End Secret Bingeing

Pushing ourselves into being drastically different than where we are right now, creates overwhelm, stress, shame – which causes us to freeze or become scattered or unable to focus. We start to create this story that we're so far off from being even good enough. We fail to see the skills we have, we focus on the bad and we generally just feel like we need to become an entirely different person in order to make this perfectionist plan work.Compassionate productivity meets us where we're at right now. It sees the areas we want to grow and instead of shaming and pushing and forcing ourselves to shapeshift into the person who we think we want to be, it values and sees us where we are – right now. Hence, the compassion. I will always preach this forever – compassion is a much better conduit for long-lasting change than shame, judgement and force.Compassionate productivity is recognizing and allowing space for your humanity instead of trying to turn you into a robot. It's so much more effective, my friends.So the idea, when it comes to having a goal or making a change in your life, is that you make a plan that coincides with what you're easily able to accomplish and meet at this moment in your humanity.Schedule a free 30-minute mini-session: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

We all, every person (whether they struggle with food or not), have developed ways to feel safe. We've learned ways, starting in childhood, to feel safe. Now what "safe” is is different for every person. But those feelings of safety (which can be a combination of feeling secure, lovable, connected, attached, worthy) – are all deeply wired in our circuity. They are in fact, the most important feelings we can experience. And we're wired to intensely and severely crave that safety because as children, our survival depends on our feelings of safety.And here's the thing. What you'll typically see, is that the thing which once kept us safe when we were children, now, often, keeps us small.Schedule a free 30-minute mini-session: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

My invitation is that you do not gain self-control by enforcing it through punishment. Because while that might work for a hot minute, what you're actually doing is abandoning your Self. Your pushing down parts of you instead of lifting them up and opening up to them and being curious with them. You have an urge to rest or enjoy food, and instead of being curious and tender with this urge, you fight it and fear it and push it down real hard. Schedule a free 30-minute mini-session: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

Stay tuned for a poem that hopes to inspire peace and maybe resolve as we do this challenging work of recovery.

We don't trust ourselves because we're terrified of regret because we don't have the inner resources to hold the magnitude of remorse. We make regret and disappointment in ourselves mean too much; it's too devasting to our self-worth.So how do we learn to trust ourselves? How do we build up those inner resources to hold the magnitude of remorse? How can we learn to not make regret and disappointment so detrimental to our self-worth?Well, we know the answer isn't ignoring our inner critic and we know it's not believing and obeying our inner critic. So what else can we do with that pesky thing?We allow it to be there. We make space for it. We seek to understand it. Basically, we get to know it.Schedule a free 30-minute mini-session: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

Today I want to talk about the concept of having your own back. We're gonna talk about what I mean by that exactly and also, more importantly, why is matters. It's not just a nice-to-have thing. Like, ‘oh, that's a nice idea.” Or “wouldn't it be nice to be kind to yourself?” But the thing is, there's a reason you're  not kind to yourself (or many reasons), and today we're going to get into it. Schedule a free mini session with me: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoachingSchedule a free 30-minute mini-session: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

So let's dig a bit deeper into anxiety. Because the thing is, while binge eating or emotional eating as a way to calm your nervous system is a really quick, really fast-acting method of system regulation, it's actually not a longstanding solution. It's more of a pause. A way to cope. To be ok, for the moment. It's usually just an escape button to get you out of the burning building, but it doesn't actually put the fire out or help you mitigate the fire from starting in the first place. Food is often our preferred way to quote “get rid” of the anxiety, when we're not actually getting rid of it, we're more just suppressing it for the moment. Which is why it's not my favorite form of coping. Because we're not actually processing the anxiety, we're just numbing it or buffering it. Which, don't get me wrong, can be a helpful strategy depending on the situation. But what I like to do, is help my clients reframe their relationship with anxiety so they don't have to escape button their way out of it with food – because I want them to actually learn more about themselves and ultimately, connect deeper with their core Self.Schedule a free mini session: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoachingSchedule a free 30-minute mini-session: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

When we're feeling bad around the holidays, we feel extra bad because we ‘shouldn't' be feeling bad.  -  like we're doing it wrong. We're supposed to be happy this time of year, dangit. So we often just ignore or fight our discomfort because we ‘shouldn't' be feeling this way. Fighting and ignoring it can make it even more complicated and overwhelming, like something is wrong or off or bad and you can't figure it out and the unclarity of it all makes it feel so elusive and unmanageable. So I want to propose a simplified way of seeing what's going on. And it all comes down to those two emotional states of arousal that I mentioned in last week's episode: hyperarousal and hypo-arousal – which, to simplifier even further, can be categorized as anxiety or depression. If you're struggling around the holidays, you can likely sort your experience into one of these containers. Again, I'm not trying to imply these are simple arousal states, meaning they're easy. But the more we can simplify them, the less scary they become and they easier we're able to be with them and understand them and even show compassion to them and then, ideally, learn how to move through the wave of emotion without it taking us under-water, for too long. Schedule a free mini session: sammybeecoaching.comFollow @SammyBeeCoaching on Instagram

Today is a short one because I intentionally don't want to overcomplicate something that tends to get over-complicated. Today I want to talk about self-regulation. You've probably heard this term, and have learned various ways to self-regulate when it comes to our regulating our emotional state to help us remain – like the classics of breathing or going for a walk. But today I want to specifically address various types of self-regulation as they relate to the type of arousal state you are in – because not all self-regulation practices are created equal. The more aware you are of you and your nervous system, the better off you will be when it comes to learning the skill of self-regulation.Schedule a free mini session: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

Why do we feel like we have to justify our pleasure? Or we feel like we have to earn our pleasure. We have to get all our work done first. There's too much to do; we can't enjoy ourselves until it's done. Often our brains will convince us that if we don't get it all done the work will just keep piling up and we'll never be able to keep up. So we can't afford to have some pleasure until it's all done. And sometimes our brains just won't let us. We'll be trying to relax and watch a movie or show, but all we can do is think about all the stuff we should be doing.Often food is a way to silence that ‘shoulding.' Like I mentioned in last week's episode, we often struggle actually resting or partaking in pleasure because we feel such shame when we do – because again, we live in a society that regards hard work and self-control as morally superior. It must mean we're lazy and weak or out of control if we choose to rest or experience in pleasure that's just for us – with no benefits to our appearance or the wellbeing of others.I want you to unburden yourself from the pressure of doing everything perfectly. I want you to unburden yourself from the shame around doing things that you love and enjoy even though they don't benefit others or your physical appearance or are what you're quote ‘supposed to do.” You don't have to feel guilty for enjoying yourself. Even if it looks like sitting on TikTok while eating chips. Even if it's watching a trashy tv show while snacking on cookies. Schedule a free mini-session: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

Today I want to talk about laziness. It's a loaded topic, and I'm gonna cover some history, but I think it's a veery important topic to discuss. And here's why. So many my clients who struggle with food and binge eating, associate their inability to eat quote “healthy” with their seemingly inherent traits of being weak and/or lazy. There's this messed up idea that if we struggle with food, we make it mean there's something wrong with us. If we can't eat like her, we are gluttonous, we have no self-control, we're not driven enough to succeed, we're lazy. We like being comfortable too much. Which is actually nonsense when it comes to my clients – most of my clients are high-achieving, driven women (usually mothers) who all feel constant pressure. Pressure to be thin. Pressure to be the best parent. Pressure to be professionally successful. Pressure to be organized. Pressure to have a beautiful home, make beautiful memories, be happy always, be kind always, be involved always, to help others always, to be in a perfect marriage always, have a perfect family always, to live a perfect life – all, by the way, without any sort of help. Because asking for help means you're, you guessed it, Lazy.Schedule a free coaching session: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

Your body isn't wrong. The secret to learning how to trust your body, is to simply get to know her; her needs and desires, and then, here's the kicker - to honor those needs and desires. Doing this means we stop trying to fit her into a box that someone else said works for them. We've spent so much of our lives focused on the wrong thing. We've spent so much of our lives thinking, contorting, striving, hustling, buying, trialing, cleansing, sweating our way to do what other people's bodies have liked and preferred. Other people who have different bodies than us.  And we abandon our own body's wisdom; we tune out her unique needs, her unique preferences, her unique wants, her unique requests, her unique desires and demands and spend our life pursuing those of another body. Another body, that isn't our body, but another body that our society has arbitrarily deemed more valuable. Even though that body has nothing to do with our body. Our body knows nothing about that other body. All she knows is us. She knows us. She knows exactly what we need. And we won't listen to her because we don't trust her; we don't want her to be her. We want her to be like that other body that she knows nothing about, so we try to give her the things that other body needs. Because we think we need to change our body to feel good. But here's our body, giving us signals, trying to lead us, showing us what she needs, showing us how to feel good. She has all the answers and all she needs is for us to pay attention. To listen to her when she's basically screaming at us.Schedule a free coaching call: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

Today I talk about something I'm calling ‘from delight to despair; it's this phenomenon that happens when you're someone who suffers with binge eating behaviors, and you find yourself in a dysregulated emotional state, and the idea of a binge sounds so absolutely phenomenal. It sounds like such a pleasure, such a comfort, such a delight, such a reprieve or escape from the pain or discomfort or ‘meh' of the present moment. The first part of a binge feels so good. One may say it's a delight. Until it isn't. Until it, seemingly very quickly, becomes despair. It turns awful, and despite it feeling awful we still can't stop bingeing. Let's talk about this progression and how it typically goes for my clients, and then we'll discuss why this happens and of course, ways you can prevent this cycle from continuing.Schedule a free coaching session: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

So here's the thing. You can fight what happened or what is happening – you can fight reality all you want. Absolutely. In fact, I've spent much of my life doing just that. However, when we do that, we're getting in the way of actually processing the emotion and the circumstance and moving forward or moving on or taking steps to honor our future self or our future society.Schedule a free session: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

Ideally, a healthy mix of both internal and external validation would be accessible for you. And if you don't feel like it is just yet, I want to remind you that you are well on your way. Doing this work, listening to this podcast, spending time with your inner world from a place of compassion and curiosity, learning how to be with yourself in your feelings instead of escaping yourself – all of this work matters. It might not give you the instant external validation you desire, but here's your invitation to open up to the world of internal validation. What would it look like to compliment yourself and believe it? What would it look like to trust that you're good inside? What would it look like to believe in your unconditional worth? Regardless of the size of your body?From where I'm standing, I would venture to guess that your life would look a lot truer. A lot more beautiful. A lot more peaceful.Schedule a free consultation call: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

So of course food serves as the best coping mechanism because it's the one we want the most because it's the one thing our brain thinks we aren't able to have in abundance. .We over-desire food because we keep telling ourselves we can't have it, that all of our happiness, all of our self-worth depends on it. So the minute we feel an uncomfortable emotion, instead of processing it , opening up to it and letting it be there (which we likely haven't learned how to do), we fight or avoid the feeling (by numbing and escaping it) with food. Our ultimate desire. Because nothing else will do. Nothing is as “bad” as food, so nothing will satisfy as much as food does.Not a walk. Not a cry. Not exercise or deep breathing. Not meditating or journaling. Not calling and talking to someone or dancing or creative expression or drinking water or processing the feeling. Nothing. Nothing will satisfy as sweetly as food. Because of this over-desire.Schedule a free call with me: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

The Hard Part of us is often where the quote “Dieter” part of us often resides, as well as our Inner Critic. This is the part of us that likes structure, restriction, rules, productivity, achievement, accomplishments, and organization. It's the part of us, that we ALL have (even if your brain tells you you're a weak lazy loser – I promise you have this Hard Part), it's the part that likes to get shit done. The part of us that lights up when we finish a task or when we see the finished result of an organized pantry; the part of us that loves a shiny new planner. We all, to some degree, have this part of us. And this part of us is amazing, really. We'd be lost without it. It's what keeps us driven, growing, and progressing forward. Without it, our species wouldn't have survived, because this part of us keeps us evolving and you know, alive. It's chef's kiss, really.Ok, back to it then. Let's talk more about the extreme version of our Hard Part. What happens when that part of us that likes drive, productivity, organization and structure becomes extreme? This part starts to become too Hard. Too rigid. Too unbending. It causes us to obsess over the details. We prioritize productivity and accomplishment over joy and emotional well-being. We hustle, we strive, we push too hard. If we let our Hard Part take full control, our output is given more importance, more weight, than it should. All that matters is how much we accomplish and get done. And our Hard Part will be very convincing when it tells us how important our output is. It will convince us that we have no choice, that if we don't keep pushing ourselves to get it done, we'll just be more stressed when our to-do list compounds (effectively taking away our power as the owner of our to-do list). It will convince us that we will let people down, that relationships will be ruined, that our value and worth will be reduced if we don't. Our Hard Part really values our output, our appearance, our ability to succeed and accomplish. It sees the safety and virtuousness of these external qualities and behaviors (external because what it really cares about is what other people think of us when they see these external qualities and behaviors – more on that later). When our Hard Part is in extreme mode, we'll also see these offshoots, these derivatives of how our own personal Hard Part kind of version, can show up. If we struggle with food, dieting and bingeing, for example, our Hard Part will often push us to restrict, follow the rules and then obsess over foods. To eat perfectly. Schedule a free consult call: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

Ok so today's topic is one that is near and dear to my heart; today I want to talk about the indulgent part of us. If you're familiar with my coaching, I subscribe to the IFS therapy model which has proven to be a very helpful model for myself and my clients as we heal our binge eating behaviors. And IFS is all about this idea that we're not just a singular mind in our inner world; there are parts of us. And often these parts of us are at complete odds with each other. A part of us wants to get the laundry done so we can have clean clothes all week and so our floors are not covered in dirty laundry; AND a part of us wants to rest and chill and read a book or go on TikTok because that feels good too. This is everyone, by the way. You might think, ‘well this is just me being lazy.' But first, what is lazy? I don't think that word is one we could actually diagnose people with because what are the standards? And second, that can't be all of you – because a part of you does really enjoy clean clothes and a clean floor and the satisfaction of a job done, and also physical activity, caring for the family, the list goes on. So no, it's not as simple as you just being lazy.We're multi-faceted beings. So let's stop pretending the world is black and white, shall we? The more and more I get to know the inner workings of people's minds, the more and more gray the world becomes. And I think gray is truer than black and white.Schedule a free consult: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

So many of my clients and so many people with disordered eating, do this. We can't be with our internal world, so we distract ourselves with our external world instead. We don't want to be with the feelings of disappointment, shame, regret, fear – or whatever's there. We don't want to listen to our internal battles. We don't want to  sort out our internal world because it all seems to be too much. Too much unknown, too much discomfort, too much trauma (big T or little T). Too much openness, it can feel so vast and scary. Maybe we weren't given a safe space when we were little to spend time in our internal world; we didn't know how to make sense of our thoughts and our feelings. We were just taught what we should be feeling and what we should be doing. Maybe we were taught that all that mattered to our self-worth and our human experience is our external world; all that matters is what we outwardly do, how we're perceived, what we look like, how we act and behave. When we've had painful or destructive parts of us show up, instead of compassionately seeking to understand these parts of us, we are terrified of them, afraid that that's who we really are. We believe getting too deep in our internal world is unsafe. So we shut it out. We fight it, we resist it. We won't let ourselves get to know these different parts of us because it's all too scary, or we believe none of it really matters and we should be able to just force ourselves to quote “ be better.”I'm not sure what your internal world needs to feel secure, connected, and grounded. But running from the messages and signals of your internal world is not the answer. Fighting the information or pushing down the discomfort blocks all learning and understanding; effectively keeping you stuck in the same pattern, over and over.Schedule a free consult: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

When our internal environments are healthy, our external environments become healthier, as a natural result. We are less likely to tolerate abusive relations or situations. When our internal ecosystem is thriving, we have higher standards of what is acceptable. Often, when our internal environments are unhealthy, we look outward to others or outside resources like money, success, food, consumer goods, praise, attention to make our internal environments feel better for the moment. But when that hit is gone, we have to keep looking for more. Whereas, if our internal environment is solid, those outside resources becomes less significant. Yes, you still might want or desire those things, (and of course that is  not wrong), but they become less significant, less integral, to the health of your internal environment. You don't rely on them to be ok. You're ok regardless. And that is the type of energy I'm referring to. A clean energy, a long-lasting, abundant energy that you bring to your life. And it all stems from a healthy internal environment Schedule a free consult call: sammybeecoaching.comFollow Sammy on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

Today I wanted to chat about owning our needs. And this is important when it comes to binge eating recovery because so often, bingeing food is a coping strategy to numb from the discomfort and pain of our unmet and often, unknown needs. We regularly don't even know our needs, much less how to meet them. Frequently, my clients will binge food and not even know why they're doing it because they're feeling quote “fine.” But really, what's happening is that they're so disconnected from their Self, they don't know what they need or how to meet those needs. As I often say, binge eating isn't actually about the food. We all have needs and when they're not met, it's uncomfortable and sometimes downright painful. So my hope with this week's episode is to shed some light on the types of needs we have and how to meet them, so we don't feel as compelled to turn to food to numb from the discomfort of ignoring those needs.The thing is, we're typically better at knowing and meeting other people's needs, more than our own. Especially if you're socialized as a woman. There's kind of this virtuous quality of selflessness that I referred to in a previous episode. And the fact that our society made it virtuous for a woman to lose her sense of Self is devastating. But part of getting our sense of Self back, is by knowing our needs, prioritizing them, and ultimately meeting them.A lot of us were taught that our needs were less valuable than others. That we should make sure everyone else is happy and satisfied; if they are, we were somehow more likable or a quote “good” friend/sister/daughter/mom/wife/partner. Which is where it gets a little convoluted, because, in a way, abandoning our needs to be accepted and liked, is, well meeting a need ?: Our need for secure attachment and connection.. And while it feels like we're getting our attachment and connection needs met when we gain others approval by prioritizing their needs above our own, it's only met on the surface. But this pathway to gaining acceptance negates a bunch of our other needs, like authenticity and having a sense of true identity. I'll get more into the details around our universal core needs, but it's important to note that each of us has our own set of needs, and learning what's most important to you can be really helpful in establishing a secure connection with your Self as well as your loved ones.Schedule a free consult call with me: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

Today's episode is another spoken word poem that I wrote (I've written a couple, episode 5: Forgive Yourself, and #8: I surrender). Today's poem is about your capital S Self, your soul, your inner knowing, your conscious, your spirit, God within us, whatever you want to call it. The concept of Self, as described in IFS therapy, is a beautiful idea that really resonated with me and resonates with my clients as well. Especially as bingers, as people who suffer with “self-inflicted” pain, it's hard to understand why we would do that to ourselves; why we would ever binge if it was so painful. And the typical philosophy of self-help would tell us because we're lazy, or weak or don't have enough self control, or we don't have the right morning routine or meal plan or finance strategy. Which, honestly, I believe to be completely misguided. My belief, which again, aligns largely with IFS therapy, is that we are all born with this Self, this soul. And it's perfectly good and just and calm and balanced. It's not soft and it's not hard. It's not weak and it's not stiff. It's not selfless and it's not selfish. It's not passive and it's not judgmental. Our Self is just who we are. And when we find ourselves having these internal fighting matches, it's because different parts of us have blended with our true Self. Our Self is still there, it's always there. It's like the sun, and our unhealed, burdened parts that developed because of the pain in the world (which is essentially because other people operate from their burdened parts and not their Selves, which is when we hurt each other) are like the clouds that have obstructed the sun. But our Self, the sun is always there. And when we feel like we've lost sense of our selves, we can always come back home to our Self by unblending our Self with our hurting parts.If this is going way over your head, I get it. It's a lot to say in a few short words. But I wanted to give a quick overview of this concept of Self before reading the poem, so you get the basic idea. But hopefully the poem will offer more of a description of the Self, and what it means to me, and what it means to my clients. Schedule a call with me: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on  Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

Your inner critic part may have taken on its harsh role because it learned in childhood that if it could motivate you to do what you're supposed to do, the consequences will be less severe or desirable. A harsh Inner Critic might have some short-term motivational pay offs (the logic if if it makes it “sting” where we're at, it'll motivate us to move and change and do something to get out of where we're at), but it doesn't really make us productive in the long-term.  In fact, it can actually be quite debilitating for someone to live with their Inner Critic long-term and it can impair and restrict us in ways we're most likely not always aware.  There's a lot of research out there that indicates that self-criticism tends to be a component of many high prevalence mental health challenges, such as depressive and anxiety issues, and phobias.  What our inner critic doesn't realize, is that maybe what it's wanting for us, doesn't actually serve us in the way it thinks it does.Schedule a free consult call with me: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

The reason why it's good to acknowledge if you have a scarcity mindset around food, is because that mindset is playing a key role your obsession with food, especially in the present moment. It's not causing you to think ahead and plan and ration and do the things that diet culture tells us to do. Scarcity mindset causes us to obsess about the thing we don't have and over-desire it in the present moment. We overvalue immediate benefits at the expense of future ones. When we have scarcity beliefs around food, we're tricking our brains into thinking we're in crisis mode (like maybe a famine is coming),so our lower primal brain just wants to survive, making us search out food even more. The bottom line, is the more we limit food (types, amounts, time of day), the more we limit the more we obsess about not being able to have all the food we want, and the more we want food. We are artificially increasing our desire for food when we tell ourselves we can't have food. Food that, often, if we didn't have that mindset, we might not even really like or desire all that much. I know since healing my relationship with food, those ‘trigger foods' that I would feel so scared around because they had such power over me, are not the foods I actually delight in the most now.Central to the scarcity mindset is the belief that there is never enough. So even when we eat more than our bodies want, we still might desire food because we still believe there is never enough. So even though our body doesn't want the food, our brain does.  Schedule a free 30-minute consultation call with me: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

In this episode, talk about how impossible it is actively try to lose weight while working on ending your binge eating behavior. Before you get mad or anxious or feel defeated, I want you to know that weight loss might happen once you recover from your binge eating behaviors. You don't have to accept that this is how your body is going to be forever. But, what I am asking for, is accepting that this is how your body is , right now. In this moment, she is the way she is. (btw, I often refer to my body as a her because it helps remind me to maintain a relationship with her like she is a close friend – if that weirds you out, I get it but also, I'm over that weirdness).Because the thing is, long lasting recovery from binge eating involves learning how to attune to our bodies; learning how to listen, how to understand, how to honor and serve her. The journey involves developing and cultivating a trusting relationship with her. Which involves, getting out of your head (which is where your diet brain is) and sinking into your body. So, unfortunately, no, it's not possible to actively try to lose weight (which inherently involves either physical or mental restriction of some kind) while also building a trusting, respectful relationship with your body. Dieting, by definition, takes you out of your body and brings you into your head. So your head tells you what to eat, when to eat, how much to eat. When, at the crux of your binge eating recovery, you are required to do the opposite – you must instead listen to your body – so your body can tell you what to eat, when to eat and how much to eat. You don't have to stop desiring weight loss to heal your binge eating behaviors. I still have moments of desiring weight loss. I see pictures of a thinner me and I do think I was more attractive sometimes. There are real, systemic advantages to being in smaller body. And fighting that desire just honestly makes the desire stronger. I just let the desire be there, give it space and let that sadness and grief process through my body. Just because I desire thinness at times doesn't mean something went wrong or my body is wrong. It just means I've lived in a weight biased society my whole life. It means I'm human and these belief systems are deep. But these feelings of grief and guilt come up less and less, and I know (now) that they won't stay around for too long.Schedule a free consult call to learn more: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

When you self-abandon (which, in short, is rejecting your needs), you basically desert yourself and you start to damage your relationship with yourself. After so many times of ignoring, not meeting, disregarding or considering your own needs as less important, what happens is you start to value yourself less, subconsciously of course. After so many times of suppressing your needs, putting others' needs above yours, over and over, you start to see yourself as less valuable, less important, less central and definitely less clear. What often happens, is you start to suppress yourself so much that you lose connection with your Self, your true self, your inner knowing, your essence, your soul – however you want to define it. The truest and highest version of you. . You start to lose yourself, you might feel like you don't really know who you are. One of the issues this brings up for binge eaters, is when we have to be alone with ourselves. When we don't have distraction all of the time. How do we be with ourselves when we don't know ourselves, don't value ourselves and don't trust ourselves?We binge on food.Listen to find out how to stop abandoning yourself and getting to the know the real, perfectly valuable you.Schedule a free consult call: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

Often, our defense strategies can be destructive in a lot of ways, both to ourselves and others. These defense strategies can look like finding emotionally unavailable romantic partners because you have an open wound of abandonment - so you are able to be safe by not getting close enough to another person, sometimes it looks like never taking risks because you have an open wound around failure that made you feel unworthy and unsafe, so you stay safe and don't strive to achieve goals or fulfill your purpose.  In terms of binge eating recovery, the act of bingeing is often a defense mechanism or protector coming online to put out the fire of our inner wounds so we don't have to feel them. Which is why food is often numbing or distracting.The benefit of healing our deep inner wounds is a life lived authentically. There are a lot of ways to describe that, IFS calls it to live in your Self energy (capital S Self) and tp be Self led. Other practices call it being in your Essence. Being true to your Core. Living from your soul. So if we healed these wounds, we wouldn't have to have these defenses at all. And we could live a life that's more authentic, more real, where we're able to live in our essence more of the time so our actions aren't driven by fear. Instead of living out of fear; instead of having your pain and anxiety leading your decisions in your life, you'd let your Self lead your way in the world, which would not only be the most authentic, but the most fulfilling way to live. Its been said that our greatest contribution to society will come from the healing of our deepest wounds.Schedule a free 30 minute call: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

Even when we learn how toxic diet culture is in our lives and how much pain and suffering it has caused, it can still be hard to break up with the whole diet culture system.Listen to find out why and learn how to take your first steps in getting rid of this oppressive belief system.Schedule a free 30-min call with me at sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram @sammybeecoaching

Here we discuss why we like control and why control actually doesn't work. This is what it boils down to: We want to control our internal environment (which is made up of our thoughts and feelings) and our external environment (which is made up of our actions, other people's thoughts, feelings, and actions, and life situations and circumstances) all because we don't want to experience negative emotions. We will try so hard to tighten the grip of control to avoid negative emotions for ourselves, meaning we want our internal environment to feel good - AND we also want other people's internal environments (which are actually our external environments) to feel good. Basically, we just want everyone to be happy (unless we are suffering and then we want other people to suffer, but that's a different conversation for a different day). Do you know why we want us and everyone else to be happy? Because it feels good! And often we falsely put ourselves in charge of other people's happiness, because we can't be happy if they're not happy, which of course puts a lot of pressure on them to be happy, which then puts pressure on us to make them happy (which we actually can't do) so we can just be happy. Whew. It's exhausting.But the more pressure and control we put on ourselves, the more easily we are triggered to move out of the window of tolerance. We're not actually regulating ourselves, we're just expending all of our energy trying to control everything around us so we don't have to feel negative emotions. And when we're in the hyper or hypo arousal states, we can't self-regulate, we can't control our responses or reactions. For lots of us that listen to this podcast, this is when we'll binge. It's too much for our nervous systems to bear. Our inner protector is there to put out the fire when all else fails. And bingeing is the way our protector has learned to do that (if you don't struggle with binge eating, your inner protector might have another way to put out the fire).So, instead of learning self-regulation strategies, healthy coping mechanisms, repair strategies like self-compassion and curiosity, or instead of processing our emotions while we're in the window of tolerance, we just try to control our environments (external and internal) so much so that we can avoid negative emotion altogether. But that is an exhausting strategy and impossible and it's often that pressure of controlling it all, that rigidity, can trigger us to leave the window of tolerance. Remember, when  we're inside the window of tolerance, we're not perfectly happy all of the time, it's not pure bliss, it's just a regulated stated. It's integrated, meaning we can ebb and flow with the ups and downs of life – riding with our emotions instead of fighting them.  Schedule a free 30-minute call with meFollow me on Instagram @sammybeecoaching

Today I talk about the book, Whole Brain Living by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, where she descries the four characters (or quadrants) of the brain:Upper Left (Character 1, or "Ego")Lower Left (Character 2, or "Fear")Lower Right (Character 3, or "Love")Upper Right (Character 4, or "Soul")So often, most people (but especially binge eaters), take their actions and behaviors so personally. They make their actions mean so much about who they are, about their soul, instead of just understanding that they have these other characters in their brain that are just being utilized in the wrong situation. So many binge eaters are all or nothing thinkers (attributed to their character 1 ego), so if they don't feel like going to the gym that day, then see? They're lazy. They're weak. They're not driven. They don't care about their health. They have no ambition or drive. If they binge it means they're totally out of control. They must like food too much. They must be gluttonous people who don't know the value of hard work, self-control and determination. Or that they have no integrity. They can't keep their promises. They're flaky or unreliable. It's truly just awful how we talk to ourselves. And then when they realize their negative self-talk, they ironically beat themselves up even more for not being nicer to themselves. It's so painful. It's exhausting. And it doesn't serve them as they work to build a better relationship with themselves and heal their relationship with food.So this whole brain approach is able to better untangle or separate our worthiness and value with our actions. We're able to more clearly see that we're not our thoughts, we're not our feelings, we're not our actions. If we binged, we likely just had our character 2 (fear) on center stage. And instead of doing a brain huddle and utilizing the traits and skills of each character, we just listened to and trusted our character 2. Who is, notoriously, not very trustworthy. And beating ourselves up after the binge, is still giving character 2 the spotlight.The whole brain approach helps us disassociate our innate value and identity with our brains. So when we feel overwhelming, negative emotions, instead of trying to avoid them because they're painful, or trying to logic our way out of them with thoughts like (“I shouldn't be feeling this, this isn't a big deal. This is fine. Everything is fine.), we can more easily recognize that maybe our character 1 Ego is giving something more significance than it should. Or maybe our character 2 (our Fear) just needs to throw a tantrum right now, and the rest of our characters can let it do that in a safe way, acknowledging that this part of its function, this is healthy. And when we stop judging our character 2, we can let it throw a fit, and then once it calms, begin the process of truly understanding what was at the heart of the reaction - ultimately, growing in our self-awareness and our resiliency. Whole Brain Living gives us the language to really know more about our subconscious thoughts, feelings and actions. We can notice things like “Oof, I'm getting hyper focused on details and nothing I do seems good enough right now. I wonder if my character 1 (ego) is taking over the rest of the team. How would my characters 3 (love) and 4 (soul) respond to this situation? What would that look like? How would that feel in my body? That question by the way, how does this feel in my body, is so effective because it immediately puts your character 4 (soul) back online.Schedule a free 30 minute call with me: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

Today's topic is called ‘thieves of joy.' You might be familiar with the saying that comparison is the thief of joy. And if you've ever experienced jealousy or envy, you will understand how joy-sucking comparison can be. I want to talk about comparison, but I also want to talk about the other thief of joy, and that's judgement. And the reason I want to talk about these thieves of joy on a binge eating podcast is because comparison and judgement are actions that don't serve our lives. And so much of binge eating recovery is about healing our relationships with ourselves. Acting in ways that aren't in alignment with our truest selves, our souls, is often a rooted source of our binge eating behavior. Acting in ways that we don't genuinely want to act is one majorly disruptive way we damage our relationships with ourselves. Now remember, a ‘healed relationship with yourself' isn't a destination, it's not a state of being that we reach. It's continuous, it's flowing. The more we learn more about ourselves, the more we uncover some of the pain, some of the disconnect that exists. And healing our relationship with ourselves doesn't mean getting to a place where we're happy all the time. It's more of being able to access our truest self, our inner core, our soul, so that we can show up (both internally and externally) in the world in a way that's true, while loving ourselves when we don't show up authentically; loving ourselves when we fall short of what is true for us.Typically, we often harbor these disconnecting feelings and actions and first, don't realize that we have them so we stay in the dark and block self-awareness, and then, after so much self-denial and shielding, we binge eat. Often when we binge eat, we don't even know why we're doing it. We just think ‘oh, I must just really like food.” But binge eating is a way to soothe and comfort ourselves. When we don't look under the hood, when we don't lift the veil of confusion and begin to understand ourselves more, we won't know what's there. That self-disconnect is what drives binge eating for so many of us.Schedule a free consult call with me at sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram @sammybeecoaching

If your current perspective is telling you that you're not enough right now, that you have to accomplish this impossible thing or goal in order to just be on the same level as everyone else – that perspective is not helping you expand and grow. It's digging you into a deep hole, one that blinds you from what's really true. What's really possible for you. Having a big picture perspective doesn't take away pain and suffering of life, but it puts it into the correct angle. When you can zoom out and do something I call “think with your soul,” you're able to see more, to know more, to believe more about what's possible. And from that vantage point, you can live a bigger, more expansive, more true life.If you're done with your current perspective that keeps you small and your problems large, you should sign up for my 12-week End Secret Bingeing program. In the program, we learn about our perspectives, our beliefs that hold us back without our consent. And we do the work to recalibrate our perspective. To reconnect with ourselves and our inner wisdom instead of subscribing to the beliefs of diet culture.

The more we can support ourselves in our gentle descent back to earth, the easier our landings will get. The less we'll be afraid of the crashes and the damage. So taking flight will be less scary, because we know we got our back when it's time to land.And that's huge. It's huge. Because it makes us more resilient. It makes us more secure in ourselves so that we can take the bigger flights. So that we can have more courage, more confidence because we know that falling or failing doesn't have to be so painful, so destructive. Instead of learning how to fly perfectly all of the time, what if we learned how to take really good care of the kite? What if we patched the holes, replaced the fabric, reinforced the poles? What if we learned the techniques of how to gracefully land it?Tune in and find out!Schedule a free 30-minute consultation call with me!Follow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

Right now, most of us spend more time focused on the actions we're taking instead of the reasons we're taking them. What would happen if you reversed that priority? What would your life become if you focused more on your reasons for doing something rather than the action itself?Listen to find out.Schedule a call with me: sammybeecoaching.com/scheduleFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

We are often told to channel our future self so we can honor her and reach our goals. And it's great advice, channeling your future self is such a great tool for achieving goals because, let's say your goal is to make a certain amount of money – it's helpful to spend time with the version of you that's making that amount of money. What does she believe about herself? What does she believe about money? What does she feel regularly? What does she think when she fails? What does she think when she wins? What does she do most days? How does she show up?It's so helpful to visualize your future self to shape and direct your life into the version that you love and that is intentional. It's helpful to spend time with your future self to get to know her belief systems and perspectives. In fact, I recommend spending time each day – just 5 minutes if you can – to be with her. Get in her mindset and fill your present self up with the love and belief that she has to offer, because she has so much of it to offer you.But before recovery, my future self was not me. She wasn't real. She was a perfect robot and she wasn't attainable. She wasn't' me. She was some version of me that I thought I had to be to be considered enough. What's changed, is that I've opened up space for Young Me as well. Because Young Me, had lots of wisdom and truth to love to share. She's the real me. What I think you'll find, is that your future self is just a larger, more expansive version of your young self. The little girl who knew that her worth wasn't contingent on achievements or appearance. The little girl who was there before she was made to doubt her worthiness, before all that pain and trauma was put onto her. She, too, has so much wisdom; so much love and belief to offer. In fact, she's the one who started it all.What did she think? What did she feel? What did she do? Before she was told she wasn't good enough, what did she believe? Maybe to her, growing and expanding is desirable simply because it's fun. Not because she has to to be good enough. What if you could embody that energy?So maybe it's about channeling our future self, but doing it from a place of being grounded with our Young Self. Maybe it's about re-discovering our Young Self who's been with us all along, trying desperately to get us to listen. Instead of living how everyone else thinks we should live, maybe she's screaming at us to tell us to love her, trust her, believe in her and honor her by living as authentically, as truthfully, as we can. Schedule a free call with me!Follow me on Instagram @sammybeecoaching

As dieters, the research shows that the more we're told we shouldn't eat something (the more we're told negative messages about it, like it's a “bad” food), the more we want it and the more we eat it. The research also shows that non-dieters do not have this problem. The study I'm referring to (which I'll link in the show notes) demonstrated that dieters who saw a message focusing on the negative aspects of “bad” food (vs. a positive or neutral message) increased their desire for and consumption of “bad” foods. Non-dieters, on the other hand, were unfazed by the messages and their consumption of the “bad” foods remained the same, regardless of what messages they were shown.So, when we mentally restrict foods by placing moral values on them as “bad” or “unhealthy” we are triggering our rebel brain to accentuate those foods, to make them very important to us, to increase our desire for them and also our consumption of them. This might be why you're constantly thinking about food, especially the foods that you've placed a lot of mental restriction around. Our psychological reactance is being triggered. We're distressed, anxious, and we over-desire the restricted foods to restore our freedom and autonomy, all in an effort to protect our core Self. View the studySchedule a free 30-minute consult call with meFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

Often, the pain that we want to avoid, centers around our worthiness; specifically when we start to doubt or question our worthiness. When we're born, we can all agree that we're 100% worthy, right? Babies are worthy. And we've done nothing to earn it. We just exist. And we're enough. And then, somewhere along the way, we pick up all these messages that make us question our innate worthiness. And a lot of our suffering comes from this mistaken belief that we're actually not as valuable anymore, that we can somehow lose some of our worthiness because we don't do or say or look exactly the way we're taught we should. We're taught these implicit or sometimes explicit messages from our family of origin, from society, from our dominate culture's narrative, from the media, from our friends and bullies. We subconsciously pick up messages, often completely unaware that it's happening, that say if we don't do something or appear a certain way, we somehow, lose some of our value. It's like we have to keep striving or maintaining this “thing”, this category that our brain has deemed very important, to be considered worthy or even of equal value to others. I call these things worth hangers – things that we hang our worthiness on. These are categories that our brains have deemed so important that we've hinged our entire value as a human on them. Things that, if we act or appear a certain way (if we deliver on the worth hanger), we feel more valuable and if we don't, we feel less valuable as a human. We don't think this consciously, of course, it all happens subconsciously. I think a lot of us would say, “Yes, I'm worthy” – intellectually we believe that, however that's rarely the case when we look under the hood. And that's why we want to bring it to the surface so we can address it today.There are lots of worth hangers that we as humans hang our worthiness on. But in my experience with binge eaters, there are 5 that really rise to the top and today I share them with you on the podcast.Schedule a free 30-minute consultation call with me: sammybeecoaching.comFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

In your life you will feel shame, stress, fear, doubt, anxiety, guilt. That's going to happen. And the research actually shows that the people who strive more for happiness are the ones that in fact are less happy. And that's because, they're running from the discomfort. We think discomfort and pain are these big scary things and if we experience them that means we're doing something wrong. Something went wrong. However, it's the running from the discomfort and pain that make them big and scary. What if we just allowed them, accepted them as the 50/50 part of life? What if we didn't freak out when we started feeling negative emotion? What if we just offered ourselves some love and compassion instead of running for the hills? So much of our suffering is caused by our expectations not being met. What if we just allowed room for our expectations not to be met? What if we allowed the disappointment to be there and truly embraced that this is just how life is. It's 50/50. And I don't mean that in a helpless, powerless, way, I mean it in a freeing and empowering way. You can't actually be perfect. Life can't actually be perfect. So why don't we just try and fail, and try again?Schedule a free 30 minute consultation call with me: https://www.sammybeecoaching.com/scheduleFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

In this week's episode, I teach you a fundamental tool, created by my teacher Brooke Castillo from the Life Coach School where I was certified, however it's based in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. And it's really this universal truth, it's a helpful tool to help manage our minds so we're not just believing everything we think and feel. It's essential for any type of personal growth, however for binge eating in particular, it really helps identify those binge-causing thoughts, which is key to recovery.  The tool is called the self-coaching model, or what we often refer to as simply ‘the model', and it's this truth that in the world, there are circumstances that occur. Things happen or just exist. And all of these things are actually neutral and don't innately have a bunch of moralistic meaning to them, until we give them meaning with our thoughts. These neutral circumstances are things that are factual with no opinions or hyperboles brought in. They could be proven in a court of law. And they just are. For example, there is a cup  of coffee on my desk. The sun is shining. Those are what we're calling circumstances. When the circumstance happens, or even if we just remember an existing circumstance, our brain offers up some thoughts. Often these thoughts are subconscious, they happen without us really being aware of them. But when we think these thoughts, we have feelings because of the thoughts – not because of the circumstance itself. And when we feel a certain feeling, often that will drive us to act or not act in a certain way. And that action or inaction, creates certain results in our lives. So the process is: a neutral circumstance exists, then we think a thought about that circumstance, that thought causes a feeling, that feeling drives an action or inaction, and that action or inaction creates the results in our lives. Zooming out, we can infer that our thoughts create our results, our circumstances do not.  This universal truth greatly impacts our lives and empowers us to not be at the mercy of our circumstances and our feelings. Tune in to learn it!Schedule a free consult call with me: https://www.sammybeecoaching.com/scheduleFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

Throughout my recovery, I've tried lots of ways to feel my feelings without food. I've read lot of books, listened to lots of podcasts, went on a lot of walks, done lots of meditations, there are countless ways to approach this topic. But I've boiled it down to a method that works for me. I've borrowed a lot from other teachers and leaders in this space and want to share how I go about feeling my feelings now that I've recovered from binge eating. On this episode, I specifically talk about how to process ‘negative' or uncomfortable feelings, because those are the ones we typically avoid, however it's important to note that processing positive feelings is also a useful skill.If you'd like a camera roll graphic of the process, DM me on Instagram: @sammybeecoachingSchedule a free 30 minute consultation call with me: https://www.sammybeecoaching.com/schedule

Mental restriction is really just feeling guilt/shame/judgement/stress about eating. It's born out of food rules that we've picked up from diet culture and basically these food rules, these thoughts and beliefs that we've adopted from diet culture, are making us feel guilty and stressed out over food, which leads us to binge. We treat these restrictive thoughts like they're our own (which I promise you, they're not – we weren't born believing that peanut butter was bad, we were lied to by diet culture that it was). These thoughts became beliefs because we thought them over and over, the more we think them the more established they become in our brains (the more deeply engrained the neural pathway becomes) and the truer they feel. But these thoughts are not true, my friends, and we can rewire our brains not to think these diet thoughts anymore, or at least not to believe them anymore, so alas, have hope. The first step, however, is awareness and that's what I want today's episode to help you with.Schedule a free 30 minute consultation call with me: https://www.sammybeecoaching.com/scheduleFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoachingGetting a bigger slice of the pie. Effects on eating and emotion in restrained and unrestrained eaters - StudyMind over milkshakes: mindsets, not just nutrients, determine ghrelin response - Study

For me, binge eating and weight shame became one big distraction. Which is weird to think about, but let me explain. All of my coping, all of my numbing was to avoid the true pain that was there. And that pain just wanted to be acknowledged and processed, it wanted to be known, felt and allowed. But the minute it would show up, food, bingeing and dieting distractions would derail me from the real work that needed to be done. It got to the point where every time I would experience pain, I would find a way to blame it on my weight. Everything was because I wasn't thin or toned enough. Instead of feeling the very true, very real painful emotions of heartbreak, betrayal, loneliness, fear, disappointment, my brain would want to distract. It would focus on if I were thin, none of this pain would be as bad. Which I know might sound odd to normal eaters, but that's how our minds often works when we suffer from disordered eating. My entire struggle with food, weight and bingeing was one big distraction from the real pain that was there.Taking the edge off, when done over and over, repeatedly and wholeheartedly, to the point where you can't stop. To the point where you obsess, is often where addiction shows up. I don't necessarily mean to say that you can be addicted to food, but I think there are addictive thought patterns and behaviors that we exhibit because we're just too afraid or too distracted or too whatever to be in our own pain. Follow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoachingBook a free 30-minute consult call with me: https://www.sammybeecoaching.com/schedule

Some helpful thoughts below - see which ones work best for you ❤️After a binge: Compassionate thoughtsI just binged and now I'm in pain. But, I am safe. My body and my soul need love and comfort now more than ever.I'm on my recovery journey. I really want to fix this behavior and I know that loving myself is the next right thing I can do.Recovery isn't a peaceful process; pain and longing are part of the journey. Loving myself through it is the only way I can keep going.This isn't who I am, this is a compulsive behavior I have adopted and I'm learning how to heal it.  I'm proud of myself for caring so deeply for my wellbeing.This is hard, but I'm here for me. I'm done rejecting myself. I'm showing up for me with love and that feels good.After a binge: Hopeful thoughtsI'm proud of being kind to myself, that's real progress and it feels full of love and gives me energy to keep going.I've spent a long time ignoring my body, so learning how to listen to her is a new skill that will take time. I'm proud of myself for tuning into her eventually, when I used to always ignore her. Even though I just binged, I know that I won't always binge. Even when I slip up, I know I have my back. I'm so proud I keep showing up for myself. My body will adapt to the binge so this isn't the end of the world. I know the more I tune into my body instead of turning away from her, the more progress I will make.I don't have to make this binge mean anything about me, except that I'm someone who is learning how to tune into my body when diet culture has taught me to ignore her.After a diet plan: Compassionate thoughts Strict diets give me the illusion of control and I can understand why I like feeling empowered. But my body knows what she needs so I can lessen my grip and learn to listen to her wisdom. That's true empowerment. My body is telling me that she's hungry and I want to honor her because she's knows what's best for her, not me. I deserve to eat when I am hungry. I'm afraid that I will eat too much, but I can listen to my body to tell me what she needs.I don't have to keep my body overly hungry or overly full at all times; She functions best when she is comfortably satisfied.It's scary to trust my body sometimes, it feels safer to follow the rules. But healing my binge eating means learning how to trust her. I can trust my body to tell me when she's hungry and when she's full. There are no rules when it comes to nourishing my body. The only one who knows what's best for my body is my body.After a diet plan: Hopeful thoughtsI'm proud of myself for letting go of the false control diet culture promises. I know that true power comes from listening to my body.Unlearning diet culture can feel like I'm giving up, but listening to and honoring my body is proof of real progress that will bring me to my goal of food freedom.Following my body's wisdom versus diet culture rules feels better in my body and more sustainable for the long term.Learning how to be compassionate even when I break my diet rules is real progress. I can empathize with the state of mind I was in when I created that diet plan. I'm doing the best I can. And I can't know what's best for my body until she tells me.Schedule a 30 minute consult call with me: https://www.sammybeecoaching.com/scheduleFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

Let's shed some light on why we binge so we can start taking the power of confusion and shame away. Knowledge is power people. And it's also just a lot more comfortable than not knowing, am I right? Schedule a free consultation call: https://www.sammybeecoaching.com/scheduleFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

They say that the people who are constantly striving to be happy are, ironically, less happy. I'm not saying we should accept things in our life that we don't like, I'm not saying we need to lower our standards, I'm saying we need to practice appreciation of what is, to appreciate when our needs are satisfied, to realize our enoughness and completeness just as we are so we can receive that bounty of pleasure that comes from appreciation of the present.Striving to change your life so you can feel happy, invalidates the life you have currently. And even if you want to change it, even if it's not everything you'd hoped it would be, there's still beauty in it. And it's just there, for you to enjoy and delight in. My invitation is for you to delight in it. My case for contentment is not that you stop trying to grow and evolve, but so that you experience the pleasure that comes from knowing the beauty and enoughness of what already is.To work with me, schedule a free consult call: https://www.sammybeecoaching.com/scheduleFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

The more I heal and recovery from my disordered eating, the more I loathe diet culture. I thought my whole life that my sweet tooth, my lack of self-control, my laziness, my body were the problem. But I now know that diet culture was the real villain in my story. My body and soul and mind were doing the best they could under its oppressive conditions.I want to call out compassion to those of us who are suffering inside diet culture. I want to remind you that there's no shame in still believing it, there's no shame in wanting to lose weight. There are real privileges that exist for thin people. And adding shame to your suffering will only hurt you more.My hope with this podcast and all my content and all of my coaching, is that I can show women their internalized oppression, not to shame them but to uplift, motivate and ignite them in their lives. So that they realize that they're the hero of their stories, and that they've been her all along.Schedule a free consult all: https://www.sammybeecoaching.com/scheduleFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

All or nothing thinking comes at a cost. The cost is not only just hiding or ignoring our truest self (which is what perfectionism does); the cost of all or nothing thinking is hurting our truest self. Knocking her down and rejecting her. It's when we're able to see our mistakes as neutral, when we take the pressure off of what we “should be” doing/saying/looking like, when we start checking in with our truest self and gaining from her wisdom versus shooting her down for being different or nonconforming – that's when we start living authentically. That's when we start to truly be known. My ask, friends, is that when we mistakes and failures occur, that we would accept them and give space to them. Maybe we'll begin to see that they weren't mistakes or failures at all actually. Maybe they were just messages from our true selves, reminding you that the vastness of life isn't found by following other people's rules perfectly.Book a consultation call with me: https://www.sammybeecoaching.com/scheduleFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

The 'thin dream' is a dream that most women in Western society have if their bodies don't currently fit the dominate ideal of a “thin body.” Society, family of origin, media all tell us that as women, we should be thin. Life is better if you're thin. You're more valuable if you're thin. So when you're not “thin,” as a way to cope, we sometimes fantasize about it. How life will be when we're thin. It's usually complete BS because thin people suffer too, but if you struggle with weight and body issues, you really believe the lie that thinness is the answer to all of life's problems. If you're a thin-bodied person that might sounds ludicrous, but it's actually not given the messages we receive about how ideal thin bodies are and how important body size and appearance are in general (which, to clarify, they're absolutely not).So today I want to share a poem I wrote about my battle with this thin dream- a battle I've had most of my life. If you're in the thick of this work, my hope is that it can provide some comfort or healing, however small.Book a consultation call: https://www.sammybeecoaching.com/scheduleFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

Our thoughts are independent of our situations. They are not caused by our situations, they are independent of them. They're optional. We get to choose them. Two people could have the exact same situation and each could think entirely different thoughts about that situation. We get to choose our thoughts. Which, trust me, is a powerful, lifechanging tool to master. However, there are some things to note:Your thoughts can't be intentionally chosen 100% of the timeThis isn't an excuse to victim blame; trauma is real and needs healing.You can't force yourself to believe a thought if it doesn't feel right in your body. Ladder thoughts, or neutral thoughts, are conduits for believing the thoughts that you want to believe.There's a difference between true thoughts and helpful thoughts. Thoughts that serve you are way more impactful than ones that feel the truest or loudest.And finally, changing your thoughts to bypass negative emotions is wasted energy. Lean into the discomfort, process the pain, learn from it and move on.Choosing your thoughts, intentionally, on purpose, is the secret to achieving your goals. You want to stop binge eating? Believing you can is the first important step. Believing that you don't need food to numb your emotions is an important belief to have. That belief will cause you to feel empowered, capable, loving, patient. These feelings will drive the actions of: processing emotions instead of numbing, healing old wounds, bettering your relationship with yourself, knowing yourself more. Which will ultimately lead to recovery.Schedule a free consult call: https://www.sammybeecoaching.com/scheduleFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

The problem is when food becomes our main source of pleasure and our main coping strategy.I'm not going to sit here and tell you that food isn't enjoyable. I'm a firm believer in eating enough to fuel your body and give you plenty of pleasure.But, if you're bingeing regularly, you're not using food for pleasure anymore. You're using it to numb the suffering.The work, my friends, is looking at the that suffering. Is getting curious about that suffering. What's really under there? There's something about claiming today as ‘a wasted day' that brings us relief. Because we don't have to feel bad (today anyway) about numbing our suffering with food. We get a day where we can utilize our best coping strategy to handle our suffering; we can deal with the pain tomorrow.Of course, tragically, that suffering doesn't go away; it is still there and is actually growing the more we escape and numb from it.The diet mentality of "today is a waste, I will start again tomorrow and be perfect then” is just one big giant distraction so you don't actually have to look in and do the work of addressing the pain and suffering stored in your body.It's a painful cycle that keeps you stuck. It blocks you from growth. It blocks you from healing. So how do we get off of this cycle? What are some tangible steps we can do today to start the journey of recovery?Listen and find out.Schedule a free consult call: https://www.sammybeecoaching.com/scheduleFollow me on Instagram: @sammybeecoaching

This one's a little different; it's spoken word poetry about the power of forgiving yourself.xoxo SammyHire me as your coach: https://www.sammybeecoaching.com/scheduleFollow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sammybeecoaching/