Speaker 1: I won't let my body out be outwait everything that
Speaker 1: I'm made done, won't spend my life trying to change.
Speaker 2: I'm learning to love who I am again. I'm strong,
Speaker 2: I feel free, I know every pardon me, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: And then we'll always out way if you feel.
Speaker 2: It, but yours here, She'll some love to the view.
Speaker 2: Why get there? Take you one day? Anta? Did you?
Speaker 2: And die out Way? Happy Saturday.
Speaker 3: Outweigh Amy here with my co host Leanne Ellington. Hello, Hello,
Speaker 3: we are continuing our mini series on two things can
Speaker 3: be True at the same time.
Speaker 2: This is part six of that.
Speaker 3: There will be eight in total, so you can go
Speaker 3: back and listen to the previous five. But today's two
Speaker 3: things can be true at the same time is your
Speaker 3: life can be amazing.
Speaker 2: You can be living in gratitude.
Speaker 3: Experiencing joy, and you can also be going through some
Speaker 3: sort of a mental emotional or spiritual breakdown, existential crisis, whatever.
Speaker 3: I've definitely experienced all of that at the same time,
Speaker 3: so it can be true. And I think that when
Speaker 3: it comes to Outweigh and listening to this podcast, like
Speaker 3: if you're coming here for like you're feeling lost in
Speaker 3: the weeds, of your eating disorder, or you have a
Speaker 3: loved one that is or you don't really know where
Speaker 3: to go next. This is a dose of encouragement for you.
Speaker 3: Leanna and I have both come out of eating disorders.
Speaker 3: We're both in recovery, so we both are our hope.
Speaker 3: But I know it can be like, Okay, yeah, yeah, y'all,
Speaker 3: y'all did it. Yay, good for you. But this mini
Speaker 3: series is also just to give you little bits of
Speaker 3: insight into like you may be feeling one way, but
Speaker 3: also it's okay to allow yourself to feel the other way.
Speaker 3: And the beautiful part about healing when you do get
Speaker 3: into recovery is you feel more. Because for me, my
Speaker 3: eating disorder was very numbing. I numbed, I numbed, D numbed.
Speaker 3: I pushed down. I pushed down. But at the same
Speaker 3: time I knew I was feeling so much, but I
Speaker 3: couldn't really figure it all out. And the beautiful part
Speaker 3: is as you work your way through towards recovery, you
Speaker 3: take the next right step, and sometimes it might be
Speaker 3: a few steps backwards, but that's okay. There's still steps
Speaker 3: and you have the opportunity to step forward. And so
Speaker 3: Leanne and I what we hope from this series is
Speaker 3: that you know, once you start feeling all the feels
Speaker 3: and maybe you are in that place that you'll give
Speaker 3: yourself permission to recognize all these beautiful things about you.
Speaker 2: And some may seem like, well, how is this happening?
Speaker 3: If this is happening, and Land's the brain expert that's
Speaker 3: giving us permission to say, well, this is why your
Speaker 3: brain might be doing that, and it's totally normal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think you said a weekly dose of encouragement.
Speaker 1: I also want to stack on reality because it's not
Speaker 1: always pretty, it doesn't always have a nice bow wrapped
Speaker 1: around it.
Speaker 2: It is definitely not linear, and.
Speaker 1: I think sometimes we might, at least for me and
Speaker 1: the way I work with, we put to try on
Speaker 1: this story of like am I doing it wrong if
Speaker 1: I'm also experiencing this, and we try to put ourselves
Speaker 1: in a box of what's air quotes normal and just
Speaker 1: giving ourselves permission to just let whatever we're experiencing be
Speaker 1: whatever we're experiencing without having to put a label on it.
Speaker 1: And so I mean even a few months ago now,
Speaker 1: I remember we were meeting at Radner and I was like, Hey,
Speaker 1: by the way, here's who's going to show up at Radner.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I things are great, you know, life is good,
Speaker 1: all the things, and I'm in the midst of some
Speaker 1: like spiritual existential awakening breakdown to break through, right, and
Speaker 1: that's who I am. And I remember you're like, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for just being real, you know, and
Speaker 1: giving y'all. Y'all, I'm definitely a Tennessee and now giving
Speaker 1: yourselves permission to just keep it real and it doesn't
Speaker 1: have to look a certain way. So I know if
Speaker 1: somebody had told me in the midst of all of
Speaker 1: my stuff that, hey, some days you're going to feel
Speaker 1: like you're breaking down, and some days you're going to
Speaker 1: feel like your you know, air quotes messed up whatever,
Speaker 1: and that's actually okay and normal, that would have given
Speaker 1: me a lot of relief just knowing that, you know.
Speaker 1: But I also know that any time I've had some
Speaker 1: sort of air quote setback.
Speaker 2: It's always setting me up for something.
Speaker 1: But this is where I really want to talk about
Speaker 1: the power of choice, because we can choose to look
Speaker 1: at the lows and when we're feeling all the feels
Speaker 1: and all of that as something that's happening to us
Speaker 1: or you know, kind of that victim story. And when
Speaker 1: I see victim story, it's not always this very obvious
Speaker 1: woe is me kind of story. And even if that
Speaker 1: is your version of the victim mode, no shame about it.
Speaker 1: I've had my version. I know when my victim story
Speaker 1: shows up and I see her and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: there she is, right, So there's no shame about it.
Speaker 2: It's not good, bad, right, or wrong.
Speaker 3: It just is.
Speaker 1: But we really want to be aware of it because
Speaker 1: it's really important to feel the feels and feel the suck,
Speaker 1: you know, when something sucks, feel the suck, but not
Speaker 1: to sit in it, not to become a victim to it.
Speaker 1: So when I talk about this idea of a victim story,
Speaker 1: the woe is me and kind of feeling sorry for ourselves,
Speaker 1: that's a little.
Speaker 2: Bit more obvious.
Speaker 1: But sometimes it's this sneaky, insidious victim story that comes
Speaker 1: that's like, this is who you're always going to be,
Speaker 1: this is just what you do.
Speaker 2: Might as well not not even try to change.
Speaker 3: It, you know, that'vember feeling that, like whenever it like
Speaker 3: a binge would be happening, or I would go a
Speaker 3: few days and it wouldn't or weeks, and then it
Speaker 3: would happen and I'd be like, well, I guess this
Speaker 3: is just.
Speaker 2: How life is.
Speaker 3: This is my life and nobody else is experiencing this,
Speaker 3: because that's before anybody was.
Speaker 2: Really talking about that.
Speaker 3: Yep, Like I didn't even know years and years ago,
Speaker 3: had to google, Like I didn't know binge eating was
Speaker 3: a thing, Like I just I thought I was literally
Speaker 3: the only person in the world that couldn't control myself
Speaker 3: for twenty minutes at a time and I would zombie out. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but I remember thinking this is just how it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And I wouldn't have even known at the
Speaker 1: time that that was like a sneaky victim story because
Speaker 1: what it does. I call it a game over plot
Speaker 1: line in our narrative, in our brain game over, meaning
Speaker 1: like I might as well not even try to shift it,
Speaker 1: because if this is how it is, like game over,
Speaker 1: this is this is I just have to accept it,
Speaker 1: versus like, no, this is just what i've actist and
Speaker 1: this is what has been.
Speaker 2: But I have the power to take ownership of it
Speaker 2: and shift it.
Speaker 1: But notice I didn't say, like, you know, just toughen
Speaker 1: up and suck suck it up and skip right through it.
Speaker 2: It's like, no, feel the feels, feel the suck, but
Speaker 2: don't sit in it.
Speaker 1: Don't become a victim to it. But also after you
Speaker 1: feel the suck, ask what meaning can I give it
Speaker 1: that can actually empower me? Like not why is this
Speaker 1: happening to me? Why is this happening for me? And
Speaker 1: I used to hear that and think it sounded cheesy,
Speaker 1: to be honest, a lot of this stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: first of all, if you have that inner skeptic or
Speaker 1: that inner you know, your cynical about it. Me too,
Speaker 1: I was too, And that's why the brain stuff really
Speaker 1: helped me.
Speaker 2: You know, I call it science with a splash of
Speaker 2: woo woo.
Speaker 1: You know, like it's like all the stuff that I
Speaker 1: used to call kind of touchy feeling emotional stuff, the
Speaker 1: stuff that I actually like believe in wholeheartedly. Now that
Speaker 1: used to feel very foreign to me. I was very like, Okay,
Speaker 1: give me a plan, let's logic and reason our way
Speaker 1: through it. And I was very hardened. My heart was
Speaker 1: very hardened, and I had to be tough and I
Speaker 1: had to, you know, show everybody I was okay, and
Speaker 1: show people I was smart and successful in all these things.
Speaker 1: But again that in itself is its own coping mechanism.
Speaker 1: But that being said, if you're going through any type
Speaker 1: of anything, right, I do invite you to look for
Speaker 1: what is the breakthrough on the other side of it.
Speaker 2: We get so kind of focused on the suck. We
Speaker 2: get focused on the problem.
Speaker 1: And you know, one of my favorite quotes is nothing
Speaker 1: passes until it teaches you what you need to learn.
Speaker 2: And it's true.
Speaker 1: Like, if you're and we're going to talk about this
Speaker 1: actually in another two things can be a true episode
Speaker 1: coming up about you know, the difference between regressing and
Speaker 1: moving backwards and all of that. But part of it
Speaker 1: too is like you might not be experiencing something from
Speaker 1: the same altitude that you had the last time, or
Speaker 1: you might have new altitude.
Speaker 2: Right, But if you are looking for it.
Speaker 1: To be the reason why you're never going to solve
Speaker 1: it or never heal it, You're going to sink deeper
Speaker 1: and deeper. And when I say your spirit, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of this is in our heart, it's in
Speaker 1: our soul, it's in our spirit, and that's when the
Speaker 1: physical stuff comes in and totally separates us from it. Right,
Speaker 1: we no nout, we disconnect. We really just shove everything down.
Speaker 1: And that's why again I'm inviting you, like, what if
Speaker 1: some of this conversation that we might think is like
Speaker 1: a food and body thing, what if it was like
Speaker 1: a heart, soul, spirit and brain conversation too, And that
Speaker 1: when you're going through some sort of like again, you
Speaker 1: can have everything can be roses and butterflies in one
Speaker 1: air of your life, but you can also coincidingly be
Speaker 1: going through some sort of spiritual awakening, breakdown to break through,
Speaker 1: existential crisis, whatever it is. And what I'm inviting you
Speaker 1: into is like, what if you don't give it that
Speaker 1: meaning that it's bad or wrong or you're doing something
Speaker 1: air quotes wrong, and that that was just part of
Speaker 1: it And two things can be true at the same
Speaker 1: time and it doesn't have to mean anything other than that.
Speaker 3: Dig a little deeper into breakdown to break through.
Speaker 1: So you know, when we're in the midst of something,
Speaker 1: breakdown for men can look in many ways. Right, it
Speaker 1: might be I'm in a spiral of shame and self
Speaker 1: condemnation and stress. Right, breakdown could be you know, I've
Speaker 1: hit the end of my road and I feel like
Speaker 1: giving up and that hopelessness kinds of kind of creepy
Speaker 1: breakdown can be like I feel so alone, I feel
Speaker 1: so isolated, I feel messed up, unworthy, broken, all the things.
Speaker 1: You know, And I could tell you a lot of
Speaker 1: the former storylines of my breakdowns, but a breakdown right
Speaker 1: now might be, you know what, so many things are
Speaker 1: piling up in my life right now, and I feel
Speaker 1: like I've reached my limit, and I just feel like
Speaker 1: I need to cry, and I need to maybe for
Speaker 1: a moment, even be MOPy poudy, victimy for just a
Speaker 1: minute in a very kind of strategic way, because again,
Speaker 1: you don't want to shove it down like let it out,
Speaker 1: give yourself permission to be irrational, erratic, you know, victimy, whatever.
Speaker 1: But again we don't want to sit in it. But
Speaker 1: it's really important to feel to suck. But any type
Speaker 1: of breakdown, so you know, for me, honestly, what I
Speaker 1: would call most recently my versions of breakdowns or when
Speaker 1: I give myself permission to not be okay in that
Speaker 1: moment and let myself cry, or I'm more of a
Speaker 1: crier than a screamer.
Speaker 2: But whatever it is for you, I'm both okay I'm.
Speaker 3: Both and and there is a chemical release that's happening
Speaker 3: when So if you are someone that suppresses, I would
Speaker 3: encourage you to figure out if you're a car or
Speaker 3: a screamer or both, because there is some sort of
Speaker 3: release that feels so good. And in those breakdown moments
Speaker 3: with you know, I just love that you said break
Speaker 3: down to breakthrough because I feel like in the breakdown,
Speaker 3: after we've not suppressed and felt the things and whatever
Speaker 3: we live, it's almost as though you're not a fork
Speaker 3: in the road, and which way are you going to go?
Speaker 3: Are we going to continue with the breakdown or are
Speaker 3: we going to look for the breakthrough?
Speaker 2: Absolutely and work for the breakthrough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And like sometimes you got to tear down walls
Speaker 1: to put up new ones, you know, and it's not
Speaker 1: always pretty. And so the breakdowns and again you can
Speaker 1: replace it with whatever word resonates with you. And if
Speaker 1: you're listening to this and you're like, sometimes I shut
Speaker 1: down sometimes I just want to escape, like whatever it is,
Speaker 1: and you're feeling all the feels whatever, you might have
Speaker 1: tendencies to make wrong or give meaning that you're doing
Speaker 1: something wrong or regressing or I should be stronger than
Speaker 1: this or I should know better is a big one
Speaker 1: for my clients. Right, So whatever it is, like, look
Speaker 1: at like find the gold in that, find the beauty
Speaker 1: in it.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: One of something I found online I sent to one
Speaker 1: of my clients because she was experiencing something, actual circumstances
Speaker 1: in her life, you know that were hard. She came
Speaker 1: to me and she's like, Okay, leam, I'm noticing my
Speaker 1: victim voice come up.
Speaker 2: And so I was just coaching her through it.
Speaker 1: But I found something online and it just says, replacing
Speaker 1: why is this happening to me? With what is this
Speaker 1: trying to teach me? Is a game changer. Things happen
Speaker 1: for us to learn and grow from. When we realize this,
Speaker 1: our perspective shifts from disempowered to empowered. And I think
Speaker 1: that's really the if we were to simplify this, like
Speaker 1: the breakdown to break through, it's a perspective shift. Don't
Speaker 1: skip over the suck, like get feel the feels. But
Speaker 1: then it's like, Okay, what is now possible for me?
Speaker 1: What can I create from this? What do I need
Speaker 1: to learn?
Speaker 2: God? For me? I say, God, what are you trying
Speaker 2: to teach me here?
Speaker 1: What have I not yet experienced, mastered, learned, have the
Speaker 1: insight and awareness right where am I trying to fix
Speaker 1: something outside of me when something inside of me feels
Speaker 1: like it needs some love and attention and care.
Speaker 2: But that's where I come back to full circle. It's
Speaker 2: the power of choice.
Speaker 1: You have to choose to take radical ownership of your journey,
Speaker 1: of your story, of your ability to influence all the
Speaker 1: things that you can influence, and then of course release
Speaker 1: the things that you really can't control. But that's a choice,
Speaker 1: and shifting your perspective is a choice. And having aware
Speaker 1: of sitting here listening to this podcast bettering yourself where
Speaker 1: we're not always talking about roses and butterflies, is a choice.
Speaker 1: But you're obviously listening to this because you're somebody who
Speaker 1: wants to take radical ownership of your life. So the
Speaker 1: breakdown to break through, the breakthrough is a choice in
Speaker 1: my opinion.
Speaker 3: Well, and since we mentioned experiencing joy is one of
Speaker 3: the things that is on the opposite of experiencing the pain,
Speaker 3: and two things can happen at the same time, Like
Speaker 3: you could be experiencing the loss of someone in your
Speaker 3: life but also get some really exciting news and then
Speaker 3: feel guilty about celebrating it because you should be grieving
Speaker 3: that it all can sort of happen at the same time.
Speaker 3: But I was trying to search up for this Ted
Speaker 3: talk that I watched, and now I can't remember what
Speaker 3: it was called, but I talked about it on four
Speaker 3: things because what was the key word? And it makes
Speaker 3: me think of Donald Miller giving us what does this
Speaker 3: make possible in any situation that you face?
Speaker 2: But she had done this whole study.
Speaker 3: Of people that were, you know, truly content in life
Speaker 3: and had joy, and there was people that you know,
Speaker 3: said they did, but then it didn't line up when
Speaker 3: they were you know, they asked all these questions, they
Speaker 3: had to fill everything out, and she said that the
Speaker 3: ninety percent of people, Now I'm paraphrasing and making stuff
Speaker 3: up just to give you a picture of sort of
Speaker 3: what it was, is like ninety percent of people would
Speaker 3: have said, oh, yeah, I'm this way, but she said, really,
Speaker 3: it's only like five or ten percent of people that
Speaker 3: really are. And in the five to ten percent of
Speaker 3: people that we found truly experience that joy any adversity
Speaker 3: they face in life, they have that question, what what
Speaker 3: does this make possible? For me? What can I do
Speaker 3: with this now? Not why exactly what you just said?
Speaker 3: And I'm going to find that Ted talk it, but
Speaker 3: it was, you know, someone got di notsed with cancer,
Speaker 3: and instead of being like, why is this happening to me?
Speaker 3: She said what is important in life to me? And
Speaker 3: she made a list of what's important so that she
Speaker 3: could focus on that. A guy was having a really
Speaker 3: difficult time with his boss at work, and instead of
Speaker 3: saying why does she treat me this way? Or why
Speaker 3: is our relationship so strange? He said, what can I
Speaker 3: do to show her I am valuable?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And so the what is huge? So I just was
Speaker 3: going to go off on that.
Speaker 2: For a second. Yeah, don't quote me on any of that,
Speaker 2: but it is.
Speaker 1: That is the gist of it, absolutely, And I'll even
Speaker 1: stack on that asking yourself why. I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter, but it's not going to make a difference.
Speaker 1: So the big ones are why is this happening? Why
Speaker 1: am I like that? Why do I do that? Why
Speaker 1: can't I stop that? The why questions? Again, it's not
Speaker 1: that they don't matter, but they're not going to make
Speaker 1: a difference in how you show up from here on out.
Speaker 1: But those what questions, as you were just saying, Amy,
Speaker 1: those can actually shift the trajectory and move you into
Speaker 1: solution thinking, because why questions not all the time, but
Speaker 1: are ten are going to tend to be more focused
Speaker 1: on the problem versus what we really want is a
Speaker 1: way out of the problem and solution. So those what
Speaker 1: questions are going to bring you more solution focused versus
Speaker 1: those why questions tend to tend to take you down.
Speaker 2: The rabbit hole of the problem. Well, there you go.
Speaker 3: That is part six of two things can be true
Speaker 3: at the same time. And Leanne and I both hope
Speaker 3: that you have the day that you need to have.
Speaker 3: And if you need to cry, cry, yes, if you
Speaker 3: need to scream, scream, you.
Speaker 2: Need to hit some things at one of those places.
Speaker 2: I googled the on YouTube.
Speaker 3: I just looked up a lions roar because I remember
Speaker 3: doing that in yoga and it feeling really good. So
Speaker 3: I found someone leading the process of that on YouTube,
Speaker 3: and I sat down and I did it the other
Speaker 3: day and it felt so good. So look up the
Speaker 3: lion r r are. It's very empowering. I don't know,
Speaker 3: it's very therapeutic, very so Leanne, where can people find.
Speaker 1: You Stressless eating dot com if you want to hear
Speaker 1: more about the whole process of rewiring your brain when
Speaker 1: it comes to food, your body, yourself image, your body
Speaker 1: image and Leanne ellington.
Speaker 3: Over on Instagram and I Am at Radio Amy on
Speaker 3: socials and radioimy dot com. We'll see you next Saturday
Speaker 3: for part seven.
Speaker 2: Bye bye