new patterns and pathways you want for yourself, that it would simply go away on its own, you might open up to the experience of the tightness in your chest, the buzzing in your body, the feeling that you want to crawl out of your skin. You would know it wouldn't last forever and it won't always feel that way. You would know you could handle it, and that anything your brain tries to tell you to get you to eat is just the survival brain trying to protect you in ways that simply reinforce the pattern. The way you think about your urges and the way you relate to them is everything. If you can shift one thing, it's this. See your urges as a challenge, as the opportunity for growth and new pathways. Stop seeing them as a threat, as something big and scary and powerful. Urges will continue to be a part of your experience for a while as you unwind the neural pathways. But how you experience them and relate to them will literally determine what happens next and whether you are creating more urges or whether you are creating a new identity as someone who can be with these urges, but not respond and react to them from a place of fear or powerlessness. So I want to give you a personal example. I ran a half marathon recently, and I'm working on becoming a faster runner. Now, in order to become a faster runner, I can't just read about it. I actually have to run faster. It's hard. My brain doesn't like it. It often, often offers up that I can't do it. I can't run this fast. It's too hard. I need to slow down. Now I know when this happens, it's just the brain and it's three primary motivations at work. Remember, it wants to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and use as little energy as possible. So running harder, running faster is creating there is some pain involved, there is some discomfort involved, and it's using a lot of energy. So my brain does not want that. So during this recent half marathon, I was running and I was things were getting pretty hard. It was probably between miles nine and 10 of the half marathon, which I've already run quite a few, but I still have several more miles to go. And for me, I've always thought mile nine to ten of a half marathon is probably the hardest mile in a half marathon. And I got to thinking to myself, what is it that people, what is it that gets people through hard things? And I came up with several items and several, what really separates people from the people who really open up to the hard things and the people that don't. People who are, I think, more open to challenge, more open to hard things. When things get hard, they seek support. This might be from someone else. So maybe it's from a friend, maybe it's a partner, maybe it's a coach. They seek outside support. They don't try to do hard things by themselves. They might also seek this support from inspiration. So, for example, I might think to myself, what would my husband tell me in this moment? What would my coach tell me in this moment? I can get support from inspiration, maybe from a higher power, depending on what my belief system is. I can seek support. I do not have to go through this hard thing by myself. I also think that people who uh are successful in really opening up to when things get hard, is they see it as a challenge. They see it as an opportunity for growth. They keep the bigger picture in mind, the reason why they're doing the thing. So I think for myself, I was, as I was thinking, it was feeling hard. My brain was offering up that, oh, we may not be able to do this. And I got to thinking about my bigger picture. My goal, part of the reason I want to run faster, is I have a bigger goal. I want to qualify again for the Hawaii Iron Man World Championships in Kona. There, I have two races coming up in which I will be racing. I will be trying to run faster. I will be working on my performance. So not only am I thinking about what I'm doing right now in this moment, I am thinking about why am I doing this for? What is this bigger vision? I'm imagining myself at these future races. I'm imagining what it will take in order for me to qualify again. I am reminding myself, in order to get faster, this is it. This is how we get faster. Right here, this is what you want. This is what we've signed up for. You want to get faster. This is it. This is the way we get there. I have that bigger picture in mind. I'm also thinking to myself, no regrets. I do not want to get to the end of that race and look back and say, oh man, I probably could have run faster. Oh man, I shouldn't have stopped. I shouldn't have started walking. I have done that before. And when I look back and I think, oh, I could have kept going. So I remind myself, no regrets. Am I going to regret this later this evening? That's an amazing thing you can do. You can also pay attention to how you talk to yourself. Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right. So when you start noticing, oh, I can't do it. This is too hard. Notice, yes, we can. I notice when that starts happening. I notice when my energy starts shifting into the kind of weaker, I can't do this. And then I bring in my internal cheerleader. Yes, you can do this. You can do hard things. You can do more than you think you can. No regrets, picturing that bigger picture in mind. This is what we're doing. This is where we're going. Now, the other thing is you want to make sure your approach to hard is reasonable. So I don't start running at a pace that is way far faster than I'm capable of holding over a half marathon, or I would end up wanting to quit, wanting to walk much sooner. So I know kind of what my where my hard level is. I'm not doing something that is out of uh that is unreasonable for me. So, where in your life do you see hard things as more of a threat than a challenge or an opportunity? And what might it be like to shift your relationship with that hard thing? How would you need to see yourself differently in order to do that? How would you need to speak to yourself in the middle of it? And for yourself, are you somebody that can do hard things in some areas of life, but maybe it's other areas? Maybe, yeah, you know what? At work, I can totally do hard things, but with food, it's totally different. If that's the case for you, get curious. How do you talk to yourself differently when you're at work or when you are embracing the hard thing versus with food or somewhere else where you kind of have a different relationship with how you see yourself in relationship to that hard thing? So, what would it be like to shift your relationship, to see that hard thing as a challenge or as an opportunity? How would you need to see yourself differently? And how would you need to speak to yourself in the middle of it? If you have a hard time picturing for this for yourself, like, ah, I have no idea. I don't even know what this would look like. I don't even know how I would speak to myself in a more encouraging way. Imagine for yourself how you support and encourage other people in your life when they have self-doubt. Maybe it's kids, your partner or your friends. What do you say to them when they think they can't do something? When they are doubting themselves. What do you say to them? So think about that. Those words probably come very easily to you. So then how can you take those words, the words that you would pour into somebody else and apply them to your own internal dialogue? What might it look like if you were your own biggest cheerleader? If you were the one encouraging yourself through this hard thing, if you were the one painting that picture of the bigger picture vision, who you are becoming, why you are doing this, seeing this as this opportunity. This is where we change. This is where we do the thing. This is how we reach our goal. Every goal is going to have challenges and hard things. It's through the hard things, through the challenges that we grow, that we learn. Think back to your life. Think back to every single amazing thing you have ever done. Weren't there challenges? Weren't there hard things? Yes. It's by overcoming the hard things, by getting through those challenges, what we learn, who we become through them, that is where we grow. That is how we become the person we want to be. All right, I've given you a lot to think about. And life, here's the great news. Life's going to give you many opportunities to put these concepts into action. You will face hard things. So, how do you want to be in relation to those hard things? Here's what I know for sure. You can do hard things. I'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to Binge Breakthrough. If you want to understand why you feel out of control with food sometimes, I've created just the thing for you. Discover the number one reason why and get three things you can do today. Visit binge breakthrough.com forward slash quiz, and you'll have your answer and your next step. That's binge breakthrough.com forward slash quid.