Emotional Eating- Sometimes It's Deeper Than You Think. My first conversation about trauma and how it might be keeping you stuck.

A few weeks ago, I talked about how emotional eating sometimes isn’t that deep. But in this episode, I want to explore the other side of it. Because sometimes... it actually is. 

I share what I’ve seen over and over again with clients who are making progress, feeling good, and creating real change in their lives... only to suddenly hit resistance when they start becoming more visible, more confident, or more aligned with the version of themselves they truly want to be.

We talk about how past experiences, trauma, or even smaller moments from our past can quietly shape the way we respond to growth, attention, success, and discomfort.

And how sometimes, the body reacts before we can even identify a thought.

This episode is really about learning how to recognize when your nervous system might be trying to keep you “safe” by keeping you small, stuck, or disconnected from your goals.

I also talk about the importance of therapy, creating safety within yourself, and learning how to sit with discomfort long enough to move toward the life you actually want.

Because healing isn’t always about staying focused on the past.

Sometimes it’s about realizing that you are safe now... and allowing yourself to grow from that place.

Courtney

Currently, I work with women privately and in my monthly membership.  Click HERE to head to my website to learn more.

Transcript

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Paul, welcome to Modern Body, Modern Life, the podcast for women who want to feel powerful, healthy, strong, and confident inside and out at every age. On this podcast, we talk about becoming a woman who is fully in control of her eating and movement, so weight loss, strength, and energy become permanent. We also talk about something bigger, becoming the woman who takes her deepest desires seriously and goes after more in every area of her life. I'm Body and Life Coach Courtney Gray, and I believe you can get in the best shape of your life at any age, and when you do, it becomes a catalyst for

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your relationships, your confidence, your joy, because when you feel like you and your body, all of life gets better. Let's get started. Welcome to the podcast, episode 131 Emotional eating sometimes it's deeper than you think. It is graduation week around here. My son just graduated from college, which is just absolutely wild, because I feel like he is starting kindergarten. I mean, I feel like he just graduated kindergarten two years ago, and if you have older kids, you understand it's that. Have you ever heard that saying, the days are long, the years are short? It is just so true. So he is going to be moving to LA here within a month, probably, and he wants to be an actor, and he's into screenwriting, and I'm just so excited. He's gonna, you know, work as a bartender and try to take some acting classes. I'm just so excited for him to give a go at something he's really passionate about. It's just.. it's a wild, exciting, excitingly wild time for all of us, so that's what that's what I've got going on here. I am excited for this podcast today, because a few weeks ago I did a podcast, it was episode of 128 and it was called Emotional Eating. Sometimes it's not that deep, because I think that you hear me on this podcast talking about our primitive brain and emotional eating, and how you know, negative thoughts and feelings get in the way, and stress eating, and all these different things, and sometimes people are like, I'm good, I'm like, life is good, but they're still not really living in a way that is helping them reach their goals, and so I talked on that podcast about how sometimes it's not that deep, sometimes the emotions that are getting in the way are very sneaky. Sometimes the thoughts and emotions that are getting in our way are very sneaky, and it just feels kind of like it's almost like you're giving up on yourself because you're like this is no big deal. And so that podcast is going to help you if you feel like life is good, and why can't you stick to your plan, because life is good, and you maybe you don't resonate with all of the all of my talking about negative emotions. This podcast is going to go a little deeper. On this podcast, I'm going to talk about trauma. Now, first of all, let me just say, for anyone who is new, I am not a therapist, I don't have any training on trauma, but the reason why I'm finally, after 130 episodes, talking a little bit trauma from the standpoint of, hey, I'm not a therapist, I don't have an education in this, but from the standpoint from someone who has helped many, went many women with moving forward in their life, when they have already done the work with a therapist to process trauma, so that's where I can step in. I can help people move forward in their life by recognizing that they're safe now, recognizing any kind of trauma that they've had in the past is from long ago, and they're really in a different place that they don't have to let what happened in the past keep them stuck now, so I just wanted to give that little caveat. I think you know that I'm not a therapist, but any, for any of my new listeners, I'm I'm a big fan of staying in my lane. I had one of my clients the other day message me and say, "Hey, can you like suggest any supplements? And I just messaged your back and said no, I said no with love. I didn't just say no, I said, 'Oh my god. I said, 'I stay in my lane. I.. I'm not, and I get people all the time reaching out and saying, 'Hey, if you promote these supplements, you know, we'll give you a kickback, you know, to be what is it called, affiliate program. And I'm like,'Yeah, no, I really want to be really confident about what I share, that I'm sharing it from a place of experience and expertise, and so for that reason I stay in my own lane. But the reason why I'm finally talking about trauma is because there's many people who have been to therapy, maybe even for years, but they're still kind of finding themselves like, okay, I can actually talk about it and not sob about it anymore. I feel I feel like I've moved on, I'm in a good place from it, but yet sometimes they don't even recognize that it's still kind of keeping them stuck in different areas of their life. That's where I can swoop in and say, "Let me help you. So that's what we're going to talk about here now. Oftentimes, when people think of trauma, they think of something really huge, but I don't know if you've heard anyone talk. About little T trauma and big T trauma, and I'm not gonna, again, I'm not a therapist, I'm not gonna get into all of it, but the reason why I wanted to talk about little T trauma and big T trauma is that some of us who have never had what we would consider big T trauma, I think a lot of people would consider big T trauma like a physical abuse or a physical accident, something like that. For those of us like me, who've never had anything like that, sometimes we negate things that have happened to us in our life. Sometimes we don't realize that something has happened that is still following us along on our journey of life and really impacting us. And we might want to actually go, wow, that might have been a little t trauma for me, that might have been, you know, something that really impacted me, or something that's a little t trauma. It doesn't mean we need to get caught up in it. It doesn't mean, or maybe it does, maybe it means you want to go to therapy and talk it out. But there are big things that happen to people, and there's little things that happen to people that can affect you for the rest of your life. And it's really good to take a look at those things. I want to start with a story, and this is not a story about one of my specific clients. This has happened with many, many of my clients. So they hire me. We start out on this journey to help them become their healthiest self. So maybe they want to lose weight, maybe they want to get stronger, maybe they have been just wanting to have healthier habits, and it's getting in the way from them living in their healthy, healthiest body. And so we start on this journey together, and they start losing weight, they start showing up for themselves in a different way, they start really living a different life, and they're loving the results. And then all of a sudden they hit a plateau, and plateaus are very normal, especially when you're doing all of this in a sustainable way, when you're lifting weights in a sustainable way, when you're eating in a sustainable way, I find I find with my clients it's very common, and with myself it's very common to hit a plateau. Our body has to sometimes acclimate before it recalibrates different things that are happening in our body, but another reason sometimes I have clients that hit a plateau is because there is something from the past that is telling them at a subconscious level that it's no longer safe to move forward, and what I have seen time and time again, let's just, let's just take weight loss, for example, maybe my client has lost 15 pounds, 20 pounds, and all of a sudden people are noticing, and people are saying, of course, usually it's positive comments. You look amazing. Wow, you're losing weight. How are you doing that? That's so great. It doesn't even actually matter what the comments are. It even doesn't matter who it's coming from. Oftentimes we can think of that if we lose a bunch of weight and men start noticing us, and maybe we have some past trauma with a man, we can say, "Oh, yeah, I can see why that would be a problem. But what I have found with my clients is it does not even matter whether it's a man or a woman saying, "Oh, wow, you're looking really great, you're looking thin, you're looking beautiful, you're energetically looking great, it doesn't matter who it's coming from, but if the compliments are coming, and even if they are compliments, if they're nothing negative, if the compliments and the attention are coming, they hit a plateau, and so oftentimes in our coaching, if I've never talked about anything that's happened in the past with them, I will ask them, I will say, by chance, is there any kind of big experiences that happen, whether it's trauma, whether it's accidents, whether it's something physical, verbal abuse, anything that has happened in your past that maybe might be coming up for you, and oftentimes, most of the time they will say actually yes, and they usually are very vulnerable because they know it's a safe place, and they will share with me what has happened. Most of the time, my clients have already processed through with a therapist, which is a great thing. If they haven't, I would tell them I would suggest getting therapy for this, because I don't have the education to help you process this, and I want you to get what's best for you, but most of the time, again, they say I've processed through this, I'm actually in a good place, and they can even speak to whether it's big T trauma, small T trauma, they can even speak to it in a way where they don't even sometimes get emotional, and that's a lovely thing, but then I say sometimes even when we've processed through it, it can show up when we've changed some circumstances in our life, and you've changed the circumstance of your weight and the way you're dressing and the way you're presenting in the world, and now you're getting more attention, and so what happens at that time is that they need to start getting comfortable with that attention. They need to realize that that attention is safe, and for my clients, every time it has been safe. Another coworker at work who's of the same sex as you. Saying, oh my god, you look so beautiful in that pant suit is safe, and oftentimes even just one or two or three conversations around them creating safety in their body, even though negative emotions are coming up, is all it takes to get them to move forward, and again, this is because they have processed through that trauma in the past with a therapist. So, what happens is when they start getting this attention, emotions from the past start coming up, emotions that tell them you shouldn't be getting attention, it's going to be your fault if something happens, you need to fly under the radar. It's not safe to be visible. It's not safe to be seen. All of those thoughts come up, and sometimes at a subconscious level. And I know you might be like, what do you mean thoughts at a subconscious level? What I mean is, sometimes my clients will say, yeah, I had a thought, like, oh my gosh, I shouldn't be wearing this. Oh, I don't like that people are complimenting me. Yes, sometimes that happens, but sometimes this is all happening at a subconscious level. There is a book called The Body Keeps the Score. I think I've talked about it on this podcast before. It's a really good book, and it's a book that's.. I've heard a therapist even talk about how it's kind of like the therapist's bible, I don't know if she maybe was joking, but, but I read this book when I had a few clients come to me with this exact situation, I thought, ooh, even though I'm not a therapist, I really need to understand what's going on here, even from a coach standpoint, how I can help my clients if they've experienced experience something from the past, and so I know I've taught you before the thought model that our thoughts create our feelings and our feelings create our actions. However, I'm gonna give you a little caveat. However, sometimes it's hard to identify the thoughts that come up and the feelings that come up. Sometimes what happens is, is when one of my clients is in that moment where they're walking in their new pant suit, 20 pounds down in the office, and someone goes, "Oh my god, you've lost weight, you look really great. And there is a feeling, and it's not a good feeling. Sometimes they can't even find the negative thought. And this book, The Body Keeps the Score, one of the things it talks about is, is when you have something that's like trauma, it is stored in the body, so from that moment you don't even need to have a thought that comes up. All you need is a situation, and at a subconscious level, a situation of someone saying you look amazing. All of a sudden, you get a hit of discomfort that comes up, maybe insecurity, maybe fear, maybe guilt, maybe shame, and you have a hard time even finding the thought, because what you're.. it's almost like your body takes over, your nervous system takes over, and says not safe, not safe to feel this way, you're going to create something bad by showing yourself, by being too exposed. Sometimes my clients are like, I can't even find the thought, and it reminds me this book. Yes, sometimes when we have heavy things from our past, whether it's big T trauma, little T trauma, we can't even find the thought. Our body just knows. Our body knows that it doesn't feel safe. And my purpose for this podcast is I want you to start to recognize that maybe if all is well in your life, if everything is going great, maybe your son's graduating from college, everything's great, and then you find yourself emotionally eating, or it could be so much more than just emotionally eating, then you find yourself giving up on yourself. You tell yourself you want something, you want to meditate, you want to eat a certain way, you want to move a certain way, and you're not doing it. It might be that something's deeper going on. It might be that there are negative emotions coming up that you're not even aware of, and at a subconscious level, at a nervous system level, they are triggering something from the past you don't want to feel. So let me take a moment and dive into what the Googles say trauma is, because maybe you're someone who really doesn't associate yourself with having any trauma, so maybe you're like, I don't know if this applies to me, let me just give you some of what Google says, trauma is a deeply distressing or shocking experience that overwhelms your ability to cope, leaving you feeling helpless. It shatters your sense of safety and can cause long-lasting emotional, physiological, or physical damage. And I will add my own, my own sentence to this. Sometimes we don't even know that something has happened, but yet the damage is there. Sometimes we associate trauma to something huge, but yet it's a smaller trauma, and it is affecting us, and we don't even know it. Trauma is the body's response to things that have happened. Sometimes we don't even realize that that our body is responding to something that has happened. Google says trauma falls into two main categories: it can be physical trauma, it can be like a severe bodily injury or a wound caused by an accident, violence, or medical emergency, or physiological emotional trauma, and this is the mind's response to an event, or an event that has happened over and over again, and it creates lasting, disruptive feelings, such as intense fear, disassociation, or confusion. But again, sometimes we are walking around living a beautiful life, and yes, maybe we know something happened when we were kids, and maybe we're like, we're fine, and maybe we don't even see that it is affecting us. You might not identify with trauma. You might think, like me, if you would have asked me three or four years ago, have you had any trauma at all, even like a little t trauma, I would have been like, no, I'm one of the lucky ones. But then when I start to think back to some of the things, even though I definitely still believe I am one of the lucky ones, but when I look back at my childhood, there were some things that did a little bit of, I don't even know if I can call them damage, but that it definitely changed my wiring in my brain. It definitely, when I want to move forward with something causes a little fears at a subconscious level, and because I am so good now at managing my mind, so good at when negative feelings come up, even if it just feels like resistance, it feels like I'm like, oh, I don't want to do that, what's coming up, I can start to go, oh, I think this is coming from this moment that I have locked in my brain or locked in my nervous system, so you might not identify with the word trauma, but trauma is the body's response to things that have happened, and sometimes you can't find the thought that is creating the feeling, sometimes you can't even find the feeling, and so here is what this looks like. It looks like you're having a great day, you've got some goals, you're doing really well. All of a sudden it's time to keep consistent with your goals, and then all of a sudden you sabotage. All of a sudden you get the fuck it's all of a sudden you go off, and it's a really powerful thing for you to dive in and say, what happened there? Is it possible that you have just made a habit of giving up? Possibly, is it possible you need to maybe remind yourself in the moment? Is it possible you need to create some better tools to create a better situation where you follow your plan for yourself easier at an easier level, or is it possible that if you really are honest with yourself and take a moment to get still and get deep with yourself, is it possible that there is some fear there? Is it possible that maybe something else is going on, and here is what I want you to hear. When we are at that moment, that big profound moment, where you either follow your plan or you don't follow your plan, in order to follow your plan, negative emotion is going to come up, and it might not feel like dread, it might not feel like fear, it might not feel heavy, it might even just be a little bit of negative emotion, and if you have something from your past that held a lot of negative emotion, even though in that moment on a random Tuesday at 4o'clock that little negative emotion comes up. Your body might say, 'Oh, we were so happy all day, and now there's some little negative emotion coming up, and it remembers something from your past that felt heavy, and your body, at a subconscious level, is going to say, 'No, no, no, no. We don't want any negative emotion. No, no, no, no, no. I know that this is going to lead you to the future you want, to the body you want, to the health you want, but this feels too much for us. So, let's just get really happy right now. Let's keep with the happy. So that's why, even though you told yourself you were only going to have one cookie, and now you're standing there in your brain saying have two. What does it matter? And you might think, well, this has nothing to do with that accident when I was a kid. This has nothing to do with that physical abuse or mental abuse, anything like that. I want you to go deeper and say, is it possible anytime I am at the moment where I am ready to go to my next level, and there is something that comes up. Is it possible that my body is reacting to this negative emotion in a way that is associated with something else? Maybe it is related to something, maybe it's not, but it's definitely worth taking a look at. It's definitely worth. With it, so what do we do with this? What do I want you to do with this episode? Is I want you to just be willing to take a look, willing to say, okay, is there something deeper going on? It is only going to benefit your life to go deep with yourself first, if you have something that feels heavy from your past that you've never gone to therapy for, I highly suggest it. Therapy is a beautiful thing. I remember there was a time when we were going to therapy, my husband, I were going to therapy with one of our boys, and we said to one of our other boys, hey, we want you to come with us, because this involves you, and I wanted his input on it, and he goes, "Yeah, I don't want to do that, and I was.. it surprised me, actually. And so I said, "Oh, no, no, I'm sorry, because I think he was like 16. So I said, "Oh, no, no, I'm sorry, you are coming. I presented that like it was a question. You are coming, and he goes, "Mom, and I said, "Listen, son, I said, at some point in your life, there is going to be a moment where you need more support than I can offer you. I'm going to coach you, I'm going to love on you, I'm going to be your mom, but there is a level of support you might need beyond me, and I want you to have an experience of having gone to therapy, going.. oh, that was really helpful, even if it's just one or two sessions. So, you are coming, and he and I have a great relationship, so he kind of goes, "Okay, and he came, and he went to, I think, two or three sessions, and afterwards I said, "Okay, now I want your honest opinion. What do you think? And he goes, "You know, and he goes, you were right, and he goes, it was actually pretty great. He goes, I don't think I necessarily got so much from it, and he goes, but I think you're right, because one of the things I also told him is, I said someday you might struggle with something in your marriage, and you want to be able to say to your wife, let's go to therapy from a place of love and support and openness, and he actually said to me, and he goes, I can see now how that actually was a good experience for me, so someday I'll know that's available, like talk about a moment you wanted to start crying as a mom, so that's what I want to say to you, if you have something that feels really heavy from your past, I highly suggest it, and let me just say something else, if you go to one therapist and you don't love the vibe, find another. I find another. Find one that you like. There are so many out there, and I promise I've been to probably how many, because I've lived in different places. I think I've been to three, four, and three. I think I've been a four. Three of the four were fantastic, one was just the one was actually helpful, but I, it was no big deal. So I would definitely say, go to one, maybe they're going to be amazing, but if they're not, go to another. Be willing to give yourself the be willing to give yourself the gift of finding someone that you actually really like. And I'll tell you, say something else, be willing to pay out of pocket insurance covers some of these therapists, but there are some that don't, and I've, I've done both. And be willing to pay out of pocket, it is an investment of your wellness, for sure. And if you've been to therapy for any past trauma or anything that maybe you don't even like to associate it with the word trauma, so maybe you had an experience that you don't associate with trauma, that's okay too. Be on the lookout for your brain and body's ability to try to keep you safe from having any negative emotion by going to your next level, and so this is with food, this is with moving your body. This is with working, like being the building your capacity to work more hours or get more done in a short amount of time. Any, any, any resistance to going to your own next level can be a response to past trauma, and one of the best things you can ask yourself in that moment is, can I realize that I'm safe right now, and this moment has nothing to do with the past. My body might think it does, but I want to, like, put my hand on my chest and say, hey, there's some fear coming up, but this has nothing to do with the past, or maybe, hey, there's some kind of discomfort coming up. I think it might have to do with the past, but we're just going to remember that we're totally safe. This is something we really want, and even though there's a little resistance, can I just feel it and know I'm okay right now? My life is good right now. We are safe right now. We are safe to feel a little negative emotion for the sake of our growth. I hope whether you have experienced trauma in the past, whether you have associated any kind of negative events with trauma, whether. You've been to therapy in the past or not. I hope this podcast is powerful for you. I hope it kind of opened up to a different way of thinking about things in our past, and how they can really keep us stuck in our present, even when it comes to whether you're not going to have another margarita or not, even whether or not you're going to go on that walk that you keep telling yourself you're going to do after dinner. I hope you feel like this is another little tool in your tool belt in order to live your best, most aligned life. Have a lovely Tuesday. For information on how we can work together, head to Modern Body Modern life.com to schedule a consultation with me. I'm currently coaching women privately, and I offer group coaching programs, I.