Self-Compassion and Your Eating Habits

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Related Episodes:

• You Are NOT Your Eating Habits
• 5 Daily Habits That Help Eating Habits
• Feeling Better in Your Body

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Full Episode Transcript:

Self-Compassion and Your Eating Habits

Hi there, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining me on this episode. I really think this one is going to be such a life-changer for you.

That’s because often as career women, we are perfectionists or at least have some perfectionist tendencies. This usually means we are lacking in self-compassion and overly utilizing self-criticism.

When we talk about self-compassion, we must always talk about self-criticism too, because that’s where the shift has to occur. In order to increase the self-compassion, you need to be able to recognize self-criticism and work on decreasing that. You won’t necessarily eliminate it right away, and that shouldn’t be the goal. Your brain may be used to being self-critical that it has become a habit. So working on decreasing it little by little is the way to go.

I’m going to teach you in this episode a bit about self-compassion and self-criticism, plus how to recognize if you’re being self-critical. I’m also going to share how to start making a shift over to more self-compassion, regarding your eating habits specifically. A shift that will help give you the fuel you need to make the eating habit changes you want to make.

Being self-critical can be very subtle. It can of course range on a scale, going all the way up to very obvious and extreme. Subtle self-criticism can be just as destructive though because you don’t realize as much that it’s there. And because of that, you can easily get into the habit of self-criticism without intending to.

Probably the biggest thing I want you to know and to take away from this episode is that self-criticism serves no purpose, even if you think it does. Self-compassion, however, can help you to have more success with breaking bad eating habits and maintaining new, healthier eating habits. I’ll explain why for both.

So, self-criticism like I said can range from very subtle to very obvious and severe. Subtle self-criticism can be a thought or comment like, “I just can’t resist sugar.” That’s not a terribly mean thought, right? It is however a somewhat negative, critical thought. You’re saying something that might sound like a fact, but it really may or may not be entirely true though, right?

It doesn’t help you in any way, either, which is what I mean by self-criticism not serving you. Not serving any purpose to help you in any way.

You might even be subtly self-criticizing by joking around with a friend and saying something negative about your eating habits. It might seem harmless, because it’s said in a joking way, maybe to get a laugh, but in reality, it’s still you making a negative comment about yourself. And like I said, it always sounds like it’s a fact, but oftentimes it’s not even true.

Even if it were true, there’s no benefit of thinking it, especially if it’s a thought that you notice you have over and over again, which oftentimes it is.

Typically, if something is a pain point for you, or something you wish were different, it’s a thought that you’ve had multiple times. You can almost say you’ve convinced yourself that it’s true. It’s become what I call a “thought habit.” Your brain has thought it so many times, that it believes it’s 100% true, even if part of you kind of knows it’s not really true. By default, your brain is just going to believe it, which will make it harder for you to change your eating habits, right?

Now let’s explore a more obvious self-critical thought when it comes to eating habits. Maybe something like, “I have terrible eating habits.” A thought like that doesn’t make you feel good. You’re essentially just shaming yourself.

Some people might think that you can shame yourself into change, and maybe for a few people that’s true, however for most it’s not and even if it did make you change, it would typically be only temporary. That’s because you’re not changing that habit of thinking negatively toward yourself, so even if you changed one eating habit, you’ll likely fall back into the thought habit of self-criticism.

Done enough, whatever changes you have made or are trying to make, you’ll likely give up on because negativity and shaming is not great fuel for motivation. In fact, I have an entire bonus course on boosting motivation inside Food Freedom, so if that’s something you struggle with, you’ll really find that course helpful.

You can even get more extreme with a self-critical thought after making a mistake or slipping back into old eating habits like, “I always mess this up and will never be able to control myself.” Here, you’re essentially making yourself out to be a complete failure. There’s no way a thought like this can help you. It’s only going to wear on you and cause a lack of confidence, and certainly a major lack of motivation.

Another example of a more extreme self-critical thought would be name calling. If you call yourself a mean name, because of your eating habits, or because of not getting a result you wanted. You can do this either in a joking fashion, which on the surface, makes it seem less harmful like I mentioned earlier, or you can do it in a very harsh, mean way toward yourself.

I want to give you an example of how I used to do this to myself. I never actually called myself names regarding my eating habits, but when I made a mistake with anything else, whether it be career-wise, working on a house project, or even after I felt that I said the “wrong thing” to someone. I would immediately have the thoughts, “You’re so stupid, I can’t believe you did that. You’re such an idiot.” I literally said those exact words so many times to myself. It made me feel terrible.

I ended up then just having self-pity because I made myself feel so terrible with those thoughts. I would calm down and try to talk myself out of being upset at myself, but it was too late, I had already caused the harm. Many years of that, really caused a lack of self-confidence. Until I started becoming aware of what I was doing and the harm it was causing.

So how do you become aware? The first step is to acknowledge that you don’t like how your thoughts make you feel. You must want to make the change first. You must want to no longer feel terrible because you’ve been self-criticizing. So admit to yourself that you need a change. You don’t like being mean to yourself, because it’s not serving you and it’s certainly not making you feel good.

Next, you have to start catching onto your brain. From the subtle self-criticism to the more obvious, more harsh self-criticism. You may already have some idea of how you’re talking negatively to yourself. I think it’s helpful to write down some of the self-critical thoughts you’ve had toward yourself, especially the ones you notice occur over and over again, the thought habits.

When you write them down, you’re not just gaining awareness by pulling the thought out of your brain, but you’re also seeing it visually on paper. You can even keep the paper in a visible spot to serve as a reminder. Not as a reminder to think these thoughts of course, but as a reminder of which thoughts to look out for. Almost be a police officer, ready to catch the “bad guy” or in this case, the self-critical thoughts.

Be on high alert for these thoughts. Also, you’ll want to be on high alert for any thoughts about your eating habits that are negative in general, right?

Now, really important here. Once you catch onto your brain and find some of these self-critical thoughts, I don’t want you to then judge yourself for having these thoughts. Meaning, I don’t want you to then feel guilty or ashamed. I don’t your awareness of the self-criticism to lead to more self-criticism.

Instead, you’re just going to acknowledge that your brain has been thinking a certain thought that hasn’t been serving you and it’s a great thing that you’re making this step in the right direction. You’re now going to benefit from becoming aware of these self-critical thoughts, because you’ll slowly start decreasing them and you’ll be able to start having some self-compassion, which will help give you the proper fuel for being successful with changing your eating habits.

So now that I’ve focused on self-criticism, let’s turn our attention to self-compassion.

Self-compassion looks like having your own back. Being your own coach or cheerleader. It means loving yourself and being kind to yourself. It means accepting that you’re human and you’re not a perfectly programmed robot, right? And even if you were a robot, robots still make mistakes. So of course, humans are going to make mistakes or not be perfect.

I think this is really difficult for career women to accept in particular, because as a career woman, we have a level of expectation for ourselves. You probably notice that in yourself. You might describe yourself as having high standards for yourself and others. You might set the bar really high and be disappointed if you fall short.

This certainly happens to me and honestly, I think the more successful you become, sometimes the higher the bar you set.

So, if you don’t meet that bar or that standard, you might feel even more disappointed, especially if you’re used to success, right? Success itself doesn’t necessarily make you feel better, because as a high achieving career woman or just a high-achieving human in general, you may become more self-critical when you don’t reach these bigger and bigger goals you’re setting for yourself.

So having some self-compassion is really going to be key for when you might fall short, make a mistake, or just feel that you’ve been in the habit of doing something you don’t really want to be doing. Such as eating a lot of sweets, or getting a lot of takeout, or not eating when you’re really hungry.

When you can have compassion for yourself, you’re accepting that you’re a human and you can still love you no matter what. You can acknowledge something without judging it. Because when you get into self-judgement, you’re getting into that self-criticism zone. Self-judgement and self-criticism aren’t exactly the same, but they have a lot of overlap.

Self-compassion is something that will feel good to you. It will feel warm and accepting. It’ll feel open. It’ll potentially even invigorate, motivate, or excite you to work toward your eating habit goals.

When you have self-compassion, you’ll feel a little softer toward yourself. Less harsh. You’ll feel like you’re your own teammate. That’s what I mean when I say you have your own back. You’ll be the one supporting you, because you can’t really count on other people to do that. They have the same job to do toward themselves. So you have to be the one you can rely on to be supportive of you, to love you.

So, how do you make that shift from self-criticism to self-compassion once you’ve caught onto your brain with the self-critical thoughts? You’re going to remind yourself that you’re human.

I think this is the most simple thing to start with. That’s because that’s a completely true statement and 100% believable, because it’s true. You are a human and humans are not perfect. You see evidence of that all the time, right?

When working from self-criticism to self-compassion, what you don’t want to do is to make a big jump. You don’t want to go from negative to super positive right away if you don’t believe it. You want to start with, “I’m a human, therefore I’m not perfect.” Add that to the end of your negative thought.

So, think of a self-critical thought you’ve had before. Think of one right now. And just simply add at the end, “and I’m a human, therefore I’m not perfect.”

Let me give you a couple of examples. I’ll use the self-critical thought examples I used earlier.

If you’ve had the thought, “I just can’t resist sugar,” then add “and I’m a human, therefore I’m not perfect.” It’ll look like this, “I just can’t resist sugar, and I’m a human, therefore I’m not perfect.” Or you can do some variation of that of course.

Another example is with the self-critical thought, “I have terrible eating habits,” it’ll turn into “I have terrible eating habits, but I’m a human and therefore I’m not perfect.”

You’ll start noticing that just adding that phrase, “I’m a human and therefore I’m not perfect” is going to feel so much better to you. You’ll be reassuring yourself that you aren’t SUPPOSED to be perfect. You’re loving yourself more this way. You’re supporting yourself, instead of beating yourself down. You’re breaking that thought habit that will just wear on you.

You’re also going to be moving into a more kind way of talking to yourself, which will only be to your advantage. Not just with eating habits, but with everything in life. It’s no fun to be self-critical and as much as you think that it helps you correct your mistakes or change your ways, it isn’t going to last long and it isn’t going to feel good in the process, right?

And especially if you’re putting in the effort to do change your eating habits, you want it to be as easy as possible on your brain. You’re going to not want to be harsh or critical. You’re going to want to make the process more enjoyable and that means more positive feelings or emotions along the way.

So, once you get some practice at catching those self-critical thoughts, and adding something objective and true like, “I’m a human, and therefore I’m not perfect,” you can then move your brain into a more positive direction, so that at least you’re in more neutral, accepting territory. You might not be in the place of going from negative to positive right away but getting to that more neutral place is very important.

Once you start breaking that negative thought habit, it’ll be easier to think in a more positive, supporting way. It won’t seem quite as unnatural anymore. By default, you’ll be less likely to self-criticize and more likely to have self-compassion.

When you’re in the habit of self-criticism, there’s very little room for self-compassion. Once you start decreasing that space that the self-criticism is taking up, you’ll make room for more self-compassion. Whether you either had none and start making room for brand new self-compassion, or whether you had some, but just needed to increase it.

Once you get pretty good at practicing self-compassion, your eating habit journey will not only become easier and more enjoyable, but also you’ll find that it translates to other areas. Such as career, relationships, maybe even parenting. You’ll start feeling a little lighter. I know I did once I started decreasing the frequency of internally calling myself stupid or an idiot if I made a mistake or said something I later regretted.

It took time and practice too though, but I started noticing that I was less mean to myself.

Self-compassion doesn’t come overnight, when your brain is in the habit of doing the complete opposite, but if time is going to pass anyway, you might as well start working on it, because it pays off in all the areas of life. Really, it’s a minimal investment for maximum return on investment. To me, that’s a no-brainer.

Alright, my friend. That’s what I have for you today on self-compassion. You probably noticed I spent a little longer on self-criticism and that’s because it’s necessary to move past the self-criticism if you’re going to create that space for self-compassion.

So, if you’re needing some help with eating habits, but also want to change your eating habits out of kindness and with all the support and compassion you could want, I’m here. I’d love to help you out, so that you can learn the tools to change your eating habits AND love and support yourself in the process.

Take care and I’ll talk to you soon.