THE PEACEFUL EATING WAY PODCAST
The Three Food Trances and Their Antidotes
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 about coming back from a Food Trance sooner. There's a short guided practice in the middle, so if you're driving, save that part for later.
So, the three Food Trances and their antidotes. And their antidotes.
What we'll do together today: see the three Food Trances, the patterns underneath the eating; learn the antidote, a simple way to catch one and come back; meet one of your own Parts gently in a guided practice; and then leave room for questions on what came up.
So it was never about trying harder. The drive home you don't remember, that's a trance. The hour that vanished into your phone, that's a trance. We go into trances all day long, and we come out of them. And the Food Trance is that same autopilot. The Food Trance is that same autopilot in the one room you most wish you'd stay awake.
So these trances visit us. So Food Trance is the umbrella. In the family of patterns underneath sit three specific ones. A trance isn't who you are. It's a state you drop into and come back out of. It's a state you drop into and come back out of. Just in pure IFS language, we could say that you blend with it, and you can unblend from it.
And there are two halves. There's the drop in, right? And then the return, right? And the return is where all the work lives. These trances visit us. We don't live inside of them. That's the good news. And again, from an IFS perspective, we might say that when we're in Self, we're awake.
And when we're really blended with Parts, we're in some kind of trance.
Three doorways. So these are the three Food Trances: the Comfort Trance, the Escape Trance, and the Rebellion Trance.
Most of us run one, plus a second that blindsides us. And I've been talking about this for coming on a couple months now. So I bet a lot of you probably have a real good sense of which of these trances show up the most for you. That's why I thought it would be good to... It's like, well, let's start focusing on the antidote now.
Like, we're able to define the problem through this model. The Comfort Trance: present, talked in, the negotiation. I'm really starting to notice the Comfort Trance is just when, when a Part of you says, "This moment would be better with food. It would just be better with food."
And there's other kinds of ways you can make a moment better with something, right? And, and that would be a Comfort Trance too. Maybe one glass of [unclear], right? That would just make this moment better, right? The Comfort Trance. And that's the promise of the Comfort Trance.
And the thing about the Comfort Trance is you're really enjoying it. You're just really enjoying it. It's like, oh, yes, you're present the whole time. You might remember every bite, especially if you're not eating it much or almost never, right? And, and a soothing voice talks you in, right?
It's, it's that Seductive Rationalizer. It's that, "Oh, you deserve this. Oh, you've been working so hard." It's like someone that really cares about you is enticing you, and it's trying to soothe you, right? And it might be trying to settle an overloaded system, right? But it's not greed.
It's a Part doing the job of comfort. "You've earned this, just one more." The moment, the moment the case is being made, that's the doorway into the trance. The Escape Trance: a feeling too big, the door around it, and the return. Ah, now Escape, it's not about the food, it's about not feeling something.
It's about not feeling something. I do think it's interesting, these trances that use food, but it's not about the food. Probably the Comfort Trance is about the food. It's, like, really about the experience you're gonna have. But the Escape Trance, it's not about the food, it's just about shutting down, turning off.
And food is the fastest door around the feeling, but it's never through the feeling. It's always around it. You're trying to get away from the feeling. And you surface later, past the worst of it. You just, like, start waking... you start coming out of it at some point. And, and the food did its job.
It got you out. What is it protecting? Relief from some kind of overwhelm. Some kind of something that just feels too big. Underneath: moving away from a feeling that's too much, experiential avoidance. The tell, the exit. A feeling gets too big and the food becomes the door around it.
You catch the return, not the threshold. Yeah, when we're going into the Escape Trance, we're just, we're barreling in, usually. And, and with the Comfort Trance, I think there's much more a chance for a pause. The Escape Trance, maybe a little bit more difficult, depending on really what you're dealing with.
And then the Rebellion Trance, reactance. The rules tighten, then it snaps. It feels like freedom. This is something I am really starting to get freedom from based on this work. Because I didn't, I didn't, I have... The way my Rebel works, it's kind of a good... I talk about good girl rebels, good boy rebels.
Mine's kind of a good boy rebel, right? And,
and, and now I'm starting to... I'm starting to see, I'm starting to see that Part, I'm starting to see the Rebel more clearly, separate from the ways that it rebels. I don't know if I can even articulate that. It's hard to describe. It's kind of like a, almost like a visual thing, where before there was just, there was the, the Rebel showing up,
probably because my Controller is like, "Oh, that's bad. That's wrong. You shouldn't do that." Right? And, and now, and now this good, kind of this good boy rebel that, like, needs to be in his... He's kind of, he's, he's the one that's in his own secret world. No one else is in there.
No one else knows what he's doing in his secret world. But this, but this work from the three Trances is, is giving me my next level of healing around the, the Rebellion Trance.
The Rebellion Trance. The rule tightens, then it snaps. You eat the thing partly because it was forbidden. That, that thing in and of itself, right? I'm sure any of us that deal with this, like, know that, like, you, you want it just 'cause you're not supposed to have it, and it's maybe not even something you like that much, right?
But there's this way that you eat the thing partly because it was forbidden. It can feel like freedom in the moment. Regret often follows. If you're following a food plan and you're trying to get someplace in particular and this is interfering with it, there's regret. What it's protecting is your autonomy.
Yeah, I can just see this, this, this young Part of me that is doing what he wants to do. No one else knows about it. He doesn't let anyone else know what he's up to. He just lies to everyone and tells them what they wanna hear. And so, lying to mom about what I'm up to... And then he feels free to do whatever he wants.
And,
yeah. And that, that was kind of, when I was young, that was the young pattern of it. And, honor the Rebel. It's guarding something real. Yeah, if you think about a Part that's guarding your autonomy, like, no wonder this is such a big issue for people who it's an issue for, right?
And I do feel like I, I don't know, like I've cracked some secret code, 'cause I've just been working with people for years and years and years who've got this strong rebellious Part. And, and there's ways that I used to work in Parts work with the Rebel and stuff.
But nothing, nothing to the level of insight that this brings, and the, and the freedom I'm seeing people get because of that insight.
Rule making: "No sugar, starting now." The moment a hard rule lands, something in you starts pushing back. Yeah. The freedom is in, is in moving to that place of choice. That's the freedom. The freedom isn't just kicking your healthy eating plan to the curb. That's not freedom. That's a, that's a different kind of slavery.
That's a different kind of being controlled by something.
Three Parts doing a job. The Comfort to soothe, the Rebellion to keep you free, the Escape to get you out. All three Parts are trying to do something for you, and one Food Controller, the Part that makes the rules and cracks the whip, is locked with them. None of them is the enemy. You guys all know this.
You guys all know this 'cause you've been doing Parts work for years. But it's good to be reminded, right? Because our Parts don't necessarily remember that. None of them is the enemy. Four beats back to calm. C-A-L-M. So this is it. We're trying to, again...
Catch. So catch the trance when it starts. Or, or catch it when you catch it, right? Like, that's the beginning of the waking up, of moving out of the trance. And then acknowledge it. I'm getting good at naming which trance it is now. And, and a couple months ago, when I first started working on this, it wasn't, it was...
I'm just getting... You just get better at it the more you learn to watch for it. Acknowledge which trance this is. Is this Comfort? Is this Escape? Is this Rebellion?
Listen. Ask the Part, "What are you trying to do for me?" Right? That's also, what, what is the Part promising you? What is the food promising you?
And then move. Do the next right thing. Do the next small thing. You're coming back to calm. And an awake calm, not an opiated calm, drugged out, numbed out calm, right? Oh, and then this, the antidote. One sentence said inward: "This isn't the comfort I need." Close your eyes and say that to yourself three times. This isn't the comfort I need. This isn't the comfort I need. This isn't the comfort I need.
And then Escape. This isn't the escape I need. This isn't the escape I need.
This isn't the escape I need.
And then Rebellion. This isn't the freedom I need. This isn't the freedom I need. This isn't the freedom I need.
And you might say that to yourself when you notice a trance. And you might notice it at any point. You might notice it when it's about to start, when the Seductive Rationalizer shows up and is like, "Hmm, this moment would really be good," for the Comfort Trance, right?
Or, or, "Oh, man, I need something." Right? The Escape Trance. "I need something now." Or the freedom: "This isn't the freedom I need." Being at choice is the freedom.
Not white-knuckling: a turn toward the Part, led by the calm in you, not the fight. The antidote, the heart. This is the heart of the antidote. There are no blown days. You won't catch every time. The win is the return, and the return gets faster. The win is the return. How quickly can you get back to Self? How quickly can you get back on program?
How quickly can you tap back into your resolve? And, and it might start with days or weeks or months. We've all had that experience, right? It took me three months to get Bright again. But... And this is, this is also the way it works when you're doing Parts work and you start to...
You've done enough Parts work that you start to be able to notice when you're in Self, and you start to be able to, to... You start to want to be in Self, right? Like, Self becomes your true north. And so, you get triggered and Parts come up, and then it takes as long as it takes until you get back to Self.
But if you keep doing the work, you'll, you'll come back sooner and sooner and sooner.
But you gotta do it. So there are no blown days. So this, this is getting off of that model of the what-the-F, right? Yeah, no, F it. Yeah. "I'll start again tomorrow," right? It's like, no, the, the... It's not black or white. It's like you just notice you get caught in the trance, and you just notice it, and then you bring yourself back as quickly as you can.
This is Parts work. You are not the trance. Those are your Parts. There's a you underneath it: curious, calmer, steady. In IFS, we call that Self. The trances are Parts. The goal isn't to kill the Part. It's to know what it's been carrying, and lead from the calm.
So let's just do a little guided practice.
Ah, so close your eyes, settle in. Take a few slow breaths. Feel the chair, the floor.
And bring to mind one recent trance moment. One of the... a Food Trance that you were in.
And then see if you can, just through that memory, find the Part that wanted the food. Right? The Part that made the promise.
Notice where you sense it.
Now turn toward it with curiosity.
Not to fix it, and just ask, "What are you trying to do for me?"
And just listen.
And ask the Part, do you have something to tell me that you think I might not know?
Do you have something to tell me that you think I might not know?
And then you can also ask just, "What else do you want me to know?"
And just listen.
A word, an image, a feeling, or nothing at all. It's all fine.
And then thank this Part.
What did the Part seem to want for you?
Did anything shift just from turning toward it?
Was it easier to be curious or to judge? Both are welcome, but just notice, right? Were you in Self, or maybe, uh, were you in the Controller?
And, and if nothing came, that's okay. That's common. It's completely fine.
So where this goes: manage today, retired over time.
Two things are true at once. The skill works: you can catch a trance and come back sooner.
And the pattern will still fire. That's not failure, that's the work. Managing is coming back faster. Retiring, a Part finally relaxing its job, comes from relationship over time. And you might be, just depending on where you are in your own inner Parts work journey, you might be at a place where it's more about managing Parts than healing and really allowing the patterns to shift or retire.
Obviously Peaceful Living is a place where a lot of people, we have the skills and the knowledge here to heal our Parts, to build relationships and heal them.
But that level of,
noticing again, like finding Self as your true north, and then noticing over time that the things, the Food Trances that you're dealing with, get shorter and shorter.
So, four things to take with you. Trances visit; you don't live inside of them. They come and they go. Ask what it's for, right? As soon as we turn towards and ask what it's for, and we bring curiosity in, we're also bringing the, the thinking intellect into the picture. Versus when we're in a trance, typically the prefrontal cortex goes offline, and we just settle into whatever's gonna happen in the trance.
Catch the return. The win is coming back, not never leaving. And then come back sooner. Recovery, not perfection. Not perfection.
All right. So, these trances visit us. We don't live inside them. We don't live inside them.
So, so I just thought we could discuss this. It could be questions or just insights that you're having. Are you guys feeling like you're recognizing these trances when they show up? Like, and able to categorize them? Since I've just been inundating you all with this for the last while.
Participant: Many of us maybe follow Monique's meditation, and I like the way you put that message at the end. It's, it's similar to her, in saying your mind's always gonna wander off. You can't stop that. So, so the victory is coming back sooner to get those moments of, of peace. And I think it's some of the same relationship with Parts, with, with your body, with the inner talk, all of that stuff.
Yeah. So I appreciated that particularly.
Everett: Oh, cool. Yeah.
Participant: Yeah, it all makes a lot of sense to me, and I see these in action in my life. And what I, through the meditation, did one moment in time, and what I realized is that for that particular emotional hit, I have no coping skills. None.
Everett: Mm.
Participant: The only coping skill I've ever used is food.
Everett: Yeah.
Participant: So it's like, okay, what do I do now? So...
Everett: Yeah. Yeah.
So what do you, what, what are your thoughts?
Participant: I have to think of a way to comfort myself other than with food. And it's just a particular kind of hit. I mean, there's all kinds of emotional hits, right? But this particular one, it doesn't happen often, right, for me. And so, I have to think about it.
I'm gonna have to think about it, put myself in that situation and think, "Okay, what could I have done differently?" And I don't know the answer yet, 'cause it's gonna take a little bit of searching around.
Yeah.
That, that, it, for me it was, it was completely different, something that I normally don't come across. And someone was speaking, and I thought I was gonna get some kind of accolade, and I did not. And I don't usually depend on other people to puff me up, so to speak. But I think that particular day I thought I would, and I was looking forward to it, and it didn't happen, and I didn't have any other... Like, "I'm never gonna tell anybody I was expecting an accolade and I didn't get one.
That's a stupid thing." I'm not supposed to be depending on other people, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right, all that. But that was so fast, it was lightning fast, and off I went to the Food Trance. Yeah. So.
Everett: Yeah.
Participant: So it was a disappointment. It was... I, I didn't feel ashamed, except that I didn't want to tell anybody.
That's what I felt. That wasn't exactly shame to me, it was just, like, more of embarrassment, like, "Oh, there. I was depending on other people to give me an accolade. How stupid was that?"
Everett: Right. Right.
Participant: So I didn't reach out.
Everett: Oh, my heart goes out to that little Part of you. It's like, I just feel how...
Participant: I know.
Everett: ...young that is.
Participant: I feel it. I get it. I feel that, that little, that... I never do that. I mean, it's like, I don't expect to get accolades most of the time, right? From anybody, right? I'm a therapist, for God's sake.
Everett: Mm-hmm.
Participant: Nobody says, hardly ever says thank you, right? So. Once in a great while.
But, but I knew this person well, and we had been friends for almost three years, and she's a sponsee. And,
Everett: She's a what?
Participant: She's a sponsee.
Everett: A sponsee.
Participant: And, and I really... A sponsee. And I thought, I really thought, because of the way she talks to me, I really thought I was gonna get an accolade.
She's done it before, right? So I kind of had a reasonable expectation, but that day she didn't. And so, it was, I was caught off guard. Like, first of all, I didn't know I had the expectation until I felt hurt.
Everett: Right.
Participant: And then it was so, it was so lightning fast, so fast, that I was just like...
Everett: Mm-hmm.
Participant: Okay, I don't know what else to do.
Everett: I have a, I did a guided meditation that was really... Maybe someone will know the name of it. It's the one where you go up on the stage and everyone claps, and,
it's, it's, it's kinda designed for a Part... that wound. And, oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to...
Participant: I don't remember it, Everett.
Everett: ...look it up. I usually can find them, but I, I don't even know what to look for. Oh. Well, maybe it's not in my current catalog. I'll have to pull it out.
Participant: Really appreciating feeling into this today, because I had a kind of a weird and, and probably revelatory experience. I don't know what it revealed, but just such a powerful... Like, I can really observe what you're sharing about these trances, 'cause I was at a retreat last week, which was just, like, really wrong for me and really overwhelming.
So it's in a remote location during a monsoon, and I have a roommate, and it's dark, and you only get three meals a day during the retreat, and so I cannot sneak off anywhere and get food. I can't actually sneak off anywhere and do anything. And I was so discomforted.
And I was lying there in bed and thinking, "Wow, I really need comfort," and being really confronted with the fact that there were no avenues.
I'm lying there in the dark. There's nothing for me to avail myself of. I'm not unsafe, but... And I don't know what the reveal was, but I feel like something really powerful was revealed, because in that moment I was so clear I needed comfort and it was not available.
Everett: Mm.
Participant: And it just wasn't, and I was really, like, really in possession of the question, "Okay, I need comfort.
What can I do for myself? What can I do for myself?" And I don't know, maybe all it is is, like, "Oh, I faced my worst fear. No comfort was forthcoming."
Everett: You survived.
Participant: And, and I survived, and I fell asleep. Eventually I fell asleep, and it wasn't even... And so I don't know, but it felt really profound. I don't know, I don't have the...
In Italian you say the dunque. It's the therefore. I don't have the summary therefore, but it was really powerful to have that language from you, and really know that I'm just not lying there suffering. I'm lying there thinking, "Oh, I need comfort. Oh, I need comfort. What comfort could I get? Huh. Anything I could do?"
And, I don't know. That, there, the... In a weird way, that was a moment of grace, 'cause I got the blessing of, like, "Yep, that was my worst nightmare, is lying there with nothing to do," and, and I did that. Okay. I guess I can do that.
Everett: Yeah. Well, and the thing that comes to mind as you're, like, describing that too, which is how in this age, in this culture, it's all about comfort.
There's so much comfort, right? There's just... Your favorite-tasting thing you could put in your mouth is, like, every store when you walk in the doors, it's just, like, all right there in front of you. And, and yeah, and, and, like, another time, another age, right? The other thing, when you were talking, was, was I just have this sense of an infant crying.
Participant: Mm.
Everett: Right? It's like wanting, needing something, and it's just not, not coming, right?
Participant: Yeah. You're, you're reminding me of that term that I've always thought was really powerful, which is distress tolerance.
Everett: Yeah.
Participant: I gotta build my distress tolerance, because there is this feeling like I'm gonna fall off a cliff.
Everett: Mm-hmm.
Participant: But it's just distress. It's not actually danger. It's just...
Everett: Mm-hmm.
Participant: ...it's not actually crisis.
Everett: Yeah.
Participant: But you're right. I was in a situation where the, the buffet that life, modern life offers of distractions and temptations and comforts... I'm like, "The buffet was closed." Nothing was available.
Everett: Right. No internet, so you couldn't grab your phone and scroll or...
Yeah. Couldn't go get a snack out of the kitchen. Couldn't get any more covers or better pillows or...
Participant: No. No. No. No. Yeah. No, building distress tolerance, I think that's like... I'm, I'm glad to be reminded of that term. That's what I gotta do, is, like, in a gentle, loving way, yeah, build some distress tolerance.
Like, I, yes, I can, I can be discomforted. 'Cause I think usually I'm like, "Okay, it's not gonna be food. What else is it gonna be?" And then there's something actually kind of useful about, like... No, it's not gonna be comforting. It's gonna be,
Everett: It's an imitation, right? Yeah. Like, I've been, I've been, especially with the Comfort Trance, for some reason I've been, like, having this sense of, like, oh, that's, what we need probably is connection and love, right?
And so these sweet things are, are, like, somehow imitations of it. Yeah. We're trying to, we're trying to get the imitation of that, and, and it's not it. It's...
Participant: No, but that, that is, like, having nursed a baby and really seeing, oh my gosh, it doesn't matter what the problem is, nursing is always the solution.
And I can make a joke about that, but it's really true. Like, no matter what your baby's distressed about, you bring them to your breast and you offer the milk, which is sweet, and they are comforted.
Everett: Yeah.
Participant: And it doesn't matter what the problem was.
Everett: Yeah.
Participant: And I feel like there's something so deeply human and primate about that.
Like, yes, I'll have something sweet and comforting and connecting. Yes, I will. No matter what the problem was, that would be good.
Everett: Mm-hmm.
Participant: So really grateful for the... I don't know, just the deeper understanding of this that your work brings. I feel like every week I go a little deeper.
Everett: You know what I love about it is, I, I love that you can take, like... I'm taking three things, right? But you can take, like, one thing, and you can just keep going into it, and deeper and deeper into it. And more, like, more is revealed, as opposed to a thousand things that you're looking at all at once.
But that's kind of what I, I feel like's happening with these three trances, is, like, I keep going deeper and deeper into it. And, well, what is this bringing up for you?
Participant: Yeah. Thanks, Everett.
Just with that meditation, calling to mind a time when I was just having some [unclear], and it's like, "Why am I doing this?" And feeling that Part of me that just... There's a Part that just felt really sad. And when I stayed with it, it was this... It's definitely, I've got two really close people with me currently, but I am just deferring my own needs repeatedly, my need for quiet, my need for this.
And this Part of me is just feeling like, I can't be with people that I love and meet my needs as well, which I know is just a really young Part. And so I could then feel the invitation to experiment with that a bit, and, and I have been, like, just speaking actually what I need. "I need to just lie down for five minutes before I get the dinner," or...
It's... And so, it was, just felt really honoring to be with that Part. So it's, I'm just finding, when you talked about "this isn't the comfort I need, this isn't the freedom," I, I could feel where I'm using food for those much deeper needs, which have a particular note to them. And so just to start really engaging with that when I'm just kind of in that trance of just reaching for the food, or, or the things that it's not gonna actually achieve.
Everett: Yeah.
Participant: Right. So thanks, Everett. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's really helpful. Yeah. Mm.
Participant: I was just going to say that image of the happy, contented baby that's just full of milk is what I'm looking for in my Escape Trance, and I think I've said that before. Just being... It didn't matter what was going on before, I'm just not feeling that. I'm just cuddling and full. And so thank you for that, for that observation.
Participant: So much is going through my mind. So I was just thinking about how my life, I dieted all my life, and then when the diet would fail, once I got back to being ready again after being off...
Everett: Mm-hmm.
Participant: ...I would find a new diet. And I'm kind of making a parallel here with your trances conversation, because I understand that even though we go off or wanna go off, and we can [kick] ourselves, that we're wrong for doing that...
If we can look at it instead as we're evolving and having a new way to look at, a deeper, another way of looking. So, like, the trances are, here's a new, here's, here's something added. Here's an added value of how to look at it, so that you continue, you can continue your evolution. Because it's an evolution.
We're evolving. It's not like now we have it and we never go off. It's, it's just, we are evolving. And so using these new words here, describing, "Oh yeah, I understand. Oh yeah, I do," understanding that keeps us on track and not thinking of it as all or nothing.
Either I eat exactly this... Either I'm on a diet and stick to the diet 100% or I'm off, and that's kind of the catch-22 about a rigid program. It's, it, it, that, that's embedded in it.
Everett: Yeah.
Participant: So I'm just really enjoying the new words. It's not new words, but it's, it's like bringing new words, a new, a new slant to continue my, our deepening, 'cause that's all...
We're just continuously deepening.
Everett: Yeah.
Participant: Even when... And what I like about, really like about your, this, this process here is it's reminding us we're not off.
Everett: Right.
Participant: It's bringing something here, the possibility of bringing something here for us in a shorter and shorter and shorter time. And sometimes when we're in it, it doesn't feel shorter.
It feels like... It's hard to put words on...
Everett: Yeah.
Participant: ...on, on, on this wave, the wave that we're in, because, and there are probably some people who can totally keep...
that have strong Controllers and can really keep to that and still keep away all emotion and all feeling. Well, it's gonna hit at some time. It's gonna hit, it's gonna hit that we have to, to, to look at these things. And looking at it through these three ways kinda allows us new ways to kinda look at what's really going on and what do we really need here, and not go into criticism, which brings us wanting more food.
Everett: This is the surface that we're dealing with, the surface of the, the, the addiction and trying to control it. And, and then there's the ways that we are in the world that are generating the feelings that are driving the coping mechanisms and the firefighters.
Participant: Right.
Everett: And, and so many of those are so deeply ingrained in our identity, right? That they're, they're, like, impossible to see, right? I love, I love, I love... I'll ask a new client, like, "So tell me about the stress of your life." And they'll say, "Well, it's no more, it's no more stressful than everyone else's."
Right? There's just, like, a sense of, like, "This is just my life and this is the way it is. And yeah, it's stressful, but, but that..." And then I'll, then I'll start to, like, sort of drill down from the behaviors that they're trying to change, right? And then we'll find, we'll find some huge thing that's going on, that's been going on so long that it's been normalized.
And, so it's like those are the two levels, right? Like, the, the managing the symptomology, so, so we're not harming ourselves more than we wanna be. And, and then, then the inner work, right? And, but...
Participant: That's what it's about. It's the inner work. Yeah. It's the inner work, and that is a process, and that is,
Everett: And that just takes...
Participant: It involves...
Everett: And that takes a lot of time.
Participant: A good amount. Just... you're not gonna get there. What's the... I do not understand what that means. You're not gonna have... nevermore... to ever stray ever again.
Everett: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Participant: Oh, sorry. Yeah, really liked the session today. I, I got in touch with... Well, I like those words to say to the, like, "This is not..." I forgot what they were now, but...
Everett: It's not, it's not...
Participant: "This isn't gonna give me freedom," or whatever. Yeah, yeah. "This isn't gonna give me comfort," or, or something like that.
But I'll come back to that. But, yeah, I did notice that I had... I asked my Part, I had the Rebel Part come up, and it was like, "Well, why do you want freedom?" And whatever. And it had a lot of things to say that I was surprised about.
Everett: Mm-hmm.
Participant: But, well, I have a lot of food allergies, so, and it was like, "I wanna do what I wanna do, 'cause I can't do so many things that everybody else does."
So that was one thing. And then another thing that came up was where some of these issues started, was years ago when I was, I was a caregiver for two older parents at a quite young age for a long time. And, and so that's when my freedom Part started to cause trouble. So it's like, "I want freedom.
I just wanna do what I wanna do," kind of thing, instead of all these other things. So anyway, it was just interesting. It, it had a whole list of things that it wanted freedom from, or whatever, or why it wanted freedom, which I didn't realize, all of them. So that, that was helpful to see...
Everett: Mm.
Participant: ...what it was up to, this freedom-seeking Part. But, and then the fact that, is this really gonna bring me freedom...
Everett: Right.
Participant: That's really... those words.
Everett: Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's it.
Participant: Mm-hmm. So I, yeah, I appreciate that. That was good.
Participant: Yeah. The, the three expressions, "this isn't the comfort I need, this isn't the escape I need." I kept wanting to change... There's something, there's some... I, I wanted to replace "need" with "helpful." "This isn't the escape that's helpful."
Everett: Mm.
Participant: I think I struggle with the idea of need.
Everett: Mm-hmm.
Participant: But in the moment, this whole work... It wasn't a Food Trance, but it was a trance not connected with food that I got into, that I've never been able to get out of, in an unsafe social situation, that I was able to come away and use all the tools in this trance. And then it clicked: this is why you're, you're eating right now.
This is, this is the drive that, that was nothing to do with food, that you're busy, your brain is busy working through this while you're eating mindlessly. So, and also for me the awareness that, that comfort is the first thing, that leads immediately into escape, that then brings out the Rebel.
Everett: Mm-hmm.
Participant: And you, in another one... I need to go back and try and connect with this. I think I'm rebelling, rebelling from the system, this Bright Line Eating thing, but I'm actually caught in... The, the Rebel is actually doing... It's the addiction to the Rebel. The Rebel, not quite sure how to express it, but I'm not free, because the Rebel is holding me under bondage.
Everett: Yeah.
Participant: So you expressed it, it, there was a light went on then, and I thought, "No, you think you're being free, but you're not, because the Rebel's got you."
Everett: Mm-hmm.
Participant: So...
And it's good to have this repeated over and over to get...
Everett: Yeah.
Participant: ...to really become clear what's going on. Thank you.
Everett: Yeah. You're welcome.
Would anyone like to share to the larger group before we finish up?
Participant: I'll just say it was really nice in our group that we were brainstorming other ways to get comfort.
Everett: Right?
Participant: Yeah. Yeah. 'Cause I, I really came to the conclusion it's not like I should overcome my need for comfort. Like, of course I need comfort. Just, like, what are other good ways?
Everett: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, rather than the ones that you picked when you were two years old.
Or younger or older.
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.
