S2E45: The Food Addict: Recovering from Binge Eating Disorder & Making Peace with Food
Merry Brown
Merry Brown: I am a food addict in recovery. I am also someone who loves people, my family, and helping others work through problems at work. I recently left the teaching profession and opened a business that trains and empowers employees and businesses to create healthy work environments (Third Party Workplace Conflict Restoration Services, LLC)
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Podcast Transcript
[00:00:00] Damaged Parents: Welcome that to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents where food addicted, yo-yo dieting, beautiful people come to learn. Maybe just, maybe we're all a little bit damaged. Someone once told me it's safe to assume 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way. I would venture to say it's closer to 100%.
Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about. In my ongoing investigation of the damaged self, I want to better understand how others view their own challenges.
Maybe it's not so much about the damage, maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with it. There is a deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience? My hero is you the one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side, whole.
You who stare directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover your purpose. You are the people who inspired me to be more fully be not in spite of my trials, but because of them. Let's hear from another hero. Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not be appropriate for children.
This podcast is provided for informational purposes only, and is not intended as advice. The opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them. Today, we're going to talk with Merry Brown. She has many roles in her life. Mother wife, daughter daughter-in-law author food act. Food addict and more. We'll talk about how she struggled with food addiction and yo-yo dieting and how she found health and healing let's talk
Welcome back to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. Today, we have Merry Brown with us. She's a food addict. Wow. She is a food addict in recovery. She's also someone who loves people, her family, and helping others work through problems. She most specifically helps people in the workplace. She left the teaching profession and opened a business that trains and empowers employees and businesses to create healthy work environments.
That company name is Third Party Workplace Conflict Restoration Services, LLC. However, in order to get there, she had a struggle. And I'm so glad to have you here to talk about this.
[00:02:38] Merry Brown: Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here.
[00:02:40] Damaged Parents: Yeah, I think I'm one of the only podcasters That's like, thank you so much for bringing your struggle. to me, we'll just hold the space open with love. These struggles are just part of the experience, right.
[00:02:55] Merry Brown: That's right. That's right.
[00:02:56] Damaged Parents: Now you sent me a couple of different pictures and one of them was a picture. I think it's eighth grade before the eating. What was there like a moment? Well, actually let's first tell people what the struggle is. I'll let you tell us what your struggle is, and then let's go into maybe how it started.
[00:03:14] Merry Brown: Okay. So I have struggled with eating addiction. I think I am a food addict such that I yo-yo dieted for 25 years when I was in high school, I was bulimic. I left that behind. In my, late thirties, late thirties, early forties, I developed an eating disorder along with the twenty-five years of yo-yo dieting, which is its own disorder.
So through a process, I have overcome the binge eating and taking control of my food situation.
[00:03:42] Damaged Parents: Now, one of things that I remember reading was that you had like this rigid control over food at one point, and I'm thinking the yo-yo dieting happened so much in that the only way you knew how to solve that was the rigid control. What did that look like?
[00:04:01] Merry Brown: So my entire life for 25 years, I was either on a diet, coming off the diet or preparing to go on a diet. And for me, when I was on a diet, I was all in, I mean, it's the, you know, eat, drink and be married the night before, because I'm about to restrict. And so it's a rigid kind of restriction where it's very obsessive.
And so the last diet I was ever on. Never diet again, the last diet I was ever on I was. I started to lose weight, like I would do on a diet, but this one was being pretty successful and I was losing more weight. And then as what happens is I have such rigid control over you know, I pay attention to every single thing I eat, how much I eat and it's this constant I wake up, I think about the day.
What can I eat today? What can I not eat today? I ate this did I eat more. A very good example because it was constant in my life. Especially the latter part of my dieting is this issue with peanut butter. As soon as, I was on a diet, peanut butter became very important. And so, I had a tablespoon, was it a full tablespoon?
Was it more than a tablespoon? And I fooling myself, am I not eating enough? I mean, just constant internal chatter and control.
[00:05:07] Damaged Parents: No matter what was going on, if there was always this underlying concern about food,
[00:05:12] Merry Brown: That's correct. Where am I going? Am I going to an event? Are we eating out? Should I eat before? Should I save all my calories till then? And then I'm there. Did I eat too much? Did I not eat enough? Just a constant calculation. And then I would start over. Cause I was as my place, a constant calculation for me it was sustainable for so long until it just fall off the wagon but with the last I, I started falling off and I thought, well, no, I, really need something. I, thought I had conquered this and I realized what I had been putting off is that I'm addicted to sugar. And what they say about sugar is being more addictive than heroin, all these sorts of things.
And. I thought okay, I'm serious. Let me give up sugar. So I gave up sugar and the way it came off, the control that came even more intense. And one day I just broke and it was that event that punch me into binge eating disorder, clinical depression. And when I eventually came out of that about a year and a half later, I had a clarity, like I hardly ever had before about.
It's like touching a hot stove when you do it. And you realize your hand was burned because you touched the hot stove. You're not gonna touch a hot stove again. And I realized the depression and the binge eating disorder, which is just so dark was a direct result of how I diet the kind of restriction.
so I'm just never going to do that again. And I gave up a food obsession because at that point, I said, okay, you've got two options Merry you can either have a healthy mind or be a certain weight. And for you at this moment, you're going to have to choose. And I decided I wanted a healthy mind.
[00:06:46] Damaged Parents: You literally had to choose between this focus on food and the mind.
now. I mean, my understanding. Well, I don't even know if it's an understanding, but like with, food eating, I mean, you can't not eat.
[00:07:00] Merry Brown: Yes.
[00:07:01] Damaged Parents: So how do you go from binge eating and this really obsessive behavior with food to finding balance?
[00:07:11] Merry Brown: So it was a long process for finding my way, cause I really do think I've made peace with food. And for me, when I finally said. I'm not doing this anymore. And I came up with a mantra and it was a process of, I read a lot. I went to spiritual retreat. I went to therapy, lots of talk therapy within myself, family support.
I came up with this mantra of I'm not on a diet. I can eat what I want. And it was very curious because. When I tell other people this who have issues, I can see them like, no, no. If I could eat whatever I wanted, I would gain and gain and gain. It would never stop
[00:07:46] Damaged Parents: right.
[00:07:47] Merry Brown: When I really embrace it. No psychological trick. I wasn't trying to trick myself. It was no, you can eat whatever you want. And I started surrounding myself with junk food. I have it in drawers everywhere. I ate just, the power went away and I didn't care. And I just didn't, it doesn't hold in general. It doesn't hold the power for me anymore. and not to say food, doesn't have the power that it used to anymore.
And I just refuse to restrict because as soon as I think about, oh, I need to do something about food. It just the anxiety and the control, and that I could see myself starting to measure. And I say, I'm not doing that. I'm not playing that game.
[00:08:26] Damaged Parents: Mm.
[00:08:27] Merry Brown: And there are a variety of routes to help. And for me, this is what I need to do to take care of myself.
[00:08:34] Damaged Parents: So for you, it was really helpful to let go and say, I can have what I want. And then the power of the food was just no longer. there. Now, did you notice, was it, were there emotions tied to that besides this, when you had that rigid control, were you shaming yourself or and if so, explain that, but also what other emotions came up for you during the struggle?
[00:09:02] Merry Brown: I've always felt shame about my weight. So the picture I sent you of eighth grade, that was the last time that I felt like I had a normal body. So, I mean, actually I'm fine with my body now. I'm at a weight that for me is fine. but that was, I think societaly acceptable. I just look normal now and I thought that my eating you know, I had just hit puberty maybe at six months before that.
And it was that change, I think. And then going into high school that I just started. I had more access to junk food and I just started eating and I don't have great impulse control when it comes to food because for emotional needs for coping that was an unhealthy coping mechanism with junk food.
And I just never really stopped. So I grew up in the eighties and in California and I knew what was acceptable. Cause I saw it everywhere. It's a particular kind of thin body in order to be loved. I had to look a certain way. and so I was always feeling bad about what I was eating.
And so I was on a diet. Or about to get on a diet coming off a diet. And that's why I did a lot of purging in high school. I purged all the time. But it didn't work. The weight didn't come off and I knew enough to know I could permanently damage my health, possibly die more damaged your health, the bulimia, and you can die from it, but it's more, you know, other kinds of enamel and erosion on fingers and things like that.
And since I wasn't getting the results. When I left high school, I kind of left that behavior behind. But before when I was writing this book this summer, I had always thought that my eating problems started with puberty, that they were before that I was still in cookies. The cookie jar. When I was young, I was finding change around the house and riding my bike down to the seven 11 to get four candy bars for a dollar
and then moving on to the tub of chocolate frosting, because I could get more out of that in hiding it. Right. So a lot of this is hiding, which is a shame when you're hiding, you're typically ashamed.
[00:11:01] Damaged Parents: so I mean, were you sad? Were you angry or is there things going on that, that you were trying to I guess kind of get rid of by getting this good feeling with food.
[00:11:13] Merry Brown: Yeah, I think, yeah, I was stuffing my emotions. I didn't know what to do with my emotions. I went through a, not as severe, but a little bit of a cutting phase. in high school, all of these behaviors and some other behaviors were because I didn't know how to deal with my emotions. And there was some chaos in my family.
I have a loving family but you know, we all have issues and I didn't know how to deal with my emotions. It's how I ate them. It was really a stuffing down. This makes me feel good, but then you train your brain. I really think that a lot of my issues with food are, have to do the brain chemistry.
I'm certainly not a reductionist, I believe in the body and spirit. But there is that the biochemical aspect and, just the way my body responds and then the pleasure and the feeling. In fact, I'm on a particular medicine right now where I just. I can't really eat. Cause I'm just, it doesn't make me feel good.
And it's so frustrating because I just want to stuff myself sometimes because, and I know what I'm doing. I was like, you're upset. You are nervous. You are. But I don't have to differentiate between my feelings to figure out what's going on and I just eat. Cause that just pacifies all the negative emotions. I'm trying to figure out how to have better coping mechanisms and how to deal with my emotions, because right now I'm kind of being faced with them that I have to deal with them.
[00:12:39] Damaged Parents: Yeah. And was that a little scary at first, like, oh dear, what do I do now?
[00:12:44] Merry Brown: I think just really frustrated.
[00:12:46] Damaged Parents: Yeah.
[00:12:47] Merry Brown: Coping mechanism, I've had, all of my life is gone away and I have to sit with my feelings and, and we all have big feelings, you know, and it's hard. It's hard to know what to do with them. And so I'm both grateful and frustrated.
[00:13:04] Damaged Parents: I was so glad you said that though, because you know, a lot of times I think that there's this idea. We get to the other side of a challenge and that it's just better. And I love that you're still in the midst in some ways in the midst of this. And you're saying, yeah, these feelings. They can be hard.
[00:13:24] Merry Brown: I think a part of the freedom for me is when I recognized that I'm a food addict, as you mentioned you have to make peace with food. I mean, you got to eat and I've spent so much time wishing I just never had to eat again, Can I wire my mouth shut? What can I do if only I never had to eat again, if I could take a pill
I mean, I never had to eat again. That would be fantastic, but you got to figure it out. Right. And so when I realized that I'm a food addict with a condition to be managed, right, the alcoholic, she doesn't do herself, any favors to say, I'm in recovery, I've done. So I don't have to watch for those feelings or there's triggers.
But if she's in recovery, then that's something that she needs to be mindful of. I think the same thing with food, I really do feel like I'm in recovery. I have my mantras. I have ways to talk to myself. I have ways to deal and recognize, but I think this is my story. And if I ever say, oh, I'm not a food addict anymore.
I'm just setting myself up for failure, but recognizing my condition as a condition to be managed and therefore I can find the tools available to help me manage my condition. I think for me is, the best response moving forward
[00:14:33] Damaged Parents: well, and I think what I hear is you know, an alcoholic can just stop drinking and that's, great, but there's a difference between like a dry alcoholic and an alcoholic in recovery. And I think what I'm hearing from you is the same is a bit of the same belief is that sure.
I can, you know, control my food and do whatever to control it and have that rigid control, or I can take, on these healing tools.
And learn how to cope and manage, which I think is what the recovery alcoholic aims to do. Right. If we're going to try to, connect the path a little bit is the, willingness to learn to cope. And it's so amazing to me, regardless of whether it's food or alcohol or, I mean, there are so many other addictions that it's all about kind of not connecting with these feelings, which are so important, even though they're uncomfortable.
[00:15:29] Merry Brown: Yeah.
[00:15:30] Damaged Parents: So, as you started sitting with these feelings, what was one of the first things you noticed about you?
[00:15:36] Merry Brown: Some things that are difficult. So, I try not to overblow, you know, like I'm a pretty accomplished person. I have, accomplished professionally I have a great family. I have all these wonderful things. And so it's not that I'm afraid of hard work. But sometimes I am. There's some, things that are difficult for me.
I'm very stubborn about, and. I'm continually surprised by myself and I fight against the negative emotions because I just want to numb out I feel that like I get migraines, so I don't drink because drinking I've never been a big drinker, but you know, I think, gosh, I wish I could just do what everybody says in culture and drink a bunch of wine for me.
That's numbing out, can I just get away from these things? I don't have food to numb out. Sometimes I'll just take a nap cause I need to turn off. I know the only way through is through you don't get to go around. Right. It's through it. I know that. So why am I fighting my own good. Why don't I just realize, because when you realize at least for me, when I realized my emotions in the power gets dispersed, you know, I can recognize the emotion. I can let it pass. I can look at it, but when I fight it. And so I think, why am I still fighting these things? I want to be better.
And I'm interested in being self-aware, but pushing it back against the feelings is not the route. So I think, why am I finding my own good? I don't know.
[00:16:55] Damaged Parents: So you then also, it sounds like would have an experience of not fighting. What is the difference when you allow that emotion to flow versus that real struggle that happens with the I'm going to call them un-fun or disregulating emotions.
[00:17:11] Merry Brown: Yeah. So it feels when I just sit it's like I am talking with myself Okay fine this feels awful and you just you know feels awful. And just kind of sit with it and then it does pass, or I recognize I get these thoughts, intrusive thoughts, right? And so when I start thinking about. Oh, and I named them. Oh, that's an intrusive thought.
It's I don't have to identify with it. Right. Or I can say, yeah, life is hard. Everybody has problems. People have issues with money. People have issues with something at work. People have real difficulties. That's a part of life. And why do you think it's not a part of life? It's kind of like that surprise.
Like it shouldn't be there. And so I tell myself, no, this is normal.
[00:17:57] Damaged Parents: Yeah.
[00:17:57] Merry Brown: it's not normal to be, to have no negative emotions.
[00:18:02] Damaged Parents: Well, and I think you make a good point there because I think in society, with the shows and the movies and everything, I think there is this idea that the emotions.
that we don't like, just have no value that there's no purpose. And almost like having them is a shameful thing. Instead of how do we have them and learn from them. So have you noticed anything about yourself as you accept them and let them flow? like, let's say something tough comes up and you're you're in that mode of letting it flow. Does it allow you to have insights that you probably wouldn't have had otherwise, do you think, or, or do you get them sooner or what, what happens.
[00:18:47] Merry Brown: That's a good question. I wish I could say yes. As these negative emotions come, I'm able to rise above and I'm enlightened. I don't think I'm there yet. I hope to be there. I mean, I'm absolutely convinced That part of life, a suffering a part of life is joy and most of life is mundane and when we don't recognize that basic parts of life we're going to suffer, this suffering is, can be efficacious if it's good for us, the suffering in my past, like I would never wish binge-eating disorder on anybody, but through that fire black hole of a time period in my life I grew, I developed and I have a different kind of insight and certainly different kinds of empathy.
What matters, what doesn't matter when it comes to my self-worth my self worth, I don't see as tied in to the shape of my body. Usually it's not that I'm completely healthy on that, but I just do see a lot more clearly than asking this question, who are you trying to please and it was never my husband, my husband's is a person who has just loved me unconditionally for 26 years. Nobody in my family is telling me these negative things about my body. And I think I am so lucky because a lot of other women and people aren't like that, they have spouses. They have people who are telling them that to be loved. They have to look a certain way.
[00:20:02] Damaged Parents: But instead, it sounds like you took that and internalized it at some point in your life and said, in order for me to be loved. I've got to look a certain way. And isn't that like, Ooh, that kind of gives me like this ugh feeling in my, tummy. Like, oh, that's so hard. And yet I don't think you're the only one who does it.
I mean,
[00:20:21] Merry Brown: Yeah.
[00:20:21] Damaged Parents: I know I have, but the people who love me though, me for what I look like. I don't think so.
[00:20:29] Merry Brown: And, you know, I used to tell myself and I think it did help a little bit. That looks, have nothing to do with love and all you have to do is look at that beautiful, unfortunate souls in our culture who have been cheated on. Difficulties in their life. It's it's sort of this lie that a certain kind of beauty and a certain kind of wealth and a certain kind of access is going to bring happiness.
But actually we know that's false.
[00:20:54] Damaged Parents: yeah, we know it, but we still don't know it.
[00:20:57] Merry Brown: yes. It's like, we know it. But we're like, yeah, but let me have it just like say, oh yeah. It's like they say the best thing about having money is at least that you are disabused of the idea that money buys happiness right. And then people say, okay, well let me get that money so that I can, you know, also say that,
[00:21:13] Damaged Parents: Right. Like, like there's this disconnect that. right. If someone looks a certain way or they're in, I don't know, entertainment to say the least, right Because that's the most public figure that, that in order to be there, they have to look a certain way or they have to do a certain thing.
And then there's this belief that there's not a struggle there. and I think that the more we talk about it and the more I'm learning about it, there's absolutely a struggle in there. How is it that we believe that other people don't struggle?
[00:21:41] Merry Brown: Right first of all, they're human. So all humans are going to struggle and then you think, oh my gosh, heaven forbid I ever become famous or anybody I know, because talk about scrutiny. Talk about how the trolls coming out. Think about, someone like Taylor Swift, she's beautiful, she's accomplished.
And she gets, just like anybody in her profession is going to get a lot of hate and a certain level of judgment So, I mean money, beauty, talent of a certain kind. It's not the panacea that we from our armchairs think that it is. So it's the human condition. We are all struggling through the human condition.
And I think when we, as you say, come out of the dark to name it, to see it, to see it in others, even if it's not the same thing maybe we can be kinder to ourselves, which I think is the path to healing. Treating yourself with a kind of kindness and love that you'd give up. Yeah, because shame and all that kind of hate self-talk send you to hell.
just go the other way.
[00:22:42] Damaged Parents: Yeah. Yeah, but isn't it interesting? I think sometimes maybe we have to lose it to find it though, right? Like.
[00:22:49] Merry Brown: Sure.
[00:22:49] Damaged Parents: I don't know if that's just part of how humans grow. I don't get it because I certainly know that if I wouldn't have had that struggle where I lost it and then found it again, that then somehow it's more appreciated
[00:23:06] Merry Brown: Yeah, it could be a precious, right? We say, we don't know what it is like until it's gone. Right. I live in Tennessee, we had a storm last weekend and one of my friends was without power four days. And she was saying that the first day was fun. We were playing games and you know, the second day.
Turns out, maybe I don't want to read as much as I thought I wanted to, you know? and, and then of course, when the power gets restored, it's like ahh running water, you know, electricity, that heat. And you just are able to appreciate things in a different kind of way. Absolutely.
[00:23:36] Damaged Parents: Yeah, in fact, it, speaking of quiet, right? The storm brought on that quiet for out there for your friend. Did you also lose power and have quiet time?
[00:23:48] Merry Brown: The quiet is really interesting. I'm very interested in the quietness. The lack of quietness in modern day society. But no, actually I was one of the only people in my town that didn't lose power. So our life is so busy and noisy and most of us feel very uncomfortable sitting in the quiet.
I taught philosophy for 23 years and I would do an exercise where I had my students give up technology for 48 hours. And we were reading a book by a social critic Postman about technology. And it wasn't just, you know, the hard stuff about not being on you know, their social media sites and not binge watching whatever, but eventually I made them give up music too and just experience quiet.
I mean, it was so hard, to, I mean, a variety of things that were hard. Like, how am I supposed to meet up with my friends when I just show up at their house? If I can't use my phone, but the quiet that followed them everywhere, it was unbearable for some people.
[00:24:43] Damaged Parents: So did you also do this quiet time too
No
well, I'm glad I asked that question now.
[00:24:55] Merry Brown: Oh, I'm a big hypocrite. I mean, not really in the sense that, I mean, I have convictions and I think that's a lot of us. I think that's okay. I know the good, I can see the good, but doesn't mean I'm always doing it
[00:25:07] Damaged Parents: I love that. You're just so candidly sharing. Well, Yeah.
they, did it and it was important for them to do it and yet you, you didn't do it. And I think a lot of times we forget, at least for me that I have these competing ideals. Right. Like, oh, that quiet would be beautiful and great.
You know what? They need that. And then I go to do it. It's like, oh no.
[00:25:34] Merry Brown: That's hard. I mean, it's a whole thing and I would just love, cause I have had this assignment for over 10 years, 15 years, and I'd read these papers by these students. Cause they'd write about their experience and they say. And I got all my laundry done and I got ahead on my reading and I went to hang out with my grandma and I did all these sorts of things and many times at the very end and I would never do it again
[00:25:52] Damaged Parents: Really.
[00:25:53] Merry Brown: And it's like the duality and I bring it to their attention. They're like, yeah, I got all these great things done. I had fun with my sorority sisters. Cause we were on the trip that dah dah, dah. But no, I'm not doing that again. I never want to do that again.
[00:26:07] Damaged Parents: Oh, isn't that amazing? That dual-. Like I agree. And it's almost. confusing because, you know, I remember someone asked me to set like a random timer and the question on the random timer was, what character am I playing right now? And within a couple of hours, I just started cracking up because what I had been judging other people for, I was very much so doing it in my own mind and the randomness of the timer.
It's like, I couldn't plan it to be on the right behavior at the right time, you know? and so it was in those moments. I realized I also have this duality of beliefs and it's not just one or the other in living in that world once figuring that out, I think, can be a little bit more confusing, but also a little bit more freeing for, for even the people around us. Like now I don't have the right answer.
I don't have to, I don't know what your experience was.
[00:27:05] Merry Brown: I felt I've always felt that. So, teaching philosophy, I, would teach a lot of things I think are true. And even if I'm not making that standard and I think that's okay. I mean, it's better to have high standards than a mediocre standard and you make it that you're like, ah, you know, big deal.
Um, But to be open with that, that we have struggles that we think, oh, this would be good for me. I don't understand why I'm not doing it. I hope to want to do that. Or I hope to aspire. But I felt after I wrote this book about making peace with food and I have made peace with food for quite a number of years, but just, I cried all summer writing this book because it was very difficult to recall.
And just to live in that, just pain you know, I was writing a coffee shop and I'm like, oh, these people are gonna think I'm just crazy. I'm like, but then I wrote it. And that, okay, I'm done with this. And then I just started because I've been thinking about it, beliefs and behaviors started resurfacing.
I'm like, I just wrote this book about making peace with food and here I am in turmoil and I thought, and that's okay, because it is a journey. You're not done with your past, you know, you're not done. It's you are related to it in a different way. And hopefully we're all growing and morally maturing on this path And we just see in different ways. And so we can come aside, one another, even if we haven't perfectly figured it out. We're all on the way. And so, especially with food and weight, I want to always be careful to say, this is my path and it may work for you. It may. Absolutely not. It's not a program, it's certainly not a diet, but my message is that you can find that there's the mantra in our society.
When it comes to being overweight is the problem is you eat too much food. The solution is a moral solution, which is self-control. So get some self control,
[00:28:50] Damaged Parents: Hmm. So painful.
[00:28:53] Merry Brown: It's just false because I've come to understand it has nothing to do with the food that you're eating. It's all in the mind and so once you get control of the mind or you address those issues, then we can start addressing the symptom, which is the food.
Why are you stuffing? Or why are you eating a certain kind of way? And there's the thing is there's lots of different reasons. It's not just emotional pain. There's, you know, food deserts there's just you grow up in a certain kind of way access money, we all know the healthy foods are more expensive. So on and so on and so, forth, but our culture is really famous for just blaming people who are overweight, that there's something wrong with them.
They're yucky. They don't have it together. And that's just a false narrative. And so I really want to change that. Yeah.
[00:29:36] Damaged Parents: Yeah. I mean, I was just thinking of, someone. I know that is significantly overweight and one of the most loving, caring, generous people, of course, they'd been homeless at one point in their life they've out. And I think sometimes it's like, it shows up and this idea that I'm not going to have enough, or I'm never going to have enough.
and like, there's a desperation that comes out of that in eating, especially if they've starved at some points before, you know? And, So.
it's, like this, that stigma. Is out there definitely, you know, and the looks about, you know, people in shape and, you know, high end management and this and that, you know, it's all out there.
There's so many biases and judgments that we don't even realize. That were perpetuated and things like that, but one of the most beautiful things, I think it, what I heard you say, and I'm gonna I'm not even gonna paraphrase it, but just say what I got out of it was that the goal is the journey. It's not like this life is not a marathon where we get to a spot and the marathon is over and we've achieved it. it's the journey. It is the marathon itself. Not even that there's an ending, it's just that it just keeps going. you know, and I think that's a really beautiful perspective and allows so much room for grace.
[00:31:01] Merry Brown: Yes, grace, empathy, love. I mean that all life right there, if you can extend that to yourself and others, then we can deal with mistakes. We can deal with hardship. We can deal with the difficult things. It's so hard to do it. If you don't have mercy, empathy and love those are not frivolous. Those are, bedrock,
[00:31:20] Damaged Parents: yeah. Okay. We are at that point in the podcast, if someone is struggling right now, regardless, it seems like regardless of whether or not it's food addiction or not, or binge eating or not, whatever it is, what are the top three tips or tools that you would say, you know?
what, try this, maybe try it as soon as you're ready.
[00:31:39] Merry Brown: The first thing that I would say
It's to try not to do the same thing that you've been doing. Right. So typically when somebody, when is a food issue and they're ready to make a change and going back on a diet. And so I recommend doing something different and trying to figure out what's going on with you. Why are you stuck in this pattern?
Right. Instead of saying, well, I'm fat, I need to lose weight. You know what, whatever it is. Okay. Well, what is going on? Why do I have this pattern? And so instead of spending three months on a diet or whatever it is, spend that time researching the tools that will help you, you know, imagine this, a friend of yours is having a problem and they've come to you for help.
what would you tell them? How would you help them be creative and think outside the box about what the solutions could be so that you can find a solution for you. And there is a solution. Your solution does not mean dissolve. The solution is how you can make peace and you know, the journey of recovery of whatever it is that you need to recover from.
So that's the first thing I would say is start to get creative and find a partner to help you with that, if you need help. Second thing that I would say, Gosh.
I think a lot of a lot of our issues has to do with reframing. So we tell ourself a particular narrative and realize it's a narrative. In fact, in the middle of writing this book, I was at lunch with my husband. And I realized I was writing that I had this constant narrative that I would say to myself on repeat I'm overweight, what causes being overweight eating what's the solution don't eat.
You don't serve eat. And that was a mantra that I had, I should not be eating, which caused a lot of problems right cause biological creature I got to eat. And so every time it was eating a lot of that obsessive, like controlling not controlling. It's a clampdown monster out, clamped down I said it out loud and he looked and I could tell, I realized I had never said this out loud, even though I've been saying it to myself for years, or I had been saving it to myself for a long time.
And the look on his face was like,
I mean, like that is the craziest thing I've ever heard. You don't deserve to eat. So articulating that kind of stuff, reframing. And so you've got to figure out what those things are that you need to reframe the narrative and a great way to reframe a narrative is imagine you're talking to someone you care about, what would you say to that person?
How would you help them reframe what's going on instead of you're morally deficient, because you lack self-control, or whatever thing that you're telling yourself. And I suppose the last thing I would say, which I have increasingly come to see as the answer to everything, is love, love for ourselves.
Love for our neighbor and love here to me, is something very specific in that it's structured that it's not, And that when people do whatever it is that they want people in your life. So like my child, I want to just love one of my children by letting them not go to school or eats, you know, only cotton candy for every meal, you know, they might want that.
But of course it's not love,
[00:34:36] Damaged Parents: Right, but maybe looking at it is that the loving thing to do? Like, okay. So I think I see what you're saying as far as like,
the
structure.
[00:34:46] Merry Brown: Yeah. So love really does mean something. cause it's not loving to, not intervene the people in your life and they need to be order to not tell people the truth, including yourself. But I think if we have an attitude of love. Then that's where we get that mercy and grace.
So if I do profession when I think about work, you know, how do I love my colleague and loving my colleague doesn't mean that I need to have them over for birthday party, but how do I treat people with dignity and respect? I just see increasingly it all comes back to really loving and if that's what I would work, how do I love?
How do I be loved if there's no one that loves you right now? You can do something about that. You can start, volunteering at organizations that you care about. You hear about dogs, go volunteer at a shelter. You care about the homeless. Oh, volunteer there. If you care about food banks, you can care about the environment.
Find people that have similar interests that you could be invested in their life and then that could be reciprocal, but relationships loving relationships. They don't have to be romantic, but loving relationships that helps us breathe and helps us have perspective. And if you start focusing on how do I be a lover to others?
Love is this interesting thing. It just multiplies, it never diminishes. It just grows and grows and grows and love has a way of helping us deal with the negative parts
[00:36:04] Damaged Parents: yeah. It's like it magnifies by giving it, it magnifies. Well, you guys heard it here from Merry Brown. She agrees with me. Just go be love.
[00:36:14] Merry Brown: Yes.
[00:36:16] Damaged Parents: You can find Merry Brown on her website at https://3PConflictRestoration.com or Merry Brown Books. You can find her on Facebook and Mary Brown books. And. Gosh, many other places now on Instagram, it's @Ronin.theCat.Sleeps. So we've got your contact information. It will be in the show notes.
I'm so grateful that you came on the show today.
Thank you so much.
[00:36:44] Merry Brown: Oh, thank you so much, Angela. So fun. It was great chatting with you.
[00:36:48] Damaged Parents: Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by damaged parents. We've really enjoyed talking to Mary about how she was able to heal from food addiction. We especially liked when she spoke about the emotional ties, we can all have to food. To unite with other damaged people, connect with us on YouTube. Look for damaged parents. We'll be here next week still relatively damaged see you then
