Toxic Striving, page 9
In Wherever You Go, There You Are, Jon Kabat-Zinn (2005) explains that “you can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” You can’t prevent the challenging moments, but you can learn to move through them without getting swept away. You’re being knocked around by the current when you’re on that pendulum of restrict, binge, restrict again only to binge again. You’re also getting knocked around when you swing from bottling emotions to getting overwhelmed, back to trying to bottle up even harder, only to eventually explode. At the whims of the current, you’re trapped in a cycle of fear, overcontrol, and burnout. There is an antidote to these extremes; there exists a surfboard you can climb upon that carries you over the waves of human experience. It might seem counterintuitive at first, but stick with me here: you learn to ride the waves by giving yourself what the authors of Intuitive Eating call unconditional permission (Tribole and Resch 2020).
With food, unconditional permission means allowing yourself to eat without limits, until your body begins to feel less frantic. That means allowing yourself not just to eat whatever appeals to you, but to have as much of those foods as your body desires, as frequently as your body desires. Your body eventually begins to trust that it will get what it’s seeking, and that food won’t be taken away again. The forbidden fruit is always the sweetest. As soon as you put limitations on something, it becomes all-consuming. When you remove limitations, it becomes ordinary. If you can eat french fries, pizza, or ice cream anytime you want, those foods soon lose their luster. It’s the scarcity mindset that makes something irresistible. Moving from scarcity to abundance allows you to feel safe and calm.
The same process can apply to emotions. When you stop trying to not feel an unwanted emotion, that emotion may still be unpleasant, but it eventually becomes less scary. By exposing yourself to that emotion without trying to get rid of it, you learn how to experience it fully and then watch it fade away or morph into the next emotion. Don’t get me wrong; it can feel downright terrifying to stop fighting for control. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people of all different ages and backgrounds doing everything in their power to not cry. People fear that if they let themselves cry, they will never stop. Or, if they let themselves cry they won’t be able to tolerate the flood of emotions that surfaces. Fighting the release only makes it that much more unbearable. In reality, any emotion predictably peaks and then subsides. It’s only when we mess with it by fueling it with unhelpful thoughts or engaging in control efforts that an emotion tortures us indefinitely.
Harvard neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor (2008) formulated the ninety-second rule. When you have a reaction to something in your environment (for example, a flash of anger when someone cuts you off in traffic), the chemical process that happens in your body lasts a total of ninety seconds. If the emotion continues after that, it’s likely that the response is being restimulated by your thoughts or continued exposure to the stimulus that triggered it. If you can simply watch the process happen, and allow it to run from start to finish without prolonging it through efforts to make it go away, you might actually notice the intensity subside after less than two minutes. Sure, you may then have a similar feeling shortly after, but then that emotional response will run its course if you don’t interfere. Like anything we try to avoid or control, the stimulus loses its power once it’s given unconditional permission to be there.
Habituation: The First Bite Is the Most Delicious
It can be downright terrifying to give yourself unconditional permission to eat, rest, feel feelings, or allow any natural experiences you’ve previously tried to overcontrol. There is often a fear that once you start allowing yourself to eat potato chips anytime you want, you’ll be unable to stop. You’ll eat them on repeat 24/7 for the rest of time. While this might happen at first, it eventually goes away, thanks to a behavioral principle called habituation.
Habituation is what happens when the more frequently you’re presented with a stimulus, the less intense your response becomes. With food, enjoyment is tied to novelty. The first bite is the newest and most delicious. Food lights up pleasure centers in the brain at first, but over time that response will diminish. Each bite is less exciting than the last. Think about how that first lick of an ice cream cone is the most enjoyable. With each subsequent lick, you get used to it and the reward value diminishes.
The intensity of your response to a food can also be tied to rules or beliefs you have about that food. Research shows that people rate food as more pleasurable and have a harder time stopping when full if they have been dieting, or deprived of that food (Epstein et al. 2003; Cameron et al. 2014; Hagan and Moss 1997). If a food is laced with rules, guilt, judgment, or scarcity, it never loses its allure, even if you keep eating and eating it. When you’re approaching food from a place of psychological (or physical) deprivation, you’re chronically unsatisfied. That’s why people who try to eliminate or limit certain foods often feel addicted to those foods. Once someone has been given consistent unconditional permission to eat, they’ll eat something if they’re hungry or it appeals to them, and leave it if it doesn’t.
Consider other examples of habituation you may be familiar with beyond food. The first time you kiss a new romantic partner, you might feel intensely over-the-moon happy. Ten years into a relationship, when you kiss that same partner, it might be nice, but it won’t have the same level of pleasure and intensity that it did early in the relationship. After that honeymoon phase wears off, we habituate to the stimulus of our partner. In a healthy relationship, you might feel nostalgia for those exciting early stages, but you can also accept reality and appreciate the security you now have with that person.
You can also habituate to experiences that aren’t pleasurable. The first time I had to stick a needle into myself to administer a fertility drug, I was terrified. I spent hours leading up to the injections consumed by fear. Now, when it’s time for the umpteenth needle, I still don’t love it, but the intensity of my anticipation subsided with repeated exposure to the stimulus. Just as the response loses its intensity with repeated exposure, so does the anticipation that amps up (and exacerbates) that expected response.
Sometimes, when you’ve been suppressing an emotion or depriving yourself of an experience for a while, full permission can lead to a rebound effect. At first, it seems like the floodgates are opened and suddenly all you want are the foods you used to limit, and all you feel are the emotions you used to avoid or suppress. This rebound period is natural and temporary. If you continue to give yourself unconditional permission, you will eventually habituate.
My clients who were coming off opioids learned this the hard way. When they stopped chasing pleasure, for a while it seemed like the only sensation they could feel was pain. They felt chronically irritable, frustrated, or sad. After some time and stabilization, the full spectrum of emotions returned. They habituated to the unpleasant emotions they had previously numbed out, and as a result, experienced more emotional balance. Feelings of pleasure will never be as intense as the manufactured pleasure of a narcotic drug, but without the contrasting high highs of an artificial substance overwhelming the brain’s receptors, those lows don’t feel quite as low.
Seven-Day Habituation Challenge
To see habituation in action, try using this activity to take power away from a food that feels “bad” or indulgent to you. Choose a food you usually have rules or restrictions around. Eat this food every day for one week. For consistency, it’s best to habituate to one food at a time, and use the same flavor and brand of the food every day.
Using the worksheet you can download at http://www.newharbinger .com/54063, write down the food you chose. Describe how you felt before, during, and after eating. Each day, rate how enjoyable it was, and whether your enjoyment changed from the previous day. Notice flavors, textures, and sensations as you eat. Notice how it feels in your body, and how much it takes to feel satisfied. Remember, you can eat as much as you want!
Repeat this activity for as many weeks as you need. Stop when you’re truly tired of the chosen food, then repeat with a new formerly forbidden food. Throughout the process, notice any thoughts or feelings that arise with curiosity, not judgment.
Habituation can happen for anything you’ve previously put rules and restrictions around, from eating chips to crying to experiencing anger—with this exception: habituation does not apply to substances that create physical dependence, like tobacco, alcohol, or drugs. These substances should not be used for this activity. For naturally occurring experiences like food cravings or emotions, unconditional permission allows for those stimuli to become less overpowering. You can even habituate to the uncomfortable feeling that comes with letting people down!
My husband taught me this lesson early in our relationship. It turns out I married a fellow people-pleaser. Although our pleasing strategies look different, we both have trouble being honest when it might upset someone we love. For a while, I thought he had no opinions. Anytime I stated a preference, he went with it. His standard answer to “What do you want for dinner?” was always a breezy “Whatever you want.” Then, every few months, seemingly out of nowhere, he’d lose his temper. Because he married a psychologist, he’s frequently subjected to deep dives into our emotional and relational dynamics (he’s a good sport). Soon it came to light that much of the time he wasn’t really “fine with whatever,” but he kept his opinion to himself to avoid disappointing me. Then, once dozens of moments of self-silencing piled up, he’d reach a breaking point and explode.
When he identified this pattern, I felt a kinship with him. After all, shutting down my needs to please others was my most practiced childhood pastime. But shutting down feelings doesn’t make them disappear. While my style was to suppress until the emotional buildup sank me into a depressive black hole, his was to suppress until he exploded in a firework display of anger. (Perhaps it’s no coincidence that when we did finally express, we each expressed in the way that was prescribed as most acceptable by our gender norms). As the saying goes, you can only sweep things under the rug for so long before they start coming out the other side.
Nowadays, we regularly disappoint each other. It’s never fun to have to tell the other person that you don’t want to do the thing they’re suggesting, but in the end, we’d rather tolerate temporary disappointment than know the person we love is bottling their true feelings. Plus, when there’s less suppression, there’s also less explosion. If you’re used to forcing things away, it can take time to warm up to the idea that your desires and emotions have unconditional permission to be there. We’re trained to analyze and judge our instincts, but you don’t have to automatically assume these experiences must be overpowered. When we make space for wants and needs, we can respond to them with greater clarity. By nonjudgmentally accepting them, we also take away their power.
If, like my husband, you’ve been habitually ignoring your true instincts and needs for a long time, you may struggle to know when you’re suppressing them. You might start by exploring what you typically deny yourself—whether it’s a particular food, emotion, or experience. If you’re not sure what you’re denying yourself, consider what you feel ashamed about. Sometimes, shame can highlight where you usually try to keep things buttoned up. Humans are messy and complicated. We cannot control our cravings and desires any more than we can control our need for oxygen. As you work on freeing yourself from overcontrol and giving yourself permission for the full spectrum of feelings, needs, and preferences, you might also find that burnout is a rarer experience.
The process begins with unconditional permission, but you also have to understand what you’re giving yourself permission to feel or do. The remaining chapters in this section will help you discover ways to reopen the channels of communication between your mind and body, so you can tune in to your cravings and better recognize what you desire. Through a skill called interoceptive awareness, you’ll become more familiar with your body’s natural rhythms and signals, guiding you to meet its needs for hunger, satisfaction, comfort, emotional expression, and anything else it might be asking for.
Now that you hopefully see the value in making space for those experiences without judgment, you’ll be open to learning more compassionate ways to respond to them. Remember that all of this work is designed to help you get off the hamster wheel you’ve been spinning on, exhausting yourself and going nowhere. When you know what you care about, recognize what you need, and care less about societal expectations, you can embrace a more authentic—and more fulfilling—version of your life.
Chapter 7.
Tapping into Your Hunger
Tanya has been taking care of people for as long as she can remember, and she’s really good at it. As the oldest, she was in charge of helping her younger siblings get ready for school each morning, and watching them after school while her parents were at work. As an adult, she lives with her long-term boyfriend and although they both work full time, she also takes on the brunt of the housework and packs his lunch most days. As her parents are aging, she also finds herself jumping in to care for them.
With all of her caretaking expertise, going into nursing was a natural decision. When she struggles, she prefers to keep it to herself. Although her friends are happy to support her through tough times, their empathy makes her uncomfortable. She’d much rather be the person doling out support than the one on the receiving end. When she started having episodes of anxiety and panic, the idea of going to therapy was pretty far outside her comfort zone. Eventually, her best friend convinced her to make an appointment.
Tanya’s two goals for therapy were to manage stress better and to get her binge eating under control. Soon it became clear that for most of the day, attending to her needs wasn’t a priority. Her mornings were often rushed, with a long commute to the hospital. She didn’t eat breakfast, but never left home without her thirty-two-ounce thermos of coffee. At work, she’d grab a snack when there was time, but she didn’t usually sit down to eat a full meal until getting home at night.
In the spirit of self-care, Tanya’s therapist asked her to start eating breakfast. To help reduce anxiety, she was also encouraged to limit caffeine to one or two cups of coffee per day. After a few weeks of eating breakfast, she found herself surprisingly energized throughout the morning, but noticed that by the afternoon she got irritable. Her therapist explained how hunger cues can get quieter if they’re ignored. Now that she was eating breakfast, the cues were coming back online. She realized her afternoon irritability was actually her body sending hunger signals, telling her it was time for lunch.
She also started to understand that fatigue was sometimes a sign of hunger. Previously, she thought she was just drained from work. She assumed she was fine eating very little all day, then having a big dinner. Now that she wasn’t blunting her hunger cues with caffeine, her body was starting to tell her it needed food more consistently throughout the day. When she honored her hunger, she had more energy, emotional stability, and mental focus. Tanya discovered the power of attuning to her bodily signals through interoceptive awareness.
You’re probably familiar with the five sensory systems (visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile), but did you know you actually have eight senses? Occupational therapists are well versed in the three lesser-known sensory systems, which include the proprioceptive system (attunement to your body’s muscles to tell you about your position in space and which muscles are engaged), vestibular system (which tells you about any changes in your movement or balance), and interoceptive system. Your interoceptive system is responsible for perceiving and responding to signals within your body, such as hunger, thirst, heart rate, a full bladder, or pain sensations. Small children build interoceptive awareness through potty training, where they learn to use their brain to recognize the “gotta go” urge of a full bladder. Before that process, their bodies still excrete, but it’s not under conscious control until they go through this attunement process.
Consider what’s happening in your body right now, as you’re reading this. Are you aware of how heavily or deeply you’re breathing? How quickly your heart is beating? Whether any areas of your body are tight or in pain? If there was a change in your body’s sensations (for instance, if you started getting hungry, thirsty, or having to use the bathroom), would you notice subtle shifts in intensity? Or would you not notice until your body was screaming at you?
Here are some ways you might practice developing interoceptive awareness in everyday life:
Set a timer for thirty seconds and bring your attention to the involuntary processes in your body. Notice your breath going in and out, your eyes blinking, and your mouth swallowing at regular intervals.
Do a brief body scan, either on your own or with guidance (try searching “guided body scan” on YouTube). Notice any areas of tightness, tension, or sensation as you move awareness from the crown of your head all the way through each body part, down to the tips of your toes.
For one minute, place your hand over your heart and feel your heartbeat. Slowly remove your hand and see if you can still perceive your heartbeat, even without the tactile feedback of your hand on your chest.
For one minute, feel your pulse (you can detect it by placing your index and middle fingers gently but firmly on your neck, just under the side of your jaw). Then remove your fingers and see if you can still perceive the pulsation without the tactile feedback.
Next time you realize that you have the urge to use the restroom, pause and notice the sensation of a full bladder, and the sensation of emptying it.
