April 24, 2024 • 9 mins
If you've ever found yourself engaging in behaviors that you didn't want to whether it's
- eating more than you wanted to
- drinking more than you wanted to
- spending more $ than you wanted to
- texting your ex every time you get lonely, etc.
This episode will give you a technique to disrupt that and stop those unwanted behaviors.
Find out more about my work: www.melindagerdungcoaching.com
Book a session with me: https://calendly.com/gerdungmelinda/coaching-session
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:53):
Hey my friends. I had oralsurery this week and my mouth is
so puffy and painful. Sohopefully y'all can understand
me and I'm not slurring toomuch. I've started in my post
surgery invalid state watchingthis show on Hulu called 1000 lb
(01:22):
sisters. There's only seasonstwo and three on Hulu. And so
spoiler alert if you haven'tseen those seasons. So one of
the sisters weighs like 650pounds and her doctor has told
her that she has to get herweight under control or she has
(01:44):
an 80% chance of dying in thenext five years. And so he'll
give her like a short termweight loss goal to achieve
before he'll like approve herfor the gastric bypass surgery.
And she's been trying to do thisfor over a year. She already had
like one doctor give up on herbecause she always says that she
(02:05):
wants it and that she's gonna dowhat she got to do, but she
never actually does. She doesn'tfollow the diet that she's
supposed to be on. She doesn'tdo the daily steps the doctor
asked her to do. She basicallyjust sits around at home and
eats and drinks and talks todudes online. And the doctor is
just so frustrated with her andher whole family is so pissed
(02:29):
with her. They're all like, whatis going on with her like why
can't she get her shit together?
Like she's literally going todie if she doesn't change and if
that's not a kick in the pants,then what is? They're all just
like dumb founded. They don'tknow what to do. They don't know
how to help her.
(03:09):
She finally does decide toactually get her shit together
and she realizes that her actualissue is her mental health. And
so she does end up seeing atherapist along with the rehab
facility she ends up going into.
I'm sure there were a lot ofmental health issues that she
(03:32):
talked about with them offcamera. But the one that she
kept mentioning on camera wasthat she was an emotional eater.
Like when she gets in herfeelings, she just starts
eating. And I want to talk aboutthat because that is actually so
universal. We all do this evenif we don't do it with food
(03:53):
necessarily. We feel something.
We don't like it. And then we dosomething to try and make it go
away. Whether that's eating, ordrinking, or shopping, or
texting our ex. It comes down tonot having built the emotional
muscle to be able to toleratethe feelings that we don't like
(04:13):
and relying instead on getting ahit of dopamine to manage it.
(04:37):
And this is really common. Mostof us aren't taught as children
how to feel our feelings. We'retaught how to try to make our
feelings go away. Which is howwe can end up in trouble. So
instead of feeling our feelings,we eat or drink or doom scroll
for hours just to try to makeourselves feel better. But it's
(04:59):
the part where we have the urgeto make ourselves feel better
that is actually the problem.
The unwillingness to feelfeelings we don't necessarily
like is what makes us overeat orover drink or spend too much
money or spend hours scrollingsocial media and making
decisions that don't serve ourbest purpose or that we end up
(05:20):
regretting. I call thisresisting our emotions. We feel
something. We don't like it. Wefeel the urge to get rid of it.
And then we do some kind ofdopamine seeking activity. I've
done this so many times in mylife, because for most of my
life, I didn't know anydifferent. I thought what I was
doing was feeling my feelingsbecause I felt something and I
(05:42):
didn't like it. I didn't realizeI was heaping on a layer of
misery on top of the feelings byresisting them. That drive to
fix it is its own kind ofmiserable feeling on top of what
we're already feeling.
(06:19):
Plus, I have found when you usea dopamine seeking activity to
try to get rid of your feelings,you end up needing more and more
of it to get the same effect.
Like it's almost like you becomesort of immune and you have to
like up your dosage to get thesame dopamine. Do you know what
I mean? Like if you if you eat apiece of chocolate to make
yourself feel better. At somepoint that one piece stops
(06:42):
cutting it and you need morepieces to feel better. It ends
up being like this bottomlesspit that you can't really
satisfy. I think that's wherethis dopamine trap can get
really dangerous. That's how youend up 600 pounds or not being
able to sleep or socializewithout alcohol or going into
consumer debt for shoppingsprees. Right? What seemed like
(07:06):
an innocent way to make yourselffeel better can get out of hand
really quickly when you're usingit to try to feel better.
Because the effects don't last.
You have to keep repeating thedopamine seeking activity to
(07:28):
keep, you know, making yourselffeel better because it's not
really addressing what'sunderneath it. It's not
addressing the root cause. It'sjust trying to slap a bandaid on
it.
(07:54):
And it can spiral out of controlvery quickly.
(08:20):
It can become way more damagingthan the feeling itself that you
are trying so hard to avoid inthe first place. When I start
teaching clients how to actuallyallow their feelings instead of
resisting them, I have themstart by describing the
sensations in their body.
Emotions are just a vibration inour body. They aren't dangerous.
(08:43):
We might not like them, but theywon't hurt us. So I have them
notice and describe thesensations that they feel. Like
where do you feel it in yourbody? Where do you feel this
feeling in your body and bereally specific. Lots of clients
will try to tell me that theyfeel it everywhere. And I'm like
(09:05):
really you feel it in your earlobes? Be specific! Where do you
feel the sensations in yourbody? And what do those
sensations feel like? Describeit like you are describing it to
an alien who has no idea whatemotions are; who won't
understand grief or anxiety orwhatever. Describe the
(09:28):
sensations and what they feellike. Does it have a texture?
Does it have a temperature? Ashape? A color? Does it move?
How does it move? Describeeverything about it and name it
if you can. And if you feel theurge to make it go away, notice
that too. Remind yourself thatthat won't help. Nothing has
(09:51):
gone wrong. There is nothing tofix. And at some point the
feeling will pass, much quickerthan you expect it to. When we
don't resist the sensations,they actually flow through us
much quicker.
(10:16):
Resisting our emotions actuallyhas the effect where it prolongs
them because we don't addressit; we don't pay attention. Our
feelings are signals thatthere's something that needs our
attention. There's something weneed to pay attention to.
There's something we need toaddress. And when we use a
(10:37):
dopamine seeking activity tokind of ignore it and shove it
away, that emotion has to keepcropping up and trying to get
our attention. Whereas when weactually spend the time to
attend to it and feel it andnotice it, it tends to pass much
more quickly than when we weretrying to ignore it.
(11:15):
So I would invite you to give ita try my friends. It takes a
little practice before youactually start doing this
consistently and naturally. Ittends to feel awkward at first
like most things do. But try itout. Give it a few test runs and
let me know how it goes. Alrightmy friends until next time, be
(11:37):
well
Hey my friends. I had oralsurery this week and my mouth is
so puffy and painful. Sohopefully y'all can understand
me and I'm not slurring toomuch. I've started in my post
surgery invalid state watchingthis show on Hulu called 1000 lb
(01:22):
sisters. There's only seasonstwo and three on Hulu. And so
spoiler alert if you haven'tseen those seasons. So one of
the sisters weighs like 650pounds and her doctor has told
her that she has to get herweight under control or she has
(01:44):
an 80% chance of dying in thenext five years. And so he'll
give her like a short termweight loss goal to achieve
before he'll like approve herfor the gastric bypass surgery.
And she's been trying to do thisfor over a year. She already had
like one doctor give up on herbecause she always says that she
(02:05):
wants it and that she's gonna dowhat she got to do, but she
never actually does. She doesn'tfollow the diet that she's
supposed to be on. She doesn'tdo the daily steps the doctor
asked her to do. She basicallyjust sits around at home and
eats and drinks and talks todudes online. And the doctor is
just so frustrated with her andher whole family is so pissed
(02:29):
with her. They're all like, whatis going on with her like why
can't she get her shit together?
Like she's literally going todie if she doesn't change and if
that's not a kick in the pants,then what is? They're all just
like dumb founded. They don'tknow what to do. They don't know
how to help her.
(03:09):
She finally does decide toactually get her shit together
and she realizes that her actualissue is her mental health. And
so she does end up seeing atherapist along with the rehab
facility she ends up going into.
I'm sure there were a lot ofmental health issues that she
(03:32):
talked about with them offcamera. But the one that she
kept mentioning on camera wasthat she was an emotional eater.
Like when she gets in herfeelings, she just starts
eating. And I want to talk aboutthat because that is actually so
universal. We all do this evenif we don't do it with food
(03:53):
necessarily. We feel something.
We don't like it. And then we dosomething to try and make it go
away. Whether that's eating, ordrinking, or shopping, or
texting our ex. It comes down tonot having built the emotional
muscle to be able to toleratethe feelings that we don't like
(04:13):
and relying instead on getting ahit of dopamine to manage it.
(04:37):
And this is really common. Mostof us aren't taught as children
how to feel our feelings. We'retaught how to try to make our
feelings go away. Which is howwe can end up in trouble. So
instead of feeling our feelings,we eat or drink or doom scroll
for hours just to try to makeourselves feel better. But it's
(04:59):
the part where we have the urgeto make ourselves feel better
that is actually the problem.
The unwillingness to feelfeelings we don't necessarily
like is what makes us overeat orover drink or spend too much
money or spend hours scrollingsocial media and making
decisions that don't serve ourbest purpose or that we end up
(05:20):
regretting. I call thisresisting our emotions. We feel
something. We don't like it. Wefeel the urge to get rid of it.
And then we do some kind ofdopamine seeking activity. I've
done this so many times in mylife, because for most of my
life, I didn't know anydifferent. I thought what I was
doing was feeling my feelingsbecause I felt something and I
(05:42):
didn't like it. I didn't realizeI was heaping on a layer of
misery on top of the feelings byresisting them. That drive to
fix it is its own kind ofmiserable feeling on top of what
we're already feeling.
(06:19):
Plus, I have found when you usea dopamine seeking activity to
try to get rid of your feelings,you end up needing more and more
of it to get the same effect.
Like it's almost like you becomesort of immune and you have to
like up your dosage to get thesame dopamine. Do you know what
I mean? Like if you if you eat apiece of chocolate to make
yourself feel better. At somepoint that one piece stops
(06:42):
cutting it and you need morepieces to feel better. It ends
up being like this bottomlesspit that you can't really
satisfy. I think that's wherethis dopamine trap can get
really dangerous. That's how youend up 600 pounds or not being
able to sleep or socializewithout alcohol or going into
consumer debt for shoppingsprees. Right? What seemed like
(07:06):
an innocent way to make yourselffeel better can get out of hand
really quickly when you're usingit to try to feel better.
Because the effects don't last.
You have to keep repeating thedopamine seeking activity to
(07:28):
keep, you know, making yourselffeel better because it's not
really addressing what'sunderneath it. It's not
addressing the root cause. It'sjust trying to slap a bandaid on
it.
(07:54):
And it can spiral out of controlvery quickly.
(08:20):
It can become way more damagingthan the feeling itself that you
are trying so hard to avoid inthe first place. When I start
teaching clients how to actuallyallow their feelings instead of
resisting them, I have themstart by describing the
sensations in their body.
Emotions are just a vibration inour body. They aren't dangerous.
(08:43):
We might not like them, but theywon't hurt us. So I have them
notice and describe thesensations that they feel. Like
where do you feel it in yourbody? Where do you feel this
feeling in your body and bereally specific. Lots of clients
will try to tell me that theyfeel it everywhere. And I'm like
(09:05):
really you feel it in your earlobes? Be specific! Where do you
feel the sensations in yourbody? And what do those
sensations feel like? Describeit like you are describing it to
an alien who has no idea whatemotions are; who won't
understand grief or anxiety orwhatever. Describe the
(09:28):
sensations and what they feellike. Does it have a texture?
Does it have a temperature? Ashape? A color? Does it move?
How does it move? Describeeverything about it and name it
if you can. And if you feel theurge to make it go away, notice
that too. Remind yourself thatthat won't help. Nothing has
(09:51):
gone wrong. There is nothing tofix. And at some point the
feeling will pass, much quickerthan you expect it to. When we
don't resist the sensations,they actually flow through us
much quicker.
(10:16):
Resisting our emotions actuallyhas the effect where it prolongs
them because we don't addressit; we don't pay attention. Our
feelings are signals thatthere's something that needs our
attention. There's something weneed to pay attention to.
There's something we need toaddress. And when we use a
(10:37):
dopamine seeking activity tokind of ignore it and shove it
away, that emotion has to keepcropping up and trying to get
our attention. Whereas when weactually spend the time to
attend to it and feel it andnotice it, it tends to pass much
more quickly than when we weretrying to ignore it.
(11:15):
So I would invite you to give ita try my friends. It takes a
little practice before youactually start doing this
consistently and naturally. Ittends to feel awkward at first
like most things do. But try itout. Give it a few test runs and
let me know how it goes. Alrightmy friends until next time, be
(11:37):
well
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