Stop Postponing Yourself: How to Break Free from Overwhelm and Overeating | TMOHP Episode 171

Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. Today I want to talk with you about something that is so important if you want to lose those habits and those cycles of emotional eating and overeating.

I recorded this episode after having a conversation with a client that was way too familiar that I've just had so many times, and I decided it was important to record this episode and talk a little bit about it.

In this coaching session, this client was listing some things that would really make her happy. Things that she really wanted to do. And I asked her, why aren't you doing them right now? What's, what's the barrier between you and, and doing these things? And she said, "well, you know, right now I'm, I'm working on my eating, I'm doing some self-development. I'm really focusing on that. But after, after I get this stuff handled and I feel more comfortable. Then I will do these things. I'll spend more time with my friends. And you know, I'd really like to date." And she mentioned some other things she wanted to do.

 One of the biggest reasons that I do the work that I do and that I record this podcast every week is because I get so oh frustrated, I guess, at the limitations that I see us put on ourselves.

I get so frustrated. And I, I just have to speak out because I see so many smart, highly capable, creative women telling me that they have to be limited in what they're doing. Or they have to be realistic when it comes to setting their goals or pursuing their own dreams. Or they have to put themselves on hold.

I hear so often comments about time I. I don't have time right now. This isn't a good time right now. I'd love to join your program, for instance, but you know, I really want to wait until I can devote the time to it. I would really love to do X or Y or Z or simply take a yoga class, but honestly, there just isn't time for that right now. I need to postpone myself.

I actually had a conversation one time that was an extreme version of this. Where somebody was feeling so overwhelmed and overloaded, and she let out this big sigh, and she said, in all seriousness, "I really want to do these things. I'm, I'm going to take time for myself, but I really need to wait 10 years until the kids are out of the house." I'm going to postpone myself for 10 years.

Okay, so here's what I want to say. It is so critical to never underestimate hidden hungers. Never underestimate hidden hungers. Because in these conversations that I have had over and over again with women who are telling me how they don't have time, how they can't do this, how they'd love to do this, but they know they have to wait.

As they're telling me these stories, in the next breath, I would hear how they're struggling with overwhelm. How they're stressed. How they're tired. How they're putting on weight. How they're overeating. How they're frustrated with themselves because they can't be tougher and stronger and do the right things. How they're frustrated with themselves because they can create a to-do list of the quote, right things, end quote, that they should be doing to be eating healthier and having a healthy lifestyle. But they can't make themselves do them.

Of course they can't. Because they don't need another hard item on their to-do list. What so many, so many of you are missing, so many smart, busy women, high achieving women, women who know all sorts of amazing stuff. What so many of you are missing is that if you want to live a healthy, happy life, one of the first things you have to do, the first things, not the last things, one of the first things you need to do is feed your soul. And feed your spirit and feed your needs and pay attention to your wants.

If you're overeating, if you're emotional eating, eating food, that you don't want to eat. Food, the junk food, the stuff that you eat too much of that is just a replacement or a salve or a band aid for the pieces that aren't working in your lives. Or the hidden hungers that aren't being fed.

When you shortchange yourself by trying to ignore or downgrade your goals or your dreams or your passions, it is never going to serve you. And it is going to contribute to vicious cycles with unhappiness and overeating and stress.

My advice to you is always going to be when it comes to setting your goals or dreaming your dreams and creating your vision for your life, you should always aim big. Now, bear with me because I'm not saying you should overwhelm yourself. You should always aim big. You should always go for what you really want.

You shouldn't adjust or downgrade your dreams. You should go for the thing that lights you up. You should imagine the version of what you want that causes you to bust out into a grin. The version that causes you to feel those bubbles in your stomach when you think about it, when you picture yourself doing that thing.

You can adjust your timeline if you need to. You don't have to expect yourself to have it tomorrow. It's not about putting pressure on yourself. But always let your goals be technicolor and grand and exciting, and let them be what you really want.

Don't downgrade your goals.

Pay attention to how you feel as I am talking about this. If you feel a little anxious or overwhelmed, or a lot anxious or overwhelmed, or if you're rolling your eyes about the impossibility of what I am suggesting. Take a breath. Don't forget to breathe. If you are feeling overwhelmed or stressed about what you want, about what you'd love about what would light you up, it is not because your dreams are too big.

It is probably because your expectations for what you will do and how you will do it, and when you will do it, are out of balance with your life. Dreaming and doing. Dreaming and taking the steps are two separate pieces.

You can dream big. And if you need to, also give yourself permission to act on your dreams in small, sustainable, doable ways. Don't let your expectations of what you should do lead you to do nothing. Or lead you to say, I can't have what I want, or I just shouldn't think about this right now, or maybe later.

It happens a lot. It happens so often. You tell yourself that small thing won't have an impact. That small action towards what you really want won't make a difference. But since the big thing can't possibly happen, we'll just do nothing right now. And you know what happens? You feel dissatisfied, you feel unsatisfied.

You tell yourself those small things won't matter. You tell yourself that walking for 10 minutes is kind of wimpy. It's not what you really should do. You really should be going to bootcamp or hiring a trainer or doing cardio and strength five days a week. So you either do nothing or you throw yourself into this frenzy for a few weeks until you burn out or injure yourself. Or realize, I hate this.

 Maybe you start off strong with a morning routine. Right? But your good intentions for what you're going to eat and how you're going to eat, they get blown at lunch.

Taking 10 minutes for lunch, it's not a big deal. But maybe you're telling yourself you really need to do X and Y and Z. Or if you're going to break for lunch, you also should be taking a walk and getting so many steps in. Or maybe taking the minutes to bring your lunch from home isn't that big a deal. But you tell yourself that what you really need to do is give up sugar and gluten and alcohol and caffeine. Which makes you tired just thinking about it. So you do nothing.

All or nothing. Maybe you're exhausted and you're sleep deprived. And you know it's contributing to most of the habits that you wish you weren't doing. Or most of the things that you're procrastinating these days. But instead of going to bed 15 minutes early or 20 minutes early, because you could do that, you tell yourself that you are better off getting the things done first. Right?

Delaying your wants, powering through until your vacation in two weeks, because then you'll really get to relax.

So much of creating peace with food and freedom from overeating is a head game. It's about the head game. It's paying attention to the way we think about things. The way we talk to ourselves. The stories and beliefs that we have about not just food, but about ourselves. And about who we need to be. And about what we are allowed to want and desire and pursue.

In a nutshell, so much of peace with food and freedom from overeating boils down to how you allow yourself to spend your time and energy. Where you give yourself permission to spend your time and energy. And where you tell yourself it's not okay.

The truth is that so many smart, high performing, highly capable women are masters at overwhelming themselves. And I'm not saying this in a judgmental way. I'm not saying this because if you hear yourself in this, you should feel bad about yourself because you don't need more of that overwhelm.

That's what we tend to do. We tend to then get mad at ourselves and tell ourselves, oh, I should work harder at not overwhelming myself. Which ironically is incredibly overwhelming. Right? But in the process of being perfectionistic and so ambitious and seeing the whole forest, instead of focusing on one tree, I should do this and I should do this and I should do this. And if I really want to be effective, I should add on a layer of this. Right?

In the process of being so ambitious, so many high achieving women who so want to have a peaceful, healthy, happy relationship with food, end up getting nowhere. Because their plans and their ideas overwhelm them before they start. And because they have this belief that until they do the overwhelming plans and until they execute and achieve these goals with food, they're not allowed to have their wants and their desires and their dreams.

Taking action, pursuing the things you want that you desire. That's you starting to feed your hidden hungers. This is you giving yourself what you really need. That isn't food. The thing that food and eating and emotional eating are really the substitutes for the band-aids, for the things that food and eating and emotional eating and wandering into the pantry, wanting just one more handful of something even though you're not really hungry. The thing that these things are substitutes for.

Paying attention to your needs and your desires and your hungers is everything when you are trying to get to the root of your overeating and your emotional eating habits. And taking great, lovely, nurturing care of yourself does not have to be hard. It certainly doesn't have to be as impossible as your brain is probably telling you.

And it shouldn't be exhausting. It shouldn't add more stress to your life. If that's the case, it is time to recalibrate. You can set your internal GPS for your biggest juiciest goals. You can dream big. You can get excited about what it is that you really want, what really lights you up. And then you can also give yourself permission to reach those goals. One doable action at a time.

And those actions can be small. And believe me, one thing I hear from clients in Your Missing Peace over and over and over again is, oh my gosh, I thought you were suggesting this teeny, tiny, small thing. I thought it wouldn't even make a difference. And I cannot believe what a difference that small thing made.

You can reach your goals, your big goals, your dreams even one doable action at a time. It can be simple. Fill your water glass. Add a hundred or 200 steps to your daily goal. Take that free hidden hungers quiz on my website. Take the quiz, and then target one area for change.

Choose one of the resources that you get when you get your results and take one step that you believe I could be consistent with this. Maybe not perfectly, but imperfectly consistent. I could do this.

Give yourself permission to focus on one meal or one problem area or one challenging time of day. Keep it simple. And watch yourself keep moving forward.

If you do this, if you're aiming for something that excites you, if you are taking steps that you can keep taking, your efforts are going to multiply themselves and over time, their impact is going to broaden. Trust me.

Simple actions, they are also actions that you can be consistent with, and over time they become automatic habits. Automatic habits are things that don't require a lot of effort. That don't add overwhelm to your life. And then results start to build on results.

Best of all, you will not feel overwhelmed or overloaded, and you'll be taking care of the reasons that you overeat.

I hope this helps and I'll talk to you soon.