On my last podcast episode, Heidi Andersen and I had a fantastic discussion about embodiment and how vital it is to be in your body in order to heal your relationship with it. (If you didn't listen to it yet, check it out here!)

After Heidi and I recorded that episode, I told her she had an open invitation to come back onto the show and expand on anything that we had just discussed. This invitation turned into the idea of her walking me through some embodiment exercises on the show that you could do as well. We immediately scheduled another recording and voila! This week's episode was done!

Just a reminder about Heidi and why she's the perfect person to be talking about this topic. Heidi is a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor Supervisor, Certified Body Trust® Specialist, Certified Safe and Sound Protocol Provider, Registered Yoga Teacher and Embodiment Specialist. She currently supports clients with Reclaiming Beauty, an outpatient group practice of body-centered psychotherapists specializing in weight inclusive treatment for the intersection of trauma, attachment wounds, and eating disorders through a body liberation lens and somatic approach.

Heidi believes embodiment heals and combines her studies of Somatic Internal Family Systems, Embodied Recovery for Eating Disorders, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and the Center for Body Trust® in her support of her clients. She is also the author of the Reclaiming Beauty Journal and Wisdom Deck, a resource created to support women in building a self-compassionate relationship with their body.

As we discussed in last week's episode, Heidi defines embodiment as:

The ability to land safely in our body in the present moment, just how we are.

For many of us, this takes some practice, patience, and guidance. And this is where Heidi comes in. When we discussed this episode, Heidi told me that she had a "million" embodiment exercises. In the interest of time, she chose to do three.

We start the episode with talking about why it's so important to work toward embodiment. Some of the many reasons for this are:

• Noticing how your body can be a resource (this might be news to your parts!)

• Learning how your body can help you regulate your nervous system

• Helping to shift the "violent" thoughts we tend to send toward our bodies

• Feeling comfortable with no longer avoiding your body

Heidi then walks me through three different exercises, checking in with my parts as we go along. It was an insightful experience for me, and I know it will be for you too!

Again, connecting with your body is a necessary part of healing your relationship with it, and I hope that these exercises help you to either begin that journey or further the work you're already doing. Take a listen!

I'll get right to it and be honest. Part of this week's podcast topic--GLP-1 medication--is not something I've really wanted to talk about. These are the medications that we're all hearing about nonstop--the ones that Oprah talked about in her recent special. I haven't wanted to give them much air time, because we hear about them so much everywhere else, and also because I don't really think my opinion on them matters. Although it's true that I have significant concerns about these medications and wish that we could move past weight loss as a goal, I also truly believe in bodily autonomy. If these medications seem right to you, what does it matter what I think of them?

So, I do mention them on this week's podcast, but it's only briefly and it's only to say two things:

1. If you're looking into taking them, please do your own independent research. Hopefully, you have a trustworthy physician who's looking out for your best interests. But if you don't, you might have someone who's not giving you all of the information. So please please please research the heck of them.
2. If you do take them/are taking them, please listen to what your body is telling you. If you're having any type of negative side effects, please take that seriously. All medications can have serious consequences, so you definitely want to listen to your body.

Moving on...

What I really wanted to focus on this week is food noise. This is a term you've probably heard about because they tend to talk a lot about it when they talk about GLP-1s. And since it seems like people are always talking about GLP-1s, they're also talking a lot about food noise.

Food noise isn't an official term or diagnosis--I don't know who coined it, but someone did and now that's how we refer to the constant internal chatter about food. This might be your experience: constantly thinking about food. That's food noise. It seems as though medication and even bariatric surgery have been found to quiet or at least decrease food noise in some people. But why is that?

No one really knows (one of my many sarcastic parts just rolled her eyes and said "Of course not..."). Sure, it may be due to some physiological change that the medication or surgery causes, such as a change in hormones related to hunger. But I don't think for one second that it's entirely physical. I think it makes total sense that it's at least a little bit psychological. And of course, that relates to parts.

In this episode, we're talking about the psychological factors that might be at play here in the quieting of food noise. I give you four reasons why I think food noise quiets with medications/surgery (spoiler alert: it's not because of the medication or surgery itself), which leads into a discussion on why you don't need medication or surgery to get food noise to soften.

If you're someone who experiences loud levels of food noise, my heart goes out to you. I know that can be at the very least irritating and at times even debilitating. I can absolutely understand wanting to do whatever it takes to make it stop. Hopefully, this week's podcast can shed some light on how to do that without medication/surgery, or in tandem with them.

I have a question for you. What do you know about your early years? Like from birth to age two? And what do you know about your mom's pregnancy with you?

If you're like me, not a whole lot.

Turns out, though, this is really good information to have. According to this week's podcast guest, Colleen West, these early years and your experiences within have an incredible influence on the development of your relationship with food.

Especially when it comes to the nurturance and attunement given to you by your caretakers. I'll let Colleen explain it herself:

"For babies that don’t get tended to reliably, they end up with more need to autoregulate, to soothe from the outside. And that often gets linked with food. And it begins a whole lot of other behaviors and deep burdens that last long into your life, unless those young parts get cared for."

Did that just resonate with a lot of your parts? I know it did with mine.

Preverbal parts are Colleen's specialty, and I'm thrilled to have her back on the show to take a much deeper dive than we did in our first conversation (catch that episode here). Colleen is all about creating connection: between you and your parts, between you and your loved ones, between you, your community, and the wider world. She is unabashedly optimistic about the human capacity to heal, to tap into the wellspring of compassion that is Self. Her professional focus is healing preverbal attachment trauma.

As a Marriage and Family Therapist and IFS Consultant, she devotes herself to training and mentoring psychotherapists, and writing. Thanks to Zoom, she is training therapists all over the world. She is author of We All Have Parts: An Illustrated Guide to Healing Trauma with Internal Family Systems (2021) and The IFS Flip Chart (2023). She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and the fabulous dog Sky. In her leisure, she likes spending time in nature and preparing feasts for family and friends. More at www.colleenwest.com and www.smarttherapytools.com.

On this week's podcast, Colleen and I talk about how those early years are so important, and how a lack of nurturance and attunement by parents (with even the best of intentions) can lead to the use of food--or the restriction of food--as a soothing mechanism. In the episode, we discuss:

• Why hunger can lead to feelings of panic
• How a lack of nurturance in infancy leads to feelings of loneliness, isolation, and fear, and how all of that can impact our relationship with food
• How our early experiences can lead us to disconnect from our bodies and their experiences of hunger
• The behavioral cues that indicate a lack of nurturance in infancy
• How IFS can help to heal the exiles that weren't cared for

Colleen also leaves us with three important points:

1. If you're currently a parent of young children, do your best to be present with them;
2. If you're in therapy, slow down and notice your parts and your bodily sensations, and focus on your preverbal years; and
3. Your own Self-Energy can heal your parts.

This was truly a wonderful, aha-inducing episode that I know will resonate with your parts. Take a listen!

You can find Colleen at:

www.colleenwest.com

www.smarttherapytools.com

Where to find me:

drkimdaniels.com

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And if you'd like to take a deep dive into your own relationship with food, considering joining one of my Food and Body Freedom groups for therapists/practitioners and for non-therapists.

If you celebrated Easter yesterday (and even if you didn't), you probably have some leftover candy in your house. Which means you also probably have some parts who are very anxious about this candy. Or who have already eaten quite a bit of it. Or who have put it high up on a shelf so that hopefully you'll forget about it.

Having a lot of candy in the house can be difficult for some of our parts. It can also be a big party for others! Likely, you're going back and forth between wanting to eat it all and hoping your willpower holds out so that you don't eat any.

Both sides of that polarization are extreme, aren't they? No, it's probably not great for your body to binge on a lot of chocolate. But it's also totally normal to eat candy.

On this week's podcast, we're talking about how to handle this polarization. It's a pretty short episode so we aren't diving too deep, but I wanted to at least offer some perspective and support.

So...what do you do about this candy?

First and foremost, remind yourself that these are parts. It's very easy to become blended with these parts quickly and seemingly completely. But these are parts. They are not Self. Yes, your Self may enjoy some candy, but it's not feeling obsessed about eating it. Self is also not adamant that you don't eat the candy. Again--do your best to remind yourself that these are parts.

Second, remind yourself that the parts that want to eat the candy and the parts who want to restrict the candy are all trying to protect you in the only way they know how. Take some time to get to know them and get curious about who they're protecting.

Third, hold a little meeting with your parts. Ask anyone who has anything to do with the candy to meet with you and talk about what's going on for them. And ask them to give you space so that you get to know everyone. Try to figure out a way to handle the candy that everyone can agree to. That may not be possible, but I would almost guarantee that it will be a less extreme polarization than it was previously.

And finally, if and when you do eat the candy, eat it mindfully. Really take the time to notice it, taste it, and enjoy it. Actually, if you slow down and eat it mindfully, you might realize that you don't even like it. Sometimes our kid parts take over and lead us to food that our adult selves just don't even like any more.

I hope that helps, and I hope that you're able to feel more peaceful in your own home. Just keeping getting to know the parts of you that have anything to do with food, and you'll be ready for the next candy season!

Where to find me:

drkimdaniels.com

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Trigger warning: on this episode, we're talking about trauma and how traumatic experiences can impact your relationship with food and your body. If you're just not up for this topic, take care of yourself and pass it by.

Trauma and eating disorders often go hand-in-hand. Indeed, research has suggested that up to 50% of those diagnosed with eating disorders meet the criteria of PTSD. So if we're going to talk about food and body concerns, we need to talk about trauma.

From an IFS perspective, it makes complete sense that some of your parts would use food to manage the impact of trauma. Providing traumatized parts with food is one way to comfort them. Food is also a great way to distract yourself and numb your system. And restricting food can be highly effective in distracting yourself and feeling a much-needed sense of control.

It also makes complete sense that your parts would develop negative feelings toward your body if you've experienced trauma--especially trauma on or about your body.

This is a topic that I really want to delve into, which is why I invited my colleague Cinna Holsclaw to join me in discussing it. Cinna is a licensed clinical social worker with a practice in Utah. She’s a certified level 2 trained IFS therapist who is also trained in EMDR and Brainspotting. Cinna specializes in PTSD and c-PTSD and is very much aware of the correlation between trauma and food and body concerns. She's also just one of the nicest people I’ve ever met in my life, so I’m really excited to have her on.

Because this is such an important topic, Cinna and I will be recording a few episodes on trauma and food/body concerns, and we're also in the planning stages of developing trainings on the topic. We're also planning a retreat for therapists and practitioners who would like to look at their own trauma history and food/body concerns as well as learn how to help their clients (if you haven't already, please head here to indicate your interest in getting more info on the retreat).

But on today’s episode, Cinna and I start with an overall discussion about trauma and how it relates to food and body concerns. We discuss:

• What is c-PTSD

• How parts use food in various ways to cope with trauma

• How food physically impacts your system (i.e. why we turn to carbs for comfort!)

• Epigenetics and legacy burdens

Again, this is just the beginning of this very important discussion so stay tuned for more. Take a listen!

Where to find Cinna:

Cinnamon Holsclaw

Where to find me:

Where to find me:

drkimdaniels.com

Instagram

TikTok

If you're a therapist, practitioner, or coach who’s interested in joining us for a retreat (likely in early 2025), head here to let me know you'd like more info!

Let me ask you a question: have you ever thought of yourself as a binge eater? Or maybe you've noticed that you have a part that binges? This is something that many people engage in at least sometimes, and for some folx it happens daily.

But what exactly is binge eating? I find that many of my clients describe themselves as binge eaters, but they actually aren't. And to me, if you're going to use a label, be sure it's accurate.

According the field of psychiatry and the DSM-V, a binge is characterized as:

1. Eating, in a discrete period of time (e.g., within any 2-hour period), an amount of food that is definitely larger than most people would eat in a similar period of time under similar circumstances
2. The sense of a lack of control over eating during the episode (e.g., a feeling that one cannot stop eating or control what or how much one is eating)

Honestly, I don't find this definition particularly helpful (and I go into why that is on this week's podcast episode). But, in general, binge eating is eating a large amount of food and feeling out of control. It's not merely eating foods that you "shouldn't" or eating in response to your emotions. I think many people don't realize this. They consider a binge to be eating three cookies after a stressful work meeting. That may be emotional eating, but that's not bingeing.

On this week's podcast, we're talking about binge eating. We get into:

• What binge eating technically is and why the diagnostic criteria are problematic
• Why it happens from a physical perspective
• Why it happens from a psychological perspective (i.e. how does IFS view binge eating)

Then we get into what's known as the binge/restrict cycle. This is a pattern wherein people go back and forth between binge eating and restricting (dieting) and back to binge eating again. This can happen over the course of a day, a week, a couple months, or even a few years. It's an extremely frustrating cycle that's very hard to get out of.

In IFS terms, this cycle is a polarization between binge eating parts and restricting parts. Each side takes over at different times, leaving you stuck in a ping pong match between your parts. We discuss this cycle at length in the podcast, and we talk about how to get out of it.

If you think you've ever binged, this is a great episode to listen to. I hope that it clarifies some things for you. And I hope that it gives you some ideas on how to stop the cycle.

And speaking of gaining more clarity, just a reminder that the Food and Body Freedom Workshop Series is starting on Tuesday, March 19th, 2024. I've got three experiential workshops planned that will help you to understand:

• why you use food the way you do
• the familial and cultural influences on your relationship with food and your body
• how to treat your body with kindness

You can do all three workshops or pick and choose the ones that appeal to you.

Where to find me:

drkimdaniels.com

Instagram

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