What to do when your brain goes into “cut and run” mode
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Georgie: [00:00:00] This is the breaking up with binge eating podcast, where every listen moves you one step closer to complete food freedom hosted by me, Georgie fear and my team at confident eaters.

In our group coaching program, one of the participants, Emma, said in the chat that she was feeling discouraged. And she had been having sabotaging thoughts all week. Her family vacation had not gone anything like she had planned. Thanks to the path of an oncoming hurricane changing all of their scheduled intentions.

She had been turning to food to try and cope. And she was judging her own behavior as proof that she was failing at our coaching program and would never get better. These are her exact thoughts that she wrote to us. One, this is not working. [00:01:00] Two, I'm too busy to deal with this. Three, here we go again, tried something and it failed.

Four, why do I even think I'll experience freedom from eating and body issues? It'll never happen.

Christina: These are all great examples of sabotaging thoughts and how our brains like to chatter when we're feeling upset. They can get dramatic, making drastic, all or nothing statements. An upset brain labels things or people as failures, or wrecked, or doomed, or no good. These statements are hyperbolic. A more accurate way to think about it is, we're experiencing a rough spot, or seeing an imperfection. We kind of want to quit because it feels like it would save us the effort. Your mind might start saying, Bail out at the first whiff of struggle or doubt. Burn the house down. Divorce your spouse. Cut that friend out of your life. Quit the team. Georgie has called this the cut and run reflex. When problems feel unsolvable, it can come up. And if we [00:02:00] aren't careful, it can lead us to doing things that we regret.

Georgie: When your brain gets into drama queen mode, you might not feel able to straighten it out right away. Just give yourself some time to get regulated again. Don't quit the course, quit your job, or quit on yourself. Don't cut your hair off. Don't relapse. Don't do anything drastic. Just try to rest, get through the day in safety, and look at things anew the next morning.

The next day, or perhaps once you've gotten support from a friend or a coach to help you calm down, you can look back at these black or white thoughts and respond to them from a more clear headed space.

Christina: I'm so glad that Emma decided to reach out in the group to share what she was experiencing, because that reaching out for support is such a big piece of this. And some of the responses that we helped Emma with, you might want to tailor them for your own use, especially if you're working on stopping these binge [00:03:00] eating experiences, and it just feels fruitless. The first thought that we listed above was, this is not working. Some ideas for responding to this might be, what's not working? My attempts to be perfect? They never really do. My attempts to get better, on the other hand, and utilize the Breaking Up With Binge Eating coaching program? I can't evaluate the effectiveness of any method to treat a chronic condition based on one day, or even one week. I have to think of many days and include how I'm eating, how I'm feeling and look at a longer time span,. Keeping a notebook helps so I can see the data over time and really see if I'm binge eating or emotionally eating less than I used to. This is really common with clients is just trying to help them see recovery on a spectrum. Another way you might respond is considering if you've been in part of our program, Georgie, Christina, and Mary Claire said the progress can be [00:04:00] seen as first binges becoming less extreme or stopping them sooner and more time passing between binges. These happen for a long time before the binge eating behavior completely goes away. Maybe I'm expecting that I can go faster than everyone else and stop binging completely in one or two months. And that's not too realistic.

Georgie: I think the same, this isn't working, can be a tempting thought whenever we're trying to treat a condition. Let's say you're doing some therapy for your migraines. The first time you get a migraine, it can be tempting to think, this isn't working, this is a failure. But it might be that you're going to have migraines less often, and that they're milder, and there's more time between them.

So regardless of what you're trying to recover from, try not to jump the gun and declare something not working based on one really difficult day.

Christina: can also think of a client example recently and she said, you know, it's not working [00:05:00] because she went on vacation, similar to, I guess, what Emma was experiencing. And She had all of this data to say how much it was working in her normal day to day, in her normal routine. This was just a totally different environment and scenario. That doesn't mean it's not working. We just need to accommodate that for These other situations, which we often talk about with clients,

Georgie: Yeah, different context brings a completely different level of challenge many times. So even when your skills are improving and you're becoming more binge resilient in, say, your everyday average circumstances, one super rough day or event or, you know, family coming to stay with you or going on vacation is a huge uptick in the challenge.

So If that overwhelms you, and you're coping mechanisms temporarily, that's not at all a sign that it's not working. Also, before you conclude that any program isn't working, it's important to say, Am I doing the work consistently? I mean, knowing the [00:06:00] tools that we talk about on this podcast and through our coaching is a crucial step.

We have to know the tools to use, but we have to use them before they're going to work and become habitual. If someone stops practicing, it's more likely that they're going to have a binge. And so they can use that as a reminder, instead of saying, this isn't working, I'm quitting, to say, I just have to keep putting some effort into this.

It's really hard to put effort into something for six months, especially when, like Emma or your client, Christina, when they're on vacation. So it's not surprising if somebody stops practicing for a week when they go on vacation. It's understandable. Maybe we're just seeing how much effort is needed. The things that you were practicing were actually helping, because when you took a break from them, food became problematic again.

You don't need to be hard on yourself, and nobody else in the program is definitely being hard on Emma. So we encouraged her to respond to this sabotaging thought by thinking, I can just recommit to using the tools [00:07:00] again today.

Christina: you might also add, maybe something I'm doing is causing a bit of a problem, like trying to lose weight when I'm not really over my binge eating. I can ask the coaches. They've walked hundreds of people through this. Maybe I didn't consciously try to diet, but being at the beach triggered that old thought pattern and I didn't eat adequately in my planned meals, which can cause bingeing.

Georgie: Certainly, Emma is not the first person to go on a beach vacation, and oh, all of a sudden I feel more conscious of my weight. Like, it's pretty expected. Another one of Emma's thoughts was, I am too busy to deal with this. Here are some response words that you can use. I can't deal with everything at every moment.

And things are hard right now, but binge eating also takes up my precious time. If I can find just three minutes a day, I could use that time to look at a lesson, or check in on my emotions, or practice one of the skills that I am trying to learn. [00:08:00] Three minutes is enough. If I can't or won't take three minutes for my own health, Honestly, what am I putting first and is that what I want to be doing?

In short, we often respond to the sabotaging thought about being too busy with something along the lines of, yes, I am busy, but I can find a few minutes and this is important to me.

Christina: Another one of the thoughts that Emma brought up was, here we go again, I tried something and it failed. When we try something, especially something that is complex and spans a process of months, there's going to be a mix of successes and failures, no matter who you are. Some days will undoubtedly be better than others. Something you might try to respond to yourself with maybe what I tried today with my eating went completely sideways, but that's okay. What can I learn from it? Other days have gone better. What did I do on those days? Succeeding in this program doesn't happen because of 100 percent perfect days. People [00:09:00] who get better all had days that they still binged to. They did not quit. They kept showing up, even though it hurt to have a failure. Still showing up gave them a chance at success. I can't say the program failed if I quit at the three month mark,

Georgie: Another one that we got from Emma is why do I even think I'll experience freedom from eating or my body? When I read this one, I thought, Ooh. That's a, that's a mean inner girl there. Like, can you imagine saying that to someone else? Why do you even think you'll experience improvement?

Christina: right?

Georgie: I'm just, I know Emma well at this point, and she is such a kind person.

I know she would never say anything like that to someone else. So I'm glad she was so honest with us because, Because many times our inner dialogue is truly different from how we speak to other people. Some of the responses that we gave her to try using on her sabotaging thoughts here include nothing certain, but the people who have succeeded and gotten over binge eating and body issues were the same as me.

They [00:10:00] struggled for decades. They tried a bunch of diets and programs before this one. They found the course was really hard and they felt like their journey was taking way too long. Mary Claire, Christina, and Georgie have helped a lot of people who barely had any hope. They know what a person needs to do, and they are going to help show me.

I'm in a low hope moment right now, but if I quit, I remove all my chances of success. My mood and outlook will improve if I can get a plan together and get a win today. What can I get today? A healthy meal? Order groceries. Plan to read the lesson tonight.

Christina: Another thought that is closely related to this one, but not one that Emma wrote is I'm not cut out for this. This is a classic cut and run type of logic. It says something about me is fundamentally incompatible with success. I can't change or improve it myself, so my only option is to quit. This is a thought a lot of my [00:11:00] clients have had over the years, which is interesting to think about.

So many people believe that they are uniquely flawed and unable to succeed in this. And like the other thoughts we have worked through, it's not the person who is flawed, but the thinking which is flawed in many, many ways.

Georgie: Saying that somebody isn't cut out for something is to say they're not the right type of person. It's a really black or white thought. This saying implies that there is a right type or wrong type of person, and there's no allowance or mention that a person will improve, gain skills, or become a better fit.

Saying someone's not cut out for it is an oversimplification. So don't use it on yourself, especially when it comes to eating. There's no wrong type of person who cannot be a healthy eater. You are able to learn, grow, and change across your whole lifespan. So not cut out for it is a phrase we can toss in the trash bin.

Christina: recognizing it when your brain is [00:12:00] telling you to cut and run and knowing what it's up to is the first and biggest step towards staying in control. You can even say to yourself, Oh, there it is. Cut and run thinking. I've had these thoughts before. They come up when I'm facing a really tough problem, but I have problem solving skills.

So I'm choosing to stick around and work it out. Some of my clients have even given their sabotaging voice, a nickname. So they can say, Oh, there goes cut and run Kathy trying to get me to quit here.

Georgie: love that. We hope everybody listening can feel some companionship in Emma's words. If your thoughts have ever sounded like hers, you're not alone. Everybody wants to quit at some point when they're doing something really difficult. Everybody binges at some point during a binge eating recovery program.

That includes the people who go on to make full recovery and lose the weight they want to shed. Fighting back against thoughts like these that keep you emotionally eating and binging, and managing [00:13:00] the thoughts that tell you to quit, are the only ways to get to your end goal. You can learn to fight these thoughts yourself, but if you don't know how and want a coach's expert support, we would love to help you knock them down.

Drop a line through our website, confidenteaters. com. Click the little heart shaped chat icon and let us know what you're dealing with. Until next time, be good to yourself. You can do this, and we're cheering you on.