What do resounding rings and freeway dreams have to do with you and binge eating? Keep listening!

Welcome to The Done Bingeing Podcast. This is the place to hear about how you can pair the emerging brain science about why you binge with powerful life coaching to help you stop. If you want to explore an evidence-based, non-clinical approach to end binge eating, you’re in the right place.

It’s time to free yourself. You have more power than you know. To find out more, go to www.holdingthespace.co and click Programs.

And now, your host, Internal-Family-Systems-Level-3-Trained and Master-Coach-Certified Martha Ayim.

Last week, The Done Bingeing Podcast returned with key number 9 to end binge eating, which was tune in and notice—an invitation to turn inside.

This week, we’re at key number 10, which is appreciate all you find.

Why did we bother to tune in and notice last week?

Why did it matter that we found a part of you that wanted to binge and a part of you that didn’t?

Because if you’re listening to this episode, it’s probably because you’re still bingeing. And I’d bet my life that my podcast isn’t the first place you’ve turned for help to stop.

I binged for nearly 35 years before I found a way out.

Many of my clients have binged for decades—some for 70-plus years. And almost every single one of them comes to me saying the same thing I used to say: I’ve tried everything … doctors, psychologists, nutritionists, naturopaths, chiropractors, personal trainers, sponsors, coaches, diets, meal prep services, medications, surgery.

I tried everything legal I could find to stop bingeing.

And if I’d heard of anything illegal, I might have tried that too.

Many of the approaches I tried helped somewhat or for some time. But they didn’t take me to the place where my bingeing fully resolved and I knew I’d never stop trying to get there.

Mine was a desperate story of fighting to heal my eating. And I wasn’t alone.

It is estimated that in the United States, 2.8 million people are affected by binge eating.

• 5% of women and 2.0% of men will develop binge eating disorder in their lifetime, and
• a whopping 30% of people who seek the support of weight loss programs are likely to experience binge eating symptoms.

The long-substantiated link between dieting and bingeing is staggering.

Despite the promise of cognitive therapy as first-line treatment for binge eating disorder, leading researchers remain puzzled over why so many people don’t make it fully or even partially out of the living hell of bingeing eating.

I made it out.

And I didn’t do it by hating my bingeing.

In the most annoyingly counterintuitive way, I had to find a way to make peace with it.

I didn’t know then what I know now—that peace wasn’t even going far enough. My bingeing would have healed far more quickly if I could have found a way to appreciate what it was trying to do for me.

Now, before you say, “Fuck that shit!” and delete my podcast, wait. I have three questions for you:

Have you ever tried appreciating your bingeing before?

Has not appreciating your bingeing ever helped you before?

Have you ever wondered why you keep bingeing, even though you not only know the brain science behind why you do it but have also practiced the neural rewiring to stop it?

Do you know the answer?

Okay, fine, that was four questions.

Well?

My guess is no, no, yes, and no.

Am I right?

I’m guessing that you’ve never tried appreciating your bingeing before.

I’m guessing that not appreciating your bingeing hasn’t helped you yet.

I’m guessing that you have wondered why you keep bingeing, despite trying well-known cognitive approaches to stop.

And I’m guessing that you don’t know why that is.

I have never helped two people stop bingeing the same way—even though there’s something that’s always been the same about every other approach they’ve tried … a fixation on stopping the bingeing.

You might not believe this … but I don’t want to take the bingeing away from you.

Yes, I have heard that my podcast is called Done Bingeing. Thank you for pointing that out. Someone cue an eye roll, please. I get it, okay? But I also get you, don’t I?

I know you want to be done with bingeing.

But I also know that you don’t.

How do I know that?

Because no one is making you binge but you.

Ever heard of force bingeing? Neither have I.

So what is the benefit does the bingeing bring?

For some of my clients, bingeing brought them relief from the urge to binge. So I taught them how to allow the urge and they stopped bingeing.

For some of my clients, bingeing brought them relief from difficult emotions. So I taught them how to feel the emotions and they stopped bingeing.

For some of my clients, bingeing simply followed a thought they believed in error. So I taught them how to assess their thoughts and they stopped bingeing.

And, yet, for some I taught and taught and they didn’t stop.

Why?

Because they needed to do something other than create a competing neural network in their brain, a freeway to ride out to freedom.

What can be done besides building a new network?

Healing the original one. Often a more efficient approach resounding in more spaces than the brain, it ripples out infinite rings.

And, almost always, the way in is by asking, “Why do you want to binge?”

Not asking with a whip coiled and waiting behind us but, rather, with a heart open and curious before us.

So often the parts of us that binge turn out to have been tireless valiant soldiers who took the bullet for the whole system yet were, understandably, reviled for the consequences they brought to our bodies and minds.

But no one paused to notice that no other part knew how to, or was willing to, shut us down so we would finally stop, or make us big so others would finally stop, or a millions other things in-between.

So often the parts of us that seem frozen in bingeing will begin to melt in the face of authentic appreciation.

They don’t want to hurt us. They actually want to help us. But they don’t know any other way.

Many of my clients come to me not just bingeing, but with the added shame of prior attempts to stop that went up in flames.

They couldn’t allow the urges.

They couldn’t feel the feelings.

They couldn’t change the thoughts.

And what we learn together is that they don’t have to.

Why?

Because knowing the peculiar precision of benevolent malevolence means everything.

That’s it for Episode 57. Thank you for listening! If you’re ready to invest in healing your bingeing, join me in the all new Done Bingeing Academy. This is a curriculum like no other. Expect profound transformation. Doors to the inaugural term close tonight, Thursday, December 3, at 11:59 pm Eastern / 8:59 pm Pacific. Go to www.holdingthespace.co/group-coaching/ to learn more.

Thanks for listening to The Done Bingeing Podcast.

Martha has the highest-level training in both the evidence-based Internal Family Systems approach and in life coaching, and she’s available to help you stop bingeing. You can learn more about her programs by going to www.holdingthespace.co and clicking Programs.

Stay tuned for the next episode on freeing yourself from binge eating and creating the life you want.