February 13, 2025 • 31 mins
What if your struggles with food have nothing to do with food itself? In this episode of Redefining Us, Ashlyn Burnett, a National Board-Certified Health and Wellness Coach, shares the powerful connection between the nervous system and our relationship with food.
Ashlyn shares how polyvagal theory explains the different states of the nervous system and how these states influence eating behaviors. From the fight-or-flight urge to restrict or obsess over food to the shutdown response that leads to binge eating and disconnection, she breaks down why so many women feel trapped in cycles of control, guilt, and emotional eating.
There is a way out though. Through nervous system regulation, inner healing, and somatic work, Ashlyn teaches how to find freedom from food where eating becomes intuitive, nourishing, and no longer a source of anxiety or shame.
Connect with Ashlyn:
Podcast: Heart Led Wellness
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Would you like to chat more about this episode's topic? I would love to continue our conversation over on Instagram! @wellmindedcounseling
I wrote a book! Becoming Mommy: Aligning with yourself and finding your voice during pregnancy and motherhood, available at all major retailers - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DZT9P3RB?ref=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_KFT90ZBDS48FDGG6DH5X&ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_KFT90ZBDS48FDGG6DH5X&social_share=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_KFT90ZBDS48FDGG6DH5X&bestFormat=true
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
A lot of times clients struggle with a really
(00:02):
small capacity where things sendyou into overwhelm very easily.
Like you have a stressful day, Ineed to go eat food to cope with
the stress.
And the place we want to get tois not avoiding our stress or
using all these stressmanagement strategies to calm
ourselves down, but to actuallyfeel safe and okay sitting in
the middle of the messiness oflife without it dysregulating us
(00:24):
too much.
So I can have a stressful day.
I can feel angry.
I can feel upset.
I can feel scared.
because I don't know what'shappening in my life.
And I still have access to thepart of me that feels safe and
trusts that this is allunfolding for me and that I'm
okay.
And the ability to do that andhave access to safety in the
middle of dysregulation has alot to do with being in the body
(00:45):
and learning how to actuallydrop out of the head into the
body.
So we're not spending so muchtime mentally obsessing over
food and we're more present tothe actual sensations that are
moving in our body at thismoment.
SPEAKER_01 (00:59):
This is Redefining Us, and I'm your host, Stephanie
Contrera, licensed professionalcounselor.
And I'm so glad that you joinedus today so we can dive into
what it means to be a woman intoday's society, figuring out
how we balance everything, howwe grow, how we be more
authentically us, and figuringout who we are through the
(01:21):
transitions of life, whetherthat be motherhood, success,
relationships, and all thingsthat have happened in women's
lives.
because it's definitely not alinear journey and I think by
talking about it and normalizingit and validating, we can all
rise together and be the womenthat we were meant to be.
(01:41):
So keep tuning in and I am soexcited about joining the
conversation and being in yourears each week.
Let's get into it.
Welcome back to Redefining Us.
Today I have with me AshleyBurnett, and she is a National
(02:02):
Board Certified Health andWellness Coach and has a
Bachelor's in Science inIntegrative Healthcare.
Ashley specializes in guidingwomen to find peace in the
relationship with food, body,and life as a whole.
Ashley works with her clients toaddress the deeper roots of why
they feel out of balance intheir physical and mental health
(02:22):
through healing the nervoussystem and doing deeper inner
work.
Ashlyn is experienced in workingwith debilitating gut issues
that doctors couldn't fix,severe acne and eating disorder,
anxiety, depression, and more.
After years of struggling withthese physical and mental
issues, health issues, she hasfinally found the healing that
she has craved all along.
It didn't come from a pillbottle or a therapist's office.
(02:45):
It came from deeper innerhealing that addressed why she
felt unworthy, obsessive, andperfectionistic in the first
place.
Now her life's mission is tohelp others find that same
freedom.
Ashton's determined to showwomen that you don't have to
choose between your passion forhealth and desire for food
peace, but you can have healthwithout it becoming obsessive or
(03:06):
orthorexic.
So thank you so much for beinghere today, Ashlyn.
SPEAKER_00 (03:11):
Of course, Stephanie.
Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_01 (03:12):
Yes.
So yeah, I don't know if youwant to share anything else with
the listener.
I know I just shared a lot, butbefore we dive into the
questions, if you have anythingelse you'd like to share.
SPEAKER_00 (03:25):
Yeah, I'm super grateful and honored to be here.
And it's always a little bitwild to hear somebody read back
your story because it's suchlike a short little synopsis of
everything that really unfoldedfor me to be where I'm at today.
But I'm really just sopassionate about helping women
heal their relationship withfood.
And I myself went through a avery tumultuous journey with
(03:48):
food and my body starting from ayoung age as many women have and
I feel like I spent the wholefirst you know 20 years of my
life feeling really unsafe in mybody and wishing I could
constantly change my body orlike teleport myself into
somebody else's body and thatalso manifested as disordered
eating and feeling superobsessed with food and All of
(04:11):
those patterns and behaviorsthat can often come along with
wanting to change your body andnot feeling safe in your body.
And I tried a lot of traditionaltherapy and traditional ways of
recovering from disorderedeating.
And some of them, of course, didbring me some relief and brought
me out of a deep, you know,dark, really intense place.
(04:32):
But there was always this likelingering thing with food where
I always felt a little bitobsessive about it, a little bit
like the health freak, a littlebit too controlling.
with it still dealing with likeovereating or binging or feeling
out of control at night when Iwas eating food and all of those
lingering patterns that I hadwith food didn't fully release
or heal until I understood theconnection between food and the
(04:55):
nervous system and started todeep dive into polyvagal theory
and all the things aroundnervous system regulation and
healing and when I realized thisconnection between food and the
nervous system I had so muchinner transformation in my own
life and now this is what IAwesome.
It sounds like you
SPEAKER_01 (05:19):
really have a reason why this is so important to you,
which I imagine reallytranslates with the clients that
you work with.
SPEAKER_00 (05:27):
Yeah, for sure.
I feel like having a connectionto the person who's sitting in
front of you and knowing thatyou've been in their shoes
before, and it's not somethingthat you've just like read in a
textbook, but something thatyou've lived and breathed brings
a different level of comfort tomy clients for sure.
SPEAKER_01 (05:42):
Yeah.
So you spoke of this already,but what is the connection
between disordered eating andmenorrhagic syndrome?
SPEAKER_00 (05:51):
Yeah, so basically food has nothing to do with
food.
I say this all the time on likesocial media and my podcast and
with my clients.
It's not about food.
And what I mean when I say thatis that our relationship with
food, our eating patterns, oureating behaviors is actually
just a reflection of what'sgoing on in our nervous system.
And I look at the nervous systemfrom the lens of polyvagal
(06:14):
theory, which essentially refersto the three different states of
the nervous system.
And in those three differentstates, we feel differently
towards food.
And so to kind of sum it up forthe listeners, in that first
state of ventral vagal, which isa state of regulation, it's a
state of safety.
People might have referred tothis as rest and digest.
It's where you feel calm, youfeel connected, you feel
(06:38):
creative, and you feel maybemore like yourself in that
state.
That's where we want to spendthe majority of our time when
we're talking about food.
Like we want to eat from thatplace.
We want to be able to hear ourhunger and fullness cues and
hear our intuition around foodand be able to make loving
choices that include foods thatmake our body feel really good.
(06:58):
But oftentimes what I see withmy clients, and this is the case
for my past self too, is that weare not really having very much
access to that state of safety.
And we're spending a lot of ourtime in and out of these other
two states of the nervoussystem, which are fight or
flight, also known assympathetic activation, and
dorsal vagal shutdown, which isa disassociation.
(07:21):
It's a very primal survivalstate of the nervous system.
And it sounds extreme when wethink of it from these fancy
words like dorsal vagal andsympathetic, but it's really
something that we'reexperiencing on a daily basis.
And even if you have had timeswhere you feel stressed or
anxious or overwhelmed and othertimes where you feel depressed
(07:42):
or disconnected or numb, that'san example of your nervous
system going in and out of thosetwo states of activation.
And so with food, this manifestsas potentially restricting our
food or depriving ourselves ortrying not to eat even though
we're hungry or obsessivelyresearching new diets.
Like if you've ever had thatfeeling of, I need to lose
(08:03):
weight right now and you're likeon the internet, how do I lose
20 pounds in three weeks kind ofthing?
That's a good example of thatfight or flight energy showing
up as a behavior around food.
It's like, I need to get out ofthis situation right now.
I need to get out of my body asfast as I can.
And I'm going to do that byresearching or obsessively
counting my calories ormicromanaging my food Yeah,
(08:24):
absolutely.
(08:53):
And so when I say food is areflection of your nervous
system, what I work with myclients around is actually
addressing the nervous system.
So yes, we talk about food andwe talk about practical things
around food, but I find when westart to support the nervous
system first and bring someregulation to the system and
flexibility to the system so wedon't get stuck in these states
(09:16):
for long periods of time and wecan dip into them, but then go
back to safety and have more ofthat resilience, then food gets
to just be food again and we getto listen to our bodies because
we all have this built-inmechanism around eating like
it's something that we were bornwith just like peeing we don't
have to like obsessively trackhow many times a day we pee or
(09:37):
worry that we're going to peetoo much or not enough we just
know we listen to our body wepee when we have to pee we don't
when we don't and it's very easysame thing with food we should
be able to eat when we're hungrystop when we're full easily eat
foods that make us feel good eatfoods that we enjoy without all
of this mental obsession aroundit And the quickest path to
reconnecting with that truebuilt-in normal eater, as I call
(10:00):
it, is through your nervoussystem and having more access to
that state of safety.
So you can live in that placeversus the more dysregulated
eating.
I hope that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01 (10:10):
Yeah, no, I mean, it makes sense to me.
I think there's a lot ofconnection between the way that
our nervous system is respondingin the environment to
potentially a lot of things thatpeople become aware Totally.
Quote, unquote, obsessive aroundor have disordered relationship
with.
And, you know, food is just, Ithink, a great example because I
(10:32):
think it's not just women thatstruggle with it, but people of
all ages and genders.
But I think there's, you know,statistics show that it's more
commonly impacts women,unfortunately, based on age.
variety of factors that we won'tdive into today but people are
somewhat aware of the differentfactors that make it more
(10:54):
leaning towards women sufferingfrom this relationship with food
so
SPEAKER_00 (10:58):
yeah and the crazy thing about food is like we
can't abstain from it with a lotof these other addictions or
things that people use as copingmechanisms like alcohol or drugs
it's like okay I'm sober.
Like I'm just going to avoid thetrigger.
And then I don't have to ever,you know, deal with that versus
food.
We have to eat at least threetimes a day.
Like it's something that we'regoing to have to change our
(11:19):
relationship to.
We can't just eliminate it fromour life.
And so I find that healing ourrelationship with food is a very
brave journey that many womenchoose to go through because it
requires a lot of inner work forthat to happen.
SPEAKER_01 (11:34):
For sure.
Definitely.
What, Do you see are the rootcauses that are underneath a lot
of people's food struggles?
SPEAKER_00 (11:41):
Yeah, so then we can talk about what's actually
causing the nervous systemdysregulation in the first
place, because our nervoussystem has its own built in
mechanisms as well.
And it doesn't just godysregulated, quote unquote.
Easily, like there's usuallythings that trigger that.
And so I'll talk about itthrough the lens of food,
because of course, this topiccould be expanded to so many
(12:02):
other areas of life.
But when it comes to food, Iusually see these eight root
causes over and over and overagain with my clients who have
dysregulation in their nervoussystem.
And the two most common onesthat I see often are
perfectionism and control.
And we often have theseperfectionistic tendencies or
this like controlling part of usthat really wants to feel in
(12:24):
control.
Or we feel out of control whenwe're not micromanaging food.
And that in of itself is goingto create some dysregulation in
the nervous system.
Like we're walking through lifethinking that everything needs
to be perfect, that my bodyneeds to be perfect, that food
needs to be perfect, I need theperfect calories or the perfect
macros or all of this.
pressure that we're putting onourselves.
(12:45):
And that's exhausting at anervous system level.
That's creating dysregulation ata nervous system level.
Another big one is past trauma.
And I'm not a therapist.
I'm just a coach.
But I do have trauma awarenessaround how this can impact our
relationship with food.
And I Every single client I'veever worked with could trace
(13:06):
their relationship with foodback to a pivotal moment in
their developing years aroundsomething that their friend said
to them about their body orbullying or witnessing their mom
and her relationship to food inher body or sexual abuse or just
any sort of big T or little ttrauma that disconnects us from
our body creates a ripple ofunsafety in the system and if we
(13:29):
don't have the proper supportsin place or tools in place in
that moment or in the years tofollow to process and heal that
trauma it creates chronicdysregulation in the nervous
system and we're existing at asurface level feeling like
everything is fine andunderneath the surface there's
unsafety in the system ournervous system is like What is
going on?
(13:49):
Like there's this thing that wehaven't addressed.
We haven't healed it.
I don't feel safe here.
And of course that can manifestas our relationship with food
that is disordered or unhealthybecause we're using food to try
and create some regulation orsome safety.
So when we actually heal thoseroot causes and we address your
inner perfectionist and yourinner control freak or people
(14:10):
pleasing is another one or notfeeling safe in your body, low
self-esteem, scarcity mindsetwith food, when we actually heal
those root causes, it's it's somuch easier to access that state
of rest and digest in thenervous system and have more
resilience in our nervoussystem.
SPEAKER_01 (14:28):
Yeah, I'm curious what sort of barriers do you
think women have in addressingthese root causes?
SPEAKER_00 (14:36):
Yeah, I would say like support is the biggest one.
This is something even in my ownjourney, I don't think I would
be able to be where I am withouthaving other coaches and
therapists and family andfriends who could help me heal
these things.
Because it's really hard to beyour own healer 24-7.
I often see that as another rootcause of like, I'm just going to
(14:58):
figure it all out myself.
I can't rely on anybody else.
I can't trust anyone else.
This very overdeveloped me typeenergy.
And I think having support fromsomebody else is key to that.
But also it does have to comewith your own willingness and
bravery to open your heart, lookat these things and a
willingness to change.
(15:18):
I know for a lot of my clients,they spend a lot of years in
denial almost like I don't needto heal my relationship with
food or I don't want to heal mybody image issues because that
means that I'll gain weight orthat means that I have to let go
of my desire to be healthy.
And we kind of live in thisdenial box.
of I don't want to change.
I don't want to heal.
And so the first step is alwaysthat willingness to try
(15:42):
something new or to explorethese inner wounds gently and
slowly and safely.
So that way we can actually healthem for good.
SPEAKER_01 (15:50):
Yeah.
You know, and the theme ofredefining us is also this idea
of figuring out who you are.
And I think that's probably verytrue in the journey of
recovering from an eatingdisorder.
Yeah.
Yeah.
person that you are with youreating disorder, the person you
are while trying to figure outand recover from your eating
(16:12):
disorder, and then like theperson that you are in recovery,
like all of those people andmaybe other people along the way
are different versions of you.
And I would assume that you'dagree the most authentic version
of you is the recovered versionof you where you could truly tap
(16:32):
into what you care about andwhat you value rather than being
fixated on food or perfectionismor people pleasing or all the
things that you've mentioned.
SPEAKER_00 (16:44):
Yeah, yeah, that's huge.
I love how you phrased that.
Because I think we oftenidentify with the disorder, like
I am anxious, or I am depressed,or I am struggling with food, or
I have an eating disorder.
And it's like, we become ourproblem, and we lose track of
who we actually are underneaththat.
And I use a lot of parts worktype words.
(17:07):
paradigms to help see this it'slike you have a perfectionist
part of you you have acontrolled part of you you have
a disordered eating part of youbut it's not actually you those
parts are there because there'sbeen something that's happened
in your past and they felt likethey needed to come in to save
the day and help you feel safeagain and when we see that we
(17:27):
actually get to know the thingunderneath the thing like who we
actually are underneath theperfectionism and underneath the
control and underneath thedisordered eating and just like
you said so beautifully,Stephanie.
It's like we want to tap moreinto her.
We want to connect with ourhigher self or the true self in
us, the version of us that isfree around food and feels
(17:48):
confident in our body and feelsat ease and at peace in life
because that part or that trueYeah.
SPEAKER_01 (18:20):
Yeah, I like the metaphor of the layers almost
like, you know, reminding me ofthe onion, right?
Like, you have all of thesethings that are making your true
self bogged down or lessvibrant, like the food, food
noise, I think a lot of peopleYes, reference like this voice
(18:41):
or this food chatter.
that just exists.
Okay, how do we peel back thoselayers so we can hear your true
voice, not food voice orwhatever voice you're hearing,
not in the psychotic sort ofway.
You know, the influence thatfood has over your life and how
can you remove that slowly soyour voice is the strongest.
SPEAKER_00 (19:04):
Yes, exactly.
Because there is that innervoice that knows exactly when,
what, and how much to eat.
We just disconnect from her.
Mm-hmm, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:13):
So how do you heal these root causes so clients can
find food freedom?
SPEAKER_00 (19:18):
Yeah, I use a lot of parts work like we talked about
and inner child healing, likegoing back to these memories and
moments and sending our youngerversion the love that she needed
and didn't receive.
And it's crazy how much thatimpacts things.
Like it feels so woo-woosometimes because I'm like
guiding a client through aninner meditation or a healing.
(19:40):
And then they have a week wherethey're like, I haven't binged
all week, or I feel so at easearound food.
And truthfully, I believe thatwhen we reprogram a lot of those
subconscious traumas ormemories, we can have so much
lasting healing But also we'regoing to do a lot of mindset
work and reprogram our thoughtsand get really into our daily
habits with food and learninghow to see food in a different
(20:03):
way.
But the biggest thing is nervoussystem regulation work and
learning how to actually growour capacity, our nervous system
capacity, which essentially justrefers to how much sensation we
feel safe holding in our body.
And a lot of times my clientsstruggle with a really small
capacity where things send youinto overwhelm very easily.
(20:23):
Like You have a stressful day.
I need to go eat food to copewith the stress.
And the place we want to get tois not avoiding our stress or
using all these stressmanagement strategies to calm
ourselves down, but to actuallyjust feel safe and okay sitting
in the middle of the messinessof life without it dysregulating
us too much.
(20:43):
So I can have a stressful day.
I can feel angry.
I can feel upset.
I can feel scared because Idon't know what's happening in
my life.
And I still have access to thepart of me that feels safe.
And trust that this is allunfolding for me and that I'm
okay and that it's going to beokay.
And the ability to do that andhave access to safety in the
middle of dysregulation has alot to do with being in the body
(21:05):
and learning how to actuallydrop out of the head into the
body so we're not spending somuch time mentally obsessing
over food and life and we'remore just present to the actual
sensations that are moving inour body at this moment.
So I use somatics work a lot tooof just getting into the body
and moving energy through thebody.
Yeah, I guess
SPEAKER_01 (21:29):
my question is like, what would be a typical homework
assignment maybe for you wouldsend them home with to practice
because obviously they could dogreat work in the office, but
this work much like a lot of thework that other providers do
probably requires some at homeassignment or intention towards
working towards their overallgoal.
SPEAKER_00 (21:50):
Yeah, I love that question.
So I'll give an example of Arecent client that I was working
with, she had a perfectionistand a control part of her come
up where she felt like when shewas eating with her partner,
like if her partner was going tomake a meal for her or cook for
her, she felt out of control.
She wanted to be the one knowingthe ingredients, knowing the
portions and controlling theoutcome of it.
(22:12):
And it felt really unsafe forher system to receive a meal
made by somebody else, which issuch a common thing that I hear
from my clients.
And what we worked on in oursession was, of course, that
root cause of healing thatcontrol part of her and going
into childhood and when that allstarted and you know addressing
the reason why she felt out ofcontrol in the first place but
for a practical takeawayhomework is when you're in that
(22:34):
moment and you're feeling thatcontrol come up into your body
the first part is to actuallyacknowledge that this is a part
of you so instead of justgetting swept up into the
situation consciously in yourmind saying oh that part of me
that loves to control my food ispresent right now and just
acknowledging that there's thispart create some separation
(22:54):
between you, your true self,like we were just talking about,
and the part.
And right then and there, thatbrings some regulation to your
system.
Like you have more access to youand the part in that moment.
And then the step two, that'sthe most powerful, is actually
focusing on your body in thatmoment.
So there is dysregulation goingon in your nervous system, which
means there is sensationhappening in your body.
(23:17):
And most of the time, we feelthese sensations like in our
chest, in our belly, in ourshoulders.
They're kind of torso centeredis where we feel most of our
emotions.
And so I asked this client toactually focus on her body, like
shine a light on her body in themoment when her partner creates
a meal for her and feel what shefeels.
And she felt like a contractionin her chest.
(23:39):
Her shoulders felt really tight.
She felt a buzzy feeling, like afast vibration.
And we want to learn to just letthat be there and not try and
get rid of it, not try and avoidit.
Just notice that vibration inour body, hold it in our body
and not run from it.
and let it just last as long asit needs to because oftentimes
we're using food to avoid thesesensations so We feel out of
(24:02):
control and we feel thatphysical feeling of out of
control maybe in our chest.
And the way that we cope withthat uncomfortable feeling is by
controlling our food and knowingwhat we're eating.
Like it eliminates thatuncomfortable feeling when we
enter in our calories or we askour partner exactly what they
use to make the food.
We're just avoiding thesensation.
So if we get really good at justfeeling the sensation in the
(24:24):
body and knowing that thesensation isn't a problem, we
don't need to get rid of it.
It will lessen over time andwe're not going to feel that way
forever.
And it teaches our nervoussystem that we are safe even in
the middle of uncomfortablefeelings or sensations that
don't feel super pleasant.
SPEAKER_01 (24:40):
I guess what's coming up for me is I imagine
sometimes in these dynamics, theperson might be really drawn to
having more heightened emotionsthan others.
a thoughtful exercise.
And I love that exercise, but Iguess, yes, let's say the person
was like, I tried that, didn'twork.
(25:01):
I found myself wanting tonitpick and overanalyze every
single ingredient that he, youknow, put in there or that she
put in there.
Yeah, I guess that to me feelslike something that I would hear
in my office of, okay, this isthis beautiful exercise you do
and I hope you can do it.
Yeah, I guess it's, First thingthat I would think is like, all
(25:22):
right, let's just keep trying.
But my other thought is how doyou hold space for that anger
too that comes up?
Because I imagine that couldcome up in a lot of the clients
that you serve that havecontrolling or perfectionistic
sort of tendencies.
SPEAKER_00 (25:37):
Yeah, I love that.
And This is like an example ofwhere every person is different.
And so somebody's quote unquotehomework or a task that I would
suggest would be differentdepending on where they're at in
their journey.
So for somebody who's maybeexperiencing more dysregulation,
more heightened emotions, orjust even more disconnected from
their body, and like thatexercise that I just shared
(25:58):
doesn't even feel accessible, westart way smaller, baby, baby,
baby steps.
And something that I teach a lotis called anchors.
And these are practices ofanchoring us into our and just
creating a little micro momentof safety.
We're not trying to do all thisinner work and inner healing.
We're just creating safety inthe body.
And these are very basic nervoussystem regulation techniques
(26:21):
like orienting looking aroundyour space and noticing what's
going on in your space orfeeling the soles of your feet
on the ground or feeling yoursit bones in your chair as
you're eating and we're nottrying to necessarily have this
massive inner therapy session inour head we're just trying to
create a little bit ofregulation in our body so we can
show our nervous system that weare safe right now and that we
(26:43):
are okay because i do hear froma lot of people they say i know
all these things like i'velistened to all these podcasts
i've heard all the strategiesbut But then when it comes to
the moment and it's nine o'clockand everyone's gone to bed and I
want to eat everything in thepantry...
I don't even care.
All of the knowledge goes out ofmy head.
I don't want to do that innerwork in my head.
I just want to say, screw it andeat everything.
(27:05):
And that's a really greatexample of how we can't think
our way out of dysregulation.
We are saying, screw it, I'mgoing to eat all the food
because there's nervous systemdysregulation going on.
And so if we try to combat thatwith inner mental games and
thinking it, it's not going towork.
It's going to feel impossibleversus if we focus on actually
(27:26):
tending to our nervous system inthat moment and dropping into
the body and out of the head, Ifind that that works so much
better for my clients and formyself.
It was like I needed to get outof my head.
I didn't need to think my way orchange my thoughts when I had an
urge to eat.
I needed to actually feel what Iwas feeling in my body and use
those anchoring strategies tocreate a little bit of safety
(27:48):
first.
SPEAKER_01 (27:49):
Yeah, I think it's important to the listener to
realize that you could be atmany different stages at
different times, not a linearjourney.
And so, you know, if you findyourself one day being able to
really separate yourself and belike, that's my people pleasing
part that's coming up and beingable to sit with that.
And then other days, you'relike, fuck everything.
(28:10):
I'm so angry.
I can't even think about whatparts getting activated.
I just need to ground myself.
I just wanted to normalize that.
And it sounds like you triedyour best to work with clients
to remind them of that too,because I think that's so
crucial for so many people'sjourneys.
UNKNOWN (28:29):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (28:30):
Yeah.
And knowing your own system,like knowing when it's time for
you to pull out all the innerwork and do that mental
reprogramming.
And there's times when that'sreally powerful.
Usually it's when you have moreaccess to regulation, like you
can do that stuff versus whenyou know your system is deep in
dysregulation and thosestrategies are not going to be
helpful.
And in that moment, we need tolike maybe punch some pillows or
(28:53):
shake our body or move.
And we're not going to just sitthere and journal about our
feelings.
SPEAKER_01 (28:59):
Yeah, exactly.
Well, thank you so much forsharing all of the information
that you've shared.
Where can people find you or howcan people come work with you?
SPEAKER_00 (29:07):
Yeah, I have a couple free resources.
I have my own podcast where Ishare episodes every week.
deep into food and the nervoussystem and all that.
So it's called Heart LedWellness.
You can search that on anylistening platform.
I also made a free root causequiz.
So it's a short little quiz thatasks people questions, yes or no
(29:27):
questions around their habitsand behaviors around food.
And it will identify out of allthose eight root causes, what
are the primary ones that aredriving your own food
dysregulation.
So that can be found atheartledwellness.com forward
slash quiz.
And then my website, of isanother place that I share
things every single day, supportand tips on healing your
(29:48):
relationship with food.
And then I have a 12 week groupcoaching and course called Heart
Led Eating that walks youthrough exactly how to heal your
relationship with food at a rootcause level, nervous system
informed, all the things.
It's my favorite thing I haveever created in my entire life.
I wish I had it when I wasstruggling with food, but that's
my favorite place to supportclients through healing.
SPEAKER_01 (30:11):
Awesome.
And all that information willalso be linked in the show notes
on our website.
So if people weren't able towrite that all down, you can
find that on the website.
But thank you so much for beingon today, Ashlyn, and hopefully
people reach out to you becauseI think it's a great resource to
really work on healing yourrelationship with food and your
body and being able to be freefrom the noise that I feel like
(30:34):
food and body issues can createin someone's life.
SPEAKER_00 (30:37):
Yeah.
Thank you so much for having me,Stephanie.
And likewise, super proud of youfor all the work that you're
doing in this world too.
Well, thank you.
Of course.
SPEAKER_01 (30:46):
Thank you for tuning in to Redefining Us once again
and share with other people soother people can continue to
listen to Redefining Us and wecan get into more listeners'
ears.
If you follow us or subscribe orleave a comment or review, that
would be greatly helpful forother people to find us and also
(31:08):
just for me to get somefeedback.
What do you guys want to hear mesay?
What do you women care abouthearing?
I'm totally open to bringing onguests and talking about topics
that are unique and inspiring toeveryone.
So please let me know.
And this year, hopefully we'llbe full of a lot of community
building, a lot of publicspeaking, a lot of resource
(31:30):
sharing.
So I really encourage you tofollow us on social media at
well-minded counseling onInstagram as our handle, as well
as going directly to ourwebsite,
well-mindedcounseling.combackslash redefining hyphen us
to So you can be in the knowwith all the things that are
happening in the Redefining Uscommunity.
(31:52):
Once again, thank you so muchfor listening and keep being
awesome.
A lot of times clients struggle with a really
(00:02):
small capacity where things sendyou into overwhelm very easily.
Like you have a stressful day, Ineed to go eat food to cope with
the stress.
And the place we want to get tois not avoiding our stress or
using all these stressmanagement strategies to calm
ourselves down, but to actuallyfeel safe and okay sitting in
the middle of the messiness oflife without it dysregulating us
(00:24):
too much.
So I can have a stressful day.
I can feel angry.
I can feel upset.
I can feel scared.
because I don't know what'shappening in my life.
And I still have access to thepart of me that feels safe and
trusts that this is allunfolding for me and that I'm
okay.
And the ability to do that andhave access to safety in the
middle of dysregulation has alot to do with being in the body
(00:45):
and learning how to actuallydrop out of the head into the
body.
So we're not spending so muchtime mentally obsessing over
food and we're more present tothe actual sensations that are
moving in our body at thismoment.
SPEAKER_01 (00:59):
This is Redefining Us, and I'm your host, Stephanie
Contrera, licensed professionalcounselor.
And I'm so glad that you joinedus today so we can dive into
what it means to be a woman intoday's society, figuring out
how we balance everything, howwe grow, how we be more
authentically us, and figuringout who we are through the
(01:21):
transitions of life, whetherthat be motherhood, success,
relationships, and all thingsthat have happened in women's
lives.
because it's definitely not alinear journey and I think by
talking about it and normalizingit and validating, we can all
rise together and be the womenthat we were meant to be.
(01:41):
So keep tuning in and I am soexcited about joining the
conversation and being in yourears each week.
Let's get into it.
Welcome back to Redefining Us.
Today I have with me AshleyBurnett, and she is a National
(02:02):
Board Certified Health andWellness Coach and has a
Bachelor's in Science inIntegrative Healthcare.
Ashley specializes in guidingwomen to find peace in the
relationship with food, body,and life as a whole.
Ashley works with her clients toaddress the deeper roots of why
they feel out of balance intheir physical and mental health
(02:22):
through healing the nervoussystem and doing deeper inner
work.
Ashlyn is experienced in workingwith debilitating gut issues
that doctors couldn't fix,severe acne and eating disorder,
anxiety, depression, and more.
After years of struggling withthese physical and mental
issues, health issues, she hasfinally found the healing that
she has craved all along.
It didn't come from a pillbottle or a therapist's office.
(02:45):
It came from deeper innerhealing that addressed why she
felt unworthy, obsessive, andperfectionistic in the first
place.
Now her life's mission is tohelp others find that same
freedom.
Ashton's determined to showwomen that you don't have to
choose between your passion forhealth and desire for food
peace, but you can have healthwithout it becoming obsessive or
(03:06):
orthorexic.
So thank you so much for beinghere today, Ashlyn.
SPEAKER_00 (03:11):
Of course, Stephanie.
Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_01 (03:12):
Yes.
So yeah, I don't know if youwant to share anything else with
the listener.
I know I just shared a lot, butbefore we dive into the
questions, if you have anythingelse you'd like to share.
SPEAKER_00 (03:25):
Yeah, I'm super grateful and honored to be here.
And it's always a little bitwild to hear somebody read back
your story because it's suchlike a short little synopsis of
everything that really unfoldedfor me to be where I'm at today.
But I'm really just sopassionate about helping women
heal their relationship withfood.
And I myself went through a avery tumultuous journey with
(03:48):
food and my body starting from ayoung age as many women have and
I feel like I spent the wholefirst you know 20 years of my
life feeling really unsafe in mybody and wishing I could
constantly change my body orlike teleport myself into
somebody else's body and thatalso manifested as disordered
eating and feeling superobsessed with food and All of
(04:11):
those patterns and behaviorsthat can often come along with
wanting to change your body andnot feeling safe in your body.
And I tried a lot of traditionaltherapy and traditional ways of
recovering from disorderedeating.
And some of them, of course, didbring me some relief and brought
me out of a deep, you know,dark, really intense place.
(04:32):
But there was always this likelingering thing with food where
I always felt a little bitobsessive about it, a little bit
like the health freak, a littlebit too controlling.
with it still dealing with likeovereating or binging or feeling
out of control at night when Iwas eating food and all of those
lingering patterns that I hadwith food didn't fully release
or heal until I understood theconnection between food and the
(04:55):
nervous system and started todeep dive into polyvagal theory
and all the things aroundnervous system regulation and
healing and when I realized thisconnection between food and the
nervous system I had so muchinner transformation in my own
life and now this is what IAwesome.
It sounds like you
SPEAKER_01 (05:19):
really have a reason why this is so important to you,
which I imagine reallytranslates with the clients that
you work with.
SPEAKER_00 (05:27):
Yeah, for sure.
I feel like having a connectionto the person who's sitting in
front of you and knowing thatyou've been in their shoes
before, and it's not somethingthat you've just like read in a
textbook, but something thatyou've lived and breathed brings
a different level of comfort tomy clients for sure.
SPEAKER_01 (05:42):
Yeah.
So you spoke of this already,but what is the connection
between disordered eating andmenorrhagic syndrome?
SPEAKER_00 (05:51):
Yeah, so basically food has nothing to do with
food.
I say this all the time on likesocial media and my podcast and
with my clients.
It's not about food.
And what I mean when I say thatis that our relationship with
food, our eating patterns, oureating behaviors is actually
just a reflection of what'sgoing on in our nervous system.
And I look at the nervous systemfrom the lens of polyvagal
(06:14):
theory, which essentially refersto the three different states of
the nervous system.
And in those three differentstates, we feel differently
towards food.
And so to kind of sum it up forthe listeners, in that first
state of ventral vagal, which isa state of regulation, it's a
state of safety.
People might have referred tothis as rest and digest.
It's where you feel calm, youfeel connected, you feel
(06:38):
creative, and you feel maybemore like yourself in that
state.
That's where we want to spendthe majority of our time when
we're talking about food.
Like we want to eat from thatplace.
We want to be able to hear ourhunger and fullness cues and
hear our intuition around foodand be able to make loving
choices that include foods thatmake our body feel really good.
(06:58):
But oftentimes what I see withmy clients, and this is the case
for my past self too, is that weare not really having very much
access to that state of safety.
And we're spending a lot of ourtime in and out of these other
two states of the nervoussystem, which are fight or
flight, also known assympathetic activation, and
dorsal vagal shutdown, which isa disassociation.
(07:21):
It's a very primal survivalstate of the nervous system.
And it sounds extreme when wethink of it from these fancy
words like dorsal vagal andsympathetic, but it's really
something that we'reexperiencing on a daily basis.
And even if you have had timeswhere you feel stressed or
anxious or overwhelmed and othertimes where you feel depressed
(07:42):
or disconnected or numb, that'san example of your nervous
system going in and out of thosetwo states of activation.
And so with food, this manifestsas potentially restricting our
food or depriving ourselves ortrying not to eat even though
we're hungry or obsessivelyresearching new diets.
Like if you've ever had thatfeeling of, I need to lose
(08:03):
weight right now and you're likeon the internet, how do I lose
20 pounds in three weeks kind ofthing?
That's a good example of thatfight or flight energy showing
up as a behavior around food.
It's like, I need to get out ofthis situation right now.
I need to get out of my body asfast as I can.
And I'm going to do that byresearching or obsessively
counting my calories ormicromanaging my food Yeah,
(08:24):
absolutely.
(08:53):
And so when I say food is areflection of your nervous
system, what I work with myclients around is actually
addressing the nervous system.
So yes, we talk about food andwe talk about practical things
around food, but I find when westart to support the nervous
system first and bring someregulation to the system and
flexibility to the system so wedon't get stuck in these states
(09:16):
for long periods of time and wecan dip into them, but then go
back to safety and have more ofthat resilience, then food gets
to just be food again and we getto listen to our bodies because
we all have this built-inmechanism around eating like
it's something that we were bornwith just like peeing we don't
have to like obsessively trackhow many times a day we pee or
(09:37):
worry that we're going to peetoo much or not enough we just
know we listen to our body wepee when we have to pee we don't
when we don't and it's very easysame thing with food we should
be able to eat when we're hungrystop when we're full easily eat
foods that make us feel good eatfoods that we enjoy without all
of this mental obsession aroundit And the quickest path to
reconnecting with that truebuilt-in normal eater, as I call
(10:00):
it, is through your nervoussystem and having more access to
that state of safety.
So you can live in that placeversus the more dysregulated
eating.
I hope that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01 (10:10):
Yeah, no, I mean, it makes sense to me.
I think there's a lot ofconnection between the way that
our nervous system is respondingin the environment to
potentially a lot of things thatpeople become aware Totally.
Quote, unquote, obsessive aroundor have disordered relationship
with.
And, you know, food is just, Ithink, a great example because I
(10:32):
think it's not just women thatstruggle with it, but people of
all ages and genders.
But I think there's, you know,statistics show that it's more
commonly impacts women,unfortunately, based on age.
variety of factors that we won'tdive into today but people are
somewhat aware of the differentfactors that make it more
(10:54):
leaning towards women sufferingfrom this relationship with food
so
SPEAKER_00 (10:58):
yeah and the crazy thing about food is like we
can't abstain from it with a lotof these other addictions or
things that people use as copingmechanisms like alcohol or drugs
it's like okay I'm sober.
Like I'm just going to avoid thetrigger.
And then I don't have to ever,you know, deal with that versus
food.
We have to eat at least threetimes a day.
Like it's something that we'regoing to have to change our
(11:19):
relationship to.
We can't just eliminate it fromour life.
And so I find that healing ourrelationship with food is a very
brave journey that many womenchoose to go through because it
requires a lot of inner work forthat to happen.
SPEAKER_01 (11:34):
For sure.
Definitely.
What, Do you see are the rootcauses that are underneath a lot
of people's food struggles?
SPEAKER_00 (11:41):
Yeah, so then we can talk about what's actually
causing the nervous systemdysregulation in the first
place, because our nervoussystem has its own built in
mechanisms as well.
And it doesn't just godysregulated, quote unquote.
Easily, like there's usuallythings that trigger that.
And so I'll talk about itthrough the lens of food,
because of course, this topiccould be expanded to so many
(12:02):
other areas of life.
But when it comes to food, Iusually see these eight root
causes over and over and overagain with my clients who have
dysregulation in their nervoussystem.
And the two most common onesthat I see often are
perfectionism and control.
And we often have theseperfectionistic tendencies or
this like controlling part of usthat really wants to feel in
(12:24):
control.
Or we feel out of control whenwe're not micromanaging food.
And that in of itself is goingto create some dysregulation in
the nervous system.
Like we're walking through lifethinking that everything needs
to be perfect, that my bodyneeds to be perfect, that food
needs to be perfect, I need theperfect calories or the perfect
macros or all of this.
pressure that we're putting onourselves.
(12:45):
And that's exhausting at anervous system level.
That's creating dysregulation ata nervous system level.
Another big one is past trauma.
And I'm not a therapist.
I'm just a coach.
But I do have trauma awarenessaround how this can impact our
relationship with food.
And I Every single client I'veever worked with could trace
(13:06):
their relationship with foodback to a pivotal moment in
their developing years aroundsomething that their friend said
to them about their body orbullying or witnessing their mom
and her relationship to food inher body or sexual abuse or just
any sort of big T or little ttrauma that disconnects us from
our body creates a ripple ofunsafety in the system and if we
(13:29):
don't have the proper supportsin place or tools in place in
that moment or in the years tofollow to process and heal that
trauma it creates chronicdysregulation in the nervous
system and we're existing at asurface level feeling like
everything is fine andunderneath the surface there's
unsafety in the system ournervous system is like What is
going on?
(13:49):
Like there's this thing that wehaven't addressed.
We haven't healed it.
I don't feel safe here.
And of course that can manifestas our relationship with food
that is disordered or unhealthybecause we're using food to try
and create some regulation orsome safety.
So when we actually heal thoseroot causes and we address your
inner perfectionist and yourinner control freak or people
(14:10):
pleasing is another one or notfeeling safe in your body, low
self-esteem, scarcity mindsetwith food, when we actually heal
those root causes, it's it's somuch easier to access that state
of rest and digest in thenervous system and have more
resilience in our nervoussystem.
SPEAKER_01 (14:28):
Yeah, I'm curious what sort of barriers do you
think women have in addressingthese root causes?
SPEAKER_00 (14:36):
Yeah, I would say like support is the biggest one.
This is something even in my ownjourney, I don't think I would
be able to be where I am withouthaving other coaches and
therapists and family andfriends who could help me heal
these things.
Because it's really hard to beyour own healer 24-7.
I often see that as another rootcause of like, I'm just going to
(14:58):
figure it all out myself.
I can't rely on anybody else.
I can't trust anyone else.
This very overdeveloped me typeenergy.
And I think having support fromsomebody else is key to that.
But also it does have to comewith your own willingness and
bravery to open your heart, lookat these things and a
willingness to change.
(15:18):
I know for a lot of my clients,they spend a lot of years in
denial almost like I don't needto heal my relationship with
food or I don't want to heal mybody image issues because that
means that I'll gain weight orthat means that I have to let go
of my desire to be healthy.
And we kind of live in thisdenial box.
of I don't want to change.
I don't want to heal.
And so the first step is alwaysthat willingness to try
(15:42):
something new or to explorethese inner wounds gently and
slowly and safely.
So that way we can actually healthem for good.
SPEAKER_01 (15:50):
Yeah.
You know, and the theme ofredefining us is also this idea
of figuring out who you are.
And I think that's probably verytrue in the journey of
recovering from an eatingdisorder.
Yeah.
Yeah.
person that you are with youreating disorder, the person you
are while trying to figure outand recover from your eating
(16:12):
disorder, and then like theperson that you are in recovery,
like all of those people andmaybe other people along the way
are different versions of you.
And I would assume that you'dagree the most authentic version
of you is the recovered versionof you where you could truly tap
(16:32):
into what you care about andwhat you value rather than being
fixated on food or perfectionismor people pleasing or all the
things that you've mentioned.
SPEAKER_00 (16:44):
Yeah, yeah, that's huge.
I love how you phrased that.
Because I think we oftenidentify with the disorder, like
I am anxious, or I am depressed,or I am struggling with food, or
I have an eating disorder.
And it's like, we become ourproblem, and we lose track of
who we actually are underneaththat.
And I use a lot of parts worktype words.
(17:07):
paradigms to help see this it'slike you have a perfectionist
part of you you have acontrolled part of you you have
a disordered eating part of youbut it's not actually you those
parts are there because there'sbeen something that's happened
in your past and they felt likethey needed to come in to save
the day and help you feel safeagain and when we see that we
(17:27):
actually get to know the thingunderneath the thing like who we
actually are underneath theperfectionism and underneath the
control and underneath thedisordered eating and just like
you said so beautifully,Stephanie.
It's like we want to tap moreinto her.
We want to connect with ourhigher self or the true self in
us, the version of us that isfree around food and feels
(17:48):
confident in our body and feelsat ease and at peace in life
because that part or that trueYeah.
SPEAKER_01 (18:20):
Yeah, I like the metaphor of the layers almost
like, you know, reminding me ofthe onion, right?
Like, you have all of thesethings that are making your true
self bogged down or lessvibrant, like the food, food
noise, I think a lot of peopleYes, reference like this voice
(18:41):
or this food chatter.
that just exists.
Okay, how do we peel back thoselayers so we can hear your true
voice, not food voice orwhatever voice you're hearing,
not in the psychotic sort ofway.
You know, the influence thatfood has over your life and how
can you remove that slowly soyour voice is the strongest.
SPEAKER_00 (19:04):
Yes, exactly.
Because there is that innervoice that knows exactly when,
what, and how much to eat.
We just disconnect from her.
Mm-hmm, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:13):
So how do you heal these root causes so clients can
find food freedom?
SPEAKER_00 (19:18):
Yeah, I use a lot of parts work like we talked about
and inner child healing, likegoing back to these memories and
moments and sending our youngerversion the love that she needed
and didn't receive.
And it's crazy how much thatimpacts things.
Like it feels so woo-woosometimes because I'm like
guiding a client through aninner meditation or a healing.
(19:40):
And then they have a week wherethey're like, I haven't binged
all week, or I feel so at easearound food.
And truthfully, I believe thatwhen we reprogram a lot of those
subconscious traumas ormemories, we can have so much
lasting healing But also we'regoing to do a lot of mindset
work and reprogram our thoughtsand get really into our daily
habits with food and learninghow to see food in a different
(20:03):
way.
But the biggest thing is nervoussystem regulation work and
learning how to actually growour capacity, our nervous system
capacity, which essentially justrefers to how much sensation we
feel safe holding in our body.
And a lot of times my clientsstruggle with a really small
capacity where things send youinto overwhelm very easily.
(20:23):
Like You have a stressful day.
I need to go eat food to copewith the stress.
And the place we want to get tois not avoiding our stress or
using all these stressmanagement strategies to calm
ourselves down, but to actuallyjust feel safe and okay sitting
in the middle of the messinessof life without it dysregulating
us too much.
(20:43):
So I can have a stressful day.
I can feel angry.
I can feel upset.
I can feel scared because Idon't know what's happening in
my life.
And I still have access to thepart of me that feels safe.
And trust that this is allunfolding for me and that I'm
okay and that it's going to beokay.
And the ability to do that andhave access to safety in the
middle of dysregulation has alot to do with being in the body
(21:05):
and learning how to actuallydrop out of the head into the
body so we're not spending somuch time mentally obsessing
over food and life and we'remore just present to the actual
sensations that are moving inour body at this moment.
So I use somatics work a lot tooof just getting into the body
and moving energy through thebody.
Yeah, I guess
SPEAKER_01 (21:29):
my question is like, what would be a typical homework
assignment maybe for you wouldsend them home with to practice
because obviously they could dogreat work in the office, but
this work much like a lot of thework that other providers do
probably requires some at homeassignment or intention towards
working towards their overallgoal.
SPEAKER_00 (21:50):
Yeah, I love that question.
So I'll give an example of Arecent client that I was working
with, she had a perfectionistand a control part of her come
up where she felt like when shewas eating with her partner,
like if her partner was going tomake a meal for her or cook for
her, she felt out of control.
She wanted to be the one knowingthe ingredients, knowing the
portions and controlling theoutcome of it.
(22:12):
And it felt really unsafe forher system to receive a meal
made by somebody else, which issuch a common thing that I hear
from my clients.
And what we worked on in oursession was, of course, that
root cause of healing thatcontrol part of her and going
into childhood and when that allstarted and you know addressing
the reason why she felt out ofcontrol in the first place but
for a practical takeawayhomework is when you're in that
(22:34):
moment and you're feeling thatcontrol come up into your body
the first part is to actuallyacknowledge that this is a part
of you so instead of justgetting swept up into the
situation consciously in yourmind saying oh that part of me
that loves to control my food ispresent right now and just
acknowledging that there's thispart create some separation
(22:54):
between you, your true self,like we were just talking about,
and the part.
And right then and there, thatbrings some regulation to your
system.
Like you have more access to youand the part in that moment.
And then the step two, that'sthe most powerful, is actually
focusing on your body in thatmoment.
So there is dysregulation goingon in your nervous system, which
means there is sensationhappening in your body.
(23:17):
And most of the time, we feelthese sensations like in our
chest, in our belly, in ourshoulders.
They're kind of torso centeredis where we feel most of our
emotions.
And so I asked this client toactually focus on her body, like
shine a light on her body in themoment when her partner creates
a meal for her and feel what shefeels.
And she felt like a contractionin her chest.
(23:39):
Her shoulders felt really tight.
She felt a buzzy feeling, like afast vibration.
And we want to learn to just letthat be there and not try and
get rid of it, not try and avoidit.
Just notice that vibration inour body, hold it in our body
and not run from it.
and let it just last as long asit needs to because oftentimes
we're using food to avoid thesesensations so We feel out of
(24:02):
control and we feel thatphysical feeling of out of
control maybe in our chest.
And the way that we cope withthat uncomfortable feeling is by
controlling our food and knowingwhat we're eating.
Like it eliminates thatuncomfortable feeling when we
enter in our calories or we askour partner exactly what they
use to make the food.
We're just avoiding thesensation.
So if we get really good at justfeeling the sensation in the
(24:24):
body and knowing that thesensation isn't a problem, we
don't need to get rid of it.
It will lessen over time andwe're not going to feel that way
forever.
And it teaches our nervoussystem that we are safe even in
the middle of uncomfortablefeelings or sensations that
don't feel super pleasant.
SPEAKER_01 (24:40):
I guess what's coming up for me is I imagine
sometimes in these dynamics, theperson might be really drawn to
having more heightened emotionsthan others.
a thoughtful exercise.
And I love that exercise, but Iguess, yes, let's say the person
was like, I tried that, didn'twork.
(25:01):
I found myself wanting tonitpick and overanalyze every
single ingredient that he, youknow, put in there or that she
put in there.
Yeah, I guess that to me feelslike something that I would hear
in my office of, okay, this isthis beautiful exercise you do
and I hope you can do it.
Yeah, I guess it's, First thingthat I would think is like, all
(25:22):
right, let's just keep trying.
But my other thought is how doyou hold space for that anger
too that comes up?
Because I imagine that couldcome up in a lot of the clients
that you serve that havecontrolling or perfectionistic
sort of tendencies.
SPEAKER_00 (25:37):
Yeah, I love that.
And This is like an example ofwhere every person is different.
And so somebody's quote unquotehomework or a task that I would
suggest would be differentdepending on where they're at in
their journey.
So for somebody who's maybeexperiencing more dysregulation,
more heightened emotions, orjust even more disconnected from
their body, and like thatexercise that I just shared
(25:58):
doesn't even feel accessible, westart way smaller, baby, baby,
baby steps.
And something that I teach a lotis called anchors.
And these are practices ofanchoring us into our and just
creating a little micro momentof safety.
We're not trying to do all thisinner work and inner healing.
We're just creating safety inthe body.
And these are very basic nervoussystem regulation techniques
(26:21):
like orienting looking aroundyour space and noticing what's
going on in your space orfeeling the soles of your feet
on the ground or feeling yoursit bones in your chair as
you're eating and we're nottrying to necessarily have this
massive inner therapy session inour head we're just trying to
create a little bit ofregulation in our body so we can
show our nervous system that weare safe right now and that we
(26:43):
are okay because i do hear froma lot of people they say i know
all these things like i'velistened to all these podcasts
i've heard all the strategiesbut But then when it comes to
the moment and it's nine o'clockand everyone's gone to bed and I
want to eat everything in thepantry...
I don't even care.
All of the knowledge goes out ofmy head.
I don't want to do that innerwork in my head.
I just want to say, screw it andeat everything.
(27:05):
And that's a really greatexample of how we can't think
our way out of dysregulation.
We are saying, screw it, I'mgoing to eat all the food
because there's nervous systemdysregulation going on.
And so if we try to combat thatwith inner mental games and
thinking it, it's not going towork.
It's going to feel impossibleversus if we focus on actually
(27:26):
tending to our nervous system inthat moment and dropping into
the body and out of the head, Ifind that that works so much
better for my clients and formyself.
It was like I needed to get outof my head.
I didn't need to think my way orchange my thoughts when I had an
urge to eat.
I needed to actually feel what Iwas feeling in my body and use
those anchoring strategies tocreate a little bit of safety
(27:48):
first.
SPEAKER_01 (27:49):
Yeah, I think it's important to the listener to
realize that you could be atmany different stages at
different times, not a linearjourney.
And so, you know, if you findyourself one day being able to
really separate yourself and belike, that's my people pleasing
part that's coming up and beingable to sit with that.
And then other days, you'relike, fuck everything.
(28:10):
I'm so angry.
I can't even think about whatparts getting activated.
I just need to ground myself.
I just wanted to normalize that.
And it sounds like you triedyour best to work with clients
to remind them of that too,because I think that's so
crucial for so many people'sjourneys.
UNKNOWN (28:29):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (28:30):
Yeah.
And knowing your own system,like knowing when it's time for
you to pull out all the innerwork and do that mental
reprogramming.
And there's times when that'sreally powerful.
Usually it's when you have moreaccess to regulation, like you
can do that stuff versus whenyou know your system is deep in
dysregulation and thosestrategies are not going to be
helpful.
And in that moment, we need tolike maybe punch some pillows or
(28:53):
shake our body or move.
And we're not going to just sitthere and journal about our
feelings.
SPEAKER_01 (28:59):
Yeah, exactly.
Well, thank you so much forsharing all of the information
that you've shared.
Where can people find you or howcan people come work with you?
SPEAKER_00 (29:07):
Yeah, I have a couple free resources.
I have my own podcast where Ishare episodes every week.
deep into food and the nervoussystem and all that.
So it's called Heart LedWellness.
You can search that on anylistening platform.
I also made a free root causequiz.
So it's a short little quiz thatasks people questions, yes or no
(29:27):
questions around their habitsand behaviors around food.
And it will identify out of allthose eight root causes, what
are the primary ones that aredriving your own food
dysregulation.
So that can be found atheartledwellness.com forward
slash quiz.
And then my website, of isanother place that I share
things every single day, supportand tips on healing your
(29:48):
relationship with food.
And then I have a 12 week groupcoaching and course called Heart
Led Eating that walks youthrough exactly how to heal your
relationship with food at a rootcause level, nervous system
informed, all the things.
It's my favorite thing I haveever created in my entire life.
I wish I had it when I wasstruggling with food, but that's
my favorite place to supportclients through healing.
SPEAKER_01 (30:11):
Awesome.
And all that information willalso be linked in the show notes
on our website.
So if people weren't able towrite that all down, you can
find that on the website.
But thank you so much for beingon today, Ashlyn, and hopefully
people reach out to you becauseI think it's a great resource to
really work on healing yourrelationship with food and your
body and being able to be freefrom the noise that I feel like
(30:34):
food and body issues can createin someone's life.
SPEAKER_00 (30:37):
Yeah.
Thank you so much for having me,Stephanie.
And likewise, super proud of youfor all the work that you're
doing in this world too.
Well, thank you.
Of course.
SPEAKER_01 (30:46):
Thank you for tuning in to Redefining Us once again
and share with other people soother people can continue to
listen to Redefining Us and wecan get into more listeners'
ears.
If you follow us or subscribe orleave a comment or review, that
would be greatly helpful forother people to find us and also
(31:08):
just for me to get somefeedback.
What do you guys want to hear mesay?
What do you women care abouthearing?
I'm totally open to bringing onguests and talking about topics
that are unique and inspiring toeveryone.
So please let me know.
And this year, hopefully we'llbe full of a lot of community
building, a lot of publicspeaking, a lot of resource
(31:30):
sharing.
So I really encourage you tofollow us on social media at
well-minded counseling onInstagram as our handle, as well
as going directly to ourwebsite,
well-mindedcounseling.combackslash redefining hyphen us
to So you can be in the knowwith all the things that are
happening in the Redefining Uscommunity.
(31:52):
Once again, thank you so muchfor listening and keep being
awesome.
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