I thought this would be a good time of year to do an episode on all or nothing thinking. With the new year starting, it's easy to get caught up in goals, resolutions, intentions, etc. And there's nothing at all wrong with that, if it appeals to you.

But I think what sometimes (or often) happens, is that we set goals that are wildly beyond what we're doing now. For example, going from not doing much movement at all to setting the goal of hitting the gym for an hour five times a week. Or going from eating whatever you enjoy to cutting out all carbs or sugar.

And when we don't reach these goals or when we last one or two weeks trying to work toward them, we have parts that feel shame and feel as though we've failed.

In this episode, we're talking about all or nothing thinking from an IFS lens. Specifically, we're discussing:

• All or nothing thinking as a polarization between two parts or groups of parts
• How this polarization tends to play out (i.e. with both sides getting louder and louder and you going back and forth from one side to the other like a tennis match!)
• How to recognize parts within this polarization
• What to do about all of this!

If this sounds like you, take a listen!

I also wanted to let you know that my workbook, Heal Your Love-Hate Relationship with Food: An Intuitive Eating and Internal Family Systems Workbook will be released on March 1 but is now available for preorder! Head here to check it out!

Where to find me:

Website: drkimdaniels.com

Email: kdanielspsyd@gmail.com

CE Course: Unburdened Bites: Helping Your Clients Heal Their Relationships with Food and Body Using IFS

In this episode, we're talking about Rebellious Parts. I think most if not all of us have rebellious parts, and those parts could be rebelling in a variety of ways. But since we're focused on food and body concerns, we're going to look at the parts who rebel by eating or by saying "no" to extreme diets and exercise.

Rebellious parts often get a bad rap. They may be binge eating parts or parts who say "fuck it" and eat whatever they want. And then our other parts--who are really concerned about eating well, dieting, and/or losing/maintaining weight--get upset. They see these parts as really destructive. And I do get that. But it's so important that we understand why they're doing it.

In this episode, we're covering:

• What rebellious parts are
• How they come to be
• How they rebel
• What they're rebelling against
• How to address them

I have to say, I love rebellious parts. They're some of my favorite parts! Because they get it. They know that our other parts are dieting and focusing on weight and appearance because someone told them they should. These parts know the game is rigged, and they're just not having it. You gotta respect that!

Sure, they can be angry and stubborn--again, they have good reason!--but they really are trying to help. If this resonates with you, take a listen!

Where to find me:

drkimdaniels.com

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It's episode 100 of the Emotional Eating (and Everything Else) Podcast--I can't even believe it! And to celebrate, I thought I'd invite two amazing women who I've had the honor of working with come into the show and share their experience with IFS.

Kali and Amanda are two former clients who graciously agreed to talk about their struggles with food and their bodies and how IFS and Intuitive Eating have helped them to heal. They have very different histories and backgrounds, different body types, and different experiences, and I have no doubt that you will resonate with so much of what they share.

In my interview with Kali, we focus on the constant need she felt to change her body due to the pressure from others. She discusses the numerous diets she tried (including the high-protein diet that led her to eat a meat cake for her birthday--yes, you read that correctly), the damage those diets have done, and the fear those programs created. We also discuss the impact of the medical community, food scarcity, and a certain infant part that led her to binge. Kali also shares her journey with IFS--not just in terms of changing her relationship with food and her body, but also in getting to know herself. Indeed, she states, "IFS has changed my relationship with myself entirely."

Amanda's experience is different, as she doesn't recall outside pressure to be thin. Regardless, she was never comfortable in her own skin, and her eating disorder was a way to control her world. She discusses the secrecy involved in her eating disorder, the lack of attention by the medical community, and how the wellness industry sent her spiraling even further. We also talk about what was missing in other types of therapy she tried, and how IFS finally got to the heart of her eating patterns. We end with her sharing that she is finally able to truly feel love for herself: "I'm worth all the work that it takes."

I'm so thankful to Kali and Amanda for sharing their stories with us, and I know you'll hear yourself in some (or a lot) of what they're saying. Take a listen!

Where to find me:

Email: kdanielspsyd@gmail.com

CE Course: Unburdened Bites: Helping Your Clients Heal Their Relationships with Food and Body Using IFS

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I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that at some point in your life, you've tried to change what you're eating. Perhaps because you started a diet. Or you were trying to "eat healthier." Or maybe you were trying to move toward a more Self-led or Intuitive Eating approach to food (where you're really tuning into your body and feeding your body in ways that work well for it).

Regardless of why you were trying to change what you were eating, it probably wasn't all that easy. There may have been foods that you tried to cut out but couldn't, foods that you stopped eating but found yourself dreaming of, or even foods that you restricted and then binged on.

And there are likely a few different reasons for this, the first being that our parts like certain foods--and they miss those foods! But they may also like the rituals that you have surrounding those foods. The shopping, the preparing, the anticipation, the cooking, the aroma that fills your kitchen. Or perhaps the evening at your favorite restaurant where you feel cared for and attended to. Or maybe even the gatherings with friends, where everyone brings their favorite dishes and you get to eat things you've never tried before.

All of those rituals have an impact on our parts. And when we lose them, our parts can feel real grief.

On this week's podcast, we're talking about these food rituals and the impact they can have. Sure, our parts can get very attached to specific foods, but they also get attached to all of the rituals surrounding food. And I think it can be really helpful to get curious about these rituals.

In fact, it might be helpful to think about your favorite foods and/or the ones you have a hard time changing (even when you know they don't sit well with your body). Is it the food itself that's hard to give up? Or is it everything else?

Take a listen, and try to get curious!

Where to find me:

drkimdaniels.com

kdanielspsyd@gmail.com

CE Course: Unburdened Bites: Helping Your Clients Heal Their Relationships with Food and Body Using IFS

On the last podcast, we talked about "blocking parts." And by blocking, I meant parts that tend to come up when you're trying to get to know another part. Like when you're headed for the kitchen and a part of you says, "I should get to know the part that's leading me to the kitchen right now" but another part comes up and says, "Nope! I don't want to get to know that part. I'll do it next time." I hope that the episode was helpful and that you noticed more of those parts over the past couple of weeks.

This week, I thought it would be helpful to focus on another group or cluster of parts that many folx have that I'm calling "disconnecting parts." These are parts that disconnect you from your body for various reasons. They can show up in various ways, such as:

• Not feeling hunger or fullness cues
• Not noticing physical cues from your body
• Having difficulty knowing where parts are within your body
• Difficulty or reluctance to focus on physical self-care
• Inability to experience enjoyment or pleasure

Those are just a few examples. You may be noticing other ways in which parts may disconnect you from your body. If that's the case, just be curious. Disconnecting parts tend to be protectors who for whatever reason feel the need to separate us from what our body is telling us. They're trying to help us.

On this week's podcast, we're focusing on the parts that disconnect us from our body and make it difficult to connect with hunger and fullness cues. We're focusing on:

• What disconnecting parts are
• Why they're there
• How they show up and block hunger and fullness cues
• What to do about them

AND

I'm sharing some suggestions from Intuitive Eating that can help you connect to your body even more. We go through four exercises from the Intuitive Eating Workbook that help you to tune into your body as well as your hunger and fullness cues.

If you're someone who feels as though you're unable to read your body's cues, you may have some disconnecting parts in your system. Take a listen to find out!

Intuitive Eating Workbook

Intuitive Eating Book

Where to find me:

Website

Let me ask you this: have you ever noticed yourself heading for the kitchen to get some food, knowing you aren't hungry, and when you start to check in with the part who's leading you there, you hear something like, "Oh don't do that crazy IFS stuff--just eat the food." Or, "Ugh--who cares why we're heading to food--just eat it!" Or even, "Life is so stressful right now--just eat! We deserve it!"

These are parts that I call "blocking parts." They jump in and block us from getting curious about the parts of us that lead us to food. And I think sometimes we don't recognize them as parts--they just hijack us, and before we know it, we've already finished the pint of ice cream.

On this week's podcast episode, we're exploring these blocking parts and looking at some of the common themes behind them. And we're talking about what to do about them: you guessed it--get to know them! These parts are protecting you, and it's incredibly helpful to find out why. And once you get to know them, they're likely to soften back so that you can get to know the part that was leading you to food.

Take a listen!

Where to find me:

drkimdaniels.com

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Here we are, in the middle of the holiday season, and I thought it might be helpful to go back to the basics of the Emotional Eating (and Everything Else) Podcast and talk about, you guessed it, emotional eating. Yep, it's been 94 episodes since we've focused on this topic. Well, that's not exactly true. We've focused on specific aspects of emotional eating, but we haven't discussed it in broad terms like we did in the second episode of this podcast.

And I don't know about you, but I know my emotional eating parts have been more active lately. Due to the holidays and the recent election here in the US, my parts that like to soothe with food have been more present.

So I thought it might be helpful to do a review of the topic of emotional eating. In this week's podcast episode, we're focusing on:

• What is emotional eating?
• Why parts choose food as their coping mechanism
• The most common emotional reasons that parts turn to food
• What to do about emotional eating
• Getting to know your eating parts--and who they're protecting

We also talk about examples of how all of this works, and I share some resources to help. So if you've noticed heading to food more often these days, take a listen!

IFS Meditations

IFS Cheat Sheets

Where to find me:

drkimdaniels.com

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This week's episode features Dr. Jeanne Catanzaro, who's a bit of an IFS rockstar. Jeanne has been one of the strongest voices in the IFS community in regard to food and body concerns, and I'm so thrilled to have her on the podcast!

Just a little about her: Jeanne is a clinical psychologist who has specialized in the treatment of disordered eating and trauma for over twenty-five years. She trained in psychodynamic psychotherapy, Somatic Experiencing®, and eye movement-desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) before discovering the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model. Jeanne is known for her compassionate and intuitive appreciation of the relational dynamics, internal and external, that keep people stuck in painful relationships with food and their bodies. In addition to serving as a leader of the IFS Institute, Jeanne facilitates IFS consultation groups, workshops, and retreats on Unburdened Eating.

Jeanne is also the author of Unburdened Eating, a wonderful book that just came out earlier this year. And she also wrote a really fantastic article for the IFS Institute (that we discuss in this episode) called IFS's Viewpoint on Dieting and Cultural Harm. This article explicitly states that the IFS Institute does not support intentional weight loss due to the harm it can cause.

Throughout this week's episode, Jeanne and I touch upon:

• The differences between IFS and other therapy models in how they approach food and body concerns
• How diet culture perpetuates the belief that there's something wrong with your body
• The fact that all negative feelings about the body come from outside of us
• The importance of being curious toward our parts
• Having compassion toward all of our parts, including those who are trying to manage our bodies by focusing on food and weight
• What is "unburdened eating"
• The need for community when working on food and body concerns

Jeanne also gives us some great advice in terms of how to start working on food and body concerns. She suggests that we ask ourselves the following questions:

• What would it be like if I wasn't always trying to fix my body?
• What would it be like if I wasn't always criticizing my body?
• What if my body wasn't a problem to be solved?
• Can I get curious about the parts of me that feel like my body needs to change?

You might have already noticed parts surfacing just by reading those questions. When you can, take some time to really sit with and answer them.

We cover a lot of important ground in this episode, and I'm just thrilled and honored to have one of the best on my show. A huge thanks to Jeanne for taking the time and for all of the wisdom she imparts. Check it out!

Where to find Jeanne:

Website

Unburdened Eating

IFS's Viewpoint on Dieting and Cultural Harm

Other resources that were mentioned:

Center for Body Trust

The Body is Not an Apology

Journeys of Embodiment

Where to find me:

Website