PEOPLE-PLEASING - "I always put other people first"

We all want to love and be loved. But, the emotional eater tends to be someone who supports other people, rather than asks for help. Can you relate to this?

• Here, I talk about how putting other people first can cause comfort eating. 
• I also talk about how relational support can help the comfort eater to quit overeating.

Stopping a comfort behaviour is a constant journey of self-awareness...

Another podcast for you: How Do I Stop Self-Criticism?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hi, and welcome to Overeating Recovery. Do you feel compelled to overeat but wish that you could stop? Or perhaps you know that your emotions drive your eating, but you don't really know what to do about it. In these podcasts, I talk about the side of overeating that nobody really talks about. The emotional and the psychological side. There are reasons why you can't stop eating, and that's what we explore here. Here, I'll support you on your journey of awareness to stopping binge eating altogether. I am your host, Shelley Treacher. Welcome. Today, as it's nearly Valentine's Day, I thought I'd talk about some aspects of relationship and overeating. So today I'm going to talk about firstly how overeating can be caused by some relational aspects. I'm going to talk about one in particular that's quite common for emotional eaters, and that's people pleasing. And then the last part of this podcast today, I'm going to talk about how relationships can be used for more support with emotional eating. Something that emotional eaters aren't very good at and needs to improve. So I'm going to talk about how you can start to do that. So during COVID-19, obviously we've all been called to question our relationship choices and status. For some of us, it's been a massive bonus to spend more time with our families and the people that we love. But for a lot of us, it's either been a challenge to spend so much time with these same people, or it's been really isolating to be so alone. But whether you're single, in relationship, or living with family during this time, in this podcast I'll be encouraging curiosity about how you got where you are today and offering ways to increase your confidence in that situation. Whatever it is. This is specifically for you if you resonate with feeling tired and overwhelmed by people or if you find yourself in difficult relationships. Fundamentally, how we learn to relate early on in life and through the rest of our lives affects comfort eating. One of the things that most comfort eaters I see have in common is a natural inclination to ignore their own needs, as I've already talked about. In favour though, of putting other people's needs ahead of their own. These are people who are always looking after other people. They go out of their way to be kind and helpful. They will likely feel a little bit burdened and exhausted because they'll be looking after an elderly relative, have kids, be supporting their partner, have their partner's family in their lives, have emotionally unstable and depressed friends possibly, and hold down a stressful job. So they might be doing all of these things or some of them, but you know, one of these things would be quite enough for most people. But even if it doesn't look exactly like this, you'll recognise yourself by feeling exhausted from being the person who does everything. You're the one who's responsible. These are the people that everyone turns to for emotional advice or support, because these people are sensitive, warm and caring. They will listen and they will be there for you when the chips are down. Don't they sound amazing? And they are. They are amazing. These people are amazing. They're warm and kind and have all the qualities that you would look for in a friend. Interestingly, actually, when I ask my groups what qualities they look for in a friend, it's always these qualities. It's always these that they themselves possess. It's just that it's such a stretch for them to view themselves positively. But I digress. The point I need to make here is that this comes at a really gigantic cost to themselves because they just don't attend to their own needs or emotional well-being in the same way as they would to somebody else. Their own needs get squashed for the other person's well-being, needs, and desires. And this internal squashing is what often leads to comfort eating. I had a client recently who realised that her availability to others had stopped her from having anything for herself. And this included exercise, she realized, which she used to love. It's from her that I get this quote that I'm I'm often saying now. Be a nice person, but just don't waste your time proving it. And now that she is saying no more, she has the energy to exercise and to do other things. Can you relate to any of this? Are you someone who will say yes when you really want to say no, but you feel that you can't? Do you pretend to agree when secretly you don't actually agree and you're exhausted? Are you a people pleaser? If you are, you're in really good company. But clearly it's something that needs to shift a little if you're to stop overeating. And it's something you have to look a little deeper into to understand where it comes from, why it's there, and what to do about it. People pleasing often relates to being deathly afraid of conflict and rejection, and a feeling of not being lovable. This often stems from how we were treated by our primary caregivers, so it needs a little unpacking. One question you can ask to understand yourself is what is so awful about rejection? It's a big question and takes some time to answer, so you can stop the recording here and take in that question. What's so awful about rejection? What is it that you're afraid will happen if you say no to somebody? What is it you're afraid of feeling if someone rejects you or doesn't like your real choices? I know that might sound scary and it definitely does to a lot of people because you know most of us care what other people think of us, but really it's just information about you, about how you're organized and what your belief systems are. It's something to be worked on and to lean into and to learn to be really compassionate and resourceful with yourself about. And that is possible. To find safety within yourself enough to cope with the idea of potential rejection. How invincible would you be if you could do that, eh? I mentioned that behind a fear of rejection often lies the belief that you are unlovable. So you can ask yourself what exactly is it that makes you unlovable? This is another big question that takes a while to sink in and process, so you can stop the podcast again if you need to. What exactly is it that makes you unlovable? What do you not love about yourself? What do you think other people don't love about you? Be as specific as you can. Often, when we explore this in my practice, it's actually really difficult for people to pinpoint what is so awful about them. Often it's difficult for people to come up with any real reason. Sometimes people say things like, I'm irritating, I'm too loud, I'm too sensitive. But these are all criticisms that the person has heard said to them at some point in their lives, maybe repetitively, maybe recently even, but definitely that goes back a while. Usually a primary caregiver will have said something like this, and they may have meant it or they may not have meant it, and you may have interpreted it as the criticism that it sounds like. Don't these things really say a lot more about the tolerance level of the person criticising you if they meant it? Aren't they just possibly a basic incompatibility? In that communication at least? Being called irritating could stem from a person who is quite irritated and stressed out themselves, and so he or she finds anyone who has any need, beyond their capacity right now, irritating. Therefore, it's possible they find themselves irritating, but blame everyone else for it. Maybe they were even taught this by their parents and caregivers. In a similar way to the last few questions, what exactly is it that's irritating about you? What's really true about this criticism? Do you find this quality about you irritating? And if you do, could you start to be compassionate about that and challenge it or understand it? Being too loud, being accused of being too loud, could be interpreted as well just being too loud could be enthusiastic, it could be sociable, it could be fun, it could be passionate, active, expressive, or tangible even, by different people. Everyone would interpret it differently. Being sensitive is a beautiful gift, especially in my book. It means you're probably full of warmth, empathy, perception, and intuition. All of the things that I value and most of my clients value, maybe human beings value. Mostly, this criticism of being too sensitive is levelled by people who cannot tolerate emotion, particularly in that moment. But the real problem here is that the criticism we perceive around us tends to reflect the internal criticism we carry around with us. We attract people who treat us in the same way as our primary caregivers treated us, or in the same way as we treat ourselves. Often they're all the same pattern, so challenge yourself not to be this critic. Learn to say no to your critic, as well as to the criticism of others. I did a podcast on the inner critic, that was podcast two. You might want to explore that. That's about how to be more compassionate with yourself. The link will be in the information about this podcast. I'm also going to post some other links actually in the podcast description. And there's one about saying no. Here are some ways that you can say no. You can just say no without any explanation. You can say no, thank you, but again without any explanation. Or no, I don't want to. Or thanks, not right now. No, but thank you for the offer. No, but thank you for thinking of me. I really appreciate it. That's so kind of you, but I have to decline. I have decided not to. So notice that none of these offer an excuse or put you in a state of apology. Is that a familiar place for you to be, to be apologizing and feeling bad, shameful, guilty for saying no to somebody? So now, if you think about saying one of these things to somebody, you'll imagine what their response might be. You might have a specific person in your mind, and this starts to answer the question of what you're afraid of if you say no. So this is valuable information. One of my favourite quotes is by Robert Frost. Two roads diverged in a wood, and I I took the one less travelled by. And that has made all the difference. This quote means such a lot to me because I've often gone against what appears to be the norm. Despite opposition from friends, family, culture, I've always been on the path of valuing emotional well-being, feelings, self-employment, and empowered, loving independence. People sometimes think being boundaried, being able to say yes or no in response to the needs of others, is an act of selfishness. I think it's an act of love. Firstly, to myself, but also as a message of clarity of what I can and can't offer in relationship. And that really has led to me living a life of connection, expansiveness and fulfilment, which is what I want for you. Or at least that's part of giving up comfort eating and emotional eating, becoming more engaged with what you need. There'll also be a link here to the Centre of Nonviolent Communications list of needs, but I'm just gonna say some to you so that you know what you're working towards. Just to list what needs human beings actually have, just so that you can get familiar with the vocabulary and the idea of having needs and what it is you might need. So there a lot of them are to do with connection, and some of the things underneath connection or that we get through connection is acceptance, affection, compassion, companionship, love and mutuality, nurturing and respect. So seem these are some of the needs that you might have. Or you might have a need for safety, to know and be known, to be understood, warmth. So those are needs that you might have in relationship. And of course you might have physical needs, like needing air and food, or movement, exercise, rest, sleep, sexual expression, safety, shelter, touch. If you're somebody who squashes your needs and your feelings with food, any one of these physical, emotional, relational needs might be suppressed. So now let's turn to the second part of this podcast about support and relationships. The most secure people on our planet have absolutely no trouble asking for support from other people, where the emotional eater will question whether it's even okay to want help. The emotional eater is often brought up to be extremely self-sufficient and so relies on very few people. One of the ways I see people have success with emotional eating and well-being is by becoming more expressive and authentic. Firstly with themselves or with me and my group, and then with other people. Yes, a few friends can be lost by learning to say no, but often this is not a terrible thing in the end. I see lots of people's relational life develop and change for the better over time. The more people engage in their own well-being emotionally and the more they take time for themselves, the more they gain energy, loving friendships and relationships, all of which contributes to whether they need to overeat or not. The more they can be open, the more support they're likely to have. So far in this podcast, I've talked about inner resources as a way of negotiating emotional eating. But the emotional eater is also gonna stand a much better chance of cutting out emotional eating if he or she has got other people to rely on as well. We rely on other people to co-regulate, just in everyday life. That's part of the reason why this lockdown and isolation is so hard. We're either regulating alone or we're regulating with the same people who might also not be very well regulated. When we overeat or when we squash ourselves for somebody else, our physiological system suffers. We become tense or frozen, like in fight or flight, and it takes a conscious decision and practice to bring the nervous system back down to a relaxed state, or to come back into our bodies. So I'm going to guide you through a little exercise you can try to bring back balance and relaxation to your body. There's something we call the window of tolerance, and that's where you want to be. It's where a certain part of your nervous system, the parasympathetic nervous system, comes back online and you start to breathe more easily and slow down. Fortunately, there are tons of little tricks and tips you can try just to bring that system back online. Lie on your back, on the floor, or somewhere comfortable, and just turn your head with your eyes open as far as you can to one side. And then you just stay there until you achieve a deep sigh or a breath or a yawn or you cry. And then you repeat the same thing on the other side. Turn your head as far as you can with your eyes open, looking in the direction that you're looking in as far as you can, until your breath just naturally comes to you. And then that's a really lovely feeling. When we talk about ourselves to friends, to friends who accept us and understand us, we experience similar shifts in our nervous system. Have you had that experience? Where you've just felt so much better for getting something out and off your chest, to someone who understands, especially when it's been really received well by someone who gets you. That's normal, and it's part of what we need as human beings, and it's part of our birthright and normal functioning. We just feel better when we can be honest about ourselves with each other. We feel bonded, we feel safe, we feel regulated, and that we belong. It's both energy releasing and energizing. So is there anyone in your life that you could be re-opening up a little bit more to or a little bit more regularly? Taking the risk of being a little bit more honest with. Of course you have to be discerning with who you really open yourself up to at first, but I have to say, often people can respond much better than you might expect them to. It's often the internal critic that convinces us of a terrible response. I see a lot of relationships deepen when people become more authentic and real. It's something many of us really value, especially now. But here's where I'll just add a tiny caveat. If you're in an abusive relationship, you don't want to start saying no, you want to get yourself to safety. The priority is not standing up for yourself, it's looking after yourself. So I encourage you to be a little bit discerning about who you are authentic with. Especially first off, pick someone you know is going to be safe. And then what I see happening, the more you become practiced in standing by yourself and opening up to others, the more people learn to accept each other's differences. And with emotional separation and boundaries, it's just more possible to be objective and to learn not to be drained by others. All of this contributes to stopping overeating because you can state what you feel and express what you need and find the solution to that without needing to squash everything. So you see, once again, attending to your own well-being is paramount if you're ever to stop emotional eating. I'm gonna finish on some questions that will help you to summarise what we've talked about, but help you to identify what you need to be working on to find support for your emotional well-being and support for your journey to eating less. And the first question is: are you a people pleaser? Which you can identify from recognising whether you're tired from looking after other people or from listening to them a lot. Do you find yourself with the wrong people who don't appreciate you? Are you tolerant of troublesome and toxic relationships? Do you avoid social contact? And why is that? And then we moved on to needs. So what do you do with your needs and what do you want? How do you treat yourself? Do you treat yourself the way others who don't appreciate you treat you? We also talked about feeling unlovable. Is feeling unlovable blocking you from showing up for yourself? Does it close you off from opportunity? Like, do you receive compliments or do you just brush them off without acknowledging them? If you have already identified that you might be squashing yourself and feeling unlovable, here are some questions that can help you start to shift. What would you have to give up in order to regulate? Would it be just going along with what others want of you, keeping company with people who have no capacity for kindness? Berating yourself? Avoiding people? Assuming nobody likes you? And what qualities and skills or capacities would you actually have to cultivate? Being more boundaried about your time? Looking after yourself more? Saying no? Appreciating the love that you have? Or creating good habits that feed your happiness, like connecting with nature or just doing something for fun? Being kinder to yourself and what you say to yourself. And what could you really? Read or research that would actually help you to do this. Often underlying overeating is the need to stuff ourselves down. And underlying that is self-blame. My hope on this COVID-19 Valentine's Day in 2021 is to start to help you let go of that self-blame. The way out of feeling used and burdened in COVID-19 isolation on this Valentine's Day and on any other day is to find the love within you. Your heart is the most consistent and passionate resource that you've got. You are so good at using it to help others. It's now time to start owning that and turning it on yourself. So that's it for today. If you want some support, you can join my Facebook group, Comfort Eating Recovery Support Group, with Shelly Treacher. I also have another group which you might be interested in. As well as working with Comfort Eating, I also work with people to find engaged relationship and to find love. So you're welcome to join my Love Dating and Relationship Recovery Support Group for Women on Facebook. If you're wanting to go further with either of those subjects, I have programmes and they're both enrolling now for March. Please be in touch and have a look on my website, www.bristolcounselling.co.uk. Thank you so much for listening today and happy Valentine's Day!