Ep #184: Self-Talk When Feeling an Urge

Hi! How has your self-talk been lately? Are you being kind and compassionate with yourself? Are you encouraging yourself?

One of the most basic components of stopping binge eating is being kind, compassionate, and encouraging with yourself if you binge.

Beating yourself up, calling yourself a failure, making a mistake or a fail mean that you aren’t capable, none of this is going to help you to achieve your ultimate goal of stopping binge eating.

It’s just going to bring you down and stop you from learning and growing and getting better at not giving in to urges and decreasing the amount of urges you feel.

But when your self-talk is nicer, you’ll put yourself in a mental and emotional state that will allow you to do what you need to do.

We talk a lot about how you’re talking to yourself after you binge but, what about when you’re feeling an urge?

It’s of course helpful for you to encourage yourself if you binge to help you get back to doing the work but, it’s also going to be helpful for you to encourage yourself when you’re in the midst of doing the work, when you’re feeling an urge to binge.

When you’re feeling an urge to binge, how you’re thinking about the urge is important. Being accepting of it’s presence is going to be more useful than arguing with it. Being open to it is going to be more useful than being afraid of it.

What’s also important is how you’re thinking about yourself when you’re feeling an urge.

Imagine if you’re feeling an urge and telling yourself, “You’re not doing it right, you’re not good enough, get this over with, this isn’t working, I can’t do this,” thoughts like those, name calling and putting yourself down.

For most of you, speaking to yourself that way isn’t going to motivate you. You’re going to shut down. You’re going to stop trying and just give in to the urge.

What will motivate you is you encouraging yourself in a positive way. It’s you believing in yourself.

When you believe in yourself all the way through an urge, you’ll see success.

You’ll do what you believed you could do.

Don’t save your self-encouragement for after binges or when you’re not feeling urges and just thinking about doing the work.

Don’t only encourage yourself after you’ve done something but, also while you’re doing it.

Lift yourself up along the way.

You’re doing something challenging, give yourself credit.

Tell yourself you’re doing a good job. Look at you go!

This is just like when you see people running a road race and there are spectators along the road encouraging the runners. They’re not saying things like, “Pick it up! You’re going too slow! What’s wrong with you??” At least, most people aren’t doing that if they’re trying to be helpful.

They’re supporting them with their words. They’re clapping for them and wooing and encouraging them.

You’re probably not going to have someone next to you supporting you and encouraging you. You’re probably alone as most people are when they are feeling urges or you’re not sharing with the person you’re with that you’re feeling an urge.

So it’s your job to encourage and support yourself.

Support yourself with your words. Encourage yourself and talk yourself through it.

You don’t need someone else to do it if you’re doing it for yourself.

When you’re in the midst of feeling an urge, talk to yourself the way you would want someone else to talk to you or how you would talk to a friend who was experiencing one.

“You can do this. You’re doing it. Keep going.”

Don’t give up on yourself when you’re in the middle of doing the work when it matters most, when you’re feeling an urge.

Take each moment as an opportunity to encourage yourself and also to acknowledge what you’ve done so far.

Find your win in that moment.

“You just felt the urge for a minute, how awesome! You can do another.”

“You’re doing it, look at you go, it’s happening, keep going.”

Don’t wait until you’ve accomplished the whole goal to be proud of yourself. Be proud along the way.

I really don’t think you can be proud or encourage yourself too often.

I have group members post wins as often as possible in the group but I encourage them to do it in the group weekly and for themselves daily.

It’s so easy to focus on what you didn’t do well, and focusing on that is important so you can pinpoint where you have work to do but, there needs to be a balance of looking for what’s not going well and looking for what is.

If you want to build confidence, you can’t only focus on what you’re not doing well. Focus on what you are doing well and show yourself the evidence to prove that you are capable.

Build confidence in yourself when you’re in the moment, feeling that urge, and you can do that moment by moment by looking at what you did a moment ago and acknowledging it as a win. Then, encourage yourself to repeat it again. If you did it once, you can do it again.

When you’re feeling urges, be your own cheerleader. Be proud of yourself along the way, not only at the end. Encourage yourself when you’re doing the work, not just after mistakes were made.

Pump yourself up while you’re doing it, believe in yourself, support yourself.

And don’t ever give up on yourself.

Have a wonderful week, bye bye.