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Binge eating and emotional eating keep millions of people from living their best lives. If you're one of them, this podcast is for you. Hosts Georgie Fear and Maryclaire Brescia share insights and key lessons from their wildly successful Breaking Up With Binge Eating Coaching Program. Their methods integrate Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, nutritional science and change psychology -- but what you'll notice is that it works and feels good. Step off the merry go round of dieting and binge eating and into a healthier, happier body and mind.
Georgie: [00:00:00] Brian has had a really good week. He's using the tools that he and I have worked on, and they're working for him. In the last week, he did have one episode of eating at night, but was able to get through pretty much the entire week, eating well and taking good care of his mental state. We'll talk through what happened that one particular night things didn't go well, and I hope some of my tips can help him continue to get better and better at navigating distress without turning to food.
He feels like he's ready to add on something else, in addition to what he's doing to not binge. So, today you'll hear us decide together what he should work on.
This is the Breaking Up with Binge Eating Podcast where every listen moves you one step closer to Complete Food Freedom, hosted by me, Georgie Fear, and my co-coach, Mary Claire [00:01:00] Brescia.
Brian: I'm doing good. It hasn't been an easy week on a couple of fronts, I've been sick for a week. Like when we talked last Friday, I was getting sick.
Georgie: Yeah.
Brian: I stayed home from my son's game. I felt that bad. And they had a killer game. They, they won a game that this other team was super dirty and had done a bunch of recruiting and cheating and nasty, like trying to recruit our players off of our team beginning of the season.
So it was, I hated missing that but yeah, by Saturday like I just kept getting sicker and sicker. Like I just could not today's
Georgie: Did you take a COVID test?
Brian: I did and did not have covid.
Georgie: Oh, good. Okay, good.
Brian: Crazy. I know. Yeah. On your advice, I probably wouldn't have done that.
I was, but I was like, I just need to know. So I went and took, got my own and I was very meticulous with what it said. And yeah, not, not, not a hint of it, but
Georgie: Swab the back of your brain.
Brian: Oh man. I got further than it told me to. [00:02:00] I was like, yeah, I'm going to do this thing. Right. You know, and you have to swirl it, you know, the home test, you're 15 seconds of circles.
Georgie: That's a lot.
Brian: Yeah. Yeah. So it was definitely all week long like this. I couldn't sleep with that CPAP at all. So I was like, I snore real bad and like would have problems. I just, I like pulled out the old air mattress. I've been on that in the living room for a week just, just to be able to sleep on my stomach and taking mucinex.
So I just felt real super shitty all week. But having said that I couldn't taste my food a lot of the time like I didn't so it was really I didn't always make my tracker because I wound up still busy still doing some things I tried to take the early days off and then I wound up I skipped the first night of a seminar and then the second day was all seminar.
So I went to that one. And yeah, pretty much just kind of ate what was in front of me It's not always been super healthy stuff, but it's been pretty much in the green zone. Maybe in some cases over. [00:03:00] Yeah, but it hasn't been bad. Workout wise, I couldn't get one in yesterday. Planning to get one in today.
Got one in the day before yesterday. So it's kind of been...
Georgie: Yeah, I saw the treadmill session pop up.
Brian: Yes. Yeah. So I got that and sweat a lot. Just like that weird sweat you get when you're kind of sick. But I did what you said too. I got to 30 minutes and felt exhausted. Like, so I just stopped. I just cooled down.
Yeah, I didn't push to 40, 45.
Georgie: Yeah, it's a smart move.
Brian: Yeah, yeah.
Georgie: It's not worth it to get 10 minutes of extra exercise and then be sick for another week.
Brian: Yeah, that's the thing. And just completely shot down, you know. Yeah. So that part, it's, it's been good. I got some, some really interesting stuff on the career front that's been encouraging too.
Georgie: Yeah? So what's going on?
Brian: So basically this kind of network, like I've changed so much in sort of my philosophy and all that, that I'm kind of a [00:04:00] man without a tribe now. Like I just have friends that are where I am, but all that, that I came out of, I don't have anymore. So this buddy of mine has been trying to get me kind of aligned with this new group.
That's way more. Mission oriented and open minded and doesn't hang up on stupid stuff. So I met a bunch of those folks and a lot of them are church planters. So it really gave me clarity. Like we're in our old building still. And we keep, you know, we keep getting the date of our build pushed back. So it's like, we're still in this gigantic old broken building and we're waiting to build the new one.
And this guy that I talked to, he was like, who's over the entire arm of church planting.
Georgie: Yeah.
Brian: He said, man, if I was working with you from day one on day two, after you sold and bought property, I would have told you, you need to move out of that building, go get an interim location.
And keep building your church slow. It's like, you can't be a little pregnant. You either are, [00:05:00] you ain't. And it's like, now we're still stuck in the old mode while we're trying to talk about the new mode. So it gave me clarity, like it's time to move out of there. It's time to move on and get into a school or something, then do this next thing. So.
Georgie: Cool!
Brian: That's been a big kind of psychological weight because I just have felt stuck a lot.
Georgie: Has the build be gotten on the new building or no?
Brian: No, because that's the thing. It went from four and a half to seven million. So we're having to go back and phase it.
Georgie: Right. I think you said let's just build what we can for 4. 1 or 4. 2.
Brian: Exactly. So there's a process for having to go back and whittle down to and turn it into phases. And then we have to go back to the permitting process. Because it'll be different than what we originally had permitted with the city. So, there's at least, I mean, if we're breaking ground in March, I'll be very happy about that.
So, the thing this guy said is, he said, but here's the deal, man. He said a lot of people, they sit where they're at,[00:06:00] and they're all excited about their new building, and then they go into their new building, and none of those neighbors know you, none of those people know you, and people aren't, like, ooh, a new building.
I'm gonna like that doesn't buy you much. So he was like, start doing the people stuff now in your new neighborhood. And then the buildings just, you know, it's, literally kind of just a container, you know? So that was a nice sort of, okay, that's exciting to actually. Not just sit and have to like, you know, watching that, that kettle trying to boil, like, when is, when can we build this thing?
When can we break ground when we, but to get our mind off of that onto what, what actually matters is the people's stuff. Anyway, it's always been that, but
Georgie: yeah. So what are the people things that you're going to do in the new town?
Brian: Well, one of them, we're actually in a series right now of just this idea that you have I think we talked about it. I think last time you have 8 to 15 people That are your people [00:07:00] there on the front they have a front row seat to your life. You didn't put them there that they're there. And that's, that's your biggest impact. You can make the most difference in their lives. So if all of us were focused on blessing and praying for and helping and be in there for our people, that's a game changer.
I mean, it's exponential. You know, so that's one thing is kind of getting into that mindset, which we're doing right now. But a lot of it is frankly starting to, to have a presence down there in serving nonprofits and helping schools that are underprivileged with backpacks and having block parties and stuff where we're just
Georgie: Okay.
Brian: Meeting those people.
Georgie: Yeah.
Brian: It's starting to, you know, we have people that live down there, so starting to utilize their homes, maybe starting some studies and stuff where we can just have people come in and actually get to know them and do life with them. So, yeah, but I'm going to have a coach to kind of help me along the way if I, if I get with this, because that part of it, I've kind of always been with [00:08:00] established churches.
You know, where it was like, here's the people you have, you weren't going into a brand new pioneer thing.
Georgie: Yeah. They're already set up.
Brian: So it's a little different animal and I'm, it's going to be nice to have somebody help me with that.
Georgie: Cool. It sounds like no, nothing, anything that felt like a binge.
Brian: Honestly, I had one. Yeah. One time I took a nap in the afternoon cause I felt so shitty and then I got ready for bed and. I had to have a big money talk because things are tight and she of course that's devastating to her. Like any talk about the money, that's her sore spot. So she got like real kind of solemn and hostile, you know, and I was sitting over and I was like, okay, I'm just going to give her some space. This isn't. Against me. It's not personal.
Georgie: Yeah.
Brian: But the giving her space was even like, well, you just ignored me all night. You know, it's one of those. So it went to bed with like that sort of tense feeling. And then I just laid there and couldn't sleep. So yeah. And it was like an [00:09:00] anger eat.
It was like literally like I got up and I'm like looking around for stuff. And it was this is a bad like throwback to my daughter had like fast food in a bag. Yeah. Her leftovers in the trash and I like grabbed that out and cleaned that out cleaned up what she left So.
Georgie: Mhmm.
Brian: That's as close to a binge. It was definitely at like three in the morning and like eating all of that and a few other things. So yeah, that was, I would call that a binge. Yeah.
Georgie: Okay. What was the anger about or at?
Brian: Probably triplicate. It was, cause I've actually was aware of asking that question. Yeah, yeah, I think it was, I'm still sick and it's a damn week later and I can't feel better and I can't sleep in my own bed and I'm sleeping on a mattress and the money's not great and she feels bad and it makes me feel like you know, it makes me feel, that's a stupid statement. I felt that maybe I'm not a good enough provider [00:10:00] that You know, we're not don't have all that we need
Georgie: Right.
Brian: And it's so it was all of that and then it was this uncertainty again in the background of we're just sitting still my whole organization and don't know what to do or where to turn. So it was the night before Yeah, that was the night before I actually met with all these guys and I had an answer. So, you know, it was another reminder, like, just chill out. Me and her were great the next day. We were both tired. You know, we got to work a budget like every other human being. I mean, you know, there's a few who don't, but 99.
9 percent of us do. You know, I'm going to get well eventually, like it,
Georgie: Yeah.
Brian: It's the, laying there staring at the ceiling. Like it was just multiple things and
Georgie: Yeah, I totally know what you mean. Like emotions can be so enhanced at night where it's like something that earlier was like, Oh, it's a bummer.
And the night is like, why?
Brian: I'm telling you. Yeah. It's weird. It's weird. It's like. I guess you're, you're extra tired [00:11:00] one way or another because it's night and you talk about that whole idea of you can't run at night. You can't run at night. Whatever it is is bubbling up on you and where are you going to go? It's two in the morning.
You're going to lay there. It's tough.
Georgie: So some of the things that I think could be helpful for this sort of thing is like, if we can recognize I'm in one of those moments. That the way things feel right now might not be accurate. It's sort of like recognizing that could be the alcohol making me think that it's like recognizing that your perception is not super accurate at the moment.
Brian: Yeah, yeah.
Georgie: Being able to be like, I'm tired. I'm overemotional. This feels like the end of the world right now, but it's not going to feel that way tomorrow.
Brian: Exactly.
Georgie: It can be super helpful with getting things. A lot of women have to learn that with PMS,
Brian: Mmmm,
Georgie: like I feel like this is super big emergency have to do something right now. And 48 hours from now, I'm going to feel like it [00:12:00] wasn't that big of a deal.
Brian: Exactly.
Georgie: You sort of have to have that foresight. And for a lot of people, the middle of the night is sort of the same thing. It's like,
Brian: yeah,
Georgie: I'm super emotional. This has happened before I've gone through it. And you have to, sort of like retroactively think about all the times I've had this doom sensation and it wasn't the end.. It wasn't doomed. It was just a really, really strong feeling.
Brian: Well, these tools we've been working on are increasingly present, like every day, all day, like the whole thing of. Not writing stories about what they think and why they said that but dealing with that quickly that and the whole idea of not getting the bow strung too tight and doing the morning stuff that makes such a difference like honestly I think the night one snuck up on me, frankly, cause it's going better.
it's really, I mean, almost to the point, like I want to have the conversation. I feel like I'm getting ahead of myself, but I'm like, I'm like [00:13:00] already wanting to broach with you. Okay. So when do we.
Georgie: Get to weight loss?
Brian: Yeah. Yeah. I feel like, here's the thing When you asked me like about the binge and I didn't think about that like we I was two nights ago So do you really think you're ready to start doing that I mean, I'm still not at a hundred percent, but It's more different than it's been since we've visited.
Georgie: Yeah!
Brian: You know what I'm saying? Like even if I'm not there yet, I know it's getting there.
Georgie: Yeah.
Brian: And part of the impetus yeah.
Georgie: And again, we're going to start doing things like one at a time.
Brian: Yeah.
Georgie: So it's going to be small stuff like setting a goal of getting this many workouts in a week and trying to do it, or like we talked about, like getting your fruits and veggies in.
It's going to be small stuff like that. It's not going to be like, all right, here's where we cut your food in half and take 15 pills a day and nothing crazy coming.
Brian: Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah.
Georgie: So I'm glad I'm super, super glad. It seems like, I think a lot of this process is like, it takes a while. Cause it's like getting to know somebody really well and that person's us.
Brian: Yeah.
It's like getting to know, when you have a relationship with somebody [00:14:00] and it's like the first, I don't know, a few years, you don't know all their shit. You don't know all of their annoying habits, the things they're really bad at, that they keep well hidden,
Yep.
Georgie: All those things. And it takes time to see those, accept those, be able to work with those.
Brian: Yeah.
Georgie: And that's how it is with ourselves.
Brian: Wow. Wow.
Georgie: You start to feel like, okay, so this person I'm in a relationship with, Georgie's really emotional tonight. So every now and then she's going to get super teary and worked up about something and think the world's ending and might not even have a rational, pseudo rational reason for it, but the middle of the night she's hyper emotional.
Okay, now I know that about her and I can deal with that when I am her and be like, oh, all right, so let's just do what we can to get through this. We're not going to call, email, do anything, take any drugs, eat any food. We're going to kill some time, listen to a book if I can't sleep, listen to a podcast, guided meditation, because tomorrow this is going to seem 95 percent solved by the passage of time.
And then if they're problem solving to do, I'll do it then. and you're learning, [00:15:00] like, oh, this is how Brian strings the bow too tight.
Brian: Yeah.
Georgie: You can like see him do it, almost like you can watch yourself on a video camera. Like there he goes, look at him rushing from thing to thing and not pausing to take a breath.
Brian: Yeah.
Georgie: Step in and be like, hey bro, we've been through this. Slow down a notch.
Brian: And a lot of that is how you Miyagi'd me last time. You know what I mean by Miyagi, right? You wax on, waxed off me last time. And that sounds weird. You know what I mean? So, but this idea that if you treat yourself with the same empathy and understanding and patience you do everybody else in the world, you can study yourself like that.
Like that's new to me because it was always, if somebody else had those patterns, you were like, well, yeah, they're a human being and then if you had those patterns, it was like, I suck, you know, it's because I'm a terrible person. Like, no.
Georgie: Yeah.
Brian: Yeah, you don't even care to get to know yourself because you're too busy abusing yourself. You know, I mean, even, yeah, even that is like kind of on the other edge of No man, I'm that front row analogy, like [00:16:00] I'm on my front row. I'm sitting there, I'm gonna take a look at me too. And, and
Georgie: yeah, when I think about, you know, a lot of the stuff I've read about values and integrity and, doing the things that, really match our values.
And one of the things I read that was really like sort of hit me and stuck with me was that what you do when you're alone can be some of the biggest indicators to you of your integrity, because you don't do it because people are watching you. Like, do you put the grocery cart back when it's the middle of the night in an empty parking lot?
Or do you leave it there because nobody's freaking looking?
Brian: Right.
Georgie: So I feel like the way that we withhold or use kindness with ourselves. is the epitome of the thing that nobody else is necessarily witnessing. Like, are you kind to yourself when nobody else is looking?
Brian: Yeah.
Georgie: That's like really, really where it's at.
Brian: Yeah. That's great. I love that. Yeah. definitely. And the pattern thing's exactly right. Like to know, that's [00:17:00] changing. I can really tell the getting outside myself Well, even today, I'm excited about launching this church thing for the first time in a while. I'm like, okay, man, this would be, I'd love to like sharpen the knives up here and get to work.
Georgie: Yeah.
Brian: On this instead of be paralyzed, you know, but, I told myself this morning, I'm like, I can easily slide back into pulling the bow too tight because I'm excited about it and it can feed into that.
obsessive thing. So I'm like, yeah, don't do that. Like take a minute, watch this thing and chill out. Yeah.
Georgie: Yeah. and life is a series of course corrections.
Brian: Yeah.
Georgie: Overworking. Correcting. Underworking. Correcting.
Brian: Yeah. Yeah.
Georgie: Underdressing. Correcting. Overdressing. Correcting. It's sort of how it goes, but we get to make those corrections before we're like hypothermic in the snow metaphor.
Brian: Mmmm.
Georgie: You know? It's like, you just, you get to make those corrections before the binge sets in before the huge blow up sets in. [00:18:00]
Brian: Yeah. Yeah.
Georgie: You avert all that stuff. Cause we're like, Oh, bow's a little too tight as opposed to like this is where you start snapping.
Brian: Right, right. But you don't beat yourself up because you put it on in the first place. It's just like. Oh, I feel this. I'm not gonna hang on to it and make it. Yeah.
Georgie: And we all do these things not like on purpose. Nobody's like, I really want to stress myself out till I malfunction. Like that'll be an awesome way to spend the day. It's because we just make errors in the pursuit of trying to make a difference in the world and trying to do our best and trying to, you know, be good boys and girls and do the right thing. Sometimes we just make errors and, you know, hurt ourselves and mislead ourselves in the process. So
Brian: yeah
Georgie: Pick yourself up, dust yourself off. You know, try and set off in the right direction again.
Brian: That's good.
Georgie: Oh, cool. Cool, cool. Let's see. I have an idea.
Brian: Hmm?
Georgie: I'm curious if you would do well or want to be in one of these accountability groups that we have.
Brian: Oooh.
Georgie: So do you have [00:19:00] Facebook Messenger?
Brian: Yes.
Georgie: Okay, so the idea here would be that instead of using EverFit you would log onto Facebook Messenger and you'd have a small group of other people working on similar goals.
And everybody checks in every day with whether they did their stuff or not.
Brian: Yeah.
Georgie: And the goal is for everybody to check in every day and do their stuff as much of the time as possible.
Brian: Right. Right. Yeah.
Georgie: And I think there's an added element where it's nice to be connecting with other people. Instead of just this, like, app where you're doing it on your own.
Brian: Yeah. Yeah.
Georgie: Does that seem like something you could try?
Brian: Absolutely. Yeah.
Georgie: It doesn't need to take a lot of time. I know everybody's busy and nobody's like, Yes, I want to spend lots of time doing this. But like, literally, you show up like, Hey, did my stuff today. Check, check, check. You know, doesn't have to be super time consuming. Nice, nice. And not everything has to be every day. So you could be like, I want to get on the treadmill three times a week. So we can set it up for whatever you [00:20:00] want to do. And you can also use it for work things if you want. It's not only for health and fitness things. We have people that are artists in there and they're like, I want to make sure I work on this project every weekend or.
Brian: Yeah, I would love that. I would love that. Yeah. I'll just need to get the, you know, the way to do it. And I'm down. I love it. I liked the idea of having somebody cause honestly I do better with workouts or whatever, when I'm with somebody, it's always gone better, you know?
Georgie: yeah.
Yeah. Okay. Cool. I have one other person one other client who's on the EverFit app, and I think I'm going to put you both in the accountability groups because I think it's just working better for people.
Cool. So I think that will work. So let's talk about what specifically you want to be accountable to doing. You can't have too many.
Brian: Okay.
Georgie: I know that your morning Bible time. Candle time. Like that's a really important part of your day. So I would say that's probably a good one to have in there.
Brian: Yeah, probably is.
Georgie: What else do you feel like are important?
Brian: I think that I've been calling that, yeah. Candle time or abiding time or whatever that would be.
Georgie: Okay.
Brian: That's perfect because that encapsulates a couple of things.[00:21:00] I think one would be, I'd like to do three cardios a week and two weights a week. Now
Georgie: Okay.
Brian: Maybe too much, but that would be a goal.
Georgie: Okay. We can always aim lower to start, which is sometimes nice to get that feeling of success.
Brian: Yeah!
Georgie: Like maybe we're just going to say like two cardio and one weights or any type of movement three times a week
Brian: love that. Yeah, to get started. That's great. I can always raise it, right?
Georgie: Yeah Any movement three times a week. I'm always talking people down. I'm like, let's aim low and hit it. Rather than aiming high and feeling like we're missing.
Brian: Yeah.
Georgie: And then let's say a food thing.
Brian: I think there's a couple, I think there's probably three I can think of immediately. One is eating at my regular intervals. That's one, the one that's important. Obviously one is having a fruit or a vegetable at all of them is important. I think the other one is the green zone thing, which when I'm conscious of that.
That's very helpful, but I've been unconscious of it a lot. You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm just not, and the truth is, I'm [00:22:00] finding if I'm out to eat I love leftovers. Like, you know, stopping has a built in incentive.
Georgie: Yeah. Let's go green zone.
Brian: Love that. I love that, because that's been off my radar, and I would like it back on.
Georgie: And we know that that's going to be a needle mover.
Brian: Absolutely.
Georgie: On the scale.
Brian: Yeah.
Georgie: It works.
Brian: It does that one and we're in working out a few times. Those two are needle movers.
Georgie: Yeah. Yeah. We don't have to get into like, all right. You got to weigh your oatmeal. Like,
Brian: yeah. Yeah.
Georgie: Little bits of healthy habits. Okay, cool. So I will take care of getting you set up in a group today with a couple, with a few other people.
Brian: that'd be great.
Georgie: Cool. And that's been like. Really, really going well. We've started it like a couple of weeks ago and I read the groups every day and I keep track of who's doing what and people say I would not have found the wherewithal to do that extra 1000 steps today. If I didn't know, I was going to tell you that I did it or didn't
Brian: love that
Georgie: people are really honest, like. Somebody's goal is to like drink three drinks a week or less. And she's [00:23:00] like, I missed it. I had four and a half this week and other people talk And it's like, there's no shame. There's no judgment. Everybody's just like, let's talk about what's difficult and what works and look for patterns and help each other out.
And it's just going super well, like surprisingly.
Brian: So good. I love it.
Georgie: Yeah. I told you this was like Roland's brain child that he's wanted to make happen for a long time. Every day you have two goals, do your tasks, which we just talked about and show up for your group.
Like that's a huge thing. And so even if you do none of the things, no abiding time, no movement, no green zones. Show up and say hi to your partners and tell them how you did.
Brian: Yeah
Georgie: So at the end of the month, we total like out of the percentage of days, what percentage did show up and out of the percentage of tasks, what was your percentage there?
And we add those up and those are your discount on the following month. So it works out that if you're a hundred percent, you don't end up paying for the next month. The benefit, the value is the other people in your group. So it's like by showing up for the other people in your group and them showing up for you, there's this [00:24:00] great like exchange of value taking place so that you don't have to pay a coach to be there all the time.
Brian: Wow. I just think that whole idea could be applied in a thousand different directions. You know what I mean? Like that's great. Yeah, I'd be very excited to do that actually.
Georgie: Yeah. Yeah. I'm excited. I think it's going to be really cool for people that are in like recovery spaces in terms of like addiction to be able to check in every day and be like another day I stayed clean.
Another day I stayed clean.
Brian: You should give me the people who listen to our podcasts that are just like, Oh, there's that guy. He's so fucked up. I've heard about, I've heard 17 podcasts with him. I honestly don't think you can function in a healthy way alone, because you have to have other people as a mirror for you, when we try to be our own, we just suck at that.
Everybody does. I'm just having to come to grips with my assessor of other people's view and opinion is broken. It's busted beyond repair.
Georgie: Yeah,
Brian: but it's very [00:25:00] freeing for me to finally realize that like, cause I, I don't feel like I'm an idiot. I feel like I'm fairly intuitive and fairly emotionally intuitive, but on that one, I just, I'm like handicapped.
I really am. I literally will read into, well, they did that because of this and they thought this and it's just always wrong. Like 99 percent of the time it's wrong.
Georgie: Whoever makes smoke detectors it's not an accident that the thing goes off when you burn a piece of toast. Like, it's got a very high false positive rating because it's so sensitive because the potential of a false negative of it not going off when your kitchen is actually on fire is catastrophic. So you set that thing to be super freaking sensitive. So your toast sets it off. And we evolved similarly so that we are like very clued in and individuals vary, of course. We are very clued into what's dangerous. socially, because we don't want to be expelled from the group. We don't want to be ostracized. We don't want to be deemed not worthy. We don't want to be [00:26:00] rejected. So some of us have very sensitive smoke detectors. And so somebody like breathes funny and we're like, they're rejecting me. They hate me.
Brian: That's it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. My smoke detector is.
Georgie: Yeah. Yeah. Or like the car alarm that goes off and you like bump the door and you're like, Oh, sorry. Sorry.
Brian: Is that in the family of hyper vigilance?
Georgie: Mhmm
Brian: That's interesting. Wow. Yet another analogy from Georgie that I'm going to keep and use.
Georgie: Yes.
Brian: I love that. That's a, that's a good one. A really good one. Yeah. So we've all known that like, you like exhale too hard and your smoke alarms like, like, yeah, you know?
Georgie: Yeah. So it's like that middle of the night alarm going off. That's like, doom death. Oh, this is probably a false alarm. Reality is probably less dramatic.
Brian: But it's like that thing came out of the manufacturer and I guess the manufacturer is some kind of childhood [00:27:00] trauma, right? Like that's, that's why you're like that.
Georgie: That's how it got programmed. Yeah. If you experience conditional acceptance and love, then you're like, I got to perform every day of my life.
Otherwise that's dangerous because I'm going to be rejected. So we're learning that we got some sensitive alarms, but yeah, I mean, you're doing a great job. You're sort of like recalibrating and recalibrating and recalibrating. And I know that one time at three in the morning, like, okay, one got by you.
But I know there's a lot of times during the week where you're like, you rose above.
Brian: A bunch of times. And I'm grateful. I'm noticing them.
Georgie: Yeah.
Brian: So it's, yeah.
Georgie: And give yourself credit and like pats on the back. Cause that friendship that you have with yourself. It's like, dude, you saved me from a lot of like stomachache and misery.
Brian: Yeah.
Georgie: And extra worse emotions, like by bailing me out and calming me down and stopping me and slowing me down. And like, thanks, man. You're welcome. Thank me. I'm welcome.
Brian: I love that. Yeah, exactly. Like you're good enough. You're smart enough. Doggone it. [00:28:00]
Georgie: People like you.
Brian: People like you. You know what? Stuart Smalley was on to something.
Georgie: He was. Cool. Well, I'm glad we got to catch up today.
Brian: Me too. Thank you very much.
Georgie: Take care. Bye bye.
Brian: All right. See ya. Bye.
Georgie: When Brian was describing that 3 a. m. intense anger and frustration and looking for food, I'm not sure you caught this, but he said that he even asked himself what this anger was all about. I was so happy to hear that. It's a big sign of progress. He says that all day, every day, he's aware of what stories he's telling himself now.
He's not stringing that bow too tight. He's gotten to know himself, in the sense that what trips him up, so he's familiar with those thoughts that feed his distress and panic, and most recently, he's also learning how nasty he can be to himself at times. He knows his smoke alarm is super sensitive when it comes to being disrespected, and it'll [00:29:00] pick up on things that might not even be there.
The synthesis of all of this self knowledge is the ability to work with himself, to be his own teammate, to anticipate his stumbles, and offer himself the right kind of support at the right time. The journey to get healthier and happier inevitably involves, for everybody, Uncovering a lot of these tends tos.
My clients are continually uncovering things like, oh, turns out I am quite a perfectionist, or I tend to be mean to myself, or I'm uncomfortable asking people for things. Or, I tend to get bent out of shape by one particular annoyance in life, like having to wait for someone. Or, people realize they tend to jump to worst case scenarios and catastrophize situations.
And uncovering all of these facets of ourselves can feel like... God, I'm just one ball of dysfunction and weakness. But, I promise you, that's not the whole picture. I mean, yes, [00:30:00] you and I, and everybody else, has plenty of dysfunction and weakness. And strength, and beauty, ability, and resilience. When we're brave enough to really get to know ourselves we can see and accept where we have had a role in creating or continuing our troubles and then we can use our kindness and patience to give ourselves support and make choices that better lead us toward the places we want to go. I encourage you don't turn away from that awareness. Turn toward it. If you could use some companionship and support on this journey out of binge eating, let me and the caring staff that work with me help you. Drop a line to georgiefear@gmail. com if you want to ask me any questions, or swing by confidenteaters.com to learn more about what we can do. [00:31:00]