THE PEACEFUL EATING WAY PODCAST
Who's Behind Your Food Trance?
Transcript
Hosted by Everett Considine. Recorded live in a Parts Work Practice from The Peaceful Eating Way™. Participants' names have been removed. This transcript was generated automatically and lightly edited, so it may contain small errors.
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Everett: Welcome to The Peaceful Eating Way Podcast. This is Everett. This is a live session with my Peaceful Living community, where we look at the Parts behind each Food Trance. There's a journaling practice partway through, so keep a notebook nearby, and if you're driving, save it for later.
So welcome, everyone.
So we're gonna go a little bit deeper into the Food Trance work. The thing I have found, because I've been spending more time than anyone on this Food Trance stuff, is you can't spend too much time exploring this Indulger/Controller polarization. I mean, conceptually, yeah, we all got it years ago, right? But it's such a living thing in our awareness. I've just found my awareness, from developing this and being so focused on it, has just gotten stronger and stronger.
So if you have a Part that's like, "Oh, I know this already. I learned this years ago," or whatever, I want to invite you to put that Part to the side and bring this into an experience, not an understanding. So, who's behind your Food Trance, right? I created this pretty simple model to notice when you're blended. To notice when you're blended, when a Part blends with us. And specifically this is around our compulsions around eating, since that's something that a lot of us here struggle with. And what I discovered was, there's really three Food Trances. When we're getting pulled out of Self and into some sort of thinking about eating, it's for...
Comfort, right? And the Comfort Trance, a lot of times it sort of comes at the end of a long day, or doing something that's depleted you, that's made you feel empty somehow. And the promise of the Comfort Trance is like, hey, food would make this a better moment right now.
And it's gonna fill me up in some way. It's gonna soothe me. It's gonna comfort me. Or it's just gonna be nice. It's gonna be pleasurable. And really the point of it is to feel better, with NMF, or with whatever it is.
Or there's the Escape Trance, and the Escape Trance is really about getting away from how you're feeling. Whereas the comfort's like, "Oh, I'm tired," or, "Oh, I'm sad," the Escape Trance is usually about a stronger feeling, right? Something that's been triggered, or an exile that's really [feeling it].
And the promise of the Escape Trance is like, oh, I can use this food. Or maybe there's ten other things that you also use in addition to food that are about stopping this feeling.
And then the Escape Trance is where we tend to go hard. Where we tend to binge, or really indulge in things that are really gonna shift our state of awareness, really gonna just block out what's going on right now. And then the Rebellion Trance, which is based on this psychological principle called reactance.
Reactance. And reactance is all about restoring autonomy. Restoring the sense of autonomy. And anything that's highly structured or rigid, to someone that has wounding around loss of control, someone that was highly controlled as a child, anyone that has that kind of wounding will have a strong tendency towards reactance. And it's so funny, that word is so hard for me to remember, first 'cause it was really a new word. But I think I remember it now. Reactance. I always want to say reaction, or all these other react words, right? Reactance plays a huge part in diet mentality, right? And for many of us, it's literally the thing that drove our diet mentality, because we could never stick with any one program long enough if it was too rigid.
We just couldn't do it. We just got sick of it at some point and felt caged by it. And then we would stop it and go find something else, and repeat. Rinse, repeat. So comfort, escape, rebellion: the three Trances. And the thing I like about this is, I think ultimately, at least initially, what everyone is trying to do is figure out how to stay on plan.
That's really what people who are struggling are trying to do. So these are the three reasons you don't stay on plan. And before the Food Trances, I would teach about the Indulgers, right? And then you would learn, oh, you have these Indulgers, and they're the ones that are having these cravings.
But there's something about framing the doorway into this work through these Trances that just feels more... Well, it's because we're describing something that's actually happening, right? You actually are going into these Trances, and you can notice them. As opposed to saying, "Oh, well, this Part has shown up. It's this kind of Indulger, and you can talk to it." That's more abstract, just teaching people about Parts. Whereas the Trance is really something you can notice that's actually happening. But the thing that we wanna do is then take people from understanding the Trances to actually becoming aware of the Parts that are beneath them, and that's what this presentation is about.
So you can want two things at once, right? This is the basis of Parts work. This is the thing that you can look at if you still need to be convinced that you have Parts. And it's not only that you can want two things at once; you can want twenty things at once that are all different, right? Part of me wants peace with food. Another Part of me wants something right now, right? A Part of me wants to go on vacation. Another Part of me doesn't wanna fly, right? There's just so many contradictions within the mind, and once you start to acknowledge that they're all different Parts, the mind actually starts to make sense.
It just starts to make sense. Where before, well, I want one thing now and I want something different a minute later. Trying to turn those all into one monolithic self didn't make any sense. You just felt like you're going crazy.
So what are the Parts behind the Food Trances? And this is where we meet the Food Indulger and the Food Controller. The Food Indulger pulls us towards eating. The Food Controller tries to manage our eating and the circumstances, right? The Indulger and the Controller.
And of course, the thing that people call food chatter or food noise is literally just these two Parts arguing, these two Parts bickering. The Food Indulger reaches towards, and the Food Controller slaps the hand or pulls the arm back. For some reason... I don't know if any of you are into horror movies, but the original Evil Dead, if anyone ever saw it, there was this hand. His hand got cut off, and it got animated, and there's this whole hilarious scene, Evil Dead's also really funny, of him being attacked by his own hand, and it grabbing a pot and banging him with it. So anyway, that image just came up to me just now. But yeah, the Food Indulger's got one hand, the Food Controller's got the other, and they're battling it out.
That's why, even noticing the Trances... Sometimes you might notice a Trance, and then your Food Controller comes up and says, "No, I'm not gonna do that." And then the Trance just dissipates, and you don't break whatever you're trying to hold onto. And then other times you see the Trance and then you follow through, right? The Food Controller doesn't get control. The Indulger stays in control.
So I have categorized the Indulgers, and this is sort of the canon of The Peaceful Eating Way. I'm just gonna go through them, and as I go through them, notice which of these Parts show up for you. Which of these Indulgers show up for you. The Seductive Rationalizer.
Pretty much we all have the Seductive Rationalizer. That's the Part that in 12-step they call the permission-giving thoughts. Permission-giving thoughts. I did a Witnessed Parts Work session last week, and when I asked the person what their Seductive Rationalizer looked like, they said, "Oh, it was Jessica Rabbit." And I've had a number of people say Jessica Rabbit over the years for their Seductive Rationalizer. And boy, that's one of those names that just describes what it is, right? And when the Seductive Rationalizer's really good, you don't even notice it.
You're just believing it. You're just believing it. And then the Impulsive Child, right? That Part of you that, when it sees something, might just reach out and eat it. I've done a lot of work over the years helping people create a little bit of space between them and their Impulsive Child, because usually what people say is it's just too fast. They see the food, the food's in their mouth. There's no pause. So sometimes in order to get a handle on the Impulsive Child, you really have to do a few Parts work sessions with it, so that you can actually build a relationship with it, so that you can dialogue with it. Because before you do that, it's just too automatic. But in a Parts work session, that's when you start to feel the Impulsive Child as separate from you. And the more separate from you that it feels, the more of a chance that when it shows up, you'll feel it separate from you, so you won't just automatically do it.
The Loving Parent offers a deserved treat, right? I noticed with the Loving Parent that therapists who weren't doing enough self-care usually had this Part, 'cause they're so exhausted by the end of the day, and the Loving Parent's like, "Oh, you just, you deserve this." Total Comfort Trance. And then the Rebel Indulger, right? That's the Rebel that shows up, that's like, "I'm done. I'm out of here. I'm gonna get out of this cage." And then the Binger, right? The Part that's just seeking numbness. And the Party Planner.
Some people, they're great with their food program everywhere, except if they get into a room full of other people that are eating other things. In which case the Party Planner just takes over. They just wanna be part of the party.
And then the Productivity Fueler, right? Uses food to keep us going. There's a Comfort Trance Part. And then the Controllers, right? The Permissive Parent bargains to limit harm: "Well, you can't have that big cookie, but you could have a little one." The Perfectionist, we all know that one, right?
Just wants everything perfect. And these are Controller types. A Purger, right? A Controller that just wants to undo the eating, whether it's with throwing it up or exercising the calories off. Wants to undo the eating. And then of course, bulimia is that combination of the Binger and the Purger.
And then the Punisher, right? A really harsh Controller that is super shaming, super mean. The Know-It-All Controller. Sometimes the Know-It-All Controller doesn't have much... Even though they know everything about food or dieting, they don't really have that much control over the Indulger.
And then the Robot. I've met one person that was really the model for the Robot. It's a kind of really strong manager that just takes no pleasure in food at all. Eating is just, they just do it...
I mean, I guess if you struggle with the Indulger, it sounds like, oh, it'd be great to have a Robot that just didn't care. But it's very joyless. It's very joyless. So we have all those Indulgers and all those Controllers, and there can be lots of different kinds of pairings.
Lots of different kinds of pairings. And it is really useful to understand which specific Indulgers you have and which specific Controllers you have, because there's different interventions for different ones. So this is some of the way the specific Indulgers show up in the specific Food Trances, right?
So for the Comfort Trance, that Loving Parent shows up a lot, right? But also the Seductive Rationalizer, the Impulsive Child, and the Productivity Fueler. Again, they're a lot of times trying to fill up some emptiness that you have. What care, rest, or relief is this Part seeking?
So now if you discovered that your dominant Trance is the Comfort Trance, well, now you could start to name the specific Indulgers behind it, right?
Oh yeah, so possible Indulgers for the Comfort Trance are the Loving Parent, Seductive Rationalizer, Impulsive Child, and Productivity Fueler. And then potential Controllers for the Comfort Trance... And many times the Controller can create the context for the particular Food Trance.
So pressure creates a need for comfort, right? So the Perfectionist Part creates pressure.
The [Permissive Parent] is the bargaining one, right? So that's usually letting the pressure off. The Punisher criticizes, right? And then because of the criticism, the need for soothing grows. Because that's one of the things that happens in this seesaw, this polarization between the Indulger and the Controller: you might have started indulging because of some emotional upset in your life. But then once you start indulging and really get into it, if you have a very punishing Food Controller, that Food Controller may start criticizing you so much and creating so much shame that you start eating for that. You may even switch to the Escape Trance to escape the shame your own mind is generating, right?
And that's something you can understand about your Trances too, is how there can be one, two, or three all within kind of one short period of time.
Escape. "I don't wanna feel this," right? The main Indulger is the Oblivionator, the Binger, right? And there's a Part called the Isolator that a lot of times will work with the Binger to give you the privacy, so you can binge without dealing with other people's judgment.
Again, just more of the nuance, right? You might start in the Comfort Trance because you're kind of tired, and then you start eating, and then your Punisher comes online and starts really shaming you. And then the thing you may need to get rid of the shame is the binging, so then that pushes you into binging.
Sometimes people are like, especially in the Escape Trance, "Where is my Controller?" Well, it's obviously not controlling your eating, 'cause you're binging. But it could be showing up as the Punisher or the Perfectionist, right?
And then the Rebellion Trance, right? "You're not the boss of me. Nobody tells me what to do. Nobody tells me what to do." The Rebel Indulger. Notice if the Perfectionist or Know-It-All is nearby.
Yeah, one of the things that may happen is your Perfectionist gets activated, and then that Part takes over for a while. But you can only do it for a certain period of time before the reactance kicks in. And the thing about all these Parts that are behind the Food Trances is, doing Parts work allows you to separate from your Parts, to unblend from your Parts.
So if you do Parts work with your Rebel, first of all, you can update it and tell it, "Hey, I'm not a teenager anymore. My mom isn't making me do this food plan." Right? You can update these Parts, and it allows you to separate from them. And when you unblend from the Parts, well, then you unblend from the Food Trance.
You wake up out of the Food Trance. But if you have a strong controlling Perfectionist, it may just double down when the Rebel gets activated, and then that pushes the Rebel even stronger, and you get a real polarization where, as each side gets stronger, they push the other side out.
I like this line: What would structure with choice feel like? What would structure with choice... This is really the sweet spot for someone that has high reactance. Because usually if you're an adult and you're feeling controlled by trying to do some good habit, you probably have a perfectionistic Controller on board. So if you can unblend from the perfectionistic Controller, move into your Authentic Self... I mean, the thing that the Rebel says is like, "Oh, well, we just can't do it. It's too much."
And you only feel that way when you're blended with the Rebel. Those same people, if we use Bright Line Eating as an example, may have a Rebel up that's rejecting the plan, but they may have been on the plan perfectly for two years and lost a hundred pounds. And they weren't feeling that way at all then.
So, stay curious. Let your experience guide the map. You may recognize several Parts. The same Part can join different Trances. Ask what it's trying to do for you.
So let's do a practice. Let's do this as a journaling exercise.
So I want you to find what we're gonna call a food moment. A food moment when you were in a Food Trance. Maybe you were recognizing it at the time, maybe you weren't, so you're just thinking back on it right now.
But come up with one in particular.
And see if you can first of all notice which Trance you were in.
And then reflect: What was the food promising? What was the promise of the Food Trance?
What was the promise of the Food Trance?
Here we go. So I'm gonna read the Indulgers again, and just see if you can recognize which Indulger or Indulgers was the Part making the promise. The Seductive Rationalizer makes convincing exceptions. The Impulsive Child wants it now.
The Loving Parent offers a deserved treat. The Rebel Indulger resists the rules.
The Oblivionator, the Binger, seeks numbness.
The Party Planner seeks celebration and participation.
The Productivity Fueler.
Which of those Parts was making the promise?
And then, which Controller showed up?
The Permissive Parent bargains to limit harm. The Perfectionist wants everything right. The Know-It-All analyzes the options. The Purger tries to undo the eating.
The Punisher uses harshness and shame.
Or the Robot controls through detachment.
See if you can notice which Indulger and which Controller. And maybe you didn't notice the Controller, maybe you did.
And then, for both the Controller and the Indulger, ask each Part: what did they want for you?
What did they want for you?
And then see if you can bring to mind, if you're really familiar with Parts work, really connect with the Indulger Part. See if you can allow an image to form of it, or have a felt sense of it. Really kind of imagine that it's in the room with you, sitting across from you.
And just feel it there.
And notice how you feel towards it.
How do you feel towards it?
And I wanna invite you to see if you can lean into some curiosity and some compassion towards this Part.
And then imagine sitting next to them, in front of you, is your Controller.
And ask the Controller, what do they want for you?
What do they want for you?
And ask the Indulger, what do they think of the Controller?
And ask the Controller, what do they think of the Indulger?
And then I wanna invite you to notice the two of them sitting in front of you, and then you in your body, separate from both of them. So there's really three of you.
And what does it feel like to be separate from both of them?
And if you can, allow yourself to thank each of these Parts for their positive intentions, even if you don't agree with their strategy.
And ask them both, "What do you need me to understand?"
What do you need me to understand?
And then I wanna invite you to put both hands out in front of you, and to actually reach over and feel yourself shake the hands of both these Parts. Just imagine they're also reaching forward with their hands and shaking your hands.
And then to thank them, and allow them to release and go. You can release them.
And so this is the next layer of work beneath the Food Trances: getting to know these Parts.
And of course, there are many more Parts. And Parts work is really useful for all areas of your life, not just your relationship with food. So if you're new to Parts work, this is a taste of what that's like. And if you're a seasoned pro, I hope you've got something fresh out of this presentation. 'Cause I find that whenever I experientially meet my Parts, a lot of times I learn something new, something I didn't know.
Let's talk about what some of your journaling was, if you had any insights or clarifications.
How about you?
Participant: It was super helpful. I really love journaling to your voice. I just felt it was really helpful to get everything out. It was like a map by the time I was done, and to see it was my map. It was very personal, and I really liked that.
Everett: Good. I'm glad to hear that. How about you?
Participant: The biggest thing that came out of my writing is something I've heard so often, but it finally applied to me. When I asked both of the Parts what they really wanted for me, they just stood up and shouted, "We're just trying to help." So that was pretty impactful. Thank you.
Everett: How did it feel, really imagining they were sitting in front of you right now? I just love that. I love doing that visualization.
How about you?
Participant: I love the whole thing. My brain takes on the theory of it all, and it makes sense and I can tell other people about it. But actually when you say, "Right, let's put it into practice. Let's do it right now," that's a whole different ballgame for me. I realized something that happened last night: after I've eaten a good meal and I'm satisfied, I still want something else.
So my Seductive Rationalizer, 'cause there's nothing really in the house that I can eat that's bad, gets busy and it says, "Oh look, you've got a healthy option there. There's peanuts. They've got the skins on them. They're really healthy. A handful of those will be good for you."
The thing is, I don't actually need it. I want it, but I don't need it. So I'm not escaping from anything. Maybe it's a Productivity Fueler, because I'm going to do some work. But the Seductive Rationalizer is such a clever little beast for me. The Controller wants for me autonomy, health, and peace. Really clear. I'm clear on those.
There's a bit of the Rebel: "I'm not gonna be bound by a plan." But I can't put them out there. Intellectually, I like the idea of taking their hand and shaking it and making them friends. I get all that, but when it comes to the actual doing of it, I can't see them. I can name them, but I can't see them. So I love the idea of reaching out and shaking their hand, but they're not there. I can't see them to do that with. So it's fantastic that this is possible and people can do this.
Everett: Yeah. Now, some people are just very not image-oriented, right? They don't see their Parts. Does it feel like that, like you're missing that faculty, or does it feel like there's a block, a little protector, right?
Participant: Yeah, there's a block. Yes.
Everett: Yeah, there's a Part that's like, "Mm, we're not gonna do this," right?
Participant: But I want to. I want to stop, because it's not that what I eat is unhealthy, Everett, it's the amount of what I eat that is unhealthy. When I got up from here and I was preparing my breakfast, I thought, "Just make it half the size." And there's a Part of me that says, "Oh, no you don't. Then you're gonna be wanting something else at ten o'clock." So the Parts are active. But I can't see them.
Everett: You're close, though. You're close, 'cause there's just the Part that's blocking that to get around now, right? Maybe that's the question for you to that Part: what are you afraid will happen if I could see my Parts?
Participant: If I could see them. I've done it once. I did see a little elf-like thing that was triggering resentment. I dealt with that with a person who did five years of your work, and she said, "Oh, let's work on that one." That's the only time that I've really seen a Part, and it's gone to sleep. It retired, went to bed, and resentment is not now a big part of my... I think, yes, it does work. I believe in the work. But I just can't quite do the... Anyway, thank you.
Everett: Well, there may be a clue also in that when your psyche does allow you to do Parts work, it changes things for you. Not everyone is a one-and-done kind of person. Some people are one and done. But I'm curious if maybe you are a one-and-done, and so you have a Part that's afraid of that.
Participant: Okay. Yeah, I'll keep working on it, 'cause it's great stuff that you're doing. My brain knows that.
Everett: Yeah. Oh, this is exciting. I'm excited for you. I can feel like you're really close to something here.
How about you?
Participant: I really loved that exercise. And I don't know if it helps, but it's interesting: during this one I could visualize my Controller, but I only felt the energy of my Indulger. It didn't come through as a visual. But as I reached out, I tried to hold onto its energy. A lot of times I have the exact image. But what it did for me this time is I thought, "Wait a minute, I can have them come together," 'cause I've never brought them together before. And I was like, ooh, next time I'm in one of those moments I can bring them both into the room. That could be interesting. So anyway, I really enjoyed the exercise.
Everett: Yeah.
Participant: Yeah, I do too. I think the exercise brings it right there to us. When you ask the questions, you have to kind of think through it. And I did get them visioned in the room, and mine is the Rebel Indulger. There's a food that we make this time of the year, fresh out of the garden, but it always goes with a certain not-my-food. So how do I enjoy that good, healthy food but not the not-my-food that goes with it? That was kind of my trailhead there. And your message about the sweet spot, the structure with choice, how would this feel? That is the crux of the two getting along and saying, "Okay, you want that food, and it's healthy, but we gotta find a different..." The Controller's like, "All right, let's find a way for you to have it, but not with that." And so that's their talk.
Their talk is saying, we gotta figure out a way, because the Rebel is like, "We garden, we do all this stuff, and we make this food, and then you can't enjoy it." So it's a dilemma between the two of them. And my Controller has been kind of that Punisher, the one that's just harsh. Like, "Why are you thinking you should have this food? Why are you doing this to yourself?" So I didn't get it resolved, but I thanked them for their efforts, and we will continue to have a discussion, I think. Thank you.
Everett: Yeah. When you're dealing with a dilemma, which is usually multiple Parts battling it out, if it's a real dilemma, it usually feels like there's no answer. That's why it's a dilemma, right? But a lot of times if you can do Parts work with the Parts that are in it, you can unblend from it.
Participant: Yes. Yeah. I felt unblended. I did.
Everett: Yeah. How about you?
Participant: Well, I didn't do the food thing much, but I did get in touch with an exile that I need to be supporting in this particular time and space. I had a definite dissociation from her, and she knows what she wants. It drives a lot of confusion, and resources that aren't necessarily in the best of my adult Part. Well, I appreciate the opportunity to do that. I didn't get very far on a solution. It involves other people and a lot of pressure. But at least the Part that's not feeling very secure, and lonely and not supported, is very apparent. So that's some place to work.
Everett: Oh, great. Yeah, and you never know with Parts work where the benefit's gonna come from. Sometimes you just take a left turn out of what's going on into something else, and it's really useful. So thank you.
Participant: Hi. Yeah, like everybody else, it's good to go back to the tried and true Parts. I went back to a moment a few days ago in which I indulged in an old favorite NMF/NMD combination, and it's one that has just been a standby for many, many years. I was trying to picture the Indulger, and I realized that it was kind of the same Indulger whether it was gonna be comfort, soothing, or a party situation, or an escape.
But this last time it was definitely escape, trying to deal with a bunch of stuff. It told me what it wanted. It said, "I'm just trying to make you feel better by giving you one thing, or one set of things, that I know you like." And of course, the Controller was saying, "Yeah, you like them at the moment, but there's a bigger thing that you like."
And where it really got to me was when I asked them, "What else do you want me to know?" The Controller said, "You've just got to let go." And what letting go was, was the food, the NMD. It said, basically, "Let go, and this is part of what you need to let go," that old comfort food. And when I asked the Indulger to say something, it just said, "It's too hard. It's just too hard and too sad." And that's when I realized it needed my Self, and my Self to say, "It's not too hard. We can do it. It's sad. We can feel it, but it is time." And so I felt like I got to know those Parts, but we need some work. We need some attention to those Parts.
Everett: Yeah. Hmm. Thank you.
And it's kind of interesting, right? The thing that I love that I'm hearing is this was really useful to all of you, 'cause I thought this is going back to the absolute basics, right? Will everyone just be bored with it? Will everyone be like, "Oh, yeah, right"? But I haven't been. I've been noticing that I think I could actually take my whole career now, for the rest of my life, and just focus on this level that we're in right now, and I would continue to deepen in it forever, and people would be enormously helped. Because this is typically the behavior that people are trying to change, right here.
Thank you for listening to The Peaceful Eating Way Podcast. If something landed for you today, take a minute to write it down before you move on. You can find more of this work, including the free Food Trance quiz, at everettconsidine.com.
