10: Coping with Alcohol, Food, and Shopping: Moving from Unhealthy to Healthy Coping Strategies

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Written By Amanda Durocher

Many of us use unhealthy coping strategies as a way to avoid feeling our feelings. In today’s episode, Amanda answers questions about three different unhealthy coping strategies – using alcohol, food, and shopping to cope with difficult feelings.

 
 

She also discusses how to become curious about why we may be using these unhealthy coping mechanisms and how to start finding healthy ways to engage with life and process our feelings.

In this episode, you will learn about:

  • Why so many of us use unhealthy coping strategies

  • Why many coping strategies are short term fixes, not long term solutions

  • How to become sober curious

  • How to start healing your relationship with food

  • Why shopping is not going to bring you long-term happiness

Episode References:

Free Resource Corner

Journal Prompts: Coping Strategies

Check out my list of journal prompts to help you to start looking at your coping strategies and becoming aware of why you use them and where they stem from.

This list is here to help you, don’t feel like you have to do every question, chose one or a few that work best for you.

Timestamps:

  • 0:00 Intro

  • 8:01 Listener Question 1

  • 23:00 Listener Question 2

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  • This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool called Otter. Please forgive any typos or errors.

    Amanda Durocher 0:01

    Welcome to New View Advice, a safe place for you to ask your most vulnerable questions about life, relationships, healing, and so much more. I'm your host, Amanda Durocher. And I believe our fears and traumas are often what holds us back from living life to the fullest. Join me here each week as I offer advice on how to move through whatever is holding you back from being your best self. Let's get started.

    Hey, there beautiful souls. My name is Amanda, and welcome to New View Advice. If you're new here, this is a podcast where I answer listener questions about life, relationships, healing, and so much more. For today's episode, we are going to dive into the topic of coping strategies. So what I mean by a coping strategy is it's something that we use to deal with difficult emotions such as stress, anxiety, depression, fear, or something to deal with a trigger, such as a if you see an ex on social media, or you get in a fight with a friend or something to deal with something stressful, so a stressful day at work tension with a partner or a parent. So today, we're gonna be talking about coping strategies and how a lot of us are using unhealthy coping strategies, and how we could start implementing some healthier coping strategies. So what I mean by unhealthy coping strategies are a lot of us use short term fixes to our emotions to our triggers to our traumas, and these end up having more negative effects than positive effects. So unhealthy coping strategies are like band aids, and you're putting it over like a deep wound, like a cut that needs to be stitched up and really cared for, and hoping that it'll go away. When really, you need those stitches, you need to dive into the wound, and really look at it and take care of it. So some examples of unhealthy coping strategies be alcohol, using it unhelpfully, Drugs, marijuana sex, overworking food, so an excess of food or a lack of food. So eating too much or too little. These are examples. There's other ones as well. But these are some popular ones. So some subconscious reasons we might use unhealthy coping strategies would be to disengage from the difficult feelings to numb ourselves, or to cover up our feelings rather than dealing with them, or to fit in in a way that's not authentic to ourselves. So the question is, today, we're going to talk about people who use alcohol as a coping strategy who use food, binge eating, and shopping. So today's episodes really about becoming aware of how we're coping, becoming aware of when it's really unhealthy, also, when it's even a little unhealthy, because the thing is that it starts off fine. But it's like, the more we're suppressing, we just suppress more and more. So it's like the drinking gets out of hand, or the smoking gets out of hand, or the eating gets out of hand. So a lot of people start to look at their coping strategies when it's gotten out of hand, and it's controlling their life, and they feel out of control with it. But we can also start looking at it sooner than that, we start looking at everything we do, and why we do it. And just becoming aware of our relationship with our emotions, with our feelings, with our traumas, and with our triggers, so that it doesn't ever get out of hand. So today, we're just bringing awareness is a judgment free zone. I'm not asking anybody to quit anything. I'm not asking anybody to stop anything overnight. I'm just asking you to become curious about the ways you cope with difficult feelings. I'm asking you to become aware. And to start asking yourself questions. What would your life maybe be like without this substance? Or why are you so anxious? Or is alcohol really helping your anxiety? Or where did this drug problem come from? Have you had it forever? When did it start? Just become curious. So today's a judgment free zone, and we just want to start having a conversation with ourselves, becoming honest with ourselves. And I think this is important conversation to have, because we all need to start taking personal responsibility, so responsibility for our own lives. So to me, that's what spirituality is. Spirituality is taking responsibility for yourself, and for your life and for the way it plays out. And so many of us are affected by these coping strategies, and we see them outside of ourselves. And sometimes we feel like they're starting to control us. But really what's controlling us are these feelings, these triggers and these traumas, because these substances are all neutral, we're putting expectations on them. And we're putting our own thoughts and programs and traumas on these substances. So today's just about becoming curious and starting to look at why we are the way we are. I think that's one of the ultimate questions is really starting to take personal responsibility for your life. If there's an area you're unhappy with, there's an area that you feel a lot of shame over if there's an area of your life that makes you really angry or makes you really anxious. Life is about taking responsibility. I look at how you can fix that and looking at what work you need to do internally or externally to fix that. So I'll just give a quick example of how I've seen unhealthy coping strategies play out in my own life. So for me, my relationship with alcohol has been very complicated. And I'm currently not drinking. For those who are new here. I'm doing a year of sobriety. So I started in February, so about five months sober. And I've noticed it's really made me look at I did a lot of work before I gave up alcohol. But I also have had to look at the ways the roles alcohol plays in my life and how I would use it to cope, I would use it in social situations, when I was anxious, I would use it. When I was depressed, I would use it when I wanted to numb I would use it a lot for boredom, and that we're gonna go into that, and one of the questions and then when I gave up alcohol, I noticed that I picked up eating a lot of dessert. So I never ate dessert, because I was always like wines dessert, and then I give up alcohol. And all of a sudden, I mean ice cream every night, I mean, cookies. And what this showed me was that there were these underlying feelings, I was numbing, and I was suppressing that I had to look at that alcohol was helping me surprise, but it wasn't alcohol itself that I was suppressing. I was suppressing boredom, I was suppressing anger and other feelings, that it was easier to pick up a drink or to pick up a brownie. But those were always short term fixes. I never felt really fulfilled after I never felt happy. I ended up hating myself a little bit because I was trying to fill a void. So that's just an example of how I've seen it play out in my own life. I'll go a little deeper in the questions. But yeah, if you have any other questions after this episode about coping strategies, please let me know. I'm really passionate about finding ways to really embrace life because coping strategies are really ways that we dim our life, right? We dim our light with unhealthy coping strategies, because these feelings we have to move through them in order to let more joy or happiness more loving. And by coping by numbing, or disengaging, right, that's what a lot of these different ways to do a lot of these strategies do is that we're disengaging from life. And the goal here on this podcast and this community is to engage with life is to take responsibility for your life, if you're unhappy to do something about it, but it's not as easy as just quitting your job, you might have a million limiting beliefs or a million fears that we have to look at first. So you might have a million limiting beliefs or a million fears, or anxieties or emotions around leaving that job, which makes it impossible for you to leave it. So this podcast is really about diving into why we're the way we are looking at ourselves, getting in touch with ourselves, getting to know ourselves reconnecting with our feelings, which we've been really programmed out of in this society, we've been really told by parents, teachers, neighbors, communities, that having hard feelings is wrong. There's nothing wrong with your feeling. There's nothing wrong with you, you are beautiful, you are whole, this is just about remembering who you are, and unpeeling the layers that this society that this world has put on top of you, and that you have put on top of yourself. So with that, let's jump on it.

    Amanda Durocher [listener question] 8:05

    Dear New View Advice, I just turned 30. And I'm not sure what I'm doing with my life. I have a good job. I'm in a happy relationship. But I often find that I'm bored. I don't necessarily feel fulfilled by my work. And I find that I spend too much time drinking at home and with my friends. Do I have a drinking problem? Or am I just bored? Thank you for this question. I think this is a very relatable question. I think a lot of people have found themselves asking themselves a similar question. Do I have a drinking problem? Or am I just bored? Or just the question? Do I have a drinking problem? So I want to start this answer with saying that I think we should reword this question. So do you have a drinking problem? I don't know if you have a tricky problem. I don't know if it's just because you're bored. That's something you're gonna have to start figuring out. But what we can talk about is you starting to become intentional about your drinking, to start asking yourself why you are drinking? I think that this is a very common question, though. Because I do think that in our society, that with alcohol, we've sort of made it, you're an alcoholic, or you're not an alcoholic. And so it's kind of like, do I have a drinking problem? Or do I not have a drinking problem? And I think that we want to get rid of those labels, right? Let's just not even use those words. Let's not talk about it like that. Instead, let's just start becoming curious about why we drink. Because I think that the mentality of drinking problem or no drinking problem keeps people in this negative thought loop and in this shame spiral and this guilt pattern. And what you want to do is just become conscious of your drinking, become conscious of why you're drinking, become conscious if you even want to be drinking and take it from there first. Rather than do I have a drinking problem? That's my advice for you. So I want you to start bringing more awareness to your drinking, becoming more conscious of your drinking, and asking yourself more questions out of curiosity, less judgemental I think do I have a drinking problem has a judgment in it. I think it has a little shame. And maybe you feel a little guilty when you drink or maybe you feel anxious about drinking, but you drink anyway. So I want you to start asking yourself how alcohol is affecting you, and it's affecting your life. And later down the road, you can see if that's a problem, but really just start with how is it affecting you? After you drink? How do you feel? You feel fine? Or do you feel anxious? You know, somebody called it anxiety to me the other day when you wake up after drinking, and you have anxiety? And they're like, oh, yeah, I just realized that was like normal, like everybody experiences it. That may be true. But to me, that's, that's a problem. If you're waking up anxious, to me, you want to be really looking at behaviors that leave you feeling anxious, and asking yourself, if that's serving you. Because the truth is, we have the ability to be happy and joyful at all times. But we have to do a lot of work to get there. So you just want to start asking yourself about your relationship with alcohol. So I would take a drinking problem off the table, and just start becoming curious. And if you find that all the answers are negative to your questions, like Why do I drink? Because I feel like I have to or because I'm anxious or because I'm depressed? Then maybe you're gonna want to switch your relationship with alcohol? Or do you only drink when you're stressed? Or are you only drinking because of this unfulfillment? If you started feeling more fulfilled with the drinking, stop, don't become curious and just bring awareness to this. Let's try not to judge ourselves, okay, we judge ourselves for everything, we're mean to ourselves. We're our harshest critics, what we want to start doing is being kind to ourselves and loving ourselves through the healing process. So to me, you're gonna want to heal your relationship with alcohol? Because I think anybody who's asking yourself, do I have a drinking problem, you're seeing that there's negative patterns there. You're saying that it's not making you happy, but you're doing it anyways. So that's what we're looking to heal. That's what we're looking to become curious about. That's what we're looking to bring awareness to. So for you, it sounds like you're suffering from a little bit of boredom and unfulfillment. So for me, boredom is often covering up a different emotions. So when we're bored, it's often because we feel unfulfilled, unhappy, we've put ourselves in a bubble to protect ourselves from all our fears. So we feel bored, because we're not challenging ourselves, we're not putting ourselves outside our comfort zones. Boredom can also be a little bit of unhappiness. And for a lot of us, it can be easier to be unhappy than happy, we can really actually fear happiness, because we can fear being so happy. And then it all being taken away. Boredom can also be not wanting to upset the norm. So for you, you're gonna want to sit with your boredom, I can really relate to this question. I know that in the winter, before I stopped drinking, I was really bored all the time. So I found myself drinking more, you know, start on a little earlier. So instead of having a glass of wine at eight, it was like, Is it five o'clock yet, because I was really trying to cover this boredom. But for me, what I was really covering up was that I was dying to create. So there was a part of me that really wanted to create this podcast to create more writing to, to use more creativity to bring my authentic expression into the world to be more of myself. So there was a part of me that really wanted to do that. But then there was another part of me that didn't want to change, that was really afraid of change that was really afraid of embracing this podcast, so afraid of embracing who I really was. So I had these two parallel thoughts, right. So for me, it was like, I want to be really big, I want to be seen. And then there was another part of me like, I just want to stay in my little bubble and never be seen, I'm afraid of being seen. And my mind was like this bouncy ball that would bounce back and forth, back and forth, in my mind. And this was uncomfortable. So it was easier to pick up a drink and to numb. But I found myself really bored because I wasn't living up to my greatest potential. So that boredom was stemming from fears that I had to look at in order to create to not be so bored anymore. I hope that makes sense. But when it comes to unfulfillment, we all have the potential to be fulfilled. So if you're feeling unfulfilled, you need to start asking yourself what you really want in this life. You need to ask yourself, why you're not living up to your greatest potential, because fulfillment comes from doing what we're here to do what we want to do what we want to birthed into this world. And unfulfillment comes from settling. And it comes from all those things I mentioned before not wanting to upset the norm not wanting to be different fears of being who you truly are fears of being made fun of fears of disrupting the norm. So you want to start looking at why are you unfulfilled? Why are you in a job that you're unfulfilled? And why are you settling? Do you feel like you're settling? Or do you feel like you have to be in this job for a year or two for experience or for whatever reason, but you need to start believing that you could find a job that fulfills you and start looking for one, I would start asking yourself those questions. I think a lot of us settle for unhappiness because we see everyone around us settle for unhappiness. If you go outside, nine out of 10 people are unhappy. Nine out of 10 people don't like their jobs. A

    You know, some people complain about everything. And so we normalize that, like, that's the way life supposed to be. And that's false. You don't have to take on those beliefs for yourself. So you want to start asking yourself about why you're unfulfilled if you have some fears about changing your life. So I would start doing that. And if you feel like you're drinking too much at home or with friends, I would ask you to ask yourself, if you could take a little break from alcohol, are you willing to give it up for a week, two weeks, a month, a year? Ask yourself what it would be like to give it up for a little bit? Does that seem impossible? Because then you might want to look at that. Why does it feel impossible? Does it feel impossible to go out with friends and not drink? Why is that? Are you afraid of what people think of you? Are you afraid that people might judge you? The truth is others judgments are none of our business. Your opinion of yourself is all that matters. I mentioned this last week, but the person we are with 24/7 all day, every day for our entire lives is ourselves. And so if we care too much about what other people think of us, and sacrifice ourselves, there are major consequences. And those consequences are depression, those consequences are unfulfillment. Those consequences are unhealthy coping strategies. Because when we go against ourselves for too long, it's too hard to sit with that, because we can't look at that, and not do something about it. So we numb it. And so we do everything we can not to see that we are disrespecting ourselves that the person that we are not loyal to is our self. And in our life, it is our job to be loyal to ourselves, above all else, to love ourselves. Above all else, we can show up as loving friends and partners, the more we love ourselves. So it is our personal responsibility to put ourselves first, as in it is our personal responsibility to listen to our own wants and needs, and to start communicating those and to not do things that leaves us going against ourselves. So for you, I'd see if you feel like alcohol serving you to see if you could give up a little break. Do you need to be drinking at home? Could you go out with friends and do something else? Could you go to a park? Could you go exercise together? Could you go to the beach, see if you could not drink with people? It's hard, though I'll be honest, people do throw their judgments on you. But the truth is, you have to put yourself first in this type of situation. And the truth is if you stopped drinking, or you didn't drink one night when you went out and it made people uncomfortable, that says more about them than it does you. It says absolutely nothing about you. Many people who have unhealthy coping strategies want those around them to have unhealthy coping strategies as well so that they don't feel bad about themselves. So that they don't have to look at how they're unhappy with what they're doing or how they have anxiety about what they're doing, or they have stress or they don't want to look at it. So if everybody's doing the same unhealthy thing, nobody has to judge themselves for doing this unhealthy thing. But the second somebody checks out of an unhealthy pattern. It makes people uncomfortable, because it makes people think about themselves to somebody who has a healthy relationship with alcohol. If you don't drink, we'll just be like, Oh, cool. Sounds good. Somebody who has an unhealthy relationship with alcohol might get really upset that you're not drinking. So just know that if you decide to take a break from it, and people give you those type of reactions can be difficult, but it's not about you. You're not doing anything wrong. You're doing what's best for you. Like I said, I want you start looking at why you're bored. Why you're feeling unfulfilled? What's under that? Why do you think you have a drinking problem? How do you feel the next day? These are all journal questions. So you can journal about these? I'd really just start getting curious. Get curious about your relationship. And I really challenge you to be sober, curious, try it out. See if you absolutely hate it. If you hate it, like why do you hate it? Is it because all these feelings came up that you finally had to look at? Did you find it impossible? Just become curious. I think that alcohol and unfulfillment go hand in hand because hangovers keep us from doing things. So a lot of times we get brain fog from drinking it clouds, our brains, because we're hungover can have headaches, body effects, tired, you can eat food that's unhealthy and doesn't leave you energized the next day. So it can lead to being unfulfilled because you're not allowing yourself to do whatever you want to be doing. So for me, for example, it was this podcast and it was writing screenplays, I had kind of settled and wasn't doing that as much as I wanted. But now I just find that I create all day every day, from like the second I wake up to when I go to bed and I'll take breaks during the day, but my brain so much clearer that I'm feeling much more fulfilled. But part of the drinking it was the hangovers, the brain fog that was stopping me from that fulfillment. So I just challenge you to try sobriety. You don't have to give it up forever. You could just try it for a month. And then you could drink on special occasions if you wanted just start to become curious about your relationship with alcohol. But it sounds like you're spending a lot of time drinking at home with friends and I challenge you to maybe take a break or to look at why that is and just to really become curious about it. And for you. Another thing I want to talk about is so you say I have a good job and I'm in a happy relationship. But you find out you're bored. So what that is too telling me is that what you're missing is a relationship with yourself. So you have relationships outside of yourself, you have friends, your partner, and you have a good job. But you don't have a relationship with yourself. Because you didn't include yourself in this question. You said, I'm not sure what I'm doing with my life, the more we get to know ourselves, the more we know exactly what we should be doing. So the in decisiveness that we often feel is a real disconnection from self. So I want you to start developing some practices to get to know yourself a little bit better. Because I might say to you, why are you in a job that you're unfulfilled? They're like, Well, what else am I supposed to do? You might be really indecisive and not have any answers. Well, what that means is you have to get to know yourself. It's like meeting a new person. Because if we ignore ourselves, or we never sit with ourselves, or we never talk to ourselves, we don't know ourselves. And there's a part of you that's always there waiting for you to show up, waiting for you to ask yourself how you feel that's always cheering you on in the background. But the more disconnected we are, the more we don't see that version of ourselves. So I want you to start meditating, I want you to start journaling. I think those are two really good practices where you can just start getting to know yourself a little better. And just start asking yourself questions. Just become curious, don't judge yourself. Don't ask yourself, if you have a drinking problem, ask yourself why you're drinking. So you can journal and meditate, you can also find a hobby. So ask yourself, if there's something you've always wanted to do, that you've never done before. And maybe take a class. And there's so many online classes, we can learn at your own time, because you could have an unpredictable schedule and things like that. So I would recommend finding a hobby, and just start asking yourself, what do you want, right? You don't have to be bored, you deserve to be fulfilled. So why are you stopping yourself from that fulfillment? Because that's what I'm hearing from this question is that you're your own biggest roadblock. So in order to not feel bored, or to feel fulfilled, or to have a different relationship with alcohol, these are all going to take changes that you have to make. So you're gonna have to look at why you're unfulfilled. That could be looking for a new job or finding a hobby, you have to look at your relationship with alcohol, that's work, you have to start asking yourself questions that most people don't ask themselves. Most people never look at the relationship with alcohol, they just drink and feel anxious or shame and then do it again, or whatever emotion it might be. So a lot of people never look at it. So you asking this question is an amazing first step. So I want you to know that you're on the right path. So hope that helps. So yeah, journal meditate, finding a hobby, ask yourself questions. And taking some time off alcohol, I think could be really great for you and seeing if you can implement more healthy coping strategies. For me craving this podcast was such a beautiful thing for me to do in my sobriety, because I realized that this is what I love to do. And this leaves me feeling fulfilled, that I never want to pick up a drink, because I never want to not be able to be of service, I never want to not be able to write, I'm so connected with my creativity that the thought of drinking is, I just don't want to, because I feel so fulfilled. So I challenge you to start looking at what could make you feel fulfilled. I hope that helps. And thank you for this question. I think it's a very relatable question and sending you all my love.

    Amanda Durocher [listener question] 23:06

    Dear New View Advice, I recently had plans with friends, but they blew me off. This made me really upset. And because of this, I ordered an eight and entire pizza. I felt like I couldn't control myself. The more I think about it, the more I realized I do this a lot. I find that I go through sins of eating super healthy, but then something will happen that will send me into a negative spiral. And I'll ruin my progress with the night of eating everything in sight. I'm not sure what to do any advice? Thank you for this question. I think that you have so much awareness here. So I think that's really beautiful. And I think that a lot of people can relate to overeating and having an unhealthy relationship with food, which is what it sounds like you're describing here. And yeah, I think this is a great conversation to have. So thank you for this question. Thank you for your vulnerability to ask this. And thank you for your awareness. I mean, I love how you said that. The more you think about it, the more you realize that you do this a lot. So you might be feeling out of control about this. But really, you've done the first part, the first step is awareness. The first step is admitting I think I have a problem. So I think that's really beautiful. And that's what you've done here is you're starting to see that you have a problem. You're starting to bring awareness to it, and you want to make a change. You may not know what to do now, but over time, your relationship with food will change because you're asking the right questions. So the part I want to focus on first is where you say that you felt like you couldn't control yourself when you ate the entire pizza and that you feel like this happens a lot. So what we want to start doing is that there are a few things that happen before you get to this out of control feeling. So in this question, it's that your friends blew you off. That was the trigger. And that trigger led you to feeling upset, which is the emotion so these triggers often lead to strong emotions. So you being really upset was because your friends blew you off. And then because you had a difficult emotion, you have thoughts that started spiraling and started falling into old patterns, which were probably negative thoughts about yourself like that your friends blowing you off was a direct correlation to you. So then you ordered food because you had a negative feeling and a negative thoughts, this led you to eating food. And at that point, you felt like you were out of control because you were so in this negative pattern, this negative spiral. So what you want to start doing is you want to start trying to catch yourself before you get to the out of control. So the first part of this is not to judge yourself. If this takes some time, it's just to start bringing awareness. You don't even have to stop overnight. But it's when the next time you're triggered. So when somebody blows you off, or a date doesn't go well, or whatever it may be to catch yourself when you start getting upset. And how you catch yourself is that you just notice, I'm really upset right now. Rather than falling into it and letting it consume you. You just catch it. And then when you notice you're upset, you're gonna start ask yourself, What am I thinking right now. So that might be I need to order food. So when you catch yourself, you're gonna start asking yourself how you're feeling. So you say really upset, upset is how you're feeling. But it's set to me as a bunch of emotions, right? So you're not telling me how you're really feeling you need to start getting specific. So are you anxious? Are you depressed? Are you devastated? Are you sad? Are you mad? Are you insecure? Are you falling into a self hating spiral? Are you falling into an outward hating spiral? So are you having really negative thoughts about your friends are hearing really negative thoughts about yourself, but start to catch the feelings and start identifying the feelings? Not just upset? What are the feelings? Are you going into fear? Are you going into panic? So you want to start catching yourself? So start catching these feelings? start catching the thoughts. So what is running through your head that is leading you to think pizza is the answer. But if you end up hating yourself after and you feel like you're ruining all this progress, it sounds like you're in a bad pattern. So you just want to start bringing awareness to this pattern. I also want you to ask yourself if this is a pattern other people in your family have, because I could just help you to bring awareness to where this came from. But that's really the first step is just to become aware of so you don't even have to change it. But when you start becoming aware, you might find that the next time you want to order a pizza, you become aware you want to order a pizza, but you order the pizza anyway. But after a few times, you'll start ask yourself, is there something else I could eat? Is there something else I could do? And it just might not happen overnight. But a few things I want you to start implementing or as as you bring in awareness, do you think you could do something else and so some of these things would be to get outside. So when you feel triggered to get outside and away from the kitchen away from the food, go for a walk and to calm down and to connect with nature and nature's very grounding nature is there for us. So go sit in the grass, go swim in the ocean, go sit at the beach, go sit on a park, go sit on a rock. If you live in a city, go find some mulch, like literally I'm not even kidding, go find a patch of grass and sit in it and breathe. Because you need to find grounding practices. Because what's happening is you're getting in this pretty big negative spiral. And you're feeling out of control because this is most likely a trauma response. So you might think, Oh man, I didn't experience any trauma. I wasn't right. I didn't experience a big death. I wasn't beat up I wasn't in the war. You know, like you might think it has to be this big event. But the truth is trauma can be a small thing that affects us in a big way. So we can't really judge where people's traumas come from. But most people have experienced trauma. So bullying trauma, if you had a parent who was absent, that's trauma, and your friends blowing you off is a sign that you might feel abandoned, you might not feel good enough, you might feel unworthy of love. And these root causes are really what's causing you to pick up food. So once you start bringing the awareness of the motions and the original thoughts, you're going to be able to start looking at the roots, you also might be able to start looking at the root the next day. So after you have a negative spiral, so say you eat a big pizza on a Wednesday, on Thursday, when you're start getting in that negative spiral where you hate yourself for what you did. instead of hating yourself, just start asking yourself questions. So you're gonna want to start implementing some forgiveness practices because overcoming addictions or to sounds like you might be addicted to this pattern, and addicted to food takes time. So as I mentioned a lot, you could start to talk to a professional who can help you with this process. But you can also start working on yourself and implementing forgiveness. So I talked about Hopper Ponoko a lot. But it's starting to forgive yourself starting to tell yourself you're sorry. You love yourself. thank yourself for taking the time to forgive yourself and forgive yourself. I talked a lot about forgiveness in Episode Five. So if you have questions about it, you can listen to that episode, but I want you to start implementing forgiveness after you do have these episodes. So if you're really struggling with doing these prompts on your own and talking to yourself and forgiving yourself, I do recommend getting a professional involve talking to somebody about this. I talk a lot about therapy but I think that therapists are really great ways for us to have to look at our issues.

    Once a week, or however often you go, but I think that it would be a great thing for you to implement. I'm also sure there's support groups for this type of thing. And I found support groups really helpful. I did a support group for rape victims rape survivors. And I found that immensely helpful to talk about that with other people. I know people find Alcoholics Anonymous, really helpful because of the community aspect. So if you're having trouble doing this on your own, I do think that there are resources for you. And I'll link some groups I find in the show notes. So as I mentioned, you want to start becoming aware of your emotions, you want to start becoming aware of your triggers, you want to start becoming aware of your thought patterns, you want to start forgiving yourself. And if you need help, you want to find professional help. But I also want to say I know a lot of people struggle with the professional help. And a lot of people have bad experiences with therapists, I've had just as many bad therapists as I've had good therapists. So for anybody out there who's like, I've only had bad therapists, I recommend you keep looking, if you feel like you need it, and you feel like it could help. I just think that it's so important to talk to a neutral party. I think that so many of us use our friends and family as therapists, but they're not qualified to give us advice. And that can just end up hurting us in the long run and keeping us in really negative patterns, really negative cycles. And a lot of us take the words of our parents and our friends as truth. And the truth is, we have to find our own truth, we have to listen to our internal guidance. And that can be really hard when friends and family are involved. So I just am a big proponent of finding a therapist or a mental health professional to help you with that. So for you, another thing I want to recommend you do is that I think that your triggers because you've been blown off, made you really upset. I think that if you implement some self love practices, that it will be easier for you to slow down when these cycles happen. I want you to just start finding ways to love yourself and appreciate yourself. Because oftentimes, when other people make us feel bad, it's because we're lacking something within us. Because I mentioned in the previous question, it's not our business, what other people think of us and your friends might have, you might know why they blew you off, or they might have really had other plans. And it really might not be personal. That might be what happened with you, or they might not be great friends. And that's something for you to look at as well. So I want you to start implementing some self love. So what this would look like, which I say all the time would be to start meditating five minutes a day, and just put on a gratitude meditation, a self love meditation, I will try and find some to link. But I want you to start leaning into self love finding some affirmations about yourself and your body. Because you're eating too much is a problem because of your thoughts around it not because you're eating too much. So the problem for you is that you are hating yourself for doing it that you feel like you're ruining all this super healthy eating, and that you are feeling out of control. It's not the eating itself. That's the problem. It's the how you're feeling afterwards. So that's what is making this a unhealthy coping strategy is that it is helping you feel better for the short term, but afterwards, you are having huge side effects. It's like a hangover, you're hating yourself afterwards, you're feeling shame, you're feeling guilt, you're feeling anger probably at yourself. So that's why it's gonna be really important for you to implement this self love. And as I always say, you have to start doing it every day. So you have to start implementing a morning routine, a night routine before you go to bed. And oftentimes, when people eat too much, it comes from a sense of unsafety. So a lot of us think that if we pack on pounds, we subconsciously think an extra layer is going to keep us safe. I know that was my experience with food as a rape victim, I would self sabotage when I would start getting to a certain weight because of the immense unsafety I felt in being beautiful. Like it was deep. And so I want you to start looking at that. Why do you have an unhealthy relationship with food? Do you have a fear of being seen? When your friends blew you off? Did you take it personally like it did with you? And did that make you hate yourself? So you ate because it made you feel better for a little amount of time. So I just want you to start thinking about it. So you start sitting with your feelings and how you're going to do this through journaling, meditation, therapy, doing the work doing the work, and creating a healthy relationship with your body. So for you, it sounds like you might have some body issues. I think people who struggle with substances such as alcohol, drugs, food, eating too much or too little don't have a healthy relationship with their body. So another thing that could help you that helped me was starting to use mirror affirmations saying certain things to my body every day. And at first I really found it cringe worthy, like I've done it cringe worthy to say I loved myself, I love my body. I am sexy. And that shows you the resistance you have towards it. Because the truth is your body it doesn't have to look a certain way. You just have to feel good in it. So it's about your relationship with it. It's not about what you're eating. So I hope that's helpful and I love you and food is a very common coping mechanism. We live in a culture that almost glorifies eating food to make ourselves feel better. So now that you're not alone and that you will create a healthy relationship with food and you will create a healthy relationship with your body. sending you all my love

    Amanda Durocher [listener question] 35:01

    Dear New View Advice, my boyfriend just broke up with me. And I've been sad for weeks, he meant so much to me, and I can't imagine my life without him. Recently, I found that the only time I'm happy is when I'm online shopping. The problem is, I find that I feel shame and regret after how much I spent. That is the only thing that makes me feel better. So I don't know what to do. Any advice? Thank you so much for asking this question. I think so many people use shopping and spending money as a coping strategy. So I think this is a great conversation to have. I also just want to say that it's amazing awareness, how you notice how you feel shame and regret after how much you spend. But you see that as the only thing that makes you feel better. So that's amazing awareness. So instead of judging yourself, for all the shame and regret, I just want you to take a minute to be like, Wow, I see that I do that. And that's a huge first step. So many people can't even get there. So you're on the right path. And I just want to say I'm really proud of you for seeing that. So I'm going to start with one, you see your trigger. And if you don't use that word, this is your trigger. So your boyfriend broke up with you. And that is your trigger. You've been sad for a few weeks. So the trigger is the breakup. And then the emotions are also triggers. But you had a like traumatic event or like a big event that sent you down what sounds like a bit of a bending spiral. So that's something to look at. I did an episode a few weeks ago on heartbreak if you haven't listened to it, which also has a bunch of advice on healing from breakups that I recommend you listen to as well as to go more into the breakup part because we're going to focus mostly on the spending as a coping strategy here. So what I find with people who have shopping, and buying themselves things as a coping strategy is that you are very clearly looking for something outside of you, to make you happy. So if you listen to this podcast, you know that I'm a strong believer, and the only way to true happiness is internal happiness is to find happiness within and to start tuning into your inner world. And so you as somebody with a spending habit, you will never be fully fulfilled. No matter how much money you have, no matter how much you buy, no matter how much you spend, if you're not fulfilled within. So there's nothing wrong with buying a lot of stuff. There's nothing wrong with having things. There's nothing wrong with having luxurious things, having expensive things, having a lot of clothes, there's nothing wrong with that. So I just want to like preface that there's nothing wrong with having a lot of objects, a lot of stuff. There's nothing wrong with shopping a lot. The problem you have here is that you're feeling shame and regret about how much you spend sounds like you're spending outside your means. And the shame and regret is what's the problem. So for you, you need to start finding ways to feel better within. So so many of us think that materialistic items will complete us will make us happy, I just need a bigger house, I just need a better car, I just need a new wardrobe. I just need that new iPhone, and we get little highs, you know, it's like smoking a joint, you know, you get a little high, but then you come down once it's not new or for you once you feel shame and regret for how much you spent. It's like you get a little like hit of dopamine, but it doesn't last, those highs that then end up in lows, like the shame and regret is a clue for you is a red flag that something in your life does need to change. For you. Since you're looking outside of yourself. I'm gonna guess you have a fear of looking at yourself. And you're avoiding yourself as so many people do. But you're avoiding getting to know yourself. You're avoiding sitting with yourself because I'm guessing there's a lot there. So between the breakup and everything you're carrying around before the breakup, it's looking like you don't have a great relationship with sitting with your feelings. So for you, you are numbing the feelings and getting temporarily high off shopping to avoid the sadness you're feeling. I'm gonna guess you're also feeling some loneliness, maybe some unworthiness, maybe feeling like you're not enough. And so all these feelings, you're looking for something outside of you to fix these feelings. So as I mentioned earlier, it's like you're looking for the band aid, but you need to start stitching yourself back up. And that requires bringing awareness to the wound, looking at the wound and sitting with yourself and allowing yourself to move through these feelings. So you went through a breakup so it's really allowing yourself to cry, allow yourself to be angry, allow yourself to move through the grieving process without numbing with the shopping, but you're using shopping to cope and you need to start coping in healthy ways. So as I mentioned with everyone else, meditation and journaling, and including self love practices, another great coping strategy that I don't think I've mentioned that yet is exercise. So when you feel like spending go exercise go for a run. If you're capable. Go get on the peloton go go to a weight training go for a walk in nature, go for a hike, go swimming but get exercise because exercise is amazing way to move these

    dealings so to say what the person who was born exercise, see if you're still bored after you exercise, you might just need to move some energy to for you, maybe you start finding, if you can bring enough awareness to the shopping, you find something you can do in lieu of the shopping. So can you go exercise can you go meditate, but see if you can put something in between you and the shopping like I have to do this first. So say it's like I have to exercise before I allow myself to shop. And you could see if that helps you with it. But to be honest, it sounds like you're addicted to shopping. So that might not be enough. So you're really going to want to delve into what buying something new, why that's the only thing that makes you happy why you think something brand new and shiny is the solution to your inner problems. Because I can promise you it's not, you're never going to be able to buy enough to make you love yourself. Or you repeat that you're never going to be able to buy enough to make you love yourself. And you're never going to be able to pay someone else enough to make you love yourself. It's an internal job. And it's the only way you can do it is by sitting with yourself, feeling your feelings, forgiving yourself and learning to slowly love yourself. But if you're using such an extreme coping strategy that's leaving you with sadness, shame and regret after a breakup, it sounds like you're in desperate need of loving yourself and that you probably put a lot into this relationship said he meant so much to you and you can't imagine your life without him. You probably were a little codependent, but you might have been putting way too much on this relationship. And now that that's relationships gone, you're looking for the next unhealthy coping strategy. Instead of implementing healthy coping strategies. Take a bath, watch a movie, you want to cry, watch a sad movie. The Notebook always makes me cry gets me every time watch a funny movie. But for you it sounds like if this shopping seems shame and regret, it's not worth it. Shame is a sneaky emotion. Shame isn't the same as other emotions. So when you feel anger, that's a messenger to you. Sadness is a messenger to you like most emotions are messengers. Shame is it's like a box we put ourselves in to not look at our other emotions. So it's such a disconnect from self shame is an emotion that makes us look at ourselves in a negative light. So shame makes us hate ourselves. Shame leaves us reeling in a self hating pattern. So shame is something we want to sit with and release ourselves from because to me, shame puts us in a cage, it captures us and it leaves us reeling from self hatred, it leaves us feeling alone and isolated in this self agony in this disconnection from life. So to disconnect from shame, we need to free ourselves from shame by loving ourselves. And by really looking at how whatever we feel shame over isn't that bad, and how there's always a solution to move forward. And for me, the cure to shame is self forgiveness. So forgiving yourself for spending too much forgiving yourself for the sadness, you feel forgiving yourself for the breakup. Shame often happens when we don't have a relationship with ourselves. So we feel like we could do something so wrong that we turn away from ourselves. That's really what shame is returning away from ourselves, other emotions connect us to how we're feeling and give us Intel shame really disconnects us from ourselves because we feel unworthy. So I want you to start connecting with yourself through self love practices, but also through internal validation. So you are looking for an external hit an external Hi, with the shopping so like I don't know what you buy, but like a new shirt will make me feel better a new outfit a new this new that. So you need to start offering yourself internal validation, and telling yourself that you're doing enough and allow yourself to feel those feelings. So for you, I think journaling will really help. And I'm going to include some journaling at the end for you. But just getting in touch with why it's so hard for you to connect with yourself and why you've hit this kind of breaking point.

    So with spending too much with shopping, you're gonna want to look at your beliefs around money, and your relationship with money. And you're gonna want to start honoring money, and seeing money as your friend and not the enemy. So there's lots of ways you could learn to budget and you could learn to spend less money. That's not my expertise, right. So if you think that would work, there's a ton of finance books you could look into, but brought me I'm here to talk to you about the emotions you're avoiding, and how your spending habits The only thing that makes you feel better. So you need to start asking yourself questions you need to start connecting with your inner child and look at your parents spending habits. So did your mom or your father have a similar issue with money? Or were they really really stingy with money, right? So if you grew up poor, we grew up with maybe not even poor, but with parents who never bought you anything we can find as adults that we crave presents or we crave gifts because we never received them. So then we start spending that money on ourselves because we're trying to fill this internal need that we didn't get in as children. So you're gonna want to look at your childhood patterns around money, and where your spending habits come from. So you're gonna want to look at your beliefs around money, which so often stem from the way our parents spent money, because money is not really talked about in our culture, it's not really talked about our society in a healthy way. So so many of us are forced to pick up our parents patterns around money. So you are going to want to delve into your parents patterns around money as you heal this because your coping strategy is you are numbing was shopping but you're also have negative patterns around money in order for you to use money in this way, and possibly be putting yourself into debt. You can say that this question, but you have shame or regret about how much you spend. So it sounds like you're spending more than you should or more than you want to, maybe you're not saving anything. So you're breaking even, but you're not having a savings and a savings is really important. So you're gonna want to look at that. And again, this isn't about not ever buying yourself anything. Again, it's about becoming curious, becoming aware. And like I said, you already have a lot of awareness, you're spending money to make yourself feel better. And it is leaving you with shame and regret. That's a lot of awareness right there. So you're gonna wanna start sitting with the shame and regret you feel, and why you feel that way. And just because you're spending too much money, you're gonna want to stop spending so much money. And how you're going to do that is by healing this inner child wound. Because this is an inner child wound, your breakup was the trigger, but it goes deeper than your breakup, you're gonna want to really sit with why presence is what makes you feel better. And you're gonna want to release yourself from the shame and the regret by sitting with it. heeling it. Also asking yourself, if you are spending too much money, are you are you programmed from childhood that you're not supposed to spend money on yourself, because if that's the thing, I would look at that as well. Maybe you have enough money to spend on yourself, but you just feel anxious about that. Because of the way your parents spent money are your caregivers. And just remember to offer yourself compassion. You know, what's going on here is you're really sad, and you're not allowing yourself to just be sad. And there's an inner child inside you who's really heartbroken, as well as an adult who's really heartbroken. And you need to allow yourself to just feel heartbroken and not be trying to put a bandaid on it. That can be really hard for us to feel the feelings. But the only way you'll fully heal from this breakup is if you allow yourself to feel how you feel. So instead of trying to numb we're shopping or feel better. Just don't allow yourself to sit in the sadness. Allow yourself to cry. Allow yourself to be angry, and tell yourself it's okay. offer yourself compassion, offer yourself love. It's all going to be okay, really is no matter what's going on in your life. And this is anybody listening are going to be okay. And the best thing you can offer yourself right now is compassion. And to just tell yourself, you love yourself, say, hey, self, I love you. This has been a really hard time. But I love you. And I'm ready to listen. How am I feeling today? Just sit with whatever arises as uncomfortable as it is. I promise it'll pass. And if you feel up to it, ask it if you question, if you're sad. Ask yourself why you're so sad. Is it just the sky who broke up with you? Or does it go deeper? Just be curious with yourself. But offer yourself that love and compassion that actually you allow yourself a big cry, give yourself some self care, take a bath, go for a long walk, call a friend, watch a movie, watch some Netflix. And I just want to mention that I know the concept of offering ourselves compassion sounds so simple. But so many of us don't do it. And I found when I started sending myself compassion, it would often move me to tears. And it often makes me realize how hard I really was being on myself, and how much compassion was lacking for my own life. And I promise you that the more you love yourself, the more you really do offer yourself compassion. And for those who might be like, I don't even know how to set myself compassion. Literally you sit and you say I send myself compassion. It's that simple. But just breathe and repeat that. And if there's a place in your body that feels tense, send that area compassion. So many of us use unhealthy coping strategies, because we don't know how to connect with ourselves. And we're so afraid of ourselves because there's so much pain to look at. I promise you, you'll never get more than you can handle. I promise you, we'll get through this. I promise. There's another side of this. And I promise that your life will start to shift the more you love yourself that you don't lose the knowledge you gain. You don't lose the healing. It is always there. You're never starting from step one. So everything you look at and everything you heal is a new step forward. And the great thing about healing is you never go backwards. So I hope that helps. And I love you. Thank you for this question.

    Amanda Durocher 49:51

    Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of newView advice. I hope something in this episode was able to help you and to help you to become more aware of the unknown healthy coping strategies you may be using in your own life. And something here may have been eye opening. That's always my prayer is to be of service and to help people to remember how whole and beautiful they really are. So for today, it's free resource corner, I am going to be putting together a list of journal prompts that will be on my website at New View advice.com/ten. So it'll be in the show notes. And you'll be able to access a list of a ton of journal prompts, because I find that I talk a lot about how you should sit with it a lot about how you start asking yourself questions, and you might not even know where to start. So I created a list of questions that will help you link back to your childhood questions about the President questions about how you're feeling questions about your triggers, just questions to help you start accessing, why you're using these unhealthy coping strategies, how to connect with yourself, how to start loving yourself, to start seeing areas of your life where there might be parts where you might not be loving yourself fully. So I'm just put together a ton of journal prompts. Don't feel like you have to do them all it's really I put together such a long list because I want you to take what works for you. You know, everybody has a different healing journey. Different things will work for different people. People are in different places on their healing journey. And so I want this list to be take it as you need it. And for you to have a place to start, I would really recommend maybe taking one journal prompt a day and rolling with it. And just seeing what comes, let the pen flow. I'm a big believer in the type of journaling, where you just let your pen flow. This can be really hard for the first couple of minutes, but then you just will get into it. You know not being so in your head, drop into your heart, breathe and just let the pen flow. And if you just keep writing, I don't know what I'm writing. I don't know what's going on. That's okay, too. It's a practice. Thanks for joining me for another episode of newView advice. If you enjoyed this episode, I would love to ask you to leave a five star review and a rating ratings and reviews really helped to bring people to the podcast and allow me to keep creating more episodes moving forward. If you're listening on an iPhone, you can scroll to the bottom of the episodes and you'll see where you can click five stars. Thanks again for reading and leaving a review. I really appreciate it. I'm so grateful to connect with so many people around the world. I want to give a special shout out to my internationalist centers, especially those in India. I'm always so surprised and excited to see that these episodes are being listened to worldwide. And I'm just ecstatic that so many people listen in India. It's so cool to be it's so exciting. So thank you so much and I love you all so much and I just feel so blessed that you take the time each week to be here with me and to have these conversations. So thank you again for joining me Amanda Durocher for another episode of New View Advice. As always, I'm so grateful to be here with you and offer a new view on whatever you may be going through. sending you all my love. See you next time

    Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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