The incredible relief of changing your story
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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. I haven't been to CrossFit in at least a month, and it's just too weird to go back now. If I show up, everyone will say, Hey, man, where you been? And I won't have an excuse, so I just don't think I can go back Now. That was Kyle's story. Shelly's story was a bit different. I failed at every program, and when I binged on Tuesday, it was like, oh, there it is again. Now starts me failing at this program. I can just feel it. I've turned that corner into failure, and now that's the only way this can end. Brian told me [00:01:00] during one of his sessions, my life is half over and I'm a hundred pounds overweight. The look on his face communicated what that story meant to him. It described his sense of despair and futility.

The unsaid line that followed might have been, I've gone too far. I can't ever get back out of this. The story you tell yourself might be as short as three or four words. I have to start over. I'm out of control. I've lost everything. I'm coming apart. That last one is mine. It's echoed in my mind on numerous occasions where I feel like my composure is on the brink of collapse, and I feared my sanity was going along with it. Today, I know that that thought I'm coming apart is just a signpost en route to panic attack town. But for a long time I accepted it like it was a newly announced scientific finding, an indisputable fact. Local [00:02:00] Vancouver woman officially coming apart details at seven. All of these thought sequences I mentioned contains a story and we all tell ourselves stories.

They can be called narratives too. It's the same thing. Like children playing cops and robbers or princesses and knights, we go through motions, which are consistent with the stories in our minds. If you were taking an acting class and I was teaching it, and I said, okay, now you're a superhero. You'd stand in a certain way acting like a superhero.

Okay, now you're the new kid in school. Nervous, but trying to be cool. You'd change your posture and your mannerisms a bit. Taking on that new role. Imagine yourself doing this for a second. Drop into these different characters. You're running for governor and speaking at a rally. Okay, now you're training for the Olympics.

Now you're a wounded animal. Okay, now [00:03:00] you've turned the corner into failure. Now you're coming apart. In your mind, you can probably see your body telling these stories, how you would stand, how you would move or gesture, what you might say, and the expression on your face. And it doesn't matter if you're in an acting class or not.

The stories we tell ourselves, cast us into roles just like this, and you can be certain that they impact how you feel, the choices you make day to day, and how you eat. If you are a creative person, a writer, a poet, or artist, you probably have a really developed skill for weaving dramatic stories. You see imagery and emotion everywhere.

Your brain can naturally create a plot line out of something as mundane as a trip to the seven 11 and turn it into an allegory. This is a beautiful skill, but it also means you're doubly at risk for [00:04:00] falling into your own storylines and becoming a main character in your own heart-rending tragedy or epic saga of struggle.

On the other hand, if you are a person who's highly factual and logical, you may be less prone to emotional storytelling, but you still aren't immune. The reason I wanted to dedicate an episode to the topic of these stories is because I've seen in my clients and felt personally how colossally positive it can be to shift just one of our habitual stories.

Recognizing and changing an internal narrative can alleviate stuckness practically immediately. I know I'm always talking about how behavior change takes time and building skills takes rehearsal and we don't wanna be in a hurry, but this is one of the few examples I can point to of something with very dramatic and very fast results.

I bet you have [00:05:00] questions like what exactly is a story anyway? How can you identify if what you're thinking at any given moment is a story or just facts? And importantly, in your journey to be a confident, healthy eater and overall happy person, should you try to get rid of all the stories? Is that even possible?

Let's walk through each of these. What is a story? Stories or narratives have certain elements, like a plot or sequence of events. They also have characters, a setting and a theme, which would be the underlying message or meaning. How do we identify if what we're thinking at any given moment is a story or just facts?

I spent $2 and 54 cents on bananas is not much of a story. It's just sort of a fact or an observation of something that happened. On the other hand, I'm too old to change while also just five words has a [00:06:00] lot more emotional heft to it. The more your thinking adds meaning, emotion, opinion, or refers to a long stretch of time, the more likely it is to be a story.

If your thinking attributes emotions or motives to inanimate objects, like that rock was determined to ruin my bike ride. You are definitely into story territory. Listen to your own thinking. Try to become aware of any stories or beliefs that you have about yourself. If you write in a journal, it can be very insightful to look back at some of the recent pages and see what stories might be contained.

Now, I'll be honest with you, it's exceptionally difficult to recognize our own stories. Even in our own journal. A lot of times I need to point them out to my clients, and I pretty much always need somebody else to point mine out to me. If you have a close relationship with anybody who knows you very well, they're probably more [00:07:00] aware of your stories than you are, but it is possible to realize your own recurring narratives and stop them from holding you back.

Monitoring your own thoughts continuously around the clock would be impossible, but just like sabotaging thoughts often hang out around overeating incidents. Unhelpful stories can often be found loitering around times when you feel hopeless, powerless, or stuck. So when those emotions are surfacing, if you happen to remember this podcast, start looking for stories.

Stories lead to hopeless powerless, or stuck feelings in three ways. One, we have selective memories. If my story is that I'm someone who always backs down from a challenge because I have no spine, I will likely forget any of the times I stood up for myself and I will see in my rear view mirror all the times I conducted myself like a [00:08:00] champion doormat.

In this way, those unhelpful stories can strengthen themselves by creating the illusion of a pattern. Two confirmation bias In the present. We seek out and believe things that support our stories. Even if we don't like the story. If we believe it, we will favor evidence that supports it. The third way narratives can lead to us feeling hopeless, powerless, or stuck is by disempowering us.

Consider the woman who said to Christina, if I just smell brownies, I gain weight. Even if she doesn't literally believe that to be true and scientist Georgie would like to remind you it's not possible. Her story makes it sound like there's no point trying to watch what she eats because it's hopeless for this woman. Her body is against her. She's just going to gain weight from the aroma of baked goods. It's so unfair. Even if she does everything right, weight gain [00:09:00] is what her body is going to do. This is a potent, disempowering story. Importantly, not all stories are problematic, but if you can catch the ones which are negative, which sap your hope and leave you feeling shame or defeat, you can reconstruct them.

I will now give you the world's most concise directions on how to improve a negative story. Identify when your brain is writing a sad movie or tragic play. Remove figurative or dramatic language and stick to only facts. Voila, you're done. Here's an example. Negative story: now I've turned the corner into failure.

Stripped back to the facts. That story becomes, I ate three pieces of pizza when I usually have two. Another negative narrative, I'm coming apart. Stripped down to the facts becomes I've worked 50 hours this week, have three [00:10:00] days of dirty dishes on my kitchen counter, and would really like to lay down. The factual versions are less entertaining.

They don't make as good song lyrics, but they're also less upsetting. They leave us free to make any choice in the present moment instead of feeling confined to a pre-written storyline. Just the facts, ma'am, is a short and sweet reminder you can give yourself as needed. An alternate way to reconstruct the stories you hold about yourself is to change the theme.

Reversing that tragic tale into a victorious one. Cast yourself as the hero, the good guy who is overcoming repeated hurdles by not giving up. The same life events which can be spun into a sad story can be the basis for a plot based on developing grit, strength, and resilience. It's all in the words you choose.

I have to say, I favor this approach of [00:11:00] writing a new positive story as it's often more profoundly impactful than pairing things back to only the facts. But in a moment of despair, it can feel like too much of a reach to try to see things as a positive story. So keep both of these approaches in mind. I hope you experience each of these podcast episodes as a stretch of pathway brightly lit with hope, and keep writing your story as one of progress and growth.

I'll see you in the next episode. Thanks for listening. I'm Georgie Fear.