Speaker 1: I won't let my body out me outwait everything that
Speaker 1: I'm made done, won't spend my life trying to change.
Speaker 1: I'm learning love who I am, I get, I'm strong,
Speaker 1: I feel free, I know everybody of me. It's beautiful.
Speaker 1: And then he'll always out way if you feel it,
Speaker 1: but you she'll some love to the food. By you
Speaker 1: have there, say good day and did you and die out?
Speaker 2: Hey hey leanne here and I hope you enjoyed this
Speaker 2: series with doctor Chip Dodd. Here on outweigh and if
Speaker 2: you want to learn more about how I teach my
Speaker 2: own clients to turn off the part of their brain
Speaker 2: that's obsessed with food, obsessed with their weight, and rewire
Speaker 2: their own brain for peace and freedom, then head on
Speaker 2: over to Stressless Eating dot com, where I've literally peeled
Speaker 2: back the curtain and walked you through the exact strategy
Speaker 2: I teach my clients to heal themselves from the all
Speaker 2: or nothing diet mentality for good, but without restricting themselves,
Speaker 2: punishing their bodies, and definitely without ever having to use
Speaker 2: words like macros, low carb or calorie burn. It is
Speaker 2: all over there for you to access over at stressless
Speaker 2: seating dot com. Well Happy, Saturday outwigh. It is me
Speaker 2: LeAnn here back for an episode where we're actually here
Speaker 2: with our beautiful guest, Chip Dog, where we're going to
Speaker 2: do a series. It's a four part mini series called
Speaker 2: Why We Numb The Real Root of coping Mechanisms. So hello, Chip, Hey.
Speaker 3: Good see you. I love you, brought your good energy again.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you so much, thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Well. Sonia even commented, she said she's heard you, and
Speaker 3: she said she just has great energy. I love her energy.
Speaker 2: So thank you so speech. I appreciate that. Well, I
Speaker 2: love yours, and I'm so grateful for you to be
Speaker 2: here because this, you know, the topic of this series
Speaker 2: is about why we Numb and coping mechanisms. But really,
Speaker 2: you know, so many people identify as an addict or
Speaker 2: they don't even know that their compulsive behaviors of weighing themselves,
Speaker 2: the body IMOGIP session, the food obsession really takes over
Speaker 2: their brain and there's so much shame with it. And
Speaker 2: so there's no one better than you to be here
Speaker 2: for this series. So just to brag on Chip for
Speaker 2: just a second. He has been in the recovery world
Speaker 2: for decades and he developed his own recovery system called
Speaker 2: the Spiritual Roots System, and he took it into the
Speaker 2: recovery world and then ran a treatment center for twenty
Speaker 2: two years called the Center of Professional Excellence, and now
Speaker 2: still in twenty twenty five, he's here spreading the love,
Speaker 2: sharing his truth and the truth about what addiction is
Speaker 2: and isn't and I mean so much more than that.
Speaker 2: So you've probably know him best from his book The
Speaker 2: Voice of the Heart, and we're going to share all
Speaker 2: of the ways that you can find him. But he
Speaker 2: was also on What's God Got to do with It?
Speaker 2: So we'll link that in the show notes, But specifically,
Speaker 2: we are going to be here for the next few
Speaker 2: weeks talking about why we numb the real root of
Speaker 2: coping mechanisms, and this is part one of this series.
Speaker 2: Today we're going to talk about what is addiction really
Speaker 2: okay and the coping mechanisms that become a trap because
Speaker 2: a lot of us, I know, I'm talking to women
Speaker 2: all the time that they think they identify as an
Speaker 2: addict or they feel like something has this addictive pull
Speaker 2: over them, but they don't necessarily know what it is.
Speaker 2: So we're going to break it down for you. What
Speaker 2: it looks like on a logic and reason level, on
Speaker 2: a behavioral level, on a neuroscientific level. But first let's
Speaker 2: just dive on in. So addiction, obviously we're talking about
Speaker 2: this before. It's not just about the substance the thing.
Speaker 2: It's about how we cope or how we use the thing,
Speaker 2: or who we're being in the face of the fin
Speaker 2: whether it's food, you know, social media, weight obsession, whatever
Speaker 2: it is, right, and so how behaviors like emotional eating
Speaker 2: and over exercising and workaholism and even social media addiction
Speaker 2: follow those same patterns. So can we talk about what
Speaker 2: is addiction?
Speaker 3: The simplest definition that I have for addiction is it
Speaker 3: ends up being an intolerance for vulnerability, and intolerance vulnerability
Speaker 3: and vulnerability means openness to being affected, to being wounded,
Speaker 3: to being seen exposed, to being needy, all the things
Speaker 3: that sort of like our mythology of society says, you've
Speaker 3: got to be stronger than how you're made. And so
Speaker 3: really and truly addiction is an attempt to escape how
Speaker 3: we're actually created, to run away from how we're made.
Speaker 3: There's a saying that the suppression of expression equals depression,
Speaker 3: and I don't mean the clinical depression. I'm talking about
Speaker 3: depressing how we're created. That we actually are told somewhere
Speaker 3: along in our lives that what you're bringing to this
Speaker 3: need for connection is not what we're looking for, So
Speaker 3: we attempt to disconnect from ourselves. And so almost every
Speaker 3: person who's addicted, whether they realize it or not, grew
Speaker 3: up in an environment where they were the heart of
Speaker 3: who they are, feedings, needs, desire, longing, and hope was
Speaker 3: oppressed pushed away, and then that person becomes obsessed with
Speaker 3: the need to belong and matter at the same time
Speaker 3: without being who I'm really made to be as an
Speaker 3: expressive person. So the need to belong and matter is
Speaker 3: still there, but I can't do it like I'm created,
Speaker 3: So I practiced not being myself. So that's what oppression
Speaker 3: turns to obsession, obsession with control, and then that turns
Speaker 3: into possession. And so as crazy it sounds at first,
Speaker 3: the thinking takes over the frontal lobe, the executive functionings
Speaker 3: takes over for the heart, so it becomes a mind
Speaker 3: over heart problem rather than a heart actually overmind. So
Speaker 3: recovery is about returning to how we're created.
Speaker 2: Wow, and so beautifully put that it's an escape from
Speaker 2: who we are, or we never got we never felt
Speaker 2: safe to be all of who we are. This is
Speaker 2: somewhere along the line we picked up a storyline or
Speaker 2: a belief that if I just could go control that
Speaker 2: obsess over that, then that'll fill this need. And it
Speaker 2: wasn't conscious, We didn't consciously know we were doing it, right,
Speaker 2: But so powerful to hear that because so often addiction
Speaker 2: and compulsion is categorize as just this physiological thing, and
Speaker 2: that's the cause and effects, you know, cascade. But really,
Speaker 2: what you're saying I so agree with and what I'm
Speaker 2: finding with you know, all of the women that come
Speaker 2: through my program, is that it starts at the mental, emotional,
Speaker 2: spiritual side of it. And when you address that, then
Speaker 2: you might also need to make some altercations.
Speaker 3: In the physical realm.
Speaker 2: Right absolutely, but that's when everything is possible so soon, and.
Speaker 3: I would even say it even starts, if we wanted
Speaker 3: to make a pinpoint start. It actually starts with this
Speaker 3: idea that we can't accept ourselves emotionally. It's not our
Speaker 3: faults of their problem, it's not even our actions out
Speaker 3: of their problem. It's actually that somehow or another it's
Speaker 3: not okay the way I actually feel. And that's where
Speaker 3: the Voice of the Heart book is about our core feelings,
Speaker 3: soting literally the core feelings of how we're created, which
Speaker 3: actually open up the door to needs and desire and longings.
Speaker 3: So guess what, Once we're growing up in an oppressive place,
Speaker 3: oppressing the heart, we don't get to practice learning how
Speaker 3: to live. We don't get the practice figuring things out.
Speaker 3: We don't get the practice making mistakes. And almost every
Speaker 3: bit of learning in life is about practice, which is
Speaker 3: vulnerability being seen. So it's almost like we have to
Speaker 3: have the answers before we arrive at the problem. We
Speaker 3: have to have the answers before we get the questions.
Speaker 3: And that becomes the external validation versus internal risking on
Speaker 3: an external world, you know.
Speaker 2: So we add ourselves and you just defined self rejection
Speaker 2: at its core, that's where it starts. That's where you know,
Speaker 2: it festers outward and then we go as humans. I've
Speaker 2: done it too, and now I'm learning is that like
Speaker 2: you can't solve an emotional problem with logic and reason?
Speaker 3: Amen, you know, keep on keeping to say more.
Speaker 2: That's it, Yes, it is, absolutely, and that's what we do.
Speaker 2: So coming back to you know, I love how you
Speaker 2: set the stage for this, where this starts, where the
Speaker 2: problem is, where it starts, what the real problem is
Speaker 2: and what it isn't So when we're talking about now
Speaker 2: the difference between addiction and coping mechanisms, because a lot
Speaker 2: of people might not say, well, yes, I'm realizing that
Speaker 2: I'm coping with something, whether they don't know what it is,
Speaker 2: with food, you know, numbing out on social media, Netflix, whatever, versus.
Speaker 2: I talk to a lot of women who are on
Speaker 2: the other camp where they're like, no, Leanne, I am
Speaker 2: an addict, right, and they swear they're an addict to
Speaker 2: sugar specifically. So you know, there's some coping mechanisms that
Speaker 2: can actually help us heal and actually comfort right and
Speaker 2: do good, versus others that keep us stuck and create
Speaker 2: a toxic cycle. So can you share a bit about
Speaker 2: the distinction between not just addiction and coping mechanisms, but
Speaker 2: strategies that heal and some in those of them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know interesting, a coping mechanism can be part
Speaker 3: of an addiction. A coping mechanism that can be part
Speaker 3: of an addiction, and an addiction is also a form
Speaker 3: of coping if you're attempting to escape one thing, So
Speaker 3: coping an addiction becomes synonyms if you're attempting to use
Speaker 3: your actions to escape having to do one thing, you're
Speaker 3: trying to get away from feeling because even of books
Speaker 3: about stress management, coping strategies for stress, even those things
Speaker 3: can be used to try to escape having to be human,
Speaker 3: having to be in need, having to feel so recovery.
Speaker 3: Whether it's the use of coping or addiction itself. See,
Speaker 3: addiction is not a badness, it's not an evil. It's
Speaker 3: an attempt to have normal needs met without having to
Speaker 3: be in need. And coping strategies are a way to
Speaker 3: make sure that we put ourselves in positions so that
Speaker 3: we have a place to go where who we are
Speaker 3: and how we live, who we really are is received.
Speaker 3: So the coping strategies need to be actions we take
Speaker 3: to stick around people and be with people who can
Speaker 3: receive us as God made us as feeling creatures who
Speaker 3: have needs, desire, longings, and hope. And we can find
Speaker 3: the places to struggle with others who are doing the
Speaker 3: same versus struggling and with those who judge us for
Speaker 3: being human.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: So coping strategies need to be getting around people who
Speaker 3: have the same strengths we have of being human so
Speaker 3: we're able to tolerate an inhuman world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you're how to be safe in who
Speaker 2: we are and this being safe, it's one thing to
Speaker 2: I identify that I'm not safe and like have an
Speaker 2: idea of like, oh what would be safe, But to
Speaker 2: be in practice living out being a human being all
Speaker 2: of who you are around people where you're safe, that
Speaker 2: is everything.
Speaker 3: And the safety is actually a place where you can
Speaker 3: practice being yourself and then go out into a world
Speaker 3: that may not receive it, but you can still practice
Speaker 3: being yourself in that world and then come back and resustain. See.
Speaker 3: Because we're made for relationship. I mean even neuroscience, more
Speaker 3: than ever before, finally has awakened to what we've known forever.
Speaker 3: Do you come out of the womb looking for who's
Speaker 3: looking for you? That we're created to find fulfillment relationship
Speaker 3: and people who are addicted or coping to hide their
Speaker 3: feelings all right, or trying to get relationship without having
Speaker 3: to be in need. So we need to be in
Speaker 3: the places where we can be ourselves so we can
Speaker 3: cope with the world that isn't very interested in who
Speaker 3: we are. It doesn't mean that you try to hide
Speaker 3: from the world. You have the strength to go live it.
Speaker 3: And how do we have the strength to go live
Speaker 3: in the world. We do that through having relationships that
Speaker 3: we're security and we belong in matter.
Speaker 2: And it comes back to what you literally started with
Speaker 2: with just this concept of vulnerability, where it's like, where
Speaker 2: does that even fit into addiction? Might some people be thinking,
Speaker 2: but you just said it. It's this idea of not
Speaker 2: a feeling like we can't go be in need. It's
Speaker 2: what's causing the addiction, and that's a vulnerable place to be,
Speaker 2: to be like, no, I need connection and we yeah,
Speaker 2: there's a world of true efficiency exactly. It's not a desire,
Speaker 2: it's a require. And so obviously my you know, my
Speaker 2: mind is.
Speaker 3: Please repeat that, it's not a desire, it is it
Speaker 3: is a required.
Speaker 2: And I love that you brought up the geeky neuroscience
Speaker 2: stuff because one of the things I'm talking about all
Speaker 2: the time is the anterior singular cortex. It's my favorite
Speaker 2: part of the brain. It's the social brain, and it's
Speaker 2: bigger in females and more active and that's where I
Speaker 2: to oversimplify it. What I teach my clients is that
Speaker 2: that is where our addiction and compulsion lives, because it's
Speaker 2: not what's happening is we're being over fed by dopamine. Right,
Speaker 2: these hits of dopamine. That again, now we know what
Speaker 2: that dopamine is a response to, of not of being needed,
Speaker 2: but not feeling comfortable to go be air quotes needy, right,
Speaker 2: or receive that support and that connection that we need,
Speaker 2: not just desire, but require. But so what's happening is
Speaker 2: we're going.
Speaker 3: To describing even though that need to get hits of
Speaker 3: dopamine to get relief hits a relieve ourselves for anxiety exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that what happens is that initial hunger what
Speaker 2: we're really needing, which is oxytocin. By connection, we are
Speaker 2: feeding dopamine. So therefore our brain is being overfed and undernourished.
Speaker 2: And it's a cycle cycles level.
Speaker 3: And I want your audience to hear that it's not
Speaker 3: either or we're made to experience dopamine because we're made
Speaker 3: to have relief from flight flight freeze and a piece Okay,
Speaker 3: but the thing that dopamine won't answer that both and
Speaker 3: and part. We're craving dopamine from a standpoint of relief,
Speaker 3: but we're even more craving oxytocin for life giving experience.
Speaker 3: So dopamine relieves, oxytocin grants us a full life. One's
Speaker 3: a life giving chemical, one's a life relieving chemical. Yes so,
Speaker 3: and oxytocin occurs. But we can bring how we're made
Speaker 3: and who we're made to be to people who can
Speaker 3: receive that. And also people can come get the same
Speaker 3: thing from us. Absolutely, so recovery ultimately, no matter what
Speaker 3: what you're recovering from, recovery ultimately is too. I admit
Speaker 3: that I don't have control of life, and the more
Speaker 3: I try to control it, my life becomes unmanageable. And
Speaker 3: then number two, I become somebody others can come to
Speaker 3: to receive oxytocin, and I have people to go to
Speaker 3: to get oxytocin in no worries. Not only am I safe,
Speaker 3: but I'm cared about and that strengthens me to go
Speaker 3: risk being myself in a world that's not very interested
Speaker 3: in me, or a world that is coping with sickness
Speaker 3: or addicted and leanne. You and I both know that
Speaker 3: and so many people talk what the pandemic really is.
Speaker 3: We talk about the pandemic was COVID, and that became
Speaker 3: a word that everybody knew suddenly. But the real pandemic
Speaker 3: in our society is addiction because there are over two
Speaker 3: hundred million plus people who carry addiction. And addiction ultimately
Speaker 3: is about running from feelings. So guess what if you
Speaker 3: deal with feelings in a healthy way, you get recovery
Speaker 3: from that which would silence you, numb you, knock you out,
Speaker 3: anesthetize you, or literally control your life to the standpoint
Speaker 3: that even when you walk and outside your own home,
Speaker 3: you're obsessed with the appearance of what people think about
Speaker 3: what you look like. And the only power hits are,
Speaker 3: the only sense of security you have is somebody affirming
Speaker 3: your outsides, but nobody really being interested in your insides.
Speaker 2: Absolutely and insights healss even just a stack on that,
Speaker 2: because what you said is just so beautiful, I believe
Speaker 2: are The first thing is like, we have to become
Speaker 2: interested in our insights, Yes you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: and they'd run away from yeah, absolutely, and learn how
Speaker 2: to be emotionally available to ourselves. And a lot of
Speaker 2: times that means going and getting support and being in need. Right,
Speaker 2: But we have to learn to wake that ticker up
Speaker 2: because a lot of women, specifically that I work with,
Speaker 2: and I know it's men too, we're to sensitized. We
Speaker 2: don't even know when those alarm bells are going off anymore.
Speaker 3: That is so true. And there really is a thing
Speaker 3: called denial. And denial does not mean you're life. Denial
Speaker 3: means you really don't see, means you're blind. I was
Speaker 3: talking to a woman this morning and she went to
Speaker 3: her first adult Children of Alcoholics meetings, and she wasn't
Speaker 3: raised in an alcoholic home, but it's for dysfunctional families. A
Speaker 3: dysfunctional family is a feeling that doesn't deal with feelings
Speaker 3: in a healthy way period. And she said that she
Speaker 3: shared a little bit, and then she said that all
Speaker 3: these other people shared, and she said, I just kept thinking,
Speaker 3: me too, me too, And she said, I've never met
Speaker 3: these people my whole life, and I felt like it
Speaker 3: was okay. But and that's how you that's how you
Speaker 3: know you're getting into recovery when you go to a
Speaker 3: meeting and you look around and you're not going, that's
Speaker 3: not me, that's not me. You're actually going this is
Speaker 3: me too, your home now very quickly. But all of
Speaker 3: us are born to have a home, and then if
Speaker 3: you don't have a home, you still look for one. Okay,
Speaker 3: what is a home? A home is a sanctuary, and
Speaker 3: it's a place where the front porch lights always on,
Speaker 3: the door's always unlocked, and the table set ready for
Speaker 3: your return, and there's someone there who says, oh, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: I'm doing the cooking, the cleaning. I'm taking care of
Speaker 3: you until you can take care of you. And so
Speaker 3: we all need that place where we can bring our neediness.
Speaker 3: And then once addiction kicks in, we don't believe a
Speaker 3: place like that exists or not for me, because I'm
Speaker 3: not worth it. And the thing is, you're born worth it.
Speaker 3: And if you don't know you're worth it, then it's
Speaker 3: not that it went away, it's that it got buried
Speaker 3: by the people who you needed to be home with.
Speaker 3: So almost all addiction and all of our coping sicker
Speaker 3: coping skills are all about front I hate to say
Speaker 3: it this way, but what happened to the feelings in
Speaker 3: your growing up experience? If you come from a place
Speaker 3: of feeling, you're almost certainly not going to wind up
Speaker 3: in a position of position called addiction.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. And I'll just finish by saying this because I
Speaker 2: have to plug your Voice of the heartbook for just
Speaker 2: a moment. But I think a lot of people think
Speaker 2: they have to go dig up all of the skeletons.
Speaker 2: It's the braveyard from the past. And what I talk
Speaker 2: about is like you can get very yes you want
Speaker 2: to become aware of it, but get out very right now,
Speaker 2: solutions focused and almost start like adulting yourself through these
Speaker 2: feelings that never got reconciled. And so if you're looking
Speaker 2: for a tool to do that, the Voice of the
Speaker 2: Heart is just it's literally a guide of how to
Speaker 2: feel and to it'll you'll be able to recognize where
Speaker 2: you fit in the spectrum of almost you know, the
Speaker 2: suppressing of it versus you know how to health use
Speaker 2: a healthy coping mechanism to experience your feels before we
Speaker 2: dive off. Can how can people find you?
Speaker 3: Stock? You find out all the chipdod dot com and
Speaker 3: you'll you'll get into chip DoD resources, free resources recommendations,
Speaker 3: and it takes you also to the Living with Heart
Speaker 3: podcast Living with Heart from Birth to Death and then
Speaker 3: of course, it takes you to eight different books that
Speaker 3: I've written. In fact, the Voice of the Heart is
Speaker 3: a seminal work. It was written a long time ago.
Speaker 3: It was the first emotions book actually written in terms
Speaker 3: of if we look at in terms of bibliograhy, it's crazy.
Speaker 3: I didn't know that was writing the first emotions book.
Speaker 2: You know now like so widely and popularity used by
Speaker 2: all therapists. Yes, that's how we found everywhere.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, and you know what it came out. It
Speaker 3: came out to the sounds of crickets. And now it's
Speaker 3: become like almost like it was a little far ahead. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And actually all it did was named something ancient. We're
Speaker 3: created as creatures who were made for relationship, and that
Speaker 3: heart actually really is created to take precedence over our thinking.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And we did a whole episode all about the
Speaker 2: Voice of the Heart, so I will link that in
Speaker 2: the show notes from the Godpod. But don't worry, we're
Speaker 2: not done because we're going to be back next week
Speaker 2: with episode two of this series where we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about why we numb and the real reason we
Speaker 2: avoid pain and seek comfort. So we got into it
Speaker 2: a bit today, but we're going to get to go
Speaker 2: narrow or deeper, so we will see you next time.