REWIRE - NOTES
SELF-SABOTAGE
Self-sabotage! One minute you’re doing great, and the next minute you feel like it's all gone out of control and you end up feeling annoyed and upset for undoing the progress you’d made.
WHY DO WE SELF-SABOTAGE?There are many different reasons why we self-sabotage and if you experience chronic cycles of self-sabotage that you feel are really keeping you stuck then there may be more deep-rooted issues to address. If you sense this might be the case for you then you may want to seek further help or consider arranging a 1-1 hypnotherapy session that will help free you from it.
FEAROne common reason why we self-sabotage comes from fear so re-visiting the Fear of Failure section from Week 1 may be a good place to start and can help reveal more insights for you around why you end up self-sabotaging - e.g. fear of failure, success, change or the unknown; fear what life will be like without using food or bingeing as a way of coping with our emotions; concerns about who you might be if you’re not someone who enjoys eating out, if you’re not someone who portrays themselves as loving certain foods, or if you’re not someone who others see as being a certain size.
CONFLICTING DESIRESFor many people self-sabotage isn’t as deep-rooted but still stops them from getting to where they want to be.
This is because self-sabotage usually involves two or more conflicting desires. For example, a desire to eat the cake vs. a desire to be lose weight. The desire that satisfies us in the short-term (cake) often wins out because it feels more appealing in the here and now, whereas the desire for what we want in the long-term (weight loss) is further away and not immediately gratifying.
In this way it can feel like there are two parts of us. One part of us wants one thing (be healthy and in control of our eating) and one part of us wants another thing (eat the cake). This creates an internal conflict and usually the part with the louder voice wins out. The part of you that wants to eat the cake isn't bad, it just has a different point of view about what matters most in that moment.
You could describe one part as your "healthy self" and the other part as your "unhealthy self" or (depending on your own personal challenges with food) your "disordered eating self". Some people find it helpful to give a name to that part of their mind that seems to sabotage their efforts to be healthy. You can use whatever name you like – some people call it "my inner rebel" or "the saboteur" or "Miss Binge".
Giving a name to this “unhealthy self” part of you can help you recognise that voice when it's trying to take over. It can also help you distinguish the voice of your healthy self so you can hear what that wants to say too. This in itself will help you make huge steps in increasing self-control and avoid going into "autopilot" mode when it comes to eating and food choices.
RESOLVING THE CONFLICTSometimes you may not be able to break a habit just because a part of you wants it. In this case the more you will try to break it the more will this part hold on to it and so the result will be returning back to the habit without knowing why.
In the long-term, the way forward is to integrate these two parts of you. After all they are both part of you and thus part of the same person with the same wants and needs (e.g. to be happy or to feel good).
By gaining more understanding of the conflicting parts and then work on uniting those parts together under a common goal you can successfully resolve the conflict and as such you'll find it much easier to maintain healthy habits and motivation.
WHY DO WE SELF-SABOTAGE?There are many different reasons why we self-sabotage and if you experience chronic cycles of self-sabotage that you feel are really keeping you stuck then there may be more deep-rooted issues to address. If you sense this might be the case for you then you may want to seek further help or consider arranging a 1-1 hypnotherapy session that will help free you from it.
FEAROne common reason why we self-sabotage comes from fear so re-visiting the Fear of Failure section from Week 1 may be a good place to start and can help reveal more insights for you around why you end up self-sabotaging - e.g. fear of failure, success, change or the unknown; fear what life will be like without using food or bingeing as a way of coping with our emotions; concerns about who you might be if you’re not someone who enjoys eating out, if you’re not someone who portrays themselves as loving certain foods, or if you’re not someone who others see as being a certain size.
CONFLICTING DESIRESFor many people self-sabotage isn’t as deep-rooted but still stops them from getting to where they want to be.
This is because self-sabotage usually involves two or more conflicting desires. For example, a desire to eat the cake vs. a desire to be lose weight. The desire that satisfies us in the short-term (cake) often wins out because it feels more appealing in the here and now, whereas the desire for what we want in the long-term (weight loss) is further away and not immediately gratifying.
In this way it can feel like there are two parts of us. One part of us wants one thing (be healthy and in control of our eating) and one part of us wants another thing (eat the cake). This creates an internal conflict and usually the part with the louder voice wins out. The part of you that wants to eat the cake isn't bad, it just has a different point of view about what matters most in that moment.
You could describe one part as your "healthy self" and the other part as your "unhealthy self" or (depending on your own personal challenges with food) your "disordered eating self". Some people find it helpful to give a name to that part of their mind that seems to sabotage their efforts to be healthy. You can use whatever name you like – some people call it "my inner rebel" or "the saboteur" or "Miss Binge".
Giving a name to this “unhealthy self” part of you can help you recognise that voice when it's trying to take over. It can also help you distinguish the voice of your healthy self so you can hear what that wants to say too. This in itself will help you make huge steps in increasing self-control and avoid going into "autopilot" mode when it comes to eating and food choices.
RESOLVING THE CONFLICTSometimes you may not be able to break a habit just because a part of you wants it. In this case the more you will try to break it the more will this part hold on to it and so the result will be returning back to the habit without knowing why.
In the long-term, the way forward is to integrate these two parts of you. After all they are both part of you and thus part of the same person with the same wants and needs (e.g. to be happy or to feel good).
By gaining more understanding of the conflicting parts and then work on uniting those parts together under a common goal you can successfully resolve the conflict and as such you'll find it much easier to maintain healthy habits and motivation.
SELF COMPASSION
Self-compassion is about having a neutral and understanding consideration of yourself and your actions. Developing self-compassion can help you overcome the feelings of guilt that you associate with your food choices and is a great tool for helping you rewire the way you think.
SELF-COMPASSION = LESS SELF-CONTROL?Many people fear that that greater self-compassion will lead to less self-control but in actual fact this isn't true.
Habit change is actually easier and more effective when you’re kinder to yourself and motivation increases when you’re feeling worthy and deserving, not when you criticise yourself.
Just think of a parent and a chid. If the parent criticises and berates a child do you think that will help motivate them and increase their confidence in their ability to succeed? Of course not. Good parenting is about encouragement and support, and the same applies with the way you speak to yourself.
So paradoxically change happens more readily from a place of self-compassion and self-acceptance, partly because it creates less resistance and rebellion.
And don't worry if, despite reading all this and being on board with the idea of being kind to yourself, that you still find yourself feeling guilty or having self-recriminating thoughts after some type of unhealthy or unnecessary eating. Just pause and remind yourself that habits (both habits of thought and habits of behaviour) take time to change and strengthen.
DEVELOPING SELF-COMPASSIONHere are three fundamentals for developing self-compassion:
1. Progress, Not Perfection
You’re not going to break old behaviours, thought patterns, or emotional reactions overnight. Remind yourself of all the changes you've made so far, both big and small. Just having an increased awareness of what you’re doing, or trying to think differently, is proof that you're moving in the right direction and making progress. When you find yourself being harsh, remind yourself that this an ongoing process - it's not a race and there's no finish line to reach.
2. Catch Your Thoughts
Catch your thoughts and also the words that you say that are negative and critical - anything that you wouldn’t say to a friend or a child you do not need to say to yourself. Notice when you think or say them and be more kind and supportive. For example you might think “Why did I eat that?!...Well maybe that wasn’t a great choice, but I've been feeling so tired so what can I do next time that would be different and make me feel better…” Be as neutral and non-judgemental you can.
3. What's the Feedback
Give yourself permission to see each "mistake" as an opportunity for feedback. What thoughts, emotions, situations or physical states made you vulnerable to doing something impulsive or self-sabotaging? What might have helped? What can you do to prevent that happening next time or what would you do differently? Play out the whole scene as a movie and then rewind it and replay it with a different choice/outcome - this is like a mental rehearsal for what you'll do the next time you're in that same situation.
SELF-COMPASSION = LESS SELF-CONTROL?Many people fear that that greater self-compassion will lead to less self-control but in actual fact this isn't true.
Habit change is actually easier and more effective when you’re kinder to yourself and motivation increases when you’re feeling worthy and deserving, not when you criticise yourself.
Just think of a parent and a chid. If the parent criticises and berates a child do you think that will help motivate them and increase their confidence in their ability to succeed? Of course not. Good parenting is about encouragement and support, and the same applies with the way you speak to yourself.
So paradoxically change happens more readily from a place of self-compassion and self-acceptance, partly because it creates less resistance and rebellion.
And don't worry if, despite reading all this and being on board with the idea of being kind to yourself, that you still find yourself feeling guilty or having self-recriminating thoughts after some type of unhealthy or unnecessary eating. Just pause and remind yourself that habits (both habits of thought and habits of behaviour) take time to change and strengthen.
DEVELOPING SELF-COMPASSIONHere are three fundamentals for developing self-compassion:
1. Progress, Not Perfection
You’re not going to break old behaviours, thought patterns, or emotional reactions overnight. Remind yourself of all the changes you've made so far, both big and small. Just having an increased awareness of what you’re doing, or trying to think differently, is proof that you're moving in the right direction and making progress. When you find yourself being harsh, remind yourself that this an ongoing process - it's not a race and there's no finish line to reach.
2. Catch Your Thoughts
Catch your thoughts and also the words that you say that are negative and critical - anything that you wouldn’t say to a friend or a child you do not need to say to yourself. Notice when you think or say them and be more kind and supportive. For example you might think “Why did I eat that?!...Well maybe that wasn’t a great choice, but I've been feeling so tired so what can I do next time that would be different and make me feel better…” Be as neutral and non-judgemental you can.
3. What's the Feedback
Give yourself permission to see each "mistake" as an opportunity for feedback. What thoughts, emotions, situations or physical states made you vulnerable to doing something impulsive or self-sabotaging? What might have helped? What can you do to prevent that happening next time or what would you do differently? Play out the whole scene as a movie and then rewind it and replay it with a different choice/outcome - this is like a mental rehearsal for what you'll do the next time you're in that same situation.
URGES & CRAVINGS
If you're struggling with "out of control" eating it may include any of the following:
An urge demands action. An urge is urge-nt. It can be compelling, persuasive and persistent. But an urge has no authority, which we'll discuss in more detail shortly.
TODDLER BRAIN TANTRUMSAs we’ve talked about your higher brain (The Parent Brain) is separate to your lower brain (The Toddler Brain).
Urge (and cravings to eat unnecessarily or overeat etc) come from your Toddler Brain. Based on what we've covered so far you know that an urge is just a feeling, and it's a thought that causes a feeling. Thoughts and feelings are experienced but they're not you (remember the weather analogy?) and when you can detach yourself in this way then you see them for what they are and it becomes easier to not react or respond.
An urge comes from your Toddler Brain, and the way an urge "speaks" to you is like a toddler throwing a tantrum when it wants something like a toy or chocolate. The toddler keeps saying "I want it. I want it. I want it. I WANT IT! I want it now! Give it to me now! I want it! Now! Now! Now! I want it. I want it now. I want it now. I want it now. I WANT IT NOW! NOW! NOW!"
You know it can wear you down for sure, but it has no authority or power because it's the Parent who's ultimately in charge. It doesn't matter how much the toddler wants it or how much they demand it, you don't have to comply.
This is the same with urges. The urges demand action but they don’t have any authority or real power in your life. As with the toddler, you do not need to comply. No matter how loud the voice gets, no matter how overwhelming it feels, you do not have to ever comply with an urge.
So the first part to understand is that urges happen and you never have to comply with the urge, which is much easier when you don't give the urge any authority or power.
SEPARATE YOURSELF FROM THE URGEWhat helps hugely is to know that the urge itself is just a feeling caused by a thought. So in the same way that we discussed when we talked about the Three Principles, it's your thinking that's creating your experience, like the clouds creating the weather. And as you already know, the weather and clouds, however dominating they may be, are transient. It's not you, as you're the blue sky underneath. Everything else is just weather layered on top, and therefore the skill to learn is how to “sit out the storm”
The reason why this approach is probably different to anything you've come across previously is because the majority of other solutions focus on how to deal with the behaviour that the urge causes, instead of dealing with the urge directly.
So you can spend a lot of time talking about the overeating, or the related emotional issues or talking about the food and what to replace it with or how to avoid it and all of those things.
And that's not to say these things don't have merit as they do and they can be useful and certainly initially they can help. But this focus on the effect (the behaviour) rather than the cause (the thought) may go a long way in explaining why past attempts to change your behaviour haven't worked in the long term.
Up until this point you may not have even considered that these two things (the cause of the urge and the effect of the urge) exist as separate entities. It probably felt as though an urge was an urge and that's it. And the urge is so overwhelming, so all-consuming that you give in to the desire, craving or feeling every time. It feels like you can't resist. But the thing is that resisting doesn't work. Resisting only places more energy, focus and attention on the urge.
What happens when you try to control a toddler who's having a tantrum? That's right, they kick more, they scream louder and get more irate. When you give the tantrum your full attention it can draw you into the intensity of it, like being sucked into a tornado. Eventually that's going to wear you out and (understandably) you'll probably end up giving in.
As we've talked about, an urge is just an intense desire caused by your thinking. What's happened is that you've essentially created a cycle (like a habit loop or a conditioned response) because when you've had an urge, you've rewarded it by complying.
The more you continue to respond to the urge, the stronger and more frequent the urges get. What may have originally started as a relatively mild desire has turned into an unconscious thought pattern with overwhelming urges that feel impossible to resist. The thought has been thought so many times that it's now unconscious and so all that's left (on a conscious level anyway) is an overwhelming urge. It just feels automatic.
This is like giving in to the toddler having a tantrum. The more times you give in and let them have what they're demanding, the more the toddler will throw tantrums. You've taught the toddler that if they throw a tantrum they get what they want. And when you hold out, their tantrums become louder and more intense on the basis that, as long as they persist, you'll eventually give in.
And it's understandable because the screaming and kicking is so overwhelming it's incredibly tempting to give in. It's much easier to give in, just so the tantrum stops. The tantrum is painful to experience and it feels better when the screaming stops. The urge is extremely uncomfortable to experience and eating stops that uncomfortable feeling and also makes us feel good. It's a natural response to give in because we're wired to want to move away from pain and towards pleasure.
BEING OK WITH NOT BEING OKIt's actually quite easy not to comply with the urge - that's just a matter of not doing the action or behaviour that appeases and stops the urge.
The difficult part is this: When you don't comply with or act on the urge, then the urge going to continue (temporarily anyway) and it's experiencing the continuation of an urge and all the emotions and feelings that come with it but without responding to the urge, that's difficult.
In some ways, the struggle is not the urge itself but the feeling that you'll have and that you'll be left with if you don't comply with an urge.
So you may have a thought such as: "I need to eat that" or "I need a drink" or "I want to taste that" or "I have to have that" or you may not feel as though you have any thought at all because the thought has become so automated it might just be a feeling. And not complying is arguably very easy - that's simply about not walking into the kitchen, not opening the cupboard, not picking up the biscuit or chocolate bar, putting the fork down, not ordering the dessert, walking away from the kitchen. What's difficult is dealing with the emotions and feelings left behind when you don't succumb to the urge.
So what do you do if you experience an urge? If you don't respond to it, if you don't comply with it or give in, and if you don't resist it, then what do you do?
You allow it.
Allow the urge to happen and experience it without responding or giving in, without trying to resist or control it.
Remind yourself that the urge has come from a thought which has created a feeling. And that feeling, like the weather, is temporary. It's going to pass. Like a storm it might build in intensity, building more and more to a peak but eventually it will begin to dissolve and, in time, it will be gone, replaced by new thoughts and different feelings.
When a toddler is having a tantrum, if you allow them to have a complete meltdown, hear their demands but not react to them, not get drawn in, then eventually the toddler will wear themselves out and the tantrum will end. Over time, as the toddler learns that the tantrum gets no result (that there's no reward or benefit to having a meltdown) then the tantrums happen less and less, or completely stop.
That's not to say that it's going to be easy just to allow it, especially at first. It's probably going to feel very uncomfortable, but the more you do it the easier it will become because you'll start to see that just as the urge comes, it also goes, and over time the urges will be much less frequent.
DETACHMENTYou can make this process much easier by using detachment to remove yourself one step further.
If you engage with an urge (e.g. talk back to it, try to reason with it or fight it in your head) then this only gives attention and focus to the urge. Equally don't try to make the urge go away or wish it away. It may take some getting used to, but the less you try to make the urge go away the quicker it's going to go away by itself.
Don't get angry with or criticise yourself for having the urge - it's not your fault. The urge just is. It's like a habit. Not acting on the urge is easier when you don't judge yourself because this is just another way of getting emotionally pulled in which gives the urge unneeded attention and focus.
This is about reaching a place (psychologically or emotionally as opposed to physically reaching a place!) where you're ok with the urge being there and you can be more accepting of it.
How do you do that without getting involved in it? You do it by looking at the urge with detachment. See what's happening, experience the urge, don't fight it or run away from it or engage with it. You see it happening as if it's happening to someone else. You see it happening but you don't jump in or get involved with it.
Like watching someone else's toddler having a tantrum it's easy not to get emotionally pulled into that. You wouldn't jump in and get involved. You can watch it happening with detachment and without having strong feelings about it. The experience is there but you're not invested in what happens. You're just watching it, noticing it without really much emotion.
You're able to stand back and let it unfold knowing that when you're not in it then actually it doesn't seem as overwhelming. Standing back on the sidelines, you know it'll pass so you're able to be less emotional. You can remind yourself to detach and take this step back by saying to yourself (in your head or even out loud to yourself): "I'm a person experiencing an urge" This helps to put space between "you" and the "urge".
SURF THE URGEOne very helpful way to begin allowing the urge is to use an exercise developed by psychologists called "Surf the Urge".
The term ‘urge surfing’ is a technique developed by the late psychologist Alan Marlatt for people recovering from addictions including food, alcohol and drugs. It’s an effective way of managing addictive or compulsive behaviour linked to urges, cravings, overeating or other types of impulsive eating.
When trying to deal with cravings or urges, it’s common to try to distract yourself or avoid triggering circumstances. This strategy usually fails due to the nature of the mind - this attempt to not to think of the exact thing you want to avoid, only creates a denser wave of emotional reaction that becomes overwhelming.
To demonstrate this paradox, try this experiment: Do not think of a PINK ELEPHANT. Really try to not think of a PINK ELEPHANT right now. Think of anything else except a pink elephant! See what happens? The more you try to suppress and avoid, the more you give awareness and focus. Suppressing a thought, feeling or sensation, ultimately only serves to increase it.
On the other hand using mindfulness helps you to realise that any unpleasant thoughts, feelings or urges are simply just thoughts, just feelings or just urges. They're not real, they're transient and by acknowledging and accepting them as such leads to the urge being dissipated and overcome.
The urge or craving may come back again, but over a period of time, the frequency and intensity will fade as you build new neural pathways for new, more supportive behaviours and thoughts and feelings with the empowerment of choice in how you respond.
TAKE ACTIONDownload the handout that gives you all the information on how to "surf the urge" and start putting this into practice.
- Urges to binge
- Overeating
- Emotional eating
- Cravings
- Compulsive eating
- Addictive eating
An urge demands action. An urge is urge-nt. It can be compelling, persuasive and persistent. But an urge has no authority, which we'll discuss in more detail shortly.
TODDLER BRAIN TANTRUMSAs we’ve talked about your higher brain (The Parent Brain) is separate to your lower brain (The Toddler Brain).
Urge (and cravings to eat unnecessarily or overeat etc) come from your Toddler Brain. Based on what we've covered so far you know that an urge is just a feeling, and it's a thought that causes a feeling. Thoughts and feelings are experienced but they're not you (remember the weather analogy?) and when you can detach yourself in this way then you see them for what they are and it becomes easier to not react or respond.
An urge comes from your Toddler Brain, and the way an urge "speaks" to you is like a toddler throwing a tantrum when it wants something like a toy or chocolate. The toddler keeps saying "I want it. I want it. I want it. I WANT IT! I want it now! Give it to me now! I want it! Now! Now! Now! I want it. I want it now. I want it now. I want it now. I WANT IT NOW! NOW! NOW!"
You know it can wear you down for sure, but it has no authority or power because it's the Parent who's ultimately in charge. It doesn't matter how much the toddler wants it or how much they demand it, you don't have to comply.
This is the same with urges. The urges demand action but they don’t have any authority or real power in your life. As with the toddler, you do not need to comply. No matter how loud the voice gets, no matter how overwhelming it feels, you do not have to ever comply with an urge.
So the first part to understand is that urges happen and you never have to comply with the urge, which is much easier when you don't give the urge any authority or power.
SEPARATE YOURSELF FROM THE URGEWhat helps hugely is to know that the urge itself is just a feeling caused by a thought. So in the same way that we discussed when we talked about the Three Principles, it's your thinking that's creating your experience, like the clouds creating the weather. And as you already know, the weather and clouds, however dominating they may be, are transient. It's not you, as you're the blue sky underneath. Everything else is just weather layered on top, and therefore the skill to learn is how to “sit out the storm”
The reason why this approach is probably different to anything you've come across previously is because the majority of other solutions focus on how to deal with the behaviour that the urge causes, instead of dealing with the urge directly.
So you can spend a lot of time talking about the overeating, or the related emotional issues or talking about the food and what to replace it with or how to avoid it and all of those things.
And that's not to say these things don't have merit as they do and they can be useful and certainly initially they can help. But this focus on the effect (the behaviour) rather than the cause (the thought) may go a long way in explaining why past attempts to change your behaviour haven't worked in the long term.
Up until this point you may not have even considered that these two things (the cause of the urge and the effect of the urge) exist as separate entities. It probably felt as though an urge was an urge and that's it. And the urge is so overwhelming, so all-consuming that you give in to the desire, craving or feeling every time. It feels like you can't resist. But the thing is that resisting doesn't work. Resisting only places more energy, focus and attention on the urge.
What happens when you try to control a toddler who's having a tantrum? That's right, they kick more, they scream louder and get more irate. When you give the tantrum your full attention it can draw you into the intensity of it, like being sucked into a tornado. Eventually that's going to wear you out and (understandably) you'll probably end up giving in.
As we've talked about, an urge is just an intense desire caused by your thinking. What's happened is that you've essentially created a cycle (like a habit loop or a conditioned response) because when you've had an urge, you've rewarded it by complying.
The more you continue to respond to the urge, the stronger and more frequent the urges get. What may have originally started as a relatively mild desire has turned into an unconscious thought pattern with overwhelming urges that feel impossible to resist. The thought has been thought so many times that it's now unconscious and so all that's left (on a conscious level anyway) is an overwhelming urge. It just feels automatic.
This is like giving in to the toddler having a tantrum. The more times you give in and let them have what they're demanding, the more the toddler will throw tantrums. You've taught the toddler that if they throw a tantrum they get what they want. And when you hold out, their tantrums become louder and more intense on the basis that, as long as they persist, you'll eventually give in.
And it's understandable because the screaming and kicking is so overwhelming it's incredibly tempting to give in. It's much easier to give in, just so the tantrum stops. The tantrum is painful to experience and it feels better when the screaming stops. The urge is extremely uncomfortable to experience and eating stops that uncomfortable feeling and also makes us feel good. It's a natural response to give in because we're wired to want to move away from pain and towards pleasure.
BEING OK WITH NOT BEING OKIt's actually quite easy not to comply with the urge - that's just a matter of not doing the action or behaviour that appeases and stops the urge.
The difficult part is this: When you don't comply with or act on the urge, then the urge going to continue (temporarily anyway) and it's experiencing the continuation of an urge and all the emotions and feelings that come with it but without responding to the urge, that's difficult.
In some ways, the struggle is not the urge itself but the feeling that you'll have and that you'll be left with if you don't comply with an urge.
So you may have a thought such as: "I need to eat that" or "I need a drink" or "I want to taste that" or "I have to have that" or you may not feel as though you have any thought at all because the thought has become so automated it might just be a feeling. And not complying is arguably very easy - that's simply about not walking into the kitchen, not opening the cupboard, not picking up the biscuit or chocolate bar, putting the fork down, not ordering the dessert, walking away from the kitchen. What's difficult is dealing with the emotions and feelings left behind when you don't succumb to the urge.
So what do you do if you experience an urge? If you don't respond to it, if you don't comply with it or give in, and if you don't resist it, then what do you do?
You allow it.
Allow the urge to happen and experience it without responding or giving in, without trying to resist or control it.
Remind yourself that the urge has come from a thought which has created a feeling. And that feeling, like the weather, is temporary. It's going to pass. Like a storm it might build in intensity, building more and more to a peak but eventually it will begin to dissolve and, in time, it will be gone, replaced by new thoughts and different feelings.
When a toddler is having a tantrum, if you allow them to have a complete meltdown, hear their demands but not react to them, not get drawn in, then eventually the toddler will wear themselves out and the tantrum will end. Over time, as the toddler learns that the tantrum gets no result (that there's no reward or benefit to having a meltdown) then the tantrums happen less and less, or completely stop.
That's not to say that it's going to be easy just to allow it, especially at first. It's probably going to feel very uncomfortable, but the more you do it the easier it will become because you'll start to see that just as the urge comes, it also goes, and over time the urges will be much less frequent.
DETACHMENTYou can make this process much easier by using detachment to remove yourself one step further.
If you engage with an urge (e.g. talk back to it, try to reason with it or fight it in your head) then this only gives attention and focus to the urge. Equally don't try to make the urge go away or wish it away. It may take some getting used to, but the less you try to make the urge go away the quicker it's going to go away by itself.
Don't get angry with or criticise yourself for having the urge - it's not your fault. The urge just is. It's like a habit. Not acting on the urge is easier when you don't judge yourself because this is just another way of getting emotionally pulled in which gives the urge unneeded attention and focus.
This is about reaching a place (psychologically or emotionally as opposed to physically reaching a place!) where you're ok with the urge being there and you can be more accepting of it.
How do you do that without getting involved in it? You do it by looking at the urge with detachment. See what's happening, experience the urge, don't fight it or run away from it or engage with it. You see it happening as if it's happening to someone else. You see it happening but you don't jump in or get involved with it.
Like watching someone else's toddler having a tantrum it's easy not to get emotionally pulled into that. You wouldn't jump in and get involved. You can watch it happening with detachment and without having strong feelings about it. The experience is there but you're not invested in what happens. You're just watching it, noticing it without really much emotion.
You're able to stand back and let it unfold knowing that when you're not in it then actually it doesn't seem as overwhelming. Standing back on the sidelines, you know it'll pass so you're able to be less emotional. You can remind yourself to detach and take this step back by saying to yourself (in your head or even out loud to yourself): "I'm a person experiencing an urge" This helps to put space between "you" and the "urge".
SURF THE URGEOne very helpful way to begin allowing the urge is to use an exercise developed by psychologists called "Surf the Urge".
The term ‘urge surfing’ is a technique developed by the late psychologist Alan Marlatt for people recovering from addictions including food, alcohol and drugs. It’s an effective way of managing addictive or compulsive behaviour linked to urges, cravings, overeating or other types of impulsive eating.
When trying to deal with cravings or urges, it’s common to try to distract yourself or avoid triggering circumstances. This strategy usually fails due to the nature of the mind - this attempt to not to think of the exact thing you want to avoid, only creates a denser wave of emotional reaction that becomes overwhelming.
To demonstrate this paradox, try this experiment: Do not think of a PINK ELEPHANT. Really try to not think of a PINK ELEPHANT right now. Think of anything else except a pink elephant! See what happens? The more you try to suppress and avoid, the more you give awareness and focus. Suppressing a thought, feeling or sensation, ultimately only serves to increase it.
On the other hand using mindfulness helps you to realise that any unpleasant thoughts, feelings or urges are simply just thoughts, just feelings or just urges. They're not real, they're transient and by acknowledging and accepting them as such leads to the urge being dissipated and overcome.
The urge or craving may come back again, but over a period of time, the frequency and intensity will fade as you build new neural pathways for new, more supportive behaviours and thoughts and feelings with the empowerment of choice in how you respond.
TAKE ACTIONDownload the handout that gives you all the information on how to "surf the urge" and start putting this into practice.
LIMITING BELIEFS
"The only thing that’s keeping you from getting what you want is the story you keep telling yourself" –Tony Robbins
Limiting beliefs are unconscious beliefs about yourself that keep you stuck in repeating a pattern of behaviour that forms a barrier to achieving what you want.
The purpose of our limiting beliefs is to protect us and keep us in our comfort zone, safe from harm, failure or rejection which, as we've talked about previously, is how our brain likes it to be!
YOUR BELIEFS DEFINE YOUR EXPERIENCEWhat you believe about something defines your reality of it. So your beliefs around food, dieting, your weight and health defines your reality of food, dieting, your weight and health.
Consciously and/or subconsciously your thoughts, feelings and behaviours are influenced by your beliefs and, through a process called confirmation bias, they're continuously confirmed through your day-to-day experiences.
We experience what we believe. Our beliefs shade, colour, and create a lens through that we experience the world through. So any negative beliefs you have will limit you from getting you to where you want to be.
For instance, if you think that “being healthy is boring”, it will continue to be this way through both your (conscious and subconscious) actions and reactions.
The concept of limiting beliefs applies to many factors in life, but here we're focusing on your relationship to food. You most certainly have limiting beliefs about food, eating, and weight and these beliefs will be affecting your life and your ability for things to be how you want them to be.
COMMON LIMITING BELIEFS Some common limiting beliefs are:
The negative beliefs you have about weight, fat, eating, and health are keeping you stuck in the “never good enough” cycle, and keeping you anxious around eating. This keeps you in the binge and restrict cycle, and no amount of slow chewing and bath-time is going to snap you out of it.
HOW TO OVERCOME LIMITING BELIEFSAs with any type of belief, it's not "you", it's just a belief which means, at some point, you created or adopted it so, if you choose to, it can be changed.
What are your limiting beliefs? What beliefs hold you back from who you want to be or what you want to do?
A good place to start is to create awareness around your limiting beliefs. Using the worksheet provided, write out a list of all the negative, limiting beliefs about food and weight you can think of and then go through the three steps to help you overcome them.
SUBCONSCIOUS BELIEFSOften our limiting beliefs are seemingly ingrained because they reside deep within our subconscious mind. This is where we do things that we don't want to do or know that are bad for us but don't know why or can't seem to stop. These limiting beliefs can control you without you even realising it.
This is where hypnotherapy can be extremely helpful to help you identify any limiting beliefs and give you the knowledge and understanding you need to be set free. We'll be talking more about hypnotherapy in this module and using it to help you rewire your subconscious mind.
Limiting beliefs are unconscious beliefs about yourself that keep you stuck in repeating a pattern of behaviour that forms a barrier to achieving what you want.
The purpose of our limiting beliefs is to protect us and keep us in our comfort zone, safe from harm, failure or rejection which, as we've talked about previously, is how our brain likes it to be!
YOUR BELIEFS DEFINE YOUR EXPERIENCEWhat you believe about something defines your reality of it. So your beliefs around food, dieting, your weight and health defines your reality of food, dieting, your weight and health.
Consciously and/or subconsciously your thoughts, feelings and behaviours are influenced by your beliefs and, through a process called confirmation bias, they're continuously confirmed through your day-to-day experiences.
We experience what we believe. Our beliefs shade, colour, and create a lens through that we experience the world through. So any negative beliefs you have will limit you from getting you to where you want to be.
For instance, if you think that “being healthy is boring”, it will continue to be this way through both your (conscious and subconscious) actions and reactions.
The concept of limiting beliefs applies to many factors in life, but here we're focusing on your relationship to food. You most certainly have limiting beliefs about food, eating, and weight and these beliefs will be affecting your life and your ability for things to be how you want them to be.
COMMON LIMITING BELIEFS Some common limiting beliefs are:
- I can’t trust my body
- People won't love me if I gain weight
- People will expect more from me if I lose weight
- ______is bad for me
- I gain weight easily
- I’m a food addict
- I should limit carbs
- I can’t eat a lot
- Being fat means __________
- Being skinny will make me happy
The negative beliefs you have about weight, fat, eating, and health are keeping you stuck in the “never good enough” cycle, and keeping you anxious around eating. This keeps you in the binge and restrict cycle, and no amount of slow chewing and bath-time is going to snap you out of it.
HOW TO OVERCOME LIMITING BELIEFSAs with any type of belief, it's not "you", it's just a belief which means, at some point, you created or adopted it so, if you choose to, it can be changed.
What are your limiting beliefs? What beliefs hold you back from who you want to be or what you want to do?
A good place to start is to create awareness around your limiting beliefs. Using the worksheet provided, write out a list of all the negative, limiting beliefs about food and weight you can think of and then go through the three steps to help you overcome them.
SUBCONSCIOUS BELIEFSOften our limiting beliefs are seemingly ingrained because they reside deep within our subconscious mind. This is where we do things that we don't want to do or know that are bad for us but don't know why or can't seem to stop. These limiting beliefs can control you without you even realising it.
This is where hypnotherapy can be extremely helpful to help you identify any limiting beliefs and give you the knowledge and understanding you need to be set free. We'll be talking more about hypnotherapy in this module and using it to help you rewire your subconscious mind.
INNER CRITIC (TWO VOICES)
The Inner Critic - we all have one.
Most of us are aware of our negative self-talk. Maybe you're self-critical about specific things or in certain situations, or perhaps you experience an ongoing inner commentary about yourself or just a general feeling of not being good enough. But the reassuring thing to know is that we all have negative self-talk - it's definitely not just you!
A little self-criticism is natural and can be a good thing. It can be a kick up the bum or reality check that spurs you on. But there is a vast difference between saying to yourself: "I need to work out more," which sparks your motivation, and saying to yourself: "I'm a hopeless blob who has no willpower"
There is a very different distinction between these and excessive self-criticism tends to backfire, because it leads us to focus on our "failures" instead of small ways that we could improve. Although you'd think by being harsher to yourself that it would push you to do better, the research actually shows the opposite: that those who speak kindly to themselves actually make more progress whereas, over the long term, negative self-talk is associated with higher stress levels and even depression.
I want to take you through some very effective strategies for helping you to deal with your inner critic and dial down, quieten down that voice in your head.
The aim of this is to take in these strategies and then choose one or two that resonate for you and put it into practice.
FIX THE BROKEN RECORDThe Inner Critic is not a very imaginative creature and, a bit like a broken record, it tends to use the same words and phrases on repeat.
A useful exercise therefore is to take a notepad and divide the piece of paper into two by drawing a line long-ways down the middle and on the left-hand side, write down the things that your inner critic tends to say - all those automatic negative thoughts that you have. Get it all out and down on paper because sometimes just the act of seeing the words in black and white can make you realise how untrue, or overly harsh or unreasonable most, if not all, of it is. So that in itself is a great exercise to see on paper the stuff going round in your head, because when you see it on paper you see it for what it is - some of it may even sound ridiculous!
One you've written it all down, go through the list and then, on the right-hand side, write down what would be a more flexible or helpful thought. Although this may surprise you, it's actually more helpful to avoid being too positive. Research shows that, when you're in a negative state of mind, forcing yourself to think really positively can lead to you feeling worse. This is because deep down you don't truly believe it and you know you're just kidding yourself.
Switching the thoughts to something more flexible or helpful, however, makes it easier for your brain to take on and accept, which will help you move away from the negativity and start to move forward to more positive and action-oriented thinking. Even just switching the thoughts to be more neutral by stating the facts will be helpful. Because when you catastrophise the negative self-talk it takes you down a rabbit hole, whereas even just neutral facts offer more options of possible directions to go.
For example, "I'm such a fat blob" so that can become "I'd like to lose weight and with the right help I could do it." or "I've got no control over food!" becomes "I know what I could eat next that would be healthy." It's actually having a more rational voice over the overly emotional voice of the inner critic.
NAME YOUR INNER CRITICGiving your inner critic a name (preferably a silly or light-hearted one) makes it hard to take that inner voice seriously so helps break through the emotional hold that it has on you.
It can also help to give your inner dialogue book titles. So going back to the list you wrote in "Fix the broken record" (above) of the habitual thoughts you have and give each of these a story title, so you can then label it when you hear your inner voice chirping up. Maybe you have a "my friends look better than me" story or that's my "I'm a jiggly blob" story.
As with the broken record exercise, instead of feeling like your inner critic is telling you something worth listening to, this actually highlights how repetitive and habitual your inner critic is and that these stories are, like fairy-tales, mostly exaggerated.
The thoughts we have each day tend be around 90% the same that we had yesterday and the day before, and the day before that. They're simply patterns of thoughts, triggered by our environment which largely stays consistent.
So the majority of our thoughts are in fact habits, not necessarily truths or facts. We repeat the stories we tell ourselves, to the point where we can continue to do so even after we've changed, which can mean, even after you've made changes to the way that you eat, live or think you can still have these stories from your habitual thoughts that come up that can keep you stuck or pull you back. so watch out for that!
But the point is that when you can recognise these thoughts are coming from a silly voice in your head, and that it's just a repetitive and meaningless story, it makes it much easier to dismiss.
CREATE DISTANCEAdding some very simple words to your negative thoughts can really help you manage and deal with your inner critic.
Instead of telling yourself, "I'm so fat", you train yourself to say: "I'm having a thought that...I'm so fat" So just add the words "I'm having the thought that..." before your inner critic self-talk.
It may sound minor, but this change of wording gives you distance and reminds you that it's just a thought, it is transient, and this can really stop you from getting caught into a sticky web of negative thinking or going down that rabbit hole.
Another way to do this is to change the wording around - so saying to yourself: "Wow, did I feel useless' rather than saying to yourself: 'I'm so useless' may seem like a nuance, but there's a significant difference because the first describes simply how you felt in that moment, not defining who you actually are. We want to move away from the wording that defines you because it's not you, it's just a thought.
Extending that thought, consider this: Fat is something that's a part of you, but it is not you. You may think "I'm fat" but that's not even true. Put it another way, you have fingernails, but you don't say to yourself "I'm fingernails", you say "I have fingernails".
So in the same way with fat, rather than saying to yourself: "I'm fat", you change it to say: "I have fat". Again it may seem like a simple semantic nuance but actually it's very powerful as it separates "you" and creates distance from the thing so that the fat becomes extrinsic and separate to your true self - not belonging to you and something you have but you could also not have.
So this creating distance, although it's a subtle use of wording or adding on the words "I'm having a thought that..." it's extremely empowering as it separate these thoughts and these things from "you".
BE YOUR OWN BEST FRIENDI bet you don’t hold others to the exacting standards to which you hold yourself. Am I right?
Perhaps it's about time to becoming more of a friend to yourself.
If you think of one of your good friends and imagine what they would say to you if you expressed to them what your inner critic says.
Ask yourself: What would I think of my best friend if they did that? How would I speak to them if they felt this way? If you wouldn't say it to your friend, don't say it to yourself.
Women for example when they see their friends are very quick to compliment each other even on something small. It's very common and we do it so naturally with other people yet we rarely ever do it to ourselves. So this is about talking to ourselves more in the way that we would if we were taking to a friend. Look in the mirror each day and find something to compliment yourself on, however small.
Click here to watch a video that demonstrates this concept.
STOP AIMING FOR PERFECTThe idea of perfectionism and trying to attain it is, at best, fruitless and, at worst, utterly self-destructive.
It's enormously freeing when you stop holding yourself to insanely high standards. Let 8/10 be your new 10/10 - good enough is good enough and perfect doesn't exist so stop chasing rainbows!
Besides, no-one achieves anything by being perfect. They're successful because they're willing to mess up, learn and move on. Even the most high-achievers such as athletes, CEOs etc. slip up and make mistakes. The thing that ultimately makes the difference is in what I call your "bounce-back rate" which is the ability to mess up but as soon as possible to pick yourself up and carry on. Start to increase your bounce-back rate.
So if you have a big Friday night out and go totally overboard and normally that would mean you would write off the entire weekend and son't go back to healthy eating until Monday, then work on increasing your bounce-back rate so you only write off Saturday but are back to healthy eating on Sunday, and just keep increasing it so that you bounce-back quicker and quicker each time.
EGO VS. YOUSurprisingly, once you get to know your inner critic - really listen to the (repetitive) things it says and understand why it criticises you - you’ll gain empathy for it and for its anxieties.
Your inner critic is simply your ego and one of the primary concerns of your ego is to ensure you're ok - that if you do everything right, then you’ll be accepted and therefore you'll be safe. It's pure primitive tribal instinct! We all want to be accepted as part of the group and avoid rejection or being ousted from the group (friends, family, society etc).
Everyone struggles with self-doubt and when we're trying to master a new skill or do something new or step outside of our comfort zone, then self-doubt will naturally follow. But stepping outside of our comfort zone is where true growth, development and change resides so the only way to change is to tackle this self-doubt head on.
But that’s okay because the goal isn’t to eliminate self-doubt. The goal is to hear the inner critic’s voice but not let that voice determine your choices.
Because it doesn’t matter what the inner critic says. You don’t have to listen or give focus or attention to those stories that you know are habitual, old or untrue and you don’t have to let it dictate your actions. Remember, it's not your true self. The inner critic is the voice of your ego and your "true self" is the one who is aware and able to listen to that voice. That is why you can witness and hear that self-talk and negative dialogue in your head because there's a separation between you and the ego/inner critic.
The more you can see this distinction you'll be able to view your internal dialogue and self-judgement with detachment and perspective. You'll be able to witness this negative-self talk or thoughts without taking it on and be able to dismiss it more easily and quickly.
TAKE ACTIONChoose one or two of the strategies outlined above and begin to practice it when you begin to hear your inner critic.
Most of us are aware of our negative self-talk. Maybe you're self-critical about specific things or in certain situations, or perhaps you experience an ongoing inner commentary about yourself or just a general feeling of not being good enough. But the reassuring thing to know is that we all have negative self-talk - it's definitely not just you!
A little self-criticism is natural and can be a good thing. It can be a kick up the bum or reality check that spurs you on. But there is a vast difference between saying to yourself: "I need to work out more," which sparks your motivation, and saying to yourself: "I'm a hopeless blob who has no willpower"
There is a very different distinction between these and excessive self-criticism tends to backfire, because it leads us to focus on our "failures" instead of small ways that we could improve. Although you'd think by being harsher to yourself that it would push you to do better, the research actually shows the opposite: that those who speak kindly to themselves actually make more progress whereas, over the long term, negative self-talk is associated with higher stress levels and even depression.
I want to take you through some very effective strategies for helping you to deal with your inner critic and dial down, quieten down that voice in your head.
The aim of this is to take in these strategies and then choose one or two that resonate for you and put it into practice.
FIX THE BROKEN RECORDThe Inner Critic is not a very imaginative creature and, a bit like a broken record, it tends to use the same words and phrases on repeat.
A useful exercise therefore is to take a notepad and divide the piece of paper into two by drawing a line long-ways down the middle and on the left-hand side, write down the things that your inner critic tends to say - all those automatic negative thoughts that you have. Get it all out and down on paper because sometimes just the act of seeing the words in black and white can make you realise how untrue, or overly harsh or unreasonable most, if not all, of it is. So that in itself is a great exercise to see on paper the stuff going round in your head, because when you see it on paper you see it for what it is - some of it may even sound ridiculous!
One you've written it all down, go through the list and then, on the right-hand side, write down what would be a more flexible or helpful thought. Although this may surprise you, it's actually more helpful to avoid being too positive. Research shows that, when you're in a negative state of mind, forcing yourself to think really positively can lead to you feeling worse. This is because deep down you don't truly believe it and you know you're just kidding yourself.
Switching the thoughts to something more flexible or helpful, however, makes it easier for your brain to take on and accept, which will help you move away from the negativity and start to move forward to more positive and action-oriented thinking. Even just switching the thoughts to be more neutral by stating the facts will be helpful. Because when you catastrophise the negative self-talk it takes you down a rabbit hole, whereas even just neutral facts offer more options of possible directions to go.
For example, "I'm such a fat blob" so that can become "I'd like to lose weight and with the right help I could do it." or "I've got no control over food!" becomes "I know what I could eat next that would be healthy." It's actually having a more rational voice over the overly emotional voice of the inner critic.
NAME YOUR INNER CRITICGiving your inner critic a name (preferably a silly or light-hearted one) makes it hard to take that inner voice seriously so helps break through the emotional hold that it has on you.
It can also help to give your inner dialogue book titles. So going back to the list you wrote in "Fix the broken record" (above) of the habitual thoughts you have and give each of these a story title, so you can then label it when you hear your inner voice chirping up. Maybe you have a "my friends look better than me" story or that's my "I'm a jiggly blob" story.
As with the broken record exercise, instead of feeling like your inner critic is telling you something worth listening to, this actually highlights how repetitive and habitual your inner critic is and that these stories are, like fairy-tales, mostly exaggerated.
The thoughts we have each day tend be around 90% the same that we had yesterday and the day before, and the day before that. They're simply patterns of thoughts, triggered by our environment which largely stays consistent.
So the majority of our thoughts are in fact habits, not necessarily truths or facts. We repeat the stories we tell ourselves, to the point where we can continue to do so even after we've changed, which can mean, even after you've made changes to the way that you eat, live or think you can still have these stories from your habitual thoughts that come up that can keep you stuck or pull you back. so watch out for that!
But the point is that when you can recognise these thoughts are coming from a silly voice in your head, and that it's just a repetitive and meaningless story, it makes it much easier to dismiss.
CREATE DISTANCEAdding some very simple words to your negative thoughts can really help you manage and deal with your inner critic.
Instead of telling yourself, "I'm so fat", you train yourself to say: "I'm having a thought that...I'm so fat" So just add the words "I'm having the thought that..." before your inner critic self-talk.
It may sound minor, but this change of wording gives you distance and reminds you that it's just a thought, it is transient, and this can really stop you from getting caught into a sticky web of negative thinking or going down that rabbit hole.
Another way to do this is to change the wording around - so saying to yourself: "Wow, did I feel useless' rather than saying to yourself: 'I'm so useless' may seem like a nuance, but there's a significant difference because the first describes simply how you felt in that moment, not defining who you actually are. We want to move away from the wording that defines you because it's not you, it's just a thought.
Extending that thought, consider this: Fat is something that's a part of you, but it is not you. You may think "I'm fat" but that's not even true. Put it another way, you have fingernails, but you don't say to yourself "I'm fingernails", you say "I have fingernails".
So in the same way with fat, rather than saying to yourself: "I'm fat", you change it to say: "I have fat". Again it may seem like a simple semantic nuance but actually it's very powerful as it separates "you" and creates distance from the thing so that the fat becomes extrinsic and separate to your true self - not belonging to you and something you have but you could also not have.
So this creating distance, although it's a subtle use of wording or adding on the words "I'm having a thought that..." it's extremely empowering as it separate these thoughts and these things from "you".
BE YOUR OWN BEST FRIENDI bet you don’t hold others to the exacting standards to which you hold yourself. Am I right?
Perhaps it's about time to becoming more of a friend to yourself.
If you think of one of your good friends and imagine what they would say to you if you expressed to them what your inner critic says.
Ask yourself: What would I think of my best friend if they did that? How would I speak to them if they felt this way? If you wouldn't say it to your friend, don't say it to yourself.
Women for example when they see their friends are very quick to compliment each other even on something small. It's very common and we do it so naturally with other people yet we rarely ever do it to ourselves. So this is about talking to ourselves more in the way that we would if we were taking to a friend. Look in the mirror each day and find something to compliment yourself on, however small.
Click here to watch a video that demonstrates this concept.
STOP AIMING FOR PERFECTThe idea of perfectionism and trying to attain it is, at best, fruitless and, at worst, utterly self-destructive.
It's enormously freeing when you stop holding yourself to insanely high standards. Let 8/10 be your new 10/10 - good enough is good enough and perfect doesn't exist so stop chasing rainbows!
Besides, no-one achieves anything by being perfect. They're successful because they're willing to mess up, learn and move on. Even the most high-achievers such as athletes, CEOs etc. slip up and make mistakes. The thing that ultimately makes the difference is in what I call your "bounce-back rate" which is the ability to mess up but as soon as possible to pick yourself up and carry on. Start to increase your bounce-back rate.
So if you have a big Friday night out and go totally overboard and normally that would mean you would write off the entire weekend and son't go back to healthy eating until Monday, then work on increasing your bounce-back rate so you only write off Saturday but are back to healthy eating on Sunday, and just keep increasing it so that you bounce-back quicker and quicker each time.
EGO VS. YOUSurprisingly, once you get to know your inner critic - really listen to the (repetitive) things it says and understand why it criticises you - you’ll gain empathy for it and for its anxieties.
Your inner critic is simply your ego and one of the primary concerns of your ego is to ensure you're ok - that if you do everything right, then you’ll be accepted and therefore you'll be safe. It's pure primitive tribal instinct! We all want to be accepted as part of the group and avoid rejection or being ousted from the group (friends, family, society etc).
Everyone struggles with self-doubt and when we're trying to master a new skill or do something new or step outside of our comfort zone, then self-doubt will naturally follow. But stepping outside of our comfort zone is where true growth, development and change resides so the only way to change is to tackle this self-doubt head on.
But that’s okay because the goal isn’t to eliminate self-doubt. The goal is to hear the inner critic’s voice but not let that voice determine your choices.
Because it doesn’t matter what the inner critic says. You don’t have to listen or give focus or attention to those stories that you know are habitual, old or untrue and you don’t have to let it dictate your actions. Remember, it's not your true self. The inner critic is the voice of your ego and your "true self" is the one who is aware and able to listen to that voice. That is why you can witness and hear that self-talk and negative dialogue in your head because there's a separation between you and the ego/inner critic.
The more you can see this distinction you'll be able to view your internal dialogue and self-judgement with detachment and perspective. You'll be able to witness this negative-self talk or thoughts without taking it on and be able to dismiss it more easily and quickly.
TAKE ACTIONChoose one or two of the strategies outlined above and begin to practice it when you begin to hear your inner critic.
FIRE DRILL
Creating your own personal fire drill is a very helpful technique in preventing mindless eating and avoiding unnecessary eating.
This is about the fact that you're going to fail. Something is going to happen, at some point life is going to happen, and it's all going to go horribly wrong.
So when you accept that this is the case and you plan to fail then you'll have know what to do when it happens. This is particularly about those moments of not thinking, non-thinking, automatic auto-pilot type of eating or the times when you know you're going to binge or overdo it with unhealthy eating but in that moment you're thinking "I don't care!"
YOUR FIRE DRILLJust as when you were at school or if you work for any company, you always have a fire drill in place. The plan for what everyone will do in case of an emergency so that you all know the format and it's pinned up around the building as a reminder. And you regularly practice the fire drill in the event of a real fire.
Because it there's a real fire and you don't have a plan or know the drill then everyone's going to panic and it'll be chaos. So you need to have that plan in place that becomes what everyone automatically does when they're not thinking at all and because there's too much else going on
This is what I want to you to create for yourself - the plan that you're going have, that you are going to play out in the event of an emergency, and there are three simple steps to do this:
1. Know Your Triggers
You've already identified these in the Triggers section so now is an opportunity to review these and add any more in that you may think are relevant. This is like your fire alarm that goes off that causes you to eat or drink the things you don't need or want to eat/drink.
2. Have A Plan
This is about creating a very simple plan of action, just as you would with a fire drill. Examples of this may be:
So even just a few deep breaths can often be just what you need in order to relax and re-centre yourself.
3. Rehearse It
It's only by rehearsing a fire drill that it becomes something we can then do automatically without needing to think too much. If you can physically rehearse your plan then fantastic but otherwise you can mentally rehearse it, for example:
Recall a time when you previously did this behaviour, whether that's emotionally eating, mindless eating or snacking, binge eating etc. and really think through the whole scenario in detail play out like a movie right from the start so before anything happened before the trigger happened and all the way through to the end
Notice how you felt before, how you were during and what happened afterwards and play this out in full Technicolor detail.
Now, with the knowledge of your new plan, rewind the movie and start it again as the new version from the beginning all the way through to the end with your new plan in action.
Notice how you feel before during and after and notice the differences. Notice what you're doing, where you're going, how you're acting, what you're thinking, and what you're doing
This is so important as it's this rehearsal that really makes the difference.
THERE'S NO FAILURE ONLY FEEDBACKOne final point is to be self-forgiving about the times when you do go off course from where you'd hope you'd do or what you'd planned. The key is to not dwell on it or let it spin you off your trajectory. Forget the mistake but remember the lesson. As the saying goes, there's no such thing as failure, only feedback.
This is about the fact that you're going to fail. Something is going to happen, at some point life is going to happen, and it's all going to go horribly wrong.
So when you accept that this is the case and you plan to fail then you'll have know what to do when it happens. This is particularly about those moments of not thinking, non-thinking, automatic auto-pilot type of eating or the times when you know you're going to binge or overdo it with unhealthy eating but in that moment you're thinking "I don't care!"
YOUR FIRE DRILLJust as when you were at school or if you work for any company, you always have a fire drill in place. The plan for what everyone will do in case of an emergency so that you all know the format and it's pinned up around the building as a reminder. And you regularly practice the fire drill in the event of a real fire.
Because it there's a real fire and you don't have a plan or know the drill then everyone's going to panic and it'll be chaos. So you need to have that plan in place that becomes what everyone automatically does when they're not thinking at all and because there's too much else going on
This is what I want to you to create for yourself - the plan that you're going have, that you are going to play out in the event of an emergency, and there are three simple steps to do this:
1. Know Your Triggers
You've already identified these in the Triggers section so now is an opportunity to review these and add any more in that you may think are relevant. This is like your fire alarm that goes off that causes you to eat or drink the things you don't need or want to eat/drink.
2. Have A Plan
This is about creating a very simple plan of action, just as you would with a fire drill. Examples of this may be:
- An alternative to the food that you would normally go and eat
- An activity to replace eating e.g. listening to music to lift your spirits, get up and move your body or go for a walk, have a break or a rest. Consider what it is that you need in that moment that's going to make you feel better that's either non food-related, or a healthier choice of something to eat.
- Using tools to delay gratification, for example you can use a sand timer (e.g. 2 minutes, 5 minutes or 10 minutes - whatever you choose) to create a buffer between the urge or your trigger point and the action of eating. This allows time to pause and re-consider knowing that, when the sand timer finishes, you still have the choice to continue with eating it if you want to. Just check in with yourself, is it what you want?
- Sometimes it's just about having something that allows you to take a few deep breaths. So for example, someone who smoke actually part of the reward they get from smoking is to escape their current environment (e.g. their desk), get outside and then when they light up with that first draw of a cigarette they take a deep inhale and a deep exhale << that in itself (that deep inhale and exhale) is incredibly relaxing.
So even just a few deep breaths can often be just what you need in order to relax and re-centre yourself.
3. Rehearse It
It's only by rehearsing a fire drill that it becomes something we can then do automatically without needing to think too much. If you can physically rehearse your plan then fantastic but otherwise you can mentally rehearse it, for example:
Recall a time when you previously did this behaviour, whether that's emotionally eating, mindless eating or snacking, binge eating etc. and really think through the whole scenario in detail play out like a movie right from the start so before anything happened before the trigger happened and all the way through to the end
Notice how you felt before, how you were during and what happened afterwards and play this out in full Technicolor detail.
Now, with the knowledge of your new plan, rewind the movie and start it again as the new version from the beginning all the way through to the end with your new plan in action.
Notice how you feel before during and after and notice the differences. Notice what you're doing, where you're going, how you're acting, what you're thinking, and what you're doing
This is so important as it's this rehearsal that really makes the difference.
THERE'S NO FAILURE ONLY FEEDBACKOne final point is to be self-forgiving about the times when you do go off course from where you'd hope you'd do or what you'd planned. The key is to not dwell on it or let it spin you off your trajectory. Forget the mistake but remember the lesson. As the saying goes, there's no such thing as failure, only feedback.
GRATITUDE
FB GROUP & COACHING CALLS
The program is designed so that you can work through it at your own pace knowing that by being part of a group you have a place to go to for support, inspiration, motivation and accountability or just to share your journey or wins along the way.
COACHING CALLMidway through the program we'll have our group coaching call. This is scheduled for Sunday 25th February at 6pm. If you can't make the call then you can submit any questions or comments. Access details for the call will be emailed out a few days beforehand.
SECRET FACEBOOK GROUPTo join the secret Facebook group you'll need a Facebook account. Search in Facebook for "Jennie Rewire" and friend request me so I can add you to the secret Rewire Inner Circle Facebook group.
Being a secret group means that no-one else can see that the group even exists and no-one, other than the members of the group, can see/read your posts and comments. It's entirely confidential "territory" and obviously members are expected to respect the confidentiality of the group.
COACHING CALLMidway through the program we'll have our group coaching call. This is scheduled for Sunday 25th February at 6pm. If you can't make the call then you can submit any questions or comments. Access details for the call will be emailed out a few days beforehand.
SECRET FACEBOOK GROUPTo join the secret Facebook group you'll need a Facebook account. Search in Facebook for "Jennie Rewire" and friend request me so I can add you to the secret Rewire Inner Circle Facebook group.
Being a secret group means that no-one else can see that the group even exists and no-one, other than the members of the group, can see/read your posts and comments. It's entirely confidential "territory" and obviously members are expected to respect the confidentiality of the group.