One of the heaviest parts of examining our struggles with food or with overeating can be the emotional baggage and the way we’ve been taught to approach thinking about and making changes. If you’ve been at this for a while, your plans to make changes may feel exhausting before you even embark on them.
Deprivation thinking messes with your mind and can lead you to create plans and goals and a way of treating yourself that are demotivating, overly reliant on being “disciplined” (which is exhausting), and quite likely to fail.
You may already know this. What you may not know is how to do things differently. How do you start making progress with your goals without falling right back into the same old patterns and ways of thinking that have never worked?
Listen to today’s episode to begin to rewire your brain to create a different approach. We’ll examine what this actually looks like in your life.
If you are finding value in this podcast, please take 30 seconds to subscribe and leave a review. It makes all the difference in my ability to share this information!
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Full episode transcript:
Hello, welcome back to another, Too Much on Her Plate Podcast episode. I am glad you're here. If you are liking this podcast, I hope that you have subscribed to it. And it would mean a lot to me. If you would take a few seconds and leave a review that would also help other people find the podcast and learn from it as well. Podcasts are such an interesting medium. I mean, they're so convenient, especially for busy women, because we can fit them in to our lives. You can listen when you're doing a bunch of different things or one different thing. You can be driving in your car or working out on the treadmill, or have your headphones in while you're working on another project. And it is easy to get lost in the multitasking. One of the key pieces of making the changes that you're probably looking for.
If you're here, one of the key pieces of that starts with checking in with yourself. So if you haven't done that yet today, would you do me a favor? Do yourself a favor, take a deep breath, just take a moment and breathe in and breathe out and notice whether your shoulders are up around your ears or whether there's tension in your body. Do a little body scan and check in with yourself. See how you're feeling, ask yourself what you know about what you need right now. Maybe it's to take another deep breath, maybe it's to clear off your desk so you can focus on what we're going to cover in this episode. Maybe it is to let yourself off the hook for one of the three or four or five million things you've got whirling around in your brain. And that you're currently feeling responsible for. Just take a moment and take an inventory and notice how long it may have been since you've done this.
It is always helpful when we do this. So it's helpful if we do it a few times a day or even more, but definitely once. So you've done it for today. Take a deep breath and just notice what you notice about what's going on with yourself. So here's what I want to talk about today. When it comes to this topic of overeating and emotional eating and your relationship with food, I am willing to bet that you are more clear on what you're fighting than what you want. And you might disagree with me. You may say, oh no, I am crystal clear on what I want, but I bet you have a list that would be really easy to make about what you want to stop doing, or stop thinking or stop eating. And I bet that list is longer and easier to make than the list you could make about what you really want, what you really want to happen as you achieve your goal.
What that goal really means for you and what you want to do instead of the things that you don't want to be doing. Now, here's the thing. It is perfectly natural to know more about what you don't want than what you do want. That is the way our brains work, unless we really work on our brain, but it's not a winning recipe. Focusing on all the things you don't want to do is deprivation thinking it doesn't work. It's not going to get you to your goal. It is not going to get you to lasting peace and freedom from overeating. And neither is a diet. No diet in the world will transform your relationship with food. It may change what you put in your mouth for a while, but it will not change the relationship you have with what you put in your mouth. If you haven't listened to the last podcast episode on Divorcing Deprivation, then I really recommend that you do that.
I highly recommend it because it's going to make what I'm going to walk you through today, clearer. And if you're in a place where you are not driving or walking on a treadmill or doing something else that has you occupied while you're listening, you might want to grab something to jot down some notes with or something that you can use to capture anything that comes up for you with what I'm going to be sharing with you today. Today, I want to walk you through what I consider to be the first step to taking your power back from all of this stuff from overeating, from weight struggles, from emotional eating. This is an episode that is it's important, it's foundational. And it's probably one that you're going to want to listen to more than once. You'll probably find that each time you listen, you can go deeper and you can uncover a new layer to this stuff that we're going to talk about today.
And with that, you get to create some new motivation and some new insight into what your unique path to creating peace with food and freedom from overeating looks like, because guess what? I've been doing this a long time. And one thing I am crystal clear on is that there is no one way that works for everyone that goes for what you put in your body. There's no one way of eating that works for everybody. And there's definitely no one way of creating this business of, you know, creating peace with food and a relationship with food that works for you. It has to be yours. One of the other things that I am very clear on from all the years that I have spent helping smart, busy women make changes with their bodies and with food and with eating is that one of the hardest parts of ending overeating struggles is staying motivated and staying on track.
One of the reasons that this is so hard is that making changes with food or ending over eating usually gets set up to be a struggle. We set it up that way. We set it up that way with our thoughts and our beliefs and our approach way too much of the time, it gets set up to be something that requires hard work that requires depriving yourself that requires endless willpower. And that requires you to go hungry. It does not need to be that way. In the last podcast episode, I talked to you about deprivation mindset and a deprivation approach versus a transformation mindset and a transformation approach, and the very two different paths. These two divergent ways of thinking can lead you on. I am not interested in helping you build a stronger deprivation path. I'm not interested in helping you be strong and continue your struggle with food and continue your determination to not overeat or to not eat a certain way.
What I want to do is help you get to the place where the cravings and the urge to eat to overeat, not to eat in general, but where the cravings and the urge to overeat go away. And this can happen. So too often, we have these plans to be in control with food. And these are set up around what you won't do, what you won't eat, how strong you're going to be too often. These plans are set up around a specific size or a weight goal. And here's the thing size or weight is not enough. It's just simply not enough to feel inspired or motivated through tough times or challenging times or hard choices for any of us. Motivation is fueled by desire and by passion, by wanting real wanting, and desire and passion, they don't happen because you hit a certain number on the scale.
It's just a number desire and passion and lasting motivation. They are fueled by emotion feelings and they aren't nourished. They're not fueled by a strict list of requirements, a to do list, right, of what your, of what you need to do to reach your goal that, you know, think about it, that list of requirements that makes you tired before you even start. That is not how you fuel desire and passion and motivation. It's interesting because nobody really talks about this part, but this problem with desire and passion and motivation and wanting is it's one, it's actually one really important. One of the really long reasons that weight loss plans or diets or restrictions or anything based in deprivation around food, usually fails creating freedom from overeating. And I use those words so deliberately, this is about freedom and creating. That is a different kind of journey.
It requires a different kind of journey because it is at the destination on the journey is a permanent. And to the struggles, it really is peace, right? Peace and happiness with food, peace and happiness with your body and with your weight and whatever else is involved in this for you and the process to get there. It's, it's a part of it. All it is. It is one that feels good to experience. You cannot deprive yourself to a place of peace and freedom. It doesn't work that way. So freedom from overeating, it's beyond diets. It's beyond willpower. It's beyond definitely beyond it's in a whole different country than deprivation freedom from overeating. It it's not about not eating sugar or carbs or not eating after eight o'clock or not going into the chips or not buying the chips. Right? Freedom from over eating is when the food doesn't call to you anymore.
Freedom from overeating and peace with food happen. When you've got real solutions, solutions that feel solid to your real hungers, the hidden hungers, you have the ones that aren't really about food and these real solid solutions that you have. They nourish you in a way that food never will freedom from overeating is when instead of eating, you've got solutions that comfort you or help you cope with stress or help you get through a difficult situation or give you the attention or the reward or the celebration, or the love that you're craving, or the compassion that you need when you can't have those things. Freedom from overeating is when you have those kinds of solutions that work for you in a way that the food in your kitchen or in the vending machine, or at the drive-through will never work for you. This is so important.
I am not interested in helping you be strong and continue onward with your struggle with food and with not overeating. What I want to do is help you get to the place where the cravings and the urges go away. Freedom from overeating happens when you are able to transform your life. So that food really doesn't play a starring role anymore. Now, I am well aware that depending on your current situation, this might sound absolutely impossible right now, or it might be something that you are hearing me say, but you, you just can't begin to wrap your brain around what that would look like for you. And that is what I want to help you do in this episode. I want to walk you through something here. If you're not driving right now or doing something that would make it unsafe to do so you might want to close your eyes while you listen to this episode, or just kind of relax and go inside yourself.
I want you to take some time because I'm going to ask you to see what you see inside your head, right? Create some images in your mind. As I'm describing some things and asking some questions. I want you to create an image in your mind of what freedom from overeating real freedom would really be like for you. So I'm not talking about a pant size. I'm not talking about a number on the scale. I don't want you to create a list of to-do items. I want you to imagine what it would feel like to be free from overeating and emotional eating, let yourself feel it. What would it feel like? What experiences would you have if you felt truly free from this stuff, maybe it would be routine experiences that you didn't have. Maybe it would be not thinking about food anymore or not having whether yesterday was a good day or a bad day be your first thought. When you woke up in the morning, maybe it would be a feeling of peacefulness because this stuff has just fallen into place and you don't have to think about it anymore. Maybe it would be something like feeling completely confident that you can ignore whatever that most tempting food is for you or a trigger food, whether it's chocolate chips or potato chips or whatever, what would it feel like if it could be in your kitchen and you could be in your kitchen and you're not hungry, and it's just not going to call to you, you could ignore it, let yourself see the images of what your experiences would be and what they would feel like for you. What would it feel like to be able to have some treats that you really love around your house or in your desk drawer? And when you're hungry, be able to have just one to be able to taste and savor it and enjoy it and then be done.
And maybe even forget that it's there until you encounter it again. And you say, oh my gosh, I forgot. I even had that chocolate. What would that be like for you? I want you to really visualize it. I want you to feel this in your body. What would it be like for you to go to your closet and have one size of clothes in there, clothing that you love, clothing that you've invested in because you know, it's going to fit. You feel peaceful about that. It's going to fit when you put it on, it's going to fit next season because your weight and your eating are no longer moving targets that not only are you struggling to control, but they're targets that you don't feel like you have any control over. See what that would feel like in your mind. I want you to see yourself experiencing this and notice what comes up for you.
When you think about creating peace with food and freedom from overeating, what else comes to mind? What comes up for you? What does it mean for you? What would change for you? What would feel different for you and what would absolutely delight you? What would make you giggle? What would be freed up? I want you to create an actual image, an image. I want you to see it, and I want it to be as vivid and clear and as Technicolor as you can. I want you to see what freedom from overeating will look like and feel like and mean for you. I want you to see yourself feeling and living and being with peace, with food and free from overeating. How do you start your day? How do you handle challenges? Freedom from overeating is not an experience of walking around starving. It is not an experience of living on willpower.
It is not an experience of denying your feelings and struggles or of feeling deprived or thinking. You have to be deprived and wondering how long you can do it. Freedom from overeating means that you've discovered ways to address the root causes of your eating and ways to feed your real hungers and the hidden hungers, the ones that aren't really about food. I want you to think for a moment about the amazing changes that would happen in your life. The amazing changes that will happen in your life. When you have that, when you have ways to address the things that trigger your overeating and emotional eating, and when you have ways to feed your hidden hungers, the things that aren't really about food, what would that mean for you in your life? What will that feel like? And how will that transform you and your life?
This is the transformation. This is the new direction that you want to head in. What if you're a comfort eater and now you have the tools so that you're not depriving yourself of comfort when you choose not to eat. What if you have had found the ways to feed yourself the things that you needed to feed yourself that comfort, and you didn't need the food. If you tend to overeat when you're anxious or tense or frustrated, or when you're frustrated with yourself, what if you had another solution that worked better, you free from overeating and emotional eating. What does that look like? Now? Listen, don't get worried. If you don't get a clear picture of your own freedom right away, if you feel confused, or if you feel unsure about what you want your freedom from over eating to look like, or if nothing comes up for you, when you ask the questions, I want you to try something.
I want you to stop thinking about food or eating or weight. Just take that out of the picture instead, take a deep breath. And then I want you to think about and feel, and picture you at your best, most healthy, energetic, and vibrant picture yourself that way. This is your goal. You fed nourished, alive, getting what you need. This is what freedom from eating looks like. So what do you look like? How do you stand? What's your posture? Like, what does your confidence and energy do for you? And where does it take you? Once you have this freedom from overeating and this peace with food, what do you do with your time and your energy and your passion? I want you to form as clear a picture as you can, and don't judge whatever picture you end up with. And then just write down. If you have something to write with, or think about three words that describe the you that you see.
So this could be anything but things I've heard from clients are words like strong or focused or happy or energized, vibrant, relaxed, just write down three words that describe the you that you see now, tune into that vision and write down three other things. I want you to write down three feelings you'll have when you have freedom from overeating and peace with food, right? Choose your own. But some examples have been that have been shared with me. And these might overlap with the three words that you already have, but I've heard words like free, relaxed, spacious, light, confident, happy. So try to write down three description words, and three feelings and practice tuning into this vision and these feelings and these ideas that you have about you free from overeating fed and nourished and alive. What does this person, you, what do you focus on when you're in that place and write down anything that comes to mind?
And again, I'll give you some examples that I have heard. I've had clients say, you know, what comes to mind is I'm eating for energy. I'm reducing my stress. I'm asking for help. I'm learning better strategies. I'm saying yes to things that are important. That's a big one. I hear a lot. I'm taking time for myself, or I'm taking things one step at a time, whatever comes up for you, write down anything that you believe will help you feel more peaceful with food. Now, I want you to remember, you are focusing on two things as you consider these questions, what your freedom from overeating will feel like. And any pictures that you can create in your mind of what it looks like for you. I want you to see it as much as you can. Here's this interesting thing about this picture we're creating and about freedom from overeating.
It's not about the food, this picture that you are creating of you with peace, with food and freedom from overeating. It's not about just when you're eating. This is about you all day long. This is about your life. You want to create a picture and a feeling of peace with food that you absolutely want in your life. And that makes the rest of your life better for a lot of women want to hear from a lot of clients, is that creating this freedom from over eating opens up space to be the best in the rest of your life. And this is such an important key difference between a deprivation approach, where you're focused on what you will do and won't do with food and managing that and a transformation approach that transforms your relationship with food. So your whole life can get bigger and better creating a clear vision.
One that you can see and feel of where you want to go. That is such an important piece of ending struggles with food and with emotional eating. You're never going to create something different, focusing on the same old thoughts and the same old behaviors, the ones that actually reinforce what it is you're trying to change rewiring your vision like this. It's not a one-shot deal. Remember I said that you'll probably want to listen to this episode more than once. And this is a topic we go really deep and broad with in the missing piece program. So if this is something you want more help with, then you should definitely check that out. But right now, I don't want you to worry about getting this perfect or judging what you have or wondering if you're doing it right. There's no such thing. What I want you to do is just play with these ideas and thoughts and the visuals that come up when you ask these new and different questions, this process of creating freedom from overeating and peace with food, it is a journey.
And if you have a vision like this, and the more you play with this, the more you can create a journey that lights you up while you work on getting to your destination, by asking these questions, you've actually just taken a step in the journey. So keep your vision, which I know you're going to keep adjusting and learning more about, keep it in front of you, that vision, those feelings, those images, they should feel good. Let yourself enjoy them. Let yourself anticipate and savor the life that you are creating. You are. You've already taken steps. And when you get stuck, ask yourself, just, just ask yourself, what can you do to create just a little bit more of that feeling in that vision, that image, that way of life that you see for yourself that is freedom from overeating. Just take a step, even if it's a small one. That is how you get there.
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Hello, welcome back to another, Too Much on Her Plate Podcast episode. I am glad you're here. If you are liking this podcast, I hope that you have subscribed to it. And it would mean a lot to me. If you would take a few seconds and leave a review that would also help other people find the podcast and learn from it as well. Podcasts are such an interesting medium. I mean, they're so convenient, especially for busy women, because we can fit them in to our lives. You can listen when you're doing a bunch of different things or one different thing. You can be driving in your car or working out on the treadmill, or have your headphones in while you're working on another project. And it is easy to get lost in the multitasking. One of the key pieces of making the changes that you're probably looking for.
If you're here, one of the key pieces of that starts with checking in with yourself. So if you haven't done that yet today, would you do me a favor? Do yourself a favor, take a deep breath, just take a moment and breathe in and breathe out and notice whether your shoulders are up around your ears or whether there's tension in your body. Do a little body scan and check in with yourself. See how you're feeling, ask yourself what you know about what you need right now. Maybe it's to take another deep breath, maybe it's to clear off your desk so you can focus on what we're going to cover in this episode. Maybe it is to let yourself off the hook for one of the three or four or five million things you've got whirling around in your brain. And that you're currently feeling responsible for. Just take a moment and take an inventory and notice how long it may have been since you've done this.
It is always helpful when we do this. So it's helpful if we do it a few times a day or even more, but definitely once. So you've done it for today. Take a deep breath and just notice what you notice about what's going on with yourself. So here's what I want to talk about today. When it comes to this topic of overeating and emotional eating and your relationship with food, I am willing to bet that you are more clear on what you're fighting than what you want. And you might disagree with me. You may say, oh no, I am crystal clear on what I want, but I bet you have a list that would be really easy to make about what you want to stop doing, or stop thinking or stop eating. And I bet that list is longer and easier to make than the list you could make about what you really want, what you really want to happen as you achieve your goal.
What that goal really means for you and what you want to do instead of the things that you don't want to be doing. Now, here's the thing. It is perfectly natural to know more about what you don't want than what you do want. That is the way our brains work, unless we really work on our brain, but it's not a winning recipe. Focusing on all the things you don't want to do is deprivation thinking it doesn't work. It's not going to get you to your goal. It is not going to get you to lasting peace and freedom from overeating. And neither is a diet. No diet in the world will transform your relationship with food. It may change what you put in your mouth for a while, but it will not change the relationship you have with what you put in your mouth. If you haven't listened to the last podcast episode on Divorcing Deprivation, then I really recommend that you do that.
I highly recommend it because it's going to make what I'm going to walk you through today, clearer. And if you're in a place where you are not driving or walking on a treadmill or doing something else that has you occupied while you're listening, you might want to grab something to jot down some notes with or something that you can use to capture anything that comes up for you with what I'm going to be sharing with you today. Today, I want to walk you through what I consider to be the first step to taking your power back from all of this stuff from overeating, from weight struggles, from emotional eating. This is an episode that is it's important, it's foundational. And it's probably one that you're going to want to listen to more than once. You'll probably find that each time you listen, you can go deeper and you can uncover a new layer to this stuff that we're going to talk about today.
And with that, you get to create some new motivation and some new insight into what your unique path to creating peace with food and freedom from overeating looks like, because guess what? I've been doing this a long time. And one thing I am crystal clear on is that there is no one way that works for everyone that goes for what you put in your body. There's no one way of eating that works for everybody. And there's definitely no one way of creating this business of, you know, creating peace with food and a relationship with food that works for you. It has to be yours. One of the other things that I am very clear on from all the years that I have spent helping smart, busy women make changes with their bodies and with food and with eating is that one of the hardest parts of ending overeating struggles is staying motivated and staying on track.
One of the reasons that this is so hard is that making changes with food or ending over eating usually gets set up to be a struggle. We set it up that way. We set it up that way with our thoughts and our beliefs and our approach way too much of the time, it gets set up to be something that requires hard work that requires depriving yourself that requires endless willpower. And that requires you to go hungry. It does not need to be that way. In the last podcast episode, I talked to you about deprivation mindset and a deprivation approach versus a transformation mindset and a transformation approach, and the very two different paths. These two divergent ways of thinking can lead you on. I am not interested in helping you build a stronger deprivation path. I'm not interested in helping you be strong and continue your struggle with food and continue your determination to not overeat or to not eat a certain way.
What I want to do is help you get to the place where the cravings and the urge to eat to overeat, not to eat in general, but where the cravings and the urge to overeat go away. And this can happen. So too often, we have these plans to be in control with food. And these are set up around what you won't do, what you won't eat, how strong you're going to be too often. These plans are set up around a specific size or a weight goal. And here's the thing size or weight is not enough. It's just simply not enough to feel inspired or motivated through tough times or challenging times or hard choices for any of us. Motivation is fueled by desire and by passion, by wanting real wanting, and desire and passion, they don't happen because you hit a certain number on the scale.
It's just a number desire and passion and lasting motivation. They are fueled by emotion feelings and they aren't nourished. They're not fueled by a strict list of requirements, a to do list, right, of what your, of what you need to do to reach your goal that, you know, think about it, that list of requirements that makes you tired before you even start. That is not how you fuel desire and passion and motivation. It's interesting because nobody really talks about this part, but this problem with desire and passion and motivation and wanting is it's one, it's actually one really important. One of the really long reasons that weight loss plans or diets or restrictions or anything based in deprivation around food, usually fails creating freedom from overeating. And I use those words so deliberately, this is about freedom and creating. That is a different kind of journey.
It requires a different kind of journey because it is at the destination on the journey is a permanent. And to the struggles, it really is peace, right? Peace and happiness with food, peace and happiness with your body and with your weight and whatever else is involved in this for you and the process to get there. It's, it's a part of it. All it is. It is one that feels good to experience. You cannot deprive yourself to a place of peace and freedom. It doesn't work that way. So freedom from overeating, it's beyond diets. It's beyond willpower. It's beyond definitely beyond it's in a whole different country than deprivation freedom from overeating. It it's not about not eating sugar or carbs or not eating after eight o'clock or not going into the chips or not buying the chips. Right? Freedom from over eating is when the food doesn't call to you anymore.
Freedom from overeating and peace with food happen. When you've got real solutions, solutions that feel solid to your real hungers, the hidden hungers, you have the ones that aren't really about food and these real solid solutions that you have. They nourish you in a way that food never will freedom from overeating is when instead of eating, you've got solutions that comfort you or help you cope with stress or help you get through a difficult situation or give you the attention or the reward or the celebration, or the love that you're craving, or the compassion that you need when you can't have those things. Freedom from overeating is when you have those kinds of solutions that work for you in a way that the food in your kitchen or in the vending machine, or at the drive-through will never work for you. This is so important.
I am not interested in helping you be strong and continue onward with your struggle with food and with not overeating. What I want to do is help you get to the place where the cravings and the urges go away. Freedom from overeating happens when you are able to transform your life. So that food really doesn't play a starring role anymore. Now, I am well aware that depending on your current situation, this might sound absolutely impossible right now, or it might be something that you are hearing me say, but you, you just can't begin to wrap your brain around what that would look like for you. And that is what I want to help you do in this episode. I want to walk you through something here. If you're not driving right now or doing something that would make it unsafe to do so you might want to close your eyes while you listen to this episode, or just kind of relax and go inside yourself.
I want you to take some time because I'm going to ask you to see what you see inside your head, right? Create some images in your mind. As I'm describing some things and asking some questions. I want you to create an image in your mind of what freedom from overeating real freedom would really be like for you. So I'm not talking about a pant size. I'm not talking about a number on the scale. I don't want you to create a list of to-do items. I want you to imagine what it would feel like to be free from overeating and emotional eating, let yourself feel it. What would it feel like? What experiences would you have if you felt truly free from this stuff, maybe it would be routine experiences that you didn't have. Maybe it would be not thinking about food anymore or not having whether yesterday was a good day or a bad day be your first thought. When you woke up in the morning, maybe it would be a feeling of peacefulness because this stuff has just fallen into place and you don't have to think about it anymore. Maybe it would be something like feeling completely confident that you can ignore whatever that most tempting food is for you or a trigger food, whether it's chocolate chips or potato chips or whatever, what would it feel like if it could be in your kitchen and you could be in your kitchen and you're not hungry, and it's just not going to call to you, you could ignore it, let yourself see the images of what your experiences would be and what they would feel like for you. What would it feel like to be able to have some treats that you really love around your house or in your desk drawer? And when you're hungry, be able to have just one to be able to taste and savor it and enjoy it and then be done.
And maybe even forget that it's there until you encounter it again. And you say, oh my gosh, I forgot. I even had that chocolate. What would that be like for you? I want you to really visualize it. I want you to feel this in your body. What would it be like for you to go to your closet and have one size of clothes in there, clothing that you love, clothing that you've invested in because you know, it's going to fit. You feel peaceful about that. It's going to fit when you put it on, it's going to fit next season because your weight and your eating are no longer moving targets that not only are you struggling to control, but they're targets that you don't feel like you have any control over. See what that would feel like in your mind. I want you to see yourself experiencing this and notice what comes up for you.
When you think about creating peace with food and freedom from overeating, what else comes to mind? What comes up for you? What does it mean for you? What would change for you? What would feel different for you and what would absolutely delight you? What would make you giggle? What would be freed up? I want you to create an actual image, an image. I want you to see it, and I want it to be as vivid and clear and as Technicolor as you can. I want you to see what freedom from overeating will look like and feel like and mean for you. I want you to see yourself feeling and living and being with peace, with food and free from overeating. How do you start your day? How do you handle challenges? Freedom from overeating is not an experience of walking around starving. It is not an experience of living on willpower.
It is not an experience of denying your feelings and struggles or of feeling deprived or thinking. You have to be deprived and wondering how long you can do it. Freedom from overeating means that you've discovered ways to address the root causes of your eating and ways to feed your real hungers and the hidden hungers, the ones that aren't really about food. I want you to think for a moment about the amazing changes that would happen in your life. The amazing changes that will happen in your life. When you have that, when you have ways to address the things that trigger your overeating and emotional eating, and when you have ways to feed your hidden hungers, the things that aren't really about food, what would that mean for you in your life? What will that feel like? And how will that transform you and your life?
This is the transformation. This is the new direction that you want to head in. What if you're a comfort eater and now you have the tools so that you're not depriving yourself of comfort when you choose not to eat. What if you have had found the ways to feed yourself the things that you needed to feed yourself that comfort, and you didn't need the food. If you tend to overeat when you're anxious or tense or frustrated, or when you're frustrated with yourself, what if you had another solution that worked better, you free from overeating and emotional eating. What does that look like? Now? Listen, don't get worried. If you don't get a clear picture of your own freedom right away, if you feel confused, or if you feel unsure about what you want your freedom from over eating to look like, or if nothing comes up for you, when you ask the questions, I want you to try something.
I want you to stop thinking about food or eating or weight. Just take that out of the picture instead, take a deep breath. And then I want you to think about and feel, and picture you at your best, most healthy, energetic, and vibrant picture yourself that way. This is your goal. You fed nourished, alive, getting what you need. This is what freedom from eating looks like. So what do you look like? How do you stand? What's your posture? Like, what does your confidence and energy do for you? And where does it take you? Once you have this freedom from overeating and this peace with food, what do you do with your time and your energy and your passion? I want you to form as clear a picture as you can, and don't judge whatever picture you end up with. And then just write down. If you have something to write with, or think about three words that describe the you that you see.
So this could be anything but things I've heard from clients are words like strong or focused or happy or energized, vibrant, relaxed, just write down three words that describe the you that you see now, tune into that vision and write down three other things. I want you to write down three feelings you'll have when you have freedom from overeating and peace with food, right? Choose your own. But some examples have been that have been shared with me. And these might overlap with the three words that you already have, but I've heard words like free, relaxed, spacious, light, confident, happy. So try to write down three description words, and three feelings and practice tuning into this vision and these feelings and these ideas that you have about you free from overeating fed and nourished and alive. What does this person, you, what do you focus on when you're in that place and write down anything that comes to mind?
And again, I'll give you some examples that I have heard. I've had clients say, you know, what comes to mind is I'm eating for energy. I'm reducing my stress. I'm asking for help. I'm learning better strategies. I'm saying yes to things that are important. That's a big one. I hear a lot. I'm taking time for myself, or I'm taking things one step at a time, whatever comes up for you, write down anything that you believe will help you feel more peaceful with food. Now, I want you to remember, you are focusing on two things as you consider these questions, what your freedom from overeating will feel like. And any pictures that you can create in your mind of what it looks like for you. I want you to see it as much as you can. Here's this interesting thing about this picture we're creating and about freedom from overeating.
It's not about the food, this picture that you are creating of you with peace, with food and freedom from overeating. It's not about just when you're eating. This is about you all day long. This is about your life. You want to create a picture and a feeling of peace with food that you absolutely want in your life. And that makes the rest of your life better for a lot of women want to hear from a lot of clients, is that creating this freedom from over eating opens up space to be the best in the rest of your life. And this is such an important key difference between a deprivation approach, where you're focused on what you will do and won't do with food and managing that and a transformation approach that transforms your relationship with food. So your whole life can get bigger and better creating a clear vision.
One that you can see and feel of where you want to go. That is such an important piece of ending struggles with food and with emotional eating. You're never going to create something different, focusing on the same old thoughts and the same old behaviors, the ones that actually reinforce what it is you're trying to change rewiring your vision like this. It's not a one-shot deal. Remember I said that you'll probably want to listen to this episode more than once. And this is a topic we go really deep and broad with in the missing piece program. So if this is something you want more help with, then you should definitely check that out. But right now, I don't want you to worry about getting this perfect or judging what you have or wondering if you're doing it right. There's no such thing. What I want you to do is just play with these ideas and thoughts and the visuals that come up when you ask these new and different questions, this process of creating freedom from overeating and peace with food, it is a journey.
And if you have a vision like this, and the more you play with this, the more you can create a journey that lights you up while you work on getting to your destination, by asking these questions, you've actually just taken a step in the journey. So keep your vision, which I know you're going to keep adjusting and learning more about, keep it in front of you, that vision, those feelings, those images, they should feel good. Let yourself enjoy them. Let yourself anticipate and savor the life that you are creating. You are. You've already taken steps. And when you get stuck, ask yourself, just, just ask yourself, what can you do to create just a little bit more of that feeling in that vision, that image, that way of life that you see for yourself that is freedom from overeating. Just take a step, even if it's a small one. That is how you get there.
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