The Secret? Let Go.

Most people think healing is about fixing.
 Fixing your past. Fixing your patterns. Fixing your so-called flaws.

But what if that belief is the thing keeping you stuck?

In this episode of It Was Never About The Food, Rob unpacks the truth most self-help content avoids:
👉 Healing doesn't start when you chase more knowledge, routines, or control.
👉 Healing begins when you stop trying to fix yourself.

Inside this episode:

• Why constantly “working on yourself” might be another form of self-rejection
• How emotional eating patterns are often survival tools, not failures
• What healing actually looks like when you stop chasing it
• The power of nervous system safety over willpower or perfection
• How to shift from fixing into feeling — and find peace in the process

If you’ve ever felt stuck in your healing journey, tired of trying to “get it right,” or ashamed that you’re still struggling… this episode will soften that fight.

📲 DM Rob the word PODCAST on Instagram or Facebook if this one gave you permission to just be for once.

Transcript

0:00

Okay, so let's talk about something that's gonna, um, wind up that little inner fixer within you, but it's also gonna set you free because we spend so much of our lives trying to, you know, get it right, fix ourselves, yada, yada, yada, to be more healed, to be more whole. To be more emotionally together. Uh, it drives me insane. Uh, hence the podcast this week.'cause what if healing isn't something that you chase? What if healing is, what if healing actually shows up when you stop looking? Do you ever notice how that happens, like romantically, for example, when you go on the chase? It kills something within the romance of it all, and it almost, it almost it, it blocks it from happening when you stop trying to be better. And finally, just allow yourself to be a fucking human. Well, that's what we're diving into today. You are listening to. It was never about the food. The podcast where we go deeper than diets discipline or self-help fluff. I'm Rob, and I'm not here to tell you what to eat. I'm here to help you understand why you became who you became while you were trying to survive. Because underneath every binge, every spiral, and every breakdown is a story. And I wanna help you rewrite that. Because the truth is it was never about the food. So where do we start? The trap, the bloody trap. The trap of I'm not healed enough. You know? And I think that's never that loud, because I think if we're comparing this to like a weight loss journey, for example. Uh, you have this visual reminder every day that you don't conform to society standards, you know, whereas healing, yes, the byproduct of healing is, is a smaller body because you're not coping with food anymore, uh, a healthier body because you're not boozing so much, et cetera, et cetera. But that aside, the like, healing is so internal and fluid and invisible. That it's almost as though we hold ourselves to this excruciating standard that we always have because with, um, again, I'll, I'll use weight loss as an example. With weight loss, you, it's almost as though you're so fucking exhausted from everyone else's reminders that you need to lose weight. That. It's enough on its own, whereas with true healing, you're kind of left to your own devices. With that one, you, you're left to your own perfectionistic standards, and I would say in, in many ways, they're probably even more toxic than everyone else's standards. So because it is therefore so invisible, the risk that you carry is using self-development as just another way to be approved of. The self-development world sneaks in the idea that healing, um, is this never ending ladder, which is true to an extent, but you are not trying to heal when you are on that journey. You just use that word because it's wrapped up in a. In a nice self-development bow, you know, with pretty packaging, what you're doing then is you're trying to become acceptable. It's the same fucking thing. It's the same thing as weight loss. It's the same thing as the job that you've got in yourself. You know, working your, your way up the ladder. It's the same standards that you held for yourself at school Picket fence now. You know, it, it's, it's, it's because it's self-development. We, we end up chasing the, the proverbial dragon there instead of somewhere else, and it's sneaky and it strokes the ego and then we can post about it on Instagram. So are you, are you seeing the similarities here towards, um, weight loss, you know, or going on the perfect holidays? Um, if you can hear a jingling, it's'cause my bit or Willie has just walked in. Um, so Well, what do you have to do? You know, like, fuck Rob, like. Am I ever gonna be happy? Now you're telling me that the one thing that I thought I was doing right, you know, I finally got off the the diet culture wagon, and I'm finally doing things for like, for myself internally, healing. I'm getting that wrong. Healing starts where self judgment ends. It's as simple as that. And what you need to have a very good awareness of is what your personal, uh, how would I phrase it? Your personal shame attack looks because when it's with, again, weight loss, it's so obvious'cause it's so cruel. You know, you just gotten used to your cruelty, but with this stuff it's, it's super subtle. So we finish one book and then we're onto the next one. Then we finish that book, we're onto another coaching program, and then when we've quote unquote mastered that program, then we're onto another podcast. So what you'll often find is people really bragging about Yeah, well I'm always doing self development. Yeah, you're, you're learning about it, mate. You're not doing it. You are learning about it. And this, this, the, the really sneaky little fucker that's underneath all of that is you are not enough. Now that you've read that book, you've gotta do another one. No, no, no. You don't know everything. You've gotta move on to the next thing now. So it's just that there's no exam at the end of this, but it's still the same thing, and you can't shame yourself into peace. So my advice for you here, guys, is you've got to, you've gotta, with self-development, you've gotta have a really good, um, level of accountability and awareness of when that shame is popping up. You know how I can speak about this so clearly because I'm speaking to myself. This is something that still catches me. Healing doesn't begin with change. Change is, um, change is step one. Let's say then when we've worked through what we quote unquote, need to improve. Et cetera. We also need to get to a a point of acceptance, like genuine acceptance. And that's not really something that I can strategize you towards because it just finds you, if you're fortunate enough to have that wonderful gala or wonderful guy on your arm, even though you drive each other fucking crazy. Uh. But you know that it's just, it, it's the right place, it's home. You, you probably found that person when you weren't looking like, I dunno about you guys, but before I met Jess, um, like most people my age, we were on the Tinder wagon, you know, the Bumble wagon and the. The, the hinge wagon, uh, and then the right person kind of finds you when you are constantly on this dopamine hit of trying to find the right person or the right thing, you, you don't find her, do you? So, so it's, it's within there somewhere that you need to seek, that you need to dive into right now. Because that's, that, that's something that you, we wanna be curious about right there. Like there's clues in that you were never, you've gotta recognize that you weren't broken. I know that's difficult to comprehend and you might think that I'm being pedantic. But there is a difference between being broken and surviving because if we're really able to zoom out, aren't we all really, aren't we all just trying our best to keep our head above water? The difference is, is that perhaps society has different standards, or sorry, society has a certain set of accepted standards. And when you don't meet that set of criteria, well the world lets you know, especially in this day and age when we've got access to more of each other than we ever have in history. So it's a very easy, natural conclusion then to call yourself broken. But when we truly zoom out, if you were to truly step in the mind of that person that you think has, um, really got it together. You'll be surprised. Trust me, you'll be really surprised. So those coping mechanisms that you found, food that weren't failures, they were strategies, just very subliminal ones. The body will always find a way to survive. When the world stops showing up for you, body keeps the score. So you can't, you can't meditate your way outta being human. Like I, I, I'm all for it, right? Meditation, I'm, I'm looking at a whole stack of books right here in front of me. I'm not poo-pooing over these things. That's not what I'm doing. But you've gotta understand the intention behind how you allow those things in. To your subconscious, because there's a big difference between a dopamine hit and what your, what your inner self, let's say, is saying, what do I need right now? You know, so it's, it's about, it's about the intention. It's about where it comes from. Sometimes the most healing thing you can do is nothing like just let yourself be. And I believe that we're all creators. Um, we're all artists. Um, whether you are, you know, the classical definition where, uh. You perform, you write, you paint, you uh, write music or if you code or if you project manage, there is an art you are always creating. There is an art to how you respond to that conversation. When you are, um, trying to lead someone in a certain way and you are reading them. You know, if you are what you, you would label as an empath, that's, that's artistry in terms of how you are creating that conversation that you're having right there. So I put us all in the same bucket in that way, and all of us, no exception, will always find the true crea, the true, the true. Creative capacity. Sorry, I just knocked the mic there. Um, we will only really find that, or we will often find that when we're doing nothing, which to somebody with a toxic level of productivity sounds like hell. That's why your life's not improving. If we think about Einstein and Relativity. He didn't lab test his way into that. He had a dream about, um, moving alongside a beam of light. That's how, how we understand relativity today. That was the visualization from which it came. Newton Apple clocked him on the head. Boom, gravity. So sometimes the most profound healing experiences that you can have, whether it be through creation or discovery of something out there or something of yourself, is to do fucking nothing. Just let yourself be and let the world use you as the VE vessel so it can pass through you. Letting go of the pressure to always be doing the bloody work. Say the same thing that I say often. Where's that gotten you in terms of what you truly want for yourself? Where's it gotten you? Freedom begins when you stop chasing it. The moment you stop trying to fix yourself is the moment that you just begin to soften a little. So yeah, the irony is your softness is what creates real change. It's so attractive to everything yourself, especially. So if this. If this one hits you in the chest a little bit, I know we've gone off on, on tangents today, but that's by design, right? So this is what I love. For example, like I consider myself to be a creator. I know the, the, the northerner within me vomited in my mouth a bit as I said that, but I hope you can appreciate what I'm saying. By just allowing it, the, the having the, the trust within myself for the words to come. Then that's how you find out who you actually are, what you, you actually think, what you actually feel. And that's something that I think you're probably missing. So if you felt. Even a flicker of relief, perhaps. I want you to message me the word podcast either on Instagram, Facebook, wherever you spend your time. Not because I'm gonna sell you anything, but there's always a step, always the most. The, the, the places in life where I've made the most progress always came from nothing. It came from a willingness to be vulnerable, to have conversations that, um, I didn't really desire any outcome of. That's where a lot of the magic will lie, and it could be in that conversation. In Facebook or, or Instagram, so you can mark that moment for yourself. Okay, cool. Well, this was never, it was never about the food, and yeah, I'll see you next time.