Look Behind the Scenes to Ease Your Mind
I had a conversation with my daughter a couple of weeks ago that immediately inspired an idea for this blog post. It all started when my oldest son, who is 11 and not scared of much at all, wanted to watch a trailer of a movie about aliens. The trailer wasn’t too scary in my opinion, and he watched it a couple of times before my 9-year-old daughter became interested. I figured it would be okay for her to see it as well, and she seemed fine at the time; but later, she told me that a certain image of an alien scared her and she couldn’t stop thinking about it.
After some initial “mom guilt” for letting her watch it in the first place, and telling her no more scary movie previews, I told her simply that it wasn’t real and there was nothing to be afraid of. Later, she brought it up again, and I said that her fearful thoughts about it would pass, and to try to focus on other things. After she brought it up for a third time, I started thinking of how I could do a better job of easing her mind.
Then, I remembered something my father used to say when I was scared of movies. He used to tell me to picture the camera operators recording the action, and to imagine the director, sound equipment, lighting…etc. behind the scenes. He told me to imagine the actors messing up while filming the scene and having to redo it over and over. He basically told me to turn my attention from the events happening on the screen and think about the events that created that scary scene in the first place.
I explained all of that to her, and also told her to see the people working to produce the amazing special effects that make it look so realistic. As we talked, I could see something shift in her. It seemed to really resonate and ease her fear, and she even laughed a little bit at imagining the movie from a new perspective.
As soon as the conversation was over, I immediately thought about how this “behind the scenes” view of a scary movie is related to binge eating recovery.
When you are looking at any of your harmful eating-disorder thoughts (including binge urges) from one angle, they can look real and powerful and can create feelings of fear. But, when you shift your perspective and look at those same thoughts and urges from another angle, they can look and feel completely different.
For example, if you look at your urges to binge as an indication of something you truly want or need, you’ll likely experience strong feelings of desire, and you’ll feel compelled to act on them. Viewing the urges as meaningful and powerful signals can make binge eating feel almost inevitable. But if you can instead look at where the binge urges are coming from – from a primal, instinctual system in your lower brain that is designed to maintain your habits – they will feel less intimidating. If you can see that the binge urges are automatic, faulty signals that have no real meaning to you, you can simply move on with your life without being affected. It’s the same with urges to engage in restrictive dieting. If you can view those urges to restrict as devoid of any truth or value, you may even find yourself laughing off thoughts about going on another diet.
You should know that, even with a new perspective, you may still experience some uncomfortable feelings, and I suspect this was the case with my daughter as well, in regard to the movie trailer. She likely still had some fearful thoughts, but the new “behind the scenes” perspective made it much more manageable, and gave her something to turn to, to ease her mind. It’s the same in binge eating recovery. Even though some feelings of discomfort, anxiety, fear, or frustration may arise, you can tolerate those feelings as you move toward lasting change.
Being that it’s Halloween in the US when I’m posting this, there is another analogy I’d like to use to illustrate how looking behind the scenes allows you to manage uncomfortable feelings…
Let’s say you go in one of those “haunted houses” on Halloween where people dress up in costumes to intentionally scare you. Even though you know it isn’t real, you probably still have some fear (of course you do, that’s what you pay for in a haunted house!). But, your fear is tolerable, because you know what’s behind the scenes. You can visualize the people behind the masks, just having fun trying to act as scary as possible. You know it’s harmless, and you can even laugh at yourself when you jump with fright or when you scream. If you thought it was real, the experience of an haunted house would be too terrifying for anyone.
Whether it’s a haunted house, a scary movie, or an eating disorder thought or urge, when you know how it all works, it allows you to experience it without feeling so threatened. You no longer feel like you have to run and hide, fight back, or do whatever you have to do to make the thoughts and uncomfortable feelings go away. You stop feeling like you have to jump into action and perform harmful behaviors. You can simply step back, look behind the scenes, and realize that you are safe.
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What Makes Recovery “Work”? Part III (You Don’t Need to Work so Hard)
This is the 3rd and final post in my blog series, “What Makes Recovery Work?”. In Part I, I talked about expectations surrounding what it means for a recovery method to work. In Part II, I discussed the work you personally need to do in recovery, which is to dismiss each urge to binge (and also eat enough food). Now in Part III, I want to talk about eliminating unnecessary work in recovery.
When I was in therapy for binge eating, it felt like I had a lifelong journey of work ahead of me in order to stop the harmful behavior and then to maintain my recovery. But, since then, I’ve seen that it’s not necessary to work so hard to put aside the binge eating habit.
I know you aren’t afraid of doing work; I know you aren’t expecting recovery to be effortless; and I know you are willing to do what it takes to stop your binge eating. Working hard is certainly not a bad thing, but if right now, you feel that your hard work hasn’t gotten you closer to freedom from binge eating, you may be doing work that isn’t actually targeting the binge eating problem.
Commonly, in traditional eating disorder therapy, the work that is required has to do with managing emotions, healing pain from your past, and learning to cope better with daily stress. This is meaningful work that can help improve your life, but if it isn’t helping you avoid acting on the binge urges, it’s not helping with the binge eating specifically.
It can be baffling when you feel you are doing all of the hard work that therapy requires and you are still binge eating. If you find yourself in this situation, you may understandably start to look for something else to work on, and then something else after that. This can lead to a constant state of trying to find another problem to solve, or something else within yourself to fix, hoping it will eventually put an end to your binge eating.
You may also be working on improving and fixing the way you are eating, thinking that will get rid of the binge episodes. You may be trying to create the perfect meal plan, or trying to adhere to strict eating guidelines, so you may be working hard every day measuring, counting, and weighing your food intake. Additionally, you could be going through a lot of trouble to avoid certain foods that you believe are problematic or addicting, or you may be trying to research nutrition and take all of the right supplements.
Although improving your eating in ways that feel good to you is a positive thing, and although it’s certainly important to make sure you eat adequately, it’s possible you are putting a lot of unnecessary time and energy into your eating plan, without it making much of a difference in your binge eating. It can feel like a never-ending quest when you are always looking for something else to fix or change about your diet, hoping that will put a stop to the binges.
If you think a lot of hard work is required for recovery, it only makes sense that you would keep looking for something else to solve or fix, whether that’s in your life, your relationships, your personality, your emotions, or the way you are eating. It’s admirable, and shows determination and resilience. But, I know how frustrating it feels when it seems like no matter what you work on, you still end up binge eating.
What if working harder in recovery is not the answer?
It is my belief that no matter how much you improve your life, your emotional state, your relationships, your ability to cope, or the way you are eating, binge urges will still inevitably come up. Even if you work very hard in all of those areas, you’ll still be left with the fundamental work of recovery: not acting on the binge urges.
To stop acting on the binge urges, what if less work is actually more effective?
I had a conversation with Dr. Amy Johnson on my podcast last week, and part of what we talked about was how just seeing your binge eating habit differently can allow change to occur without the struggle or without needing to work so hard. When you have a fundamental shift in the way you view your urges and respond to them, it suddenly seems unnecessary to sort out and deal with all of your other problems or have a perfect eating plan in order to stop binge eating.
So, instead of thinking “what other problems and difficult emotions can I work on in recovery?”, you can change your mindset and think, “how can I work on developing a new perspective about the urges and respond to them differently?”
Ending binge eating doesn’t need to feel like intense, complicated, or tedious work. The work can simply be you deeply seeing that the urges do not express your true wants and needs, and then learning to connect with your own power to avoid acting on them.
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If you want help in increasing your ability not to act on binge urges, and you are new to the Brain over Binge approach, you can get started with my free eBook.
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