#009: How to cope with an urge—part 2

This Internal Family Systems approach offers a way into self-compassion, even when there’s a very loud voice in your head that tells you you’re useless and hopeless and have no self-control and there’s no way through for you. That tells you you’re a pointless failure.

Sounds harsh doesn’t it? But for those of us who struggle with bingeing and overeating, that voice is so familiar that it can seem as if the messages have been there for as long as you can remember.

Welcome to the YoYo Freedom Podcast.

This is the place to learn actionable, step-by-step tools and strategies to help you stop bingeing or overeating and start feeling relaxed and confident around food, so that you can show up for your life on your terms.

I’m Gemma Keys and I know first hand what it’s like to feel out-of-control around food and trapped in the pain of binge eating and body-shame.

There is a way out. 

Keep listening to discover your path to food freedom.

Hello and welcome

We’re talking about urges to eat—that full on drive to get out and get food right away that you’ll be oh so familiar with if binge eating or overeating is a challenge for you.

Yes, urges can be scary, unpredictable, intense and feel totally out of control. 

And— if you don’t know how to cope with them—they can have the power to throw you completely off balance, to derail your efforts to eat in a way that you know supports you, and to really bring you down by leading you to grab the foods that leave you feeling wiped out and all round terrible in yourself and about yourself.

Pffffffgggggh—doesn’t sound great so far, does it? But that’s what these episodes are about—finding a way through urges so that they become way less of an issue.

In episode 8, you learned about the first tool that will really help you cope with and get through an urge. You heard the steps to feel an urge in your body and move from resistance or trying to ignore it—which only acts to ramp up the intensity of the urge—to experiencing it until it’s passed all the way through and dissipated.

In this episode, episode 9, I’m going to let you into a tool that you can use in so many areas of your life, including with urges, and that is especially helpful if you have a tendency to beat yourself up over your eating, to come down hard on yourself and just feel bombarded by all that super-mean negative self-talk.

The good news is that, no matter how strong or overpowering the urge, there is a way through. And the more urges you explore in the ways I’m sharing, the less the power they hold over you and even their physiological intensity actually reduces over time (more about that in episode 10). 

You might find you prefer one tool over another and that’s absolutely fine—go with it! This whole podcast is about finding the way through binge eating and overeating that is most effective for you, and that means adopting techniques that help and dropping any that don’t feel right for you or don’t resonate.

So I wonder if this story strikes a chord. As you listen, just notice anything that comes up for you, any feelings and any shifts in your reactions or perspective.

If you think back, can you remember that kid at school. The one who was a bit too cool for school really. Maybe 15 or 16 years old. He’s edgy—seems a bit standoffish and perhaps condescending. Maybe it’s that contant cross between a slightly mocking half smile and a snarl that seems to stay right there on his face.

He likes to drink and smoke, wears alot of black—I mean, carries off a leather jacket as if he was born to wear it. 

This guy can fix you with such a withering look that you want to curl up and die inside—you feel so …. inconsequential and kinda foolish. And the harder you try to be laid back and cool, the more ridiculous you end up acting in front of him.

He’s the strong, silent, withdrawn type who can’t really be bothered to talk to anyone—it’s as if he won’t sink to their level.

So, he’s kinda intimidating. Unknown. Unpredictable. You often come away from being near him feeling silly or irrelevant, especially when you’ve been at the wrong end of a cutting remark or joke. 

You’re wary of him. And probably most adults have labeled him a trouble maker too.

Can you feel that discomfort? Your suspicion and wanting to keep your distance, at the same time as secretly wanting his approval. There’s something about him that’s mysterious and you’re a little bit drawn to … but he’s mostly risky and you don’t want to get hurt or look stupid.

Take a moment to feel your reactions to the person at school who brings up those sort of memories.

The next month, you’re put next to this guy in art class. You’re wary, but gradually notice you’re getting to know him a little better. You share the odd word and then a couple of sentences. You find out some stuff you didn’t know or even imagine might be going on for him. 

You find out that his mum’s been sick for a long time and he’s doing a lot at home to help out and look after his little sister. He finds school tough. As well as the stresses of academic learning, the teachers always assume the worst and he gets more detentions and exclusions than the other kids. Because of the extra responsibilities at home, he doesn’t get much down time. He makes a joke about it, but you can tell he doesn’t feel as if anyone else really gets him so he has a constant sense of not fitting in and being an outsider. 

Maybe, on hearing that, you’re starting to feel a little differently toward him. He’s less scary and unknown. If he’ll let you, you’d like to find out more about him. Perhaps you notice your antagonism toward him begin to soften as he opens up just a little.

Gradually, you feel more confident to start the odd conversation with him—no expectation, just a gesture and an offer to see what might come up. 

As he begins to trust you more, he tells you that watching  and not saying much feels safer than putting himself out in the world. He expects people to assume negative stuff about him. 

Life can feel a bit heavy sometimes, and having a drink takes the edge off—offers a moment to relax and maybe even smile—a moment to lighten the load and forget his other responsibilities. Even if it’s just the alcohol, he feels less self-consciousness and as if he’s part of something. And the smoking … well, it’s so much easier to have something to do with his hands when he’s feeling unsure of himself.

As you hear more about this kid, do you notice any more shifts in your feelings toward him?

Most people have a pretty strong memory of being at school with someone who had the ability to make them feel deeply inadequate, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you had a visceral response to the initial description of this boy.

But, isn’t it interesting how finding out more opens a space for a significant change in perspective? A different understanding of who he is and what he stands for, which then leads to a complete change in how you interact with him and react or respond to him.

It’s this very same approach that can really, really help you to get closer to urges, to understand them way better, to reduce your fear of them and so de-escalate their intensity.

And it’s also an approach that’s backed by rigorous and ongoing research. The Internal Family Systems model—or IFS for short—is radically transforming how we relate to many behaviors, inducing those that might be considered compulsive or addictive, like binge eating.

The steps you’re going to hear about in this episode are grounded in IFS.

And I’m just letting you know that so you can remind yourself of the science behind this technique, because it might seem a little unfamiliar at first and something you’re not used to, but it’s thoroughly researched and peer-reviewed and, if you stick with it, it’s powerful enough to help you transform your eating. 

So, let’s get into this tool—-the second tool to help you cope with and navigate those urges to binge or over eat.

As we’ve already discussed, urges can be intimidating and scary, a bit like that edgy kid at school.

The following technique offers a way to connect with an urge so you can understand it much better. A way to gain insight into why an urge is there and to ramp down your fear of it and resistance to it. Just reducing that resistance can in itself ease the intensity of an urge.

You’ll discover how to slow things down and get beneath the surface desire to cram the double tube of Oreos into your mouth inside a 3-minute window before your head’s aching so much you have to go and sleep it off.

And you’ll find out why the urge is there and how it’s almost certainly trying to do its best by you—as counterintuitive as it can seem, how it’s trying to help you out in some way.

Understanding the true intentions behind an urge can completely change how you relate to it, and what you do next—just like it did with the young man in the example.

This can even allow you to find some compassion for the part of you that’s so desperate to eat.

And that really is mindblowing. I know I’d heard so much about self-compassion and being kind to myself and accepting myself just as I was, and I thought it was all baloney to be honest—or something I had to force or pretend to feel.

It seemed so completely unattainable & really just a superficial act—especially around food and binge eating

This Internal Family Systems approach offers a way into self-compassion, even when there’s a very loud voice in your head that tells you you’re useless and hopeless and have no self-control and there’s no way through for you. That tells you you’re a pointless failure.

Sounds harsh doesn’t it? But for those of us who struggle with bingeing and overeating, that voice is so familiar that it can seem as if the messages have been there for as long as we can remember.

One caveat—you need to give this a go to feel the power in it for yourself 

I really encourage you not to just listen but to try it out and simply see what you notice.

And there’s no need to note this down—you can download a step by step guide if you go to the show notes for this episode at yoyofreedom.com/9

1. So here’s what to do. 

As we go through the process, you can think back to the last time you felt an urge to eat and apply what you’re hearing to that time. In fact, it’s important to remember that using this approach after an urge can be just as impactful.

Or, if you’re feeling an urge right now, tune into that.

Step 1 is to ask yourself, “when an urge comes up for me, how do I experience it?”

How do you sense the urge in or around your body? Perhaps you notice a tension in your jaw, a tightness in your throat, a flood of saliva in your mouth, a weight across your shoulders or a gaping hollow in your stomach.

Gently turn your attention toward whatever it is that’s coming up for you.

Step 2: As you focus more on the urge, how else would you describe it?

Do you have an image of the urge? Maybe a rock or a cloud, an animal, or a riled-up teacher. 

I often envisaged my urge as a kind of grey alien that started in the back of my head and gradually extended these long tentacles around my face and jaw and then down across my shoulders and neck.

If you don’t have a specific image that’s absolutely fine. Just become more aware of how you sense the urge.

Step 3: As you become more familiar with how the urge shows up for you, find out what else there is to understand about it.

You can do that by directing questions straight to the urge and simply open the space to see what comes up in response.

If that sounds a bit strange, just give it a go and see what happens.

Here are some questions you can ask:

• Why are you here right now?
• What do you want for me?
• What do you want me to do? Or what do you want me not to do?
• Is there a job you do for me? 
• How long have you been doing that job?
• Do you like doing that job? Tell me more about what it’s like for you.
• Is it working in the way you’d hoped?
• What else do you want me to know?

Step 4: As you understand more about the urge, how do you feel toward it?

You don’t need to try to force anything here. Again, just notice what comes up.

Perhaps you feel a slight openness to finding out more, a glint of understanding as to why the urge is showing up, a tiny bit of recognition and even gratitude as you hear what it’s trying to do for you.

If you continue to feel resistance, fear or hatred toward the urge, that’s fine too. You might think of those feelings as different parts of you with different opinions and concerns. 

One way to relate to those feelings is to ask them if they’re willing to take just one step back to give you the space to find out more about the urge. You might offer that, as you get to understand the urge better, it will become much less threatening.

And again, that might sound super-odd. But I invite you to simply give it a try and see what comes up when you do.

If you notice a shift that allows you to continue to explore the urge, keep going with these questions. If it seems that a different emotion is blocking your way, you can turn your focus toward that emotion and ask exactly the same questions, right back from the beginning.

Step 5: Notice any shifts as you move closer to or connect with the urge like this

So, if you notice any sense of curiosity, openness or understanding toward the urge, let it know that’s what you’re feeling. In other words, send it a message of your care and attention.

As you direct that intention toward the urge, do you notice a response or a shift? 

For example, you may notice a sense of relief at being heard and validated, or a slight relaxation at having your attention.

Whatever comes up, just notice. Does the intensity of the urge change as you open to connecting with it? What else happens to the urge?

Step 6: Ask the urge what it’s afraid might happen if it didn’t step in by creating an intense desire to eat?

Again, just give this question a chance and see what comes up.

Urges can be there to protect you from feeling a painful emotion like loneliness or loss, to enforce a break in a hectic schedule of caring for others, or maybe to try to create a moment of pleasure or joy in a life that otherwise feels relentless or grueling. 

And, if you keep going, the part of you that wants to eat probably has a BIG underlying fear of what will happen to you if it stops doing its job.

You can even ask the urge what it needs that would allow it to be reassured, to relax and to loosen its grip. Again, whatever comes up, no matter how far fetched it might seem, is worth listening to.

If you sense a response, ask what it might be like to offer what it needs safely and without it’s worst fear becoming a reality. 

TAKEAWAY

Now, if all of that sounds strange, I totally get it.

It seemed really strange to me too when I first heard about it and experienced it.

My only invitation to you is to give it a try. Like I said, the process is very experiential so it’s only through engaging with it that you can discover how it works and the impact it can have.

In time, you’re likely to understand the urge so well that, in as little as a few seconds per day, you can check in to soothe it or offer the right kind of support in advance to prevent an urge even arising.

You can answer the questions on paper if you prefer and, as I mentioned earlier, you’ll find a downloadable .pdf guide in the show notes for this episode at https://yoyofreedom.com/9

If you have any questions, I’d love to hear them, so feel absolutely free to send them over to me at info @ yoyofreedom.com I’d LOVE  to hear what you uncover as you explore this way of connecting with your urges.

And in the next episode, we’ll move onto the physiology behind an urge, and how to keep taking steps forward to reduce the physical craving associated with urges.

That’s it for today’s episode. Thank you for listening.

I hope you’ve found this episode helpful. Subscribe to The YoYo Freedom Podcast for more insight, tools and support as you pull back from bingeing, overeating or yoyo-dieting and step into your most authentic, vibrant life.

And, if you liked what you heard, it would be wonderful if you’d take a moment to rate this podcast on whichever platform you listen on.

Thank you so much! And Bye-bye for now.