Why You Binge and How to Stop with Jane Pilger

So everyone that comes on the podcast, I myself have followed, or I myself have learned from, or I've really received something that I actually very much so clinically use or, or I send patients to, so the reason I'm bringing you in, I saw your work initially, this was, I think years ago at this point, it was a while ago, right? Maybe you can tell me the year when you come on, but.

Years ago you taught a course in Corinne Crabtree's membership and it was binge better and there were ways that you spoke about binge eating that I'm getting chills right now. I'm remembering the content and the way in which you delivered it. It was just, it was impeccable. And here's the thing that really impressed me. The concept stuck with me to an extent where I literally to this day, about half my patients have binge eating.

If you look at the numbers about they say one out of three people that struggle with their weight long term will have binge eating disorder. I think it's actually higher than that if we even just extrapolate to like binge eating tendencies because hopefully we're going to get into like what is what, right? Like what's a disorder versus just like something that's happening over eating. But I still use those things, some of them.

And so I, I met you at a conference here about a week or two ago, actually at Kring Crab Trees. And I was like, Jane, you need to come on the podcast. You didn't know who I was. We start out where you just introduce yourself a little bit for those that don't know you. And then I have so many questions that I want to ask you today.

And so I, my first binge was my very first semester in college, which I have come to discover is very, very, a very common time for people to start struggling with binge eating is kind of in that, in that transition time leaving for college. But that was my very first binge. And I don't really remember the binge itself, but what I remember So clearly is sitting on the floor in my dorm room. I had binged on a care package full of little miniature chocolate bars.

And I remember just sitting on the floor, being surrounded by all of, I ate the whole box and just being surrounded by all of these wrappers and this empty box in front of me and just thinking, Oh my gosh, what have I done? What did I just do? What is wrong with me? And I, that was the start of it. And I spent decades trying. To stop binge eating and little did I know so many of the things that I was trying were keeping me in the cycle.

But I mean, I have done all of the things from eating disorder therapist to the books to the diets to, two rounds of intensive outpatient therapy at a local eating disorders treatment center. I would have these periods of success, but I would always inevitably go back and start binging again. And I remember years ago, years and years and years ago thinking, if I ever figure this out, I want to help other people do the same. The same because I have so much shame.

I would not talk to anybody about it. I would not tell anybody what I did. And I have come to discover just how common binge eating is, but because there's so much shame, nobody is talking about it. And because of that, it feels very alone and very isolating. And like, you are the only one who does this. But the reality is if binge eating is something that, that you struggle with, like, I just want you to know you are not broken. You are not alone.

There's such a good reason that you do what you do. And, and that really has just become my life's work is to help people understand. binge eating, understand why they do to be able to see it through a different lens. Because I find if you're not just fighting it and hating it and wanting it to go away, which is what most of us do, which makes sense.

If we're not fighting it and hating it, but instead we're understanding We can like put on, I like to say, it's like we put on a new pair of glasses. We see the binge through this, like, I hate you. You must go away glasses. But I help people put on a new pair of glasses. That's like, Oh, I can see now I can see why this makes sense. I can see why I'm doing this.

And if I can see it from this place of like understanding now I can work with it instead of just trying to hate it and make it go away. So that's really. The work that I do now.

I get it deeply when every single thing you're saying. So let me ask though, if we take a step back and we're never, we're not going to do like the medical angle here today. Right. Cause I think this is a different lens that I really want to focus on, but how does someone even know if they struggle with this? Because I think that we've really normalized in society overeating.

It's like, Oh yeah, you know, Thanksgiving, like just had all the food and, and we kind of laugh and, but it's, it's like a very different thing. I think that we're sort of going toward binge eating. So what, what might be happening for someone? Like, how do they know if this is even a thing? Because I can tell you, The traditional doctor is not asking about this because they don't know how what to ask and they don't know what to do. Yes.

And it's often done in secret. So it's often, you know, you don't want anybody else to see you. Sometimes there can be odd combinations of foods like it's food you wouldn't necessarily normally eat either together or on their own sometimes, and intense feelings of shame. Those are kind of the hallmarks of what we're talking binge eating. So with emotional eating, overeating, you know, it's, it's very different than, Like, Oh, I'm just so full. Like, I want to unbutton my pants.

It's not that it's this, there's also, I forgot probably the most important component of that, which is this sense of like being unable to stop. Like I can't stop eating is a very common, it's a, it's a common experience of like, I, I either I don't want to stop or I can't stop. So a lot of times, I mean, you might be eating, eating just well, beyond the point of full, like, like literally eating until you could not eat another thing. I would have.

For example, I used to get like sores in the roof of my mouth from eating. I ate a lot of cereal and dry cereal. Perrin would always be like, I can't believe you don't put milk on it. But I didn't. And so I would get a lot of sores in the roof of my mouth. And, or even just various things from eating such. large quantities of food. So that's really, those are really kind of the, the main, factors that distinguish an actually a binge.

And as far as I had mentioned a couple of resources, so I have a podcast, it's called the binge breakthrough podcast. There are, a couple of resource, a couple of episodes there. And, I think I can send you links to them if you want to include them, but one of them is the, what is the difference between bingeing and overeating? So, and it's, That's pretty much what I just said. There's also this week's podcast just came out. It's called, am I a binge eater?

And it's a question I get a lot, you know, am I is what I'm doing binging. I often have people come up to me and they'll say, even after taking that binge better course, for example, I've had a lot of people come up to me and say, I didn't even know that what I did was binging until I heard you talk. And so. So. And then I have other people who are like, is what I'm doing, binging? I'm not really sure. I don't know if it is a binge, does it matter?

So I talked about it on that podcast episode as well, but the very short answer, if somebody doesn't want to go to another episode is I personally don't think we have to get into. Labels, we have to, we don't have to get into, yes, you're binging. No, you're not binging. Sometimes it's honestly not helpful. I used to get to this point. I had this like imaginary line once I crossed it. Oh, well now I'm binging.

And since I am, you know, like to be all in on everything that I do, if I decided I was binging that I was all in. And so I think for me, deciding if it was a binge wasn't exactly helpful. So I think what I like to talk about more and what I like to have people even think about is what is the energy behind your eating experience? Does it feel like really frenzied? Does it feel like I can't stop? Does it feel like I can't, I'm out of control? Or is it just like, Oh man, that tastes so good.

Like I just, I'm enjoying it. I don't really want to stop. I know I'm going to have a stomachache, but I don't care. Like those are very different energies in terms of the experience. And so I think even just knowing And all of us have had experiences where we're eating food with a different type of energy. And I think that's enough for most people to just see what their experience is like.

And I'm like, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all. So I love that you bring that up. And okay, so let's say that someone let's just go down the road of someone's like, I really do identify with this. I've really been in distress over this. I know I want to do something about it. Is there sort of like a best place to start

And for anybody who struggles with food in any way, these are really kind of the eight primary reasons. But I think there's so much benefit in just understanding why it happens just to start to see that. So if I, I'll go through the eight reasons and then, then what I really recommend that you do is kind of like, Oh yeah, that if, as I list them out, there's probably going to be at least a couple that really. pop out to you as, oh, that's probably really going on for me.

So then it kind of gives you a place that you can kind of look and explore a little bit more. So the eight reasons are number one is shame and judgment, which most people who deal with binge eating have really deal with shame and judgment and shame and judgment. is the biggest thing that will prevent you from being able to like understand it and really look at it in a different way. So I like to think about, and I'll come back to the, to the next, to the rest of them.

But here's an analogy that I love to use. I like to think about binges as There, your binge eating is like a light on the dashboard. So when you have a binge, it's like the light comes on on the dashboard and it tells us there's something going on under the hood, something we need to look at under the hood. And so most people, what they do is they see the light and they're like, Oh, the problem is the food. Let me just get rid of the food. Let me change what I'm eating.

Let me just restrict myself. Let me just never eat this food again. Then I'll solve it. But that's kind of like just taking duct tape and putting it over your dashboard so that you don't see the light. Well, that's not what we want to do. We got to get under the hood and see what's causing the light to come on. Then we can fix that. And then the light's just not going to come on. What I find is binge eating actually unwinds itself.

When we can look under the hood, but shame and judgment, this number one reason, it's like a 50 pound weight that goes on the hood of your car. And we can't even open the hood to get under, to see what else is going on. If we have shame and judgment. about our behavior. So literally the number one reason is shame and judgment. When you stay, when you stay in the, I'm broken, what's wrong with me? Why can't I figure this out?

I know what to do, but I'm just not doing it like that over and over again. That will keep that hood or that, that weight on the hood of your car. And we can't even get to the rest of them. So that's reason. Number one, reason. Number two is restriction, physical restriction, actually not eating enough food, but there's also something that's called Mental restriction and mental restriction is, like most diet language. I'm going to be good tomorrow.

I'm going to, I might even like, I'm like anything where it's like, you're, you're mentally limiting yourself. Well, I'll have this cookie today, but that means I won't have any cookies tomorrow. I'll have some chips with lunch, but that means I have to have a salad. for dinner, like any of that type of stuff is actually mental restriction where your your brain doesn't really know the difference. Are you basically going to put me on a diet and starve me again and again and again.

So restriction number two reason number three reason is that This was huge for me, a dysregulated nervous system. So when your nervous system is dysregulated, when you are, you know, kind of, we so wisely learn, often at a very young age, that food will help. Calm us down. And so we kind of then if especially if we didn't learn tools of self self regulation growing up for lots of different reasons, we kind of really brilliantly figure out, oh, I can use food to regulate myself.

And then that just continues. But the problem is with the nervous system. If we use food to try to regulate, we have a really heightened, we have a lot of energy in our nervous system and we use food to try to bring us down. We do too much. And then we end up eating so much that now we're we're kind of like in that collapse freeze state. So I used to never, ever, ever let myself stop. Like I would just go, go, go all the time. Go, go, go push, push, push, except for when I binged.

And after a binge, I would literally just be on the couch doing nothing but scrolling. And searching for what to do after a binge because it was the only time I allowed myself to stop. And so I was trying to regulate my nervous system with food because I didn't even understand what my nervous system was or how to regulate myself any other way. So that's reason number three.

Reason number four is disconnection from your body, which anybody who has been on a diet, hello most women and many humans in the world. We're, we are taught How to disconnect from our bodies. So whether it's through diet, whether it's through, whether it's through some sort of traumatic event, we have a lot of practice in disconnecting from the natural signals of our body. So that's reason number four, reason number five, it's a coping mechanism.

We literally don't have the tools and the skills to handle bigger, Intense emotions. I call it your emotional capacity. So your emotional capacity, your capacity to be with any emotion. And many of us have very small emotional capacities. So when it feels like it's too much for our emotions, our emotions feel like too much. We use food to try to help. Pope. Reason number six, an attempt to control. We're trying to control our bodies. We're trying to control our weight.

We're trying to control our self image, what other people think of us. This was for sure a thing for me. So just this attempt to control, sometimes we can't actually control the size of our body yet. Somehow we've received the messages. That we can reason number seven is habit. So when you do something, anything repeatedly over time, your brain wants to put that into its subconscious.

Now, the problem is a lot of people like to look at binge eating as a habit, like as number one, well, if I just break the habit, if I just stopped doing this, if I just stop eating at night, when the kids go to bed, or if I just stop going to when I leave work before I get home, then It'll all just go away. That's actually probably not true because we haven't addressed all the other, all of the other things.

So they all, they really do all need to be looked at and habit absolutely is one of the reasons, but we can't just look at it. on its own. And the last and final reason, reason number eight is negative self talk. And it's just the way that you talk about yourself or to yourself inside your own head. And so that this really shows up after a binge, just like, Oh, I'm so gross. I'm disgusting. I used to think all the time. I can't tell you how many times I would just think like, I hate myself.

I can't believe this. I'll never figure this out. I'm broken. What's wrong with me? All of those things, that negative self talk. We're so punishing to ourselves. And if you think about this for yourself, when anybody else is speaks negatively to you, Or about you. What do you want to do? You want to get as far away from them as possible. The only way we know how to get away from ourselves is to eat.

So we end up kind of getting ourselves in this cycle where it's like, I have this really harsh internal critic, and then I don't like that. It feels awful. And the only way I know is to disconnect from myself is to eat. Like I used to say that binging for me was like turning the lights off on myself.

And, and it, it, it, it is, I mean, there is this true disconnection, this true like dissociation from ourselves, but if we can change the way that we talk to ourselves in the moments while we're eating after a binge, that can shift so much so that we're not needing to just turn right around again and do it all over again.

And I remember I could tell I'm like, I feel so out of control, like as far as how I'm feeling my schedule. And, and what was the first thing I did? I tried to clamp down on food. Cause I was like, well, that you can control it. Right. And it, but it's so fascinating because something I've, Really had to work on the past few years. It's not overworking as much because I love overworking. It is such an easy like coping thing for me. And so it's fascinating when you're bringing up this list.

I'm like, okay, I do all those different capacities, right? Yes. So I think this list is really good because I love how you started off kind of talking about how we have to like get under the hood because people think get rid of the food, get rid of this. It's like, it's like so not the issue and it's just going to keep recurring. In fact, it even gets worse because you're like, well, I did throw it out and now you got a meal delivered and now you're feeling, you know what I mean?

It's like, I always say you're going to get in some capacity. You're going to go to a gas station. You're going to order it. You're going to ask a friend, like in some capacity, if you want it, if we're not actually addressing what's going on, it will, it will occur again. So this list is. Super enlightening. I think people listening are really going to get a sense of that. So obviously it's super broad, right? What might be someone's challenge?

The one question I something that you've described in the past, I think might be helpful for people is you've really just, I mean, we talk about with binge eating, it's not really like trying to get to zero. It's sort of like maybe decreasing it or being able to support yourself more before, during, after all these different things. Can you talk about how you explain that to people?

Because obviously we can't talk about the kind of how to get into all this, but just maybe it's not a zero, but like, what are we actually going for with working on this?

of binge eating. We're really trying to binge better. And what does binging better look like? Well, the challenge and which I still very much stand behind the behind. Now the challenge is a lot of people are like, I don't want to binge better. I just don't want to binge. At all. Right. I just want to get rid of it, which is understandable. And, and, but so now the way that I really talk about it now is that the binge eating will unwind itself. So it's like it will unwind itself over time.

It may. It may happen quickly and it may take an extended period of time. Like we can never say exactly how long it will take for it to unwind. But if we know, okay, here are the things that are going on that are keeping me wound up. And in this process of binge eating, if I can just look at some of these and pick out some of these areas to focus on, if I work on this, then the, the binge eating, the lights are naturally going to start coming on less often.

Okay. If already, if I am working on my, my self talk like during and after a binge, I am very likely to already have eat less food and have fewer instances. So it's more, I've really kind of shifted into thinking more around like support it, like really supporting yourself, being really kind. To yourself like how can you like be as curious and compassionate as possible about like the lights themselves if we can separate the behavior from you as a person.

Like it is, it is not, this isn't about you as a person. You are not a failure. You are not broken, but yeah, we've got some lights on and let's, let's see what, what is happening with these lights. This then tells us. So now I can kind of look and if I'm, if I'm open and I start to like be aware and curious, That's where the magic happens because so many people are like, Oh my gosh, now. I can see what I couldn't see before.

Like, now that I'm like seeing with these new glasses, I can see these patterns. I can see how, oh yeah, I have been so, so many people who, who struggle with binge eating. There's a lot of rigidity. There's a lot of black and white thinking. It's either or I'm either eating perfectly or I'm totally off the rails. It's very, you know, like I said, I wasn't going to eat dessert. I ate, you know, one cookie. Now I have to go eat 24. Like it's, there's very much of that, like rigidity.

So then we just start like. Let's get curious where, like, can we see where else can we see the rigidity? Where else can we see some of these patterns showing up in life? And then it's like, Oh, so a lot of it really is awareness. Like if, as soon as we get out of shame and judgment, we can open up to awareness, to curiosity and compassion. If we can, and we can use those, then that really. opens up so much.

You're imagining yourself going and getting this food. A lot of times that's how it happens first for people is you're almost picturing it in your mind where, whether you're going to get it from your pantry or the drive thru or the bakery or the convenience store, it's almost like you picture it in your head. So you can ask yourself this question. What do I think the food is going to do for me?

Is a powerful question because sometimes then it can be like, well, I think it's going to, make me feel better a lot of times. Right. But that's a great question to ask. What do I think this is going to do for me? Another powerful question you can ask is what am I afraid will happen if I don't eat? There's brilliance in this answer because it will tell you what you're, it will tell you what you're. Afraid of. Third question would be, what do I really need?

I love the question of like, what is it that I really need right now? That's my favorite question

And then you like, now you've eaten and you're like, Oh, I can't believe it. I didn't even ask the question. What's wrong with me? I can't figure, you know, that, that whole thing, there are times, especially when your nervous system is really, really dysregulated, the access to your logical brain is gone. You don't even have access to it, which means these brilliant questions won't even come to mind.

Now, if you get in the habit of asking questions a lot, then you will be much more likely for those questions to show up in those really high stress moments. But don't expect yourself to ask yourself some brilliant question that takes your logical brain in the moment where There's not a lot of logic happening for you right now.

And I like actually how you're like, If you're always asking questions, your chance of maybe being able to ask a question is going to increase during that time. Love that. I want people to like, please hear that if you're someone new to this work, that I think is such a gem that you just shared. Like we, our brain is offline and you got to do it the other time. So you even have a fighting chance at it during those times. Yeah.

And I was like, no, No, no, no, no, you won't. Because that in that moment when your brain's like, let's eat, what's happening is often that your brain is sensing, there is some sort of perceived threat and your brain sees food and sees eating and sees the binge as a source of safety. Because in the past it has been a source of safety for you in the past, which is why it feels like I, there's this part of me that really wants to let it go, and there's this part of me that really doesn't.

That makes sense. If you actually do have both of those parts, you have the part that feels like, no, this is really necessary. And you have the other part. That's like, this really isn't so good for my health. And it actually feels terrible afterwards. Both of those parts are true when they both exist.

And when we try to like just pretend that that part that feels like the food is necessary and like is our source of safety or relief or comfort when we try to pretend that That, that part is like, we just exile it and put it in the closet. That's part of why we end up like repeating these patterns and these behaviors. We can't just pretend that part doesn't actually exist and isn't actually trying to create some safety and, and really protection for you.

So we have to learn how to like be with that part and not just hate it and wish it would go away, which is, you know, what I did for. 20 some odd years.

Is there a certain thought process that you go through of what people can do that like easily they have access to?

also love what I call is the pause with permission. And so the pause with permission is this just gives you space. So instead of here's what we want to do with our, like the thoughts that come in around food and what we're going to do next and whatever, we don't want to just be like, no, I'm not doing it. Like, we don't want to kind of like force ourselves and like have these rules and this rigidity and like try to like, with willpower, you know, no, no, no, I'm not going to do it.

I'm not going to eat the thing. I'm not going to eat the thing. Like, cause that makes it all worse. But if we can just give ourselves a little bit of space, so we can do it with a hand on heart and just be like, I'm just going to pause. I'm just going to give myself, you can even like put both hands on your heart over your heart and then put them out. Just, I'm going to pause, just like pause, just going to pause.

I'm going to give myself, maybe I'm gonna give myself 10 minutes, maybe just five minutes. Just going to give myself a little bit of space. Now this doesn't mean I'm pausing so that I won't eat. I'm just giving myself space. I have permission to eat. In the future, in this 5 10 minutes, whenever I decide, I just want to give myself a little bit of space. So, if I can give myself space and now go do in this pause time anything other than think about food.

So, like, if you can be away from the food, if you can be away from your kitchen, if you have been eating, if you can just like, you know what, I'm just going to step away. For just five or 10 minutes, I'm just going to give myself a little bit of space. If I still want to eat, I can. So it's like that pause with permission. What it does is it just, it, it just puts in an interruption. It gives you time for more of your logical brain. To come on board.

And if you can do something where you are getting more into your body, whether it's taking a walk, whether, you know, you're listening to a guided meditation, I've got so many guided meditations inside, you know, a lot of my programs to kind of, you know, work through exactly these times, but whatever it is, a lot of times we just need to break the, we just need to break the pattern. Like that pattern interrupt.

And so many times you just end up doing something else and you're like, oh, I don't know. Whoa, look at that. I don't really feel like I'm going to come out of my skin anymore. Like that, that period of time, like that really, that, that part that feels so unbearable, it will pass. And I think that's the biggest thing that I really want anybody to know is that like unbearable feeling will pass. We often have this sense that no, it doesn't go away unless I eat.

It's like we have this kind of like thought error. That food is the only thing that makes it go away. And actually it really will pass on its own. If we kind of, if we're able to like, just let it be and kind of relax into it. The problem is we don't relax into it. We're like, it's here. I hate it. I didn't want to be here. I didn't want this. You know, we're trying to like push a beach ball underwater, which is going to end up eventually coming out so much higher.

That's what we end up doing with food. Like, no, I didn't want this. Don't eat, don't eat, don't eat, don't eat. And then the next thing, you know, you're eating like, Way more than you expected. Yeah.

You actually, and I inserted my loved question, what is it that you actually need? But I love how you, how you, you're like, you're just giving yourself a space. You're trying to get your brain on board. You're breaking the habit.

I also really love, to be honest, not only the hand on heart, but how you, like, just put your hands out, like, there's something about getting into our body and out of our head for a second, and exactly like you said, how these things will become less intense with time, but of course we don't believe that in the moment, because we think everything's going to be as intense at this moment. So that's so, okay. That's so hopeful.

And I find we need reminding of this like 24 seven, like, here's what you do. And then we need to practice it.

There is so much power in visualizing your response. So what I love to do is I love if here's something for, here's a, here's a hot tip for you for after, after a binge you're in this moment. Oh my gosh, I can't believe I did it again. I can't believe I was going to ask myself the questions. I was going to put my hands on my heart and I didn't. I love to ask this question. If. You had a do over, what would you do

differently? So you get to think about it. Oh, I would ask, I would ask that question. Okay. Let's visualize it. Picture yourself in that moment, picture yourself. You know, exactly what happened. You know what you did now picture you responding to yourself in a different way, because here's, what's amazing. Your brain doesn't know the difference between a visualization and the real thing.

And so if what your brain, the last thing that your brain remembers is the visual of you asking yourself those questions or you doing that pause and then forgetting about the food and then moving on with your day, that's what your brain thinks happened most recently, which will make it that much more available to do. The next time. Oh, that's so bad. Now, if you just, yeah, if you just beat yourself up, forget it. Like right.

And I went through it and then I had the magical moment of being at the store one time and I didn't even think about it. And I was like, I just went past the aisle. I didn't even think about it. And it's, it sounds silly if you've never struggled with it, but if you have, you realize. Wow. That's a big moment that you didn't have to like internally battle yourself. Am I going to put it in the cart? Am I not? It's like, it's an energy expensive process.

And so that was, yeah, that visualization, I love how you are, are you, how you're telling us, look, it's no different, the visualization versus reality. And so it's so great. It's like, you can basically make it whatever you want. If you're willing to put some energy into it. I love that.

You can actually go back to the very first, the first probably 10 episodes

of my podcast are my, my story, the eight reasons why you binge the solution to each reason. And then the next eight episodes are a deeper dive into each of those eight. Things, but I've recently come to realize if I could boil all of binge eating down to one word, it's disconnection. When we binge, we are disconnecting for some reason in some way, which means that the answer, the solution is connection.

Now there's a lot, it's a simple, it's, I actually recorded a podcast about this, just yesterday I recorded it. I literally believe that connection is the closest thing to a magic pill you are ever going to find. Now, it's not easy though. It's simple, but it's not easy. And it's a skill that has to be cultivated and it takes time. And there are reasons why we disconnect.

But if we can cultivate the skill of connecting with ourselves, with our bodies, with our emotions, with our nervous systems, with Other people with our internal kind of compassionate voice, all of that. If we can cultivate all of that, we have no reason and no need to bench.

And this person said, I literally don't know what to do. Now, if you're listening to this and you've never had this as a challenge, it sounds like, what are you talking about? Like having fun is fun. If you're coming like me and you're an overworker with something, when you're with the family, the kids, like you're at the beach, you're like, what do I do with my hands? You're like, you don't know because you're, you're so used to like producing and seeing and working with people and.

And I think that's part of what you're talking about, right? Like this connection. It's like you obviously have no idea how to just be with yourself or how to be with others. Or I mean, it's, it's so meta after that. And also kind of tell you, this is just me personally. Like, like the reason I bring you on, it's like when someone really has an expertise in an area, they get to seeing like, this is the true problem. Like, yes, they're yes. They're the list. Yes. People can identify that's me.

Right. When they hear the eight, they can pick one. But then at the end of the day, you're like, here's what it's really going to take for you. And Probably it's different for everyone, right? Like what connection is going to mean for them?

If I slow down, that's dangerous. It's dangerous for me not to be go, go, go to be producing, to be doing, to be all of that. So there is then going to be, we have part of. Creating the connection is we have to create safety, safety with ourselves, safety in our bodies. There are so many, so many reasons why we disconnect from our bodies, why they don't feel safe to us safety with food. There are so many reasons why. So many of these foods feel unsafe. So it's this, it's, it's this safety.

If we don't have, if we don't, if we don't feel safe enough, we don't have to be 100 percent safe. But if we don't feel safe enough, there's going to be that, that lack of safety. And that's the disconnection. When there is disconnection somewhere, there's a lack of there's basically there's a perceived threat.

There's also, worksheets, things that you can do to kind of like really dive into the eight reasons. There's also a supportive, monthly coaching call that comes along with that so that you can get additional support. So that's the binge breakthrough blueprint. I also have a group program. And a one on one, private coaching program. And, and both are amazing. I mean, the group program is great. It's, it's small, it's intimate.

And there's so much relief in, in being in a group of people who are all just like, Oh, I thought I was, I thought I was alone, you know, like, oh my gosh, you get it, like just that relief in, in being around other people who, you know, just share that struggle, particularly when so many people have never. even talked about this with anybody before. And then the one on one coaching is amazing because wherever you are, whatever is going on, we can go, we can go deep.

A lot of my work is, I have, I've gone very far into the nervous system, trauma informed healing, a lot of the internal work that I think is so, it's just, It's so important in creating that connection. And, and so a lot of the reason why we disconnect is there, there are so, there are so many reasons. So, with the one on one work, you know, we can, we can do so much there. So those are the ways that I work with people. And I also want to share another resource with anybody here.

And this is a resource that is so near and dear to my heart. And it is, it's a, it's what to do after a binge. This is probably the main thing that I Googled. All of the time, every time after a binge, you're in the most pain, the most like, Oh my gosh, I can't believe I did it again. And so I really wanted to create this. What do I do in these moments after a binge?

So if, and it will guide you through my pro I have a process for after a binge, it will guide you through, you know, really being able to look at it through those glasses of more compassion and curiosity versus. shame and judgment. And so you can get that, I'll give you the link, but it's janepilger. com forward slash after.

So super easy to find on my website, but that's just a great resource for, for anybody in those moments that are, I just think the hardest when it comes to binging is like that. that time.

I think everyone's going to benefit so much from hearing actually how complex this is and that this is not just get the food out of the house. Like laugh about it. You're not broken. There's nothing wrong with you. There are many answers here. There is relief to move past it, hope in this area. And just thank you for coming on. I just, I really can't thank you enough.