From Food Fear to Freedom: Embracing Permission for a Delicious Life! | Ep.57

This show is about freedom. Freedom from your constant struggle with food and letting the size of your thighs determine your worth. Join me weekly for no whole fat, unfiltered girlfriend kind of conversations that will inspire, teach and empower you. As we tune into our own body's wisdom and tune out of the diet industry lives, we can live our most radiant, pleasurable and fulfilled lives. My name is Chanci dawn. I'm a non diet nutritionist embodiment and mindset coach. But most importantly, I'm a woman on a mission to grow a deeply connected and conscious relationship with food and my body. And I'm here inviting you to do the same. Let's go. Hello, dear one.

Welcome to today's episode. So today, we are going to be talking all about permission. I've talked about permission often because it just happens to be one of the foundational cornerstones of the food and body Freedom program. So permission is threaded its ribbon throughout this entire podcast. Absolutely. But today, I wanted to do a little bit of a deeper dive into one concern that many people expressed. And I absolutely had this concern too, when you start to give yourself permission to eat what when, how much where you want to eat, okay. And that fear is if I give myself permission, I am afraid that I will completely lose control. And I will lead to everything. And anything everywhere all the time. Okay, so really, it's just I'm going to lose control. And I'm going to feel absolutely chaotic around food. Of course, you feel this way. First of all, I just really want to normalize this concern. Of course you do. If you have been restricting, denying, depriving yourself and trying to stick to a plan outside of your own body's wisdom and queues for so long. Like if you've been a lifelong Dieter, even if you've been a dieter for a month. And just to remind you on this podcast, any way that we are trying to intentionally shrink our bodies is considered dieting. Okay, with that intentional focus on I want to have a smaller pant size. Okay. So if you've been dieting, of course, the permission aspect will be very scary for you. Because you're used to not trusting yourself, you're used to being told and you believe that you can't trust your own body's cues, that your body will mislead you that your body will only want to eat cookies and cheesecake for the rest of your life. But I really want to talk about this to put your heart your mind at rest. When you are thinking something like when you're believing a thought, for example, I can't trust myself, your brain will look into your environment everywhere for evidence to prove that that thought is right. This is how she's wired. And this is she thinks she needs to do this in order to keep you safe, okay, in order to keep you on track. But in reality, we need to question this. Just because you see evidence of it everywhere does not mean it's true. This just means that you have this, these sunglasses on, right, this lens on where you are only focusing on that. And in this kind of situation, we obviously all like we create it. So if you're thinking I can't trust myself, and if I give myself permission, I'm just gonna eat all the things. And all of a sudden, you're like, I give myself permission to eat all the things. And then you eat all the things and it proves your thoughts. Right. Okay, so this is a self fulfilling prophecy. So what I want to do here is educate you, I want to give you new thoughts and new evidence to look in your environment for that permission equals freedom. Permission does not equal loss of control and food chaos. Permission equals Ha is freedom. And it gives you the ability to get curious as to what is really going on here. And what do I really need. So we're gonna talk about that in a bit here. But I just want to let you know that the opposite is true. And let's look let's take let's take for evidence. So the first thing here is permission feels really good to that rat brain to that primal brain. And if you remember from previous previous episodes, your brat brain is only looking out for the rats in your environment. She is hyper concerned with keeping you feeling good and keeping you alive. And any sort of stress that she feels, she actually interprets that as a very threat to your life. Okay? So we love her. This brat brain is the reason why you're here. Your ancestors brought brain it's the primal brain we're talking about, we just call it the brat brain here. So your ancestors, brat brain worked incredibly well. And they were able to continue your, your lineage and here you are, okay, so we don't want to cage This brat brain. We don't want to think anything's gone wrong with her. No, we just want to learn how to calm her down, and to work with her. So if you've been depriving and dieting for so long, your brat brain is primed, rind to be fearful around food. She's fearful of different types of foods, she's fearful of different situations where they'll be food, etc. So just think about your brat brain and the things that she's afraid of. Okay, and it might not feel like fear, it just might feel like awareness. But when you dig deeper, like really question yourself is Do I have these food rules? So that are actually created from fear from distressed from disconnect? that keep me in food prison? What do these look like for you? Okay, for me, I absolutely know that carbs were a big food rule that made me just feel so uh, around food, I would like be invited out for dinner, and I would be worried about everything like, how am I going to avoid the stupid bread basket? How am I not going to have a drink? How am I not going to have dessert? Right? It's just avoidance. I look at the menu ahead of time and look for the best carb free options. And I just felt like shit all the time. Seriously, I felt so obsessed. I felt depressed about it. I felt disconnected. And I still was never happy with my body. Okay, so what food rules do you have? Let's really dig into it, become aware of them and question them? Are they serving you. So when you drop the food rules, and you ease into permission, what happens is your brain starts to feel good. Your brat brain no longer feels deprived and restricted and controlled. Okay, she doesn't feel well powered. Instead, she feels curious. She feels at ease, she feels so good. Because essentially, you've taken her out of food prison, you've taken her out of this box, right? That you've put her in of these food rules. And you're going, Hey, let's actually get to know you. Let's actually like work together here to figure out what we truly actually want. What really serves us, and just that permission, allows her to feel at ease, and allows her to go oh, okay, maybe there is a different way. And just that consideration can open up so much for you. Okay, so there's one little bit of evidence, it works. Your brain wants to feel good permission feels good to her. And then she can get curious.

Now, the next example that I want you to really sink into, because it's really cool. Okay, this is a story. I work at a retreat center. It's a health center where a lot of people come actually to quit smoking. And there's this one Dear woman, I just loved her. And she gave me permission to share this story. And so she came she was in her late 70s. And she was recently had just gone through treatment for lung cancer. She came to quit vaping she had smoked her whole life since her early teens. And then she switched to vapes. And she came to quit. And it was really tormenting her because even though she wanted to quit, she didn't want to smoke any longer. It was harming her and she wanted to continue to live okay. Even though she spent all this money to come, she was tore mented we would have session after session. And she was like, I don't want to quit. I don't want to quit. But I have to I have to I have to. And it was really, really difficult for her. And she came to the point where she's like, I don't think I can I don't think it's possible for me to quit. So we just sat there for a second. And I looked at her and I said, What if you give yourself permission to never quit? What if you give yourself permission to vape for the rest of your life? What would that feel like? Do you want to and instantly her face lit up? And she's like, what? I don't have to quit. She's like no one ever told me that before. No one actually gave me a permission slip to say you can vape for the rest of your life however long that is. And she just instantly I saw it in her body. She just ah relaxed, her face relaxed, her body sunk into her chair a little bit more, the tension just released. And she was like, Well, okay, I don't have to quit if I don't want to. And she said, I don't think I'm going to I think Chauncey, I want to continue vaping I am an adult, I have agency, this is what I want to do. I'm like, Okay, let me know, on Thursday was our next appointment. So in two days, how you're feeling? Think about it, feel it out. Allow yourself to vape if you want to and decide, hmm, okay, how is this working for me? And she came back and it was so cool. She burst into the room. Like she was just on, like, lit up. And she said, Chauncey, holy, I actually want to quit. She said, when I gave myself permission, true, genuine permission to never quit. And I sat with my vape at the beach. And I asked myself, Do I really want to do this? And with that permission, she was able to get curious. And her body, her brain were like, No, we don't want to do this anymore. And the joy, she felt like what she was expressing to me. Just it lifted my spirit because I'm like, holy man, if this can be done with something so addictive as nicotine, okay, so addictive as this the patterns of smoking and the entire ritual around it for people. Okay. highly addictive, then yes, absolutely. The same goes for food. And I think for anything, you feel addicted to social media, give yourself permission to go on there. Give yourself permission to binge watch NetFlix, permission relaxes your brain. And then she get curious, what do you really want. So this woman months later is still vape. Free, she is doing amazing. And every day when she has urges, she asks herself these questions. Okay, I can absolutely vape if I want to. So put this into like your thing with food, I can absolutely eat all the cheese that I want to. Now, with that permission, feel it in your body, there's a difference between false permission and genuine permission. False permission is not real false permission actually is deprivation disguised as permission, and usually it will lead to a lot of store meeting, okay, it because it still is that in that pattern of, of restriction of dieting, and that's okay, if that's where you're at, just starting to consider permission can be a really beautiful thing. It's a beautiful first step. And as you continue practicing, and as you continue sinking into this, and actually embodying what it feels like to give yourself actual genuine permission, you are going to grow, okay, you're going to sink into this. So it is it's not something that happens just overnight, give yourself time and get the support that you really deserve to work through this. And obviously, I have a group program, food and body Freedom program. And also, if you're interested in working one on one, reach out to me, I'm have a couple of spots that I'm opening up for that. And definitely we can see if it's the right thing for you. So with this, ah permission is okay. And then we get curious, do I really want this? And you answer yourself Yes or No? With no judgment attached? If the answer is yes, I want to eat this cheese. Then get curious, why do I want to? Why am I saying yes? And the same goes? If the answer is no. Get curious. Why am I saying no? What is behind this? And answer that for yourself? And then ask yourself? Do I like my reason for doing so? Okay? So this is also why it's really important to get very clear on your Why? Why are you growing into an embodied eater? Why are you choosing to never intentionally shrink your body again? Why are you choosing to learn how to listen and honor your body's cues? Why are you learning to trust yourself and teaching your body that she can trust you? What is it that you want on the other side of it? When I answer these questions for myself, I want vitality. I want genuine health. I want to be able to tune in to my body's cues for really what is right for her. I want to learn about myself. I want to have a beautiful relationship with myself. And I love to think of the fact that we are essentially like married to our bodies. We are our brains we are the energy our soul our spirit right ate. And then we were all in our bodies. And as long as we're living on this earth, we cannot escape our body. So we might as well learn to have the best, most fulfilling rich and deep relationship with her possible. And I believe that embodied eating in coming home to yourself and learning how to honor and trust yourself is the best way to build this relationship. So for me, that is my why that is absolutely why I choose me why I choose my body over social expectations. Every single day, it is a daily choice that I go back to, I choose me, I choose freedom. So when I am wanting to eat something, I can drop into that, do I want this yes or no? And if the answer is yes, does it align with my why am I listening to my body's cues here, or perhaps I'm just feeling really sad. And I actually need to reach out for support. Okay, when you get curious with permission, you can actually go what's really happening here, your cravings are an opportunity to learn about yourself more and to love and serve yourself more. That's all there they are. They're not something that you have to you know, run away from, you have something you have to deny something you have to be afraid of, or something you have to give into. They are just there as an opportunity. With permission to go sweetheart, what you really need. So there you go, the brain loves permission. And I gave you a really good example about a highly addictive substance, right? Smoking, all the chemicals, all the nicotine highly addictive, and how permission actually changes the game for people who are ready to quit. And since that time, without one woman, I use this with every single guest who comes through, we talk about permission, we sink into it. And most of them go holy man, I've never ever taken this approach before and it changes everything. So my friend, there you go, I give you permission to give yourself permission. Okay, here's your permission slip. Get curious, learn how to love yourself more. Honor you it is the most beautiful, free, rich relationship you will ever build between you and your body. Thank you for tuning in. So appreciate you. Please, please leave a rating and a review if you liked this episode, because it really helps get the show in the ears of more people. And obviously, if you have someone in mind who's like really, really needing to hear this, this would serve them please share it with them. Thank you for tuning in. You are amazing for doing this work. Please keep going. I have your back. Take care.