I won't let my body out me outwait everything that I'm made done, won't spend my life trying to change. I'm learning love who I am, I get, I'm strong, I feel free, I know everybody of me. It's beautiful. And then he'll always out way if you feel it, but you she'll some love to the food. By you have there, say good day and did you and die out?
Hey hey leanne here and I hope you enjoyed this series with doctor Chip Dodd. Here on outweigh and if you want to learn more about how I teach my own clients to turn off the part of their brain that's obsessed with food, obsessed with their weight, and rewire their own brain for peace and freedom, then head on over to Stressless Eating dot com, where I've literally peeled back the curtain and walked you through the exact strategy I teach my clients to heal themselves from the all
or nothing diet mentality for good, but without restricting themselves, punishing their bodies, and definitely without ever having to use words like macros, low carb or calorie burn. It is all over there for you to access over at stressless seating dot com. Well Happy, Saturday outwigh. It is me LeAnn here back for an episode where we're actually here with our beautiful guest, Chip Dog, where we're going to do a series. It's a four part mini series called
Why We Numb The Real Root of coping Mechanisms. So hello, Chip, Hey.
Good see you. I love you, brought your good energy again.
Oh, thank you so much, thank you so much.
Well. Sonia even commented, she said she's heard you, and she said she just has great energy. I love her energy.
So thank you so speech. I appreciate that. Well, I love yours, and I'm so grateful for you to be here because this, you know, the topic of this series is about why we Numb and coping mechanisms. But really, you know, so many people identify as an addict or they don't even know that their compulsive behaviors of weighing themselves, the body IMOGIP session, the food obsession really takes over their brain and there's so much shame with it. And so there's no one better than you to be here
for this series. So just to brag on Chip for just a second. He has been in the recovery world for decades and he developed his own recovery system called the Spiritual Roots System, and he took it into the recovery world and then ran a treatment center for twenty two years called the Center of Professional Excellence, and now still in twenty twenty five, he's here spreading the love, sharing his truth and the truth about what addiction is and isn't and I mean so much more than that.
So you've probably know him best from his book The Voice of the Heart, and we're going to share all of the ways that you can find him. But he was also on What's God Got to do with It? So we'll link that in the show notes, But specifically, we are going to be here for the next few weeks talking about why we numb the real root of coping mechanisms, and this is part one of this series.
Today we're going to talk about what is addiction really okay and the coping mechanisms that become a trap because a lot of us, I know, I'm talking to women all the time that they think they identify as an addict or they feel like something has this addictive pull over them, but they don't necessarily know what it is. So we're going to break it down for you. What it looks like on a logic and reason level, on a behavioral level, on a neuroscientific level. But first let's
just dive on in. So addiction, obviously we're talking about this before. It's not just about the substance the thing. It's about how we cope or how we use the thing, or who we're being in the face of the fin whether it's food, you know, social media, weight obsession, whatever it is, right, and so how behaviors like emotional eating and over exercising and workaholism and even social media addiction follow those same patterns. So can we talk about what is addiction?
The simplest definition that I have for addiction is it ends up being an intolerance for vulnerability, and intolerance vulnerability and vulnerability means openness to being affected, to being wounded, to being seen exposed, to being needy, all the things that sort of like our mythology of society says, you've got to be stronger than how you're made. And so really and truly addiction is an attempt to escape how we're actually created, to run away from how we're made.
There's a saying that the suppression of expression equals depression, and I don't mean the clinical depression. I'm talking about depressing how we're created. That we actually are told somewhere along in our lives that what you're bringing to this need for connection is not what we're looking for, So
we attempt to disconnect from ourselves. And so almost every person who's addicted, whether they realize it or not, grew up in an environment where they were the heart of who they are, feedings, needs, desire, longing, and hope was oppressed pushed away, and then that person becomes obsessed with the need to belong and matter at the same time without being who I'm really made to be as an expressive person. So the need to belong and matter is still there, but I can't do it like I'm created,
So I practiced not being myself. So that's what oppression turns to obsession, obsession with control, and then that turns into possession. And so as crazy it sounds at first, the thinking takes over the frontal lobe, the executive functionings takes over for the heart, so it becomes a mind over heart problem rather than a heart actually overmind. So recovery is about returning to how we're created.
Wow, and so beautifully put that it's an escape from who we are, or we never got we never felt safe to be all of who we are. This is somewhere along the line we picked up a storyline or a belief that if I just could go control that obsess over that, then that'll fill this need. And it wasn't conscious, We didn't consciously know we were doing it, right, But so powerful to hear that because so often addiction and compulsion is categorize as just this physiological thing, and
that's the cause and effects, you know, cascade. But really, what you're saying I so agree with and what I'm finding with you know, all of the women that come through my program, is that it starts at the mental, emotional, spiritual side of it. And when you address that, then you might also need to make some altercations.
In the physical realm.
Right absolutely, but that's when everything is possible so soon, and.
I would even say it even starts, if we wanted to make a pinpoint start. It actually starts with this idea that we can't accept ourselves emotionally. It's not our faults of their problem, it's not even our actions out of their problem. It's actually that somehow or another it's
not okay the way I actually feel. And that's where the Voice of the Heart book is about our core feelings, soting literally the core feelings of how we're created, which actually open up the door to needs and desire and longings. So guess what, Once we're growing up in an oppressive place, oppressing the heart, we don't get to practice learning how to live. We don't get the practice figuring things out.
We don't get the practice making mistakes. And almost every bit of learning in life is about practice, which is vulnerability being seen. So it's almost like we have to have the answers before we arrive at the problem. We have to have the answers before we get the questions. And that becomes the external validation versus internal risking on an external world, you know.
So we add ourselves and you just defined self rejection at its core, that's where it starts. That's where you know, it festers outward and then we go as humans. I've done it too, and now I'm learning is that like you can't solve an emotional problem with logic and reason?
Amen, you know, keep on keeping to say more.
That's it, Yes, it is, absolutely, and that's what we do.
So coming back to you know, I love how you set the stage for this, where this starts, where the problem is, where it starts, what the real problem is and what it isn't So when we're talking about now the difference between addiction and coping mechanisms, because a lot of people might not say, well, yes, I'm realizing that I'm coping with something, whether they don't know what it is, with food, you know, numbing out on social media, Netflix, whatever, versus.
I talk to a lot of women who are on the other camp where they're like, no, Leanne, I am an addict, right, and they swear they're an addict to sugar specifically. So you know, there's some coping mechanisms that can actually help us heal and actually comfort right and do good, versus others that keep us stuck and create a toxic cycle. So can you share a bit about the distinction between not just addiction and coping mechanisms, but strategies that heal and some in those of them.
Yeah, you know interesting, a coping mechanism can be part
of an addiction. A coping mechanism that can be part of an addiction, and an addiction is also a form of coping if you're attempting to escape one thing, So coping an addiction becomes synonyms if you're attempting to use your actions to escape having to do one thing, you're trying to get away from feeling because even of books about stress management, coping strategies for stress, even those things can be used to try to escape having to be human,
having to be in need, having to feel so recovery. Whether it's the use of coping or addiction itself. See, addiction is not a badness, it's not an evil. It's an attempt to have normal needs met without having to be in need. And coping strategies are a way to make sure that we put ourselves in positions so that we have a place to go where who we are and how we live, who we really are is received.
So the coping strategies need to be actions we take to stick around people and be with people who can receive us as God made us as feeling creatures who have needs, desire, longings, and hope. And we can find the places to struggle with others who are doing the same versus struggling and with those who judge us for being human.
Wow.
So coping strategies need to be getting around people who have the same strengths we have of being human so we're able to tolerate an inhuman world.
Yeah, and if you're how to be safe in who we are and this being safe, it's one thing to I identify that I'm not safe and like have an idea of like, oh what would be safe, But to be in practice living out being a human being all of who you are around people where you're safe, that is everything.
And the safety is actually a place where you can practice being yourself and then go out into a world that may not receive it, but you can still practice being yourself in that world and then come back and resustain. See. Because we're made for relationship. I mean even neuroscience, more than ever before, finally has awakened to what we've known forever. Do you come out of the womb looking for who's
looking for you? That we're created to find fulfillment relationship and people who are addicted or coping to hide their feelings all right, or trying to get relationship without having to be in need. So we need to be in the places where we can be ourselves so we can cope with the world that isn't very interested in who we are. It doesn't mean that you try to hide from the world. You have the strength to go live it. And how do we have the strength to go live
in the world. We do that through having relationships that we're security and we belong in matter.
And it comes back to what you literally started with with just this concept of vulnerability, where it's like, where does that even fit into addiction? Might some people be thinking, but you just said it. It's this idea of not a feeling like we can't go be in need. It's what's causing the addiction, and that's a vulnerable place to be, to be like, no, I need connection and we yeah, there's a world of true efficiency exactly. It's not a desire,
it's a require. And so obviously my you know, my mind is.
Please repeat that, it's not a desire, it is it is a required.
And I love that you brought up the geeky neuroscience stuff because one of the things I'm talking about all the time is the anterior singular cortex. It's my favorite part of the brain. It's the social brain, and it's bigger in females and more active and that's where I to oversimplify it. What I teach my clients is that that is where our addiction and compulsion lives, because it's not what's happening is we're being over fed by dopamine. Right,
these hits of dopamine. That again, now we know what that dopamine is a response to, of not of being needed, but not feeling comfortable to go be air quotes needy, right, or receive that support and that connection that we need, not just desire, but require. But so what's happening is we're going.
To describing even though that need to get hits of dopamine to get relief hits a relieve ourselves for anxiety exactly.
Yeah, but that what happens is that initial hunger what we're really needing, which is oxytocin. By connection, we are feeding dopamine. So therefore our brain is being overfed and undernourished. And it's a cycle cycles level.
And I want your audience to hear that it's not either or we're made to experience dopamine because we're made to have relief from flight flight freeze and a piece Okay, but the thing that dopamine won't answer that both and and part. We're craving dopamine from a standpoint of relief, but we're even more craving oxytocin for life giving experience. So dopamine relieves, oxytocin grants us a full life. One's a life giving chemical, one's a life relieving chemical. Yes so,
and oxytocin occurs. But we can bring how we're made and who we're made to be to people who can receive that. And also people can come get the same thing from us. Absolutely, so recovery ultimately, no matter what what you're recovering from, recovery ultimately is too. I admit that I don't have control of life, and the more I try to control it, my life becomes unmanageable. And then number two, I become somebody others can come to to receive oxytocin, and I have people to go to
to get oxytocin in no worries. Not only am I safe, but I'm cared about and that strengthens me to go risk being myself in a world that's not very interested in me, or a world that is coping with sickness or addicted and leanne. You and I both know that and so many people talk what the pandemic really is. We talk about the pandemic was COVID, and that became a word that everybody knew suddenly. But the real pandemic in our society is addiction because there are over two
hundred million plus people who carry addiction. And addiction ultimately is about running from feelings. So guess what if you deal with feelings in a healthy way, you get recovery from that which would silence you, numb you, knock you out, anesthetize you, or literally control your life to the standpoint that even when you walk and outside your own home, you're obsessed with the appearance of what people think about
what you look like. And the only power hits are, the only sense of security you have is somebody affirming your outsides, but nobody really being interested in your insides.
Absolutely and insights healss even just a stack on that, because what you said is just so beautiful, I believe are The first thing is like, we have to become interested in our insights, Yes you know what I mean, and they'd run away from yeah, absolutely, and learn how to be emotionally available to ourselves. And a lot of times that means going and getting support and being in need. Right, But we have to learn to wake that ticker up because a lot of women, specifically that I work with,
and I know it's men too, we're to sensitized. We don't even know when those alarm bells are going off anymore.
That is so true. And there really is a thing called denial. And denial does not mean you're life. Denial means you really don't see, means you're blind. I was talking to a woman this morning and she went to her first adult Children of Alcoholics meetings, and she wasn't raised in an alcoholic home, but it's for dysfunctional families. A dysfunctional family is a feeling that doesn't deal with feelings
in a healthy way period. And she said that she shared a little bit, and then she said that all these other people shared, and she said, I just kept thinking, me too, me too, And she said, I've never met these people my whole life, and I felt like it was okay. But and that's how you that's how you know you're getting into recovery when you go to a meeting and you look around and you're not going, that's not me, that's not me. You're actually going this is
me too, your home now very quickly. But all of us are born to have a home, and then if you don't have a home, you still look for one. Okay, what is a home? A home is a sanctuary, and it's a place where the front porch lights always on, the door's always unlocked, and the table set ready for your return, and there's someone there who says, oh, no, no, no, I'm doing the cooking, the cleaning. I'm taking care of
you until you can take care of you. And so we all need that place where we can bring our neediness. And then once addiction kicks in, we don't believe a place like that exists or not for me, because I'm not worth it. And the thing is, you're born worth it. And if you don't know you're worth it, then it's not that it went away, it's that it got buried by the people who you needed to be home with.
So almost all addiction and all of our coping sicker coping skills are all about front I hate to say it this way, but what happened to the feelings in your growing up experience? If you come from a place of feeling, you're almost certainly not going to wind up in a position of position called addiction.
Absolutely. And I'll just finish by saying this because I have to plug your Voice of the heartbook for just a moment. But I think a lot of people think they have to go dig up all of the skeletons. It's the braveyard from the past. And what I talk about is like you can get very yes you want to become aware of it, but get out very right now, solutions focused and almost start like adulting yourself through these
feelings that never got reconciled. And so if you're looking for a tool to do that, the Voice of the Heart is just it's literally a guide of how to feel and to it'll you'll be able to recognize where you fit in the spectrum of almost you know, the suppressing of it versus you know how to health use a healthy coping mechanism to experience your feels before we dive off. Can how can people find you?
Stock? You find out all the chipdod dot com and you'll you'll get into chip DoD resources, free resources recommendations, and it takes you also to the Living with Heart podcast Living with Heart from Birth to Death and then of course, it takes you to eight different books that I've written. In fact, the Voice of the Heart is a seminal work. It was written a long time ago. It was the first emotions book actually written in terms of if we look at in terms of bibliograhy, it's crazy.
I didn't know that was writing the first emotions book.
You know now like so widely and popularity used by all therapists. Yes, that's how we found everywhere.
Yeah, yes, and you know what it came out. It came out to the sounds of crickets. And now it's become like almost like it was a little far ahead. Yeah, And actually all it did was named something ancient. We're created as creatures who were made for relationship, and that heart actually really is created to take precedence over our thinking.
Absolutely, And we did a whole episode all about the Voice of the Heart, so I will link that in the show notes from the Godpod. But don't worry, we're not done because we're going to be back next week with episode two of this series where we're going to talk about why we numb and the real reason we avoid pain and seek comfort. So we got into it a bit today, but we're going to get to go narrow or deeper, so we will see you next time.