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Thank you.

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To even question what you've been told is true is incredibly courageous. It doesn't always feel like courage what looks like courage to other people. For me, it feels like survival. This is our personal medicine.

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If I'm surrounded by thinkers, by lovers, by passion, by integrity, then I really do think that I know who I am.

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There is a peace that is indescribable when you're being who you are and you're living your purpose. I'm not going to come to the end of my life and be like, I didn't live the life I was meant to live.

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Can I be so comfortable in the idea This is the Inner

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Rebel Podcast. We're so happy to have a dear friend, Sue Van Rays, here on the podcast today. Sue and I just realized that today is our official one-year anniversary of knowing one another. And we were together last year on the one-year anniversary of Nova's birth. And so there's a lot of beautiful one-year anniversaries happening this week. So welcome, Sue. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to chat with both of you. It's going to be fun. Sue is the author of Food and Freedom. She's a functional nutritionist, food psychology specialist, and psycho-spiritual practitioner. She shares her body, mind, heart, and soul approach to make peace with your plate and your life. She has been featured in numerous publications, including People Magazine, The Chopra Center, The Sacred Science, Lululemon, Natural Solutions Magazine, Origin Magazine. Oh my gosh, Elephant Journal. I don't know how to say this. Next one. Hanuman? Hanuman? Hanuman. Oh, Hanuman. Yes, Hanuman. Sounds like a festival I might need to learn about.

SPEAKER_05: 1:48

Yes.

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And Travel Magazine. Welcome, Sue. In addition to all of the incredible things that you have on that list, I just have really loved getting to know you over the last year, getting to know your heart and soul. And we've developed such a sacred friendship. So it feels extra special to get to bring your voice on here with Jess and I.

SPEAKER_05: 2:07

Thank you so much. It's so meaningful. And it was so special to be with you last night for the one year anniversary of the Nova. And I just feel like what kindred spirits we are. So and it's great to be with you too, Jess. I'm so

SPEAKER_03: 2:20

excited. excited to get to know you. Welcome to the show. And I sent Melissa a message this morning like I am so excited to have this conversation because I'm realizing I think I've always known this, but it just feels very present for me how deep my relationship with food goes. And I think that's probably true for everyone, but it's really present for me right now. So I think this conversation is really timely and I'm excited.

SPEAKER_05: 2:44

Oh, that's so great. I'm so glad that we can have this conversation at a time that really is meaningful to you. Because, you know, sometimes when our stuff around food is swirling around and we feel like we're trying to make sense of it all, it's helpful to

SPEAKER_03: 2:58

lean in. Yes, I agree. I'm very curious because we ask this question to everyone. Then we'll go deeper and deeper into the layers of you and your specialty. But I'm curious what your relationship has been to your inner

SPEAKER_05: 3:15

rebel. Thank you so much. It's interesting because I was a gymnast. And so my competitive gymnastics schedule had me missing dinner four to five nights a week with my family, which right there, when I look back at like a young 10 year old life, like that was a big significant chunk of doing something totally different than the rest of my family who was having this little four person dinner every night of the week that I was absent for. And so I kind of feel like this inner restlessness. rebel really guided me through for so long early early on I also left after college to go to Central America with a backpack in my best friend that was very very out of the box at the time I remember it was a funny conversation with my dad when I told him I was going to go to Guatemala with a backpack after college and he was like why would you do that like he definitely had no context for that in my response was why would you spend an entire day cleaning out the eaves troughs so I was just like always we were so different like his priority was yard work and my whatever I don't even know if I called it a priority at the time my adventurous spirit wanted more and so I left to go traveling for almost nine months on you know I think it was like under$3,000 I then moved to the US with Also, a very little amount of money and no green card because I was in Canada. I lived in Canada. And so I got here and I couldn't work, but I was kind of like, I'm going to figure this out. So my first job was under the table at the snow cone cart on Pearl Street for six dollars and 50 cents an hour. I love this, you know, and everything was like that for so long. Like I had two home births and I got divorced. So then I was single parenting. I had a one year old and a five year old when I got divorced. That was out of the box. That was very much having me tap into my inner rebel. I was in school at the time. And when I finished school about a year after my divorce, I started my business as an entrepreneur, which was also very edgy for someone as a single mom. I look back and I'm like, wow, that was brave because entrepreneurship, as we know, is a little up and down with finances and flow and clients and all of that. So I had part-time jobs on the side. Sometimes to kind of help things move along. But I don't know. There's just something in me that was different than where I came from. And it's been scary at times, but I also have felt that I had no choice but to follow that part of me. I just always had this inner knowing that I needed to listen to. I remember when my dad gave me an application form to work for BC Hydro, which was the British Columbia the province I'm from, which was the hydro company. And I like threw it in the trash. I was like, what are you talking about? Like, this is so not me to go and get a conventional job like that. And there's nothing wrong with that job. It's just that I knew for sure that wasn't for me way early on. So it's just been an interesting journey to kind of look back and reflect on all of those layers and be like, I don't know who the fuck I thought I was, but I was definitely doing some stuff that was out of the box for forever. And it was scary, but it was also

SPEAKER_04: 7:22

rewarding.

SPEAKER_05: 7:49

doing it on purpose. I wasn't ever like, I should do this and be cool or something. Like I was following something that it was happening in so many different eras of my life that I don't feel like I could have not done those things. Like I had no mentor around it. I was just, I mean, maybe Mary Lou Retton or Nadia Comaneci or something, but nothing that was giving me that much freedom and permission. Like my mom, she was like, She's the sweetest thing in the world. And she's very much a rule follower. Speaking of Virgos, we had this conversation last night. She's like, so by the book. And I remember so many times being like, actually, you don't have to do it that way. And she'd be like, you do have to do it that way. She's British, you know, so she's British and a Virgo. And she would just look at me like, who are you? And how are you part of my reality? I would kind of give her like shockwaves at times doing things that she thought were supposed to be from how you set the table to the bigger things in life. She just did everything very methodically. So I think it was just my soul's calling because it's been there since I can remember. And I don't know if you guys know the character from Kerry Washington's character from what's the show called? Oh, Scandal? Scandal. Yeah. Yes. So you know how she's like a

SPEAKER_04: 9:12

fixer? Never get pop culture right. That was a very big moment for me. We just paused

SPEAKER_05: 9:18

and acknowledged. Good for you because I don't either. Anyway, I just feel like I've been channeling her since I've watched the show. But even before that, like I'm just like, yeah, we'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. We'll fix it. We're going to make it work. We're going to do what we need to do. We're going to just keep putting one foot in front of the other. And when I started watching that show years ago, I was like, oh, yeah, OK, she's my hero right now. I think it just goes back into who we

SPEAKER_03: 9:38

are.

SPEAKER_05: 9:39

Well,

SPEAKER_03: 9:40

I find it really fascinating learning this about you that so much of your work centers around the connection between food and freedom, because freedom is so clearly an essential value of yours. So I'd like to weave in the food aspect then and hear a little bit about your own relationship to that and your journey with food that led you into the work you now do.

SPEAKER_05: 10:01

Yeah, thank you for that. So alongside all of those different timeframes going all the way back to my childhood, I had undiagnosed hypoglycemia that was really severe. And I was always crashing, like blood sugar crashing and feeling like my energy would plummet and I would be insatiable, just like ravenous all the time. And a couple things came out of that. One is that was also not ladylike, according to my British mother, and how you're supposed to be, right? That was during the late 70s and early 80s. So there was like the whole fat-free, eat light kind of movement happening. And there was stigma around what women should eat. We should eat in a way that looks sort of like the word my mom would use is dainty. That's kind of a British word. Oh my gosh. I'm the opposite of dainty. Exactly. Exactly. And so I think you're supposed to eat like very small salads with like a little something on top and just kind of like chew your iceberg lettuce 700 times before you swallow. Yeah, exactly. And then I coupled that with being a gymnast. And so I had a huge energy output and I was underweight a lot as a kid. I had to go to doctor's visits for being underweight, not because I was restricting, but because I I was just not getting enough food and so it was really interesting like I was underweight but then everyone in my family kind of was like you're like the human who's always hungry in our family in a way it was like the family joke but then at the same time they would be like you need to stop you're making a scene you know if I was at the snack table at like a barbecue or something because I was just trying to find some way to satiate myself so that really led me down a road of wanting to understand my body's biochemistry around food and this really was going on all through college until I actually got to Boulder, Colorado in my early 20s. And I made a new friend and she worked as the assistant to a really well-known naturopath and ended up with an appointment there. And she drew me some blood sugar charts after I think I told her I had pancakes for breakfast or something. And I mean, basically, I started to understand how my body was always spiking and crashing. Oh, I also became a vegetarian when I moved to Boulder because that was trend Very much the thing that was the healthy thing to do at the time. And I loved health. This was before I got my master's degree. So anyways, this naturopath put me on a meat at every meal diet. And it was a really dramatic 180 from the vegetarian diet I'd been eating. But I swear to you, it was a day or two and I started to feel like myself. By the time I got to her office, I was kind of like crawling in like crying, like begging for mercy because I was so depleted. And I had a two-year-old who was high energy and I was just like done. I was just fried and I couldn't handle my life. And so when I started eating in this particular way, I honestly felt like I went through this transformation in just a couple of days and my life started feeling manageable and I started feeling more even and I could parent better. And anyways, I think it really impacted my brain chemistry and I started to really come back to having some hope. And I was in the process of deciding what what I wanted to get my master's degree in. And I think that was a big turning point for me, that I can really see how food is like medicine. And I think it was like a year later when I enrolled in a master's degree that was in holistic nutrition. And then at the same time, I was busting myths that I'd grown up with. Like first, I was eating food that I was craving instead of eating what I was taught I should eat. I was also listening to my body, which I'd never done before. I mean, gymnastics, we were taught to override our bodies like hardcore, right? It was like really push through fear, push through sadness, push through tears, stop crying, push through pain. So being in a place like Boulder, Colorado, where there was a little bit more of an awareness and a spiritual community and I found yoga and I started listening to my body, it was like 180 degree game changer because then I had permission and I wasn't the only one for I was like getting support from others who were doing the same kind of thing. And it just became such a integral time to basically rewire my whole way of doing things. And as I started deepening into my private practice over time, I just kept finding people or clients, mostly women who were seeing me that were using food to dim their light, if that makes sense. And whether that be binge eating to cover up emotion or whether that was just comfort eating to cover up emotion or whether that was restricting or whether it was over exercising or just being dominated by this internal dialogue that was so judgmental and self-aggressive. I was like, this is not freedom. Freedom is when we can take care of ourselves and build resiliency around what's going on in our lives. And our eating can really be supportive of that. But it It can also really bring us down if we don't know what we're doing.

SPEAKER_03: 15:49

Mm-hmm. It becomes this kind of like weird struggle and not something that you can actually avoid because you have to eat it every day. It's not like you can go to AA and cut it out of your life. You actually have to address it and address the feelings that are coming up as a result of denying yourself the things that aren't good for you or actually learning to listen to your body. So I'm wondering if you can speak to why food is such an emotional thing for us and how do we we address what is actually going on underneath when we want to use food as either a drug or a form of control or some of the dysfunctional aspects of it begin to show up. I know this is a big subject, but...

SPEAKER_05: 17:04

No, I love talking about this. I really do. It's so integral to my day-to-day work, for sure. Well, the first thing I want to say is food is emotional, and we make decisions about food based on how we feel every time we open the fridge or sit down at the table. Like that is just human and it is okay and it is just how it is. What is problematic is not that food is emotional. It is that when food gets out of balance coupled with our emotions, right? So when we take that to an extreme and we're using food to numb or to manipulate the shape of our bodies so we can feel lovable or what have you, that's where it gets exacerbated. And so if we look back, we see that for centuries, people have been using food as a way to celebrate, as a way to find pleasure, as a way to connect with each other, as a way to feel nourished. I mean, we can all think of a time when food felt like an internal hug, right? Like where it's just like so yummy and it feels comforting. Like I just made a pot of soup the other day when it was snowing. And there's something about that that is just so comforting and nourishing. And that is, I think, perfectly natural and perfectly normal but obviously what we're dealing with in our society and the stress that we have day to day and all the things we hold that we're taking on as our responsibility we talked about that a lot last night at the nova celebration like especially women we're holding so much for so many people and it is heavy lifting sometimes and it's so easy to want to escape that feeling of stress or the feelings that are bubbling up that are uncomfortable. And so food has the ability to regulate our nervous systems temporarily, right? So it feels regulating, it feels grounding, it feels comforting, but then the stressor that's bubbling up isn't going to generally go away. It's going to just kind of be off to the side until that feeling of comfort passes And I think that there's a couple things. Sometimes I think we need to look at like what we're taking on and why we're holding so much and how we can shift that relationship to our external lives. But then what's really interesting to me is also what is it that we're afraid of feeling and what does that actually feel like? is putting ourselves out there and being out of our comfort zone. Like last night, I don't know how you were feeling, Melissa. You're really good at holding space. But I was like, okay, I did a little thing and I can get a little nervous. I can start getting into my head. I can worry what other people think. I feel my inner critic get a little louder. And I noticed that that comes with a sensation. So there's a thought about it. And then if I go into my body, there's this sensation. It's a little bit of like clenchy adrenaline you know feeling something in my body it doesn't hurt but it feels uncomfortable but it is so easy for us to be like get me out of this sensation

SPEAKER_06: 20:30

yeah

SPEAKER_05: 20:30

get me out of this sensation because i don't want to feel it so i'm going to do something whatever the thing is for some people that's food for some people it's alcohol for some people it's just checking out in other ways for some people it's scrolling on their phone but what's interesting is if we can go into that sensation and sit there for even a minute or 30 seconds and be like oh wow this actually is just energy moving in my body it's just this sensation that has these different textures and different qualities to it and I'm afraid of it so I generally try to leave that and make it go away as fast as possible that could be something happening at work that could be something happening with our kids that is triggering us. That could be a relationship dynamic. That could be standing in the mirror in the morning and getting dressed and not liking how we look. I mean, anything under the sun that brings up a feeling, disappointment's a big one that people avoid. And that can keep us feeling really small, right? Like we just don't want to put ourselves out there because what if we get disappointed? And so then I'm like, okay, well, what's disappointment feel like? For me, it's a little bit like a pit in my stomach. I'd rather feel the joy of going on a beautiful hike or having an orgasm than I would the feeling of disappointment. But you know, it's also not painful. It's better than breaking your leg. It's not like spraining your ankle even. It's not even as bad as stubbing your toe. But it does feel uncomfortable. And I think we tend to be like, this is happening. Here's the story. Here's the meaning I'm deciding to put on the thing. And now my mind is making my sensation worse because they're kind of like turning Mm-hmm. don't have to check out as quickly or at all. And I just want to say like, it's a practice, right? So sitting with the sensation for 30 seconds is a really good place to start before you do the thing that you do. And then maybe a minute, and then maybe you can get to 10 minutes, and maybe you can get to an hour, and maybe you can get to full resolution over time. But it's interesting how much we avoid sensation. That's what I think.

SPEAKER_04: 23:15

I have so much. There's so much in there. Oh my gosh. I want to bring it back to nervous system and food, but I'm actually really present to the sensations we experience in these expansive moments, which you talked about last night, leading the circle that you did for us. And in this past year where you've really anchored into your bigger mission, bringing your book to life and getting incredibly visible in the last year since I've known you. And, you know, a lot of people that come on this show tend to be those people people who get pretty visible at some point in their career where they really anchor into this mission that's been driving you your whole life and fucking go for it and I would love for you to speak to your experience of a how did you know it was time to go big in your mission and how did you navigate what you were just speaking to in your body in that physical sensation that happens the entire time as we're expanding because like I was going blind last night I don't know I think I told you a little bit. Yeah, you were. My body's new thing is to like actually lose vision when I'm holding a watch. So that's the new thing that I'm experiencing. So I would love for you to speak to it because we're expanders here and it's a lot to step into that.

SPEAKER_05: 24:33

Yeah. Well, I want to say that everything that you just spoke about, about expanding, you are looking at this very big externalized zoom out, right? Which is great. Like it's so great to zoom out. And it has been an incredibly expansive severe for me in like a gazillion different ways but also what's happening on a day-to-day basis or what's happening like appointment by appointment or podcast this is literally like I think it's in the 40s like I've been on like 40 something podcasts since my book came out which is insane there's a couple things I've noticed like first of all I'm not thinking about 40 podcasts when I'm thinking about going on a podcast I'm thinking about I'm gonna go on a podcast And I'm like, okay, so that's like a bite-sized chunk, right, of doing the things that I did to promote my book. So it was really like one thing at a time, first of all. And also the timing of the book came partially because of all the different layers that it took to get a book deal. And then when I actually did get a book deal, the timing was now you're writing a book. So there was like that. It actually lined up really well for me because I got the book deal at the end. of August a couple of years ago. And I had a school year to write the book, which felt really like natural in my rhythm. I was like, okay, my kids were in college. I'm like, okay, we're all going to just have a school year together. And I'm going to write a book and you guys are going to go to college and it's going to be done. And both of my kids graduated. One graduated community college and went on to CU Denver. So he's still there. But we all graduated at the same time, me from the book and them from both of their college programs. So that felt really good. But I didn't really choose that timing. I mean, I'm sure my soul did or something, but it just happened. And every single step of the way was a bite-sized chunk. And my brain does that really well. I think it's like a Capricorn thing too. So I got the book deal and I started writing in September. I had, I think, three chapters already written for the proposal. And it was like, oh, okay, check this out. There's nine months and there's nine chapters. So I'm like, oh, that's obvious. Now I'm just going to write a chapter a month. And I think it gave me like one month at the end to have a month of space before I had to turn it in and to kind of go over the whole thing. But basically it was like, oh, month by month. Okay, so I'm going to write a chapter a month. That felt doable. And then I looked at my schedule and I was like, oh, I have two days I'm not with clients. I'm going to use those two days as writing days. And that was tight because I still have other stuff I had to do. But I was like, no, I'm going to really commit to these two days every week to make my writing days. And I just sort of laid it out like a map. September, I'm going to write this chapter. October, I'm going to write this chapter. And ironically, I was like, oh, check this out. I'm going to be in Bali when my book manuscript is due. So I can either turn it in before, turn it in the day after I get home while I have jet lag, or I could stay in Bali for a few days and do one final read through and turn it in in this place that's been like the most healing place in the lining up little bit by little bit. Same with the retreat that Melissa and I met on. I was on Instagram about a month before that, and my friend Kate Northrup was posting that there was an opening on her retreat of 12 women. I hadn't really been in touch with Kate personally for years, but we had known each other for over 20 years. And I messaged her on this DM that said, I don't know if I make enough money to come on this retreat because it was for high earners, but I'm interested. And then she She was like messaging me back right away. Totally. I'll send you the information. And I had always been like, oh, it'd be really great if Kate would endorse my book. This would be a great way to reconnect with her. So I went on the retreat, sent her the manuscript. It's just things line up so well when we're tuned into our purpose. This particular morning after Kate read the manuscript, I was laying in bed. It was six in the morning and she's on the East Coast. My phone lit up with a text. I didn't really look at the phone because I was still kind of half awake and not really wanting to get up yet. But I was like, I think I saw Kate's name on my phone. But I'm like, just don't get up yet. Just wait a little while. You can sleep a little longer. And I had been thinking about, wouldn't it be amazing to get on her podcast? And I was laying in bed thinking about how I was going to pitch the podcast that morning when the phone lit up with her inviting me on the podcast. You can't make this stuff up, right? It happens so organically, I think, when we're really feeling the channeling of whatever it is coming through us that's supposed to be our next thing. But there were so many little steps that led up to it, and they were all one thing at a time. But I was so nervous for that podcast. I mean, I flew to Miami. I had to be on camera the whole time. It was her first full YouTube podcast. I didn't know that, thankfully, at the time. I didn't know what to wear. I hadn't done anything for my book yet. It I had to do a lot of inner stuff to get myself ready for that whole experience. But then I started getting some momentum and getting warmed up. And I just kept having to recalibrate my nervous system through every single phase. It was big work, but I knew that. I was like, I'm signing up for this author experience. I know it's going to be a huge amount of growth in so many more ways than writing the book. And I knew that that would be like a way for me to have my own inner transformation. So it's been incredible, actually. It's been really fun. Yeah. Does that answer your question?

SPEAKER_04: 30:28

Yeah. I mean, this is it's so funny because I know Jess is like really wanting to dig into the food. And I'm like, I really want to dig into the like expansive entrepreneurial journey. And I actually know you care about both things, Jess, but I can really feel myself like I want to go down this hole with you for like the next six hours.

SPEAKER_05: 30:47

It's fun to talk about. There was There's no roadmap, but I just kept making a little mini roadmap for every phase that I could. And then last winter, right before the book was going into launch period, I started to get really stressed. And I started to feel this like, it has to be so good. And this launch has to be so top notch. And I started catching myself and I'm like, you know what, this is not freedom. And this is not how I'm doing it. And I stopped myself from going into this stress pattern, I caught myself and I'm like, if I i'm gonna do this i'm gonna make it fucking fun that's what i'm gonna do that's freedom and so every time there was an opportunity to do different kinds of promotional stuff and different kinds of expansion i really tried to find the fun in it and i really did find the fun in it and it really was fun to talk to so many people just like talking to you both today like this is so enjoyable for me but when we get in our head so much you know we can take away the pleasure so i just had to keep reminding my I'm not going to write the book about easing our food stress and then be stressed when I'm launching it. That just doesn't

SPEAKER_03: 32:09

make any sense. pieces. And with that, and this is how I see expansion, with that, your nervous system, as you brought up, Melissa, does acclimatize to every phase that you're at in order to build more capacity for the next thing. But also what I hear and what you just said is as you slow down and allow that to happen, you can also then be a co-creator in that expansion in terms of being very mindful and very intentional about what you're building. If you're moving too fast, if you're not actually allowing each stage to digest I love that these are all like

SPEAKER_05: 33:06

food. the world and then there's the inner freedom and it's a little different a limitation on ourselves that we've decided is true based on whatever based on our childhood based on some social construct that we've taken on and being able to see where we have those limitations when things start to come up and to see if we actually do really believe them to be true because the question like, is this true? Has been a big question for me for a long time. And that comes from the work of Byron Katie. I got really into her probably like 15 years ago for a while. But that one question that she talks about a lot has really impacted me because so many times when I'll have a thought or a feeling about a limitation in myself, if I can catch it and just say like, is it true? And then her second question, is it really true? Which is a nice second question. That's her Yeah, it's good that she put that one in there because I think sometimes our first reaction is like, yeah, it is. And then the second time you're like, well, maybe not. Maybe it's not true. Maybe there's different possibilities for us that we don't even realize are there and we limit ourselves so much. I think finding that inner dialogue and finding those go-to ways we limit ourselves are so helpful.

SPEAKER_03: 34:42

I think it's so important that you bring this up. When you were talking before about making that statement, separation in regards to food, in regards to, okay, I have a sensation. Can I be with the sensation and not believe the story? I'm reminded of my therapist said to me, one of my favorite therapists said to me, feel it, don't believe it. And I use that phrase a lot. Feel it, don't believe it. Allow yourself to be with the sensation, allow it to move through you, but don't believe the story attached. And then adding in this dimension of what you're saying, I think people really need to hear this. I think they need to understand that our minds operate through story and narrative and that we very rarely question that narrative. And so we assume the feeling means something and it means something about us that we're telling ourselves it means. But this is sort of the next level of that. It's one thing to just feel it and separate the thought and another thing to actually start questioning whether the thought has truth at all.

SPEAKER_05: 35:36

Absolutely. My first realization of that came from a T-shirt shop on Pearl Street Mall. There was a T-shirt that said... Literally, there was this t-shirt and the only thing it said was, don't believe everything you think. I was like, I don't know. I was in my 20s. I'm like, huh, well, that's interesting. I just thought, of course, that I would believe my thoughts for the most part. I hadn't really questioned them. It kind of started this little cascade of, hmm, what if my thoughts aren't always true? It's so powerful to be able to notice those moments. Something I wanted to say about sensation that's been really coming up for me a lot lately, and I I've been studying rapid resolution therapy. And in rapid resolution therapy, we talk about how sensation is our unconscious mind telling us to do something. So if you were an animal in the wild and you were just having a calm experience of eating grass, and then you had this sensation of fear, most likely because there was a predator, you wouldn't question the fear. You would just run. The fear would be telling you to run and you would be like one minute grass one minute run you wouldn't be like oh I wish I was still eating grass or oh maybe I'll eat some grass later you would just be like I'm running that's it no story and what happens is sometimes that's true right like I've had moments where my sensation has led me to do something to protect myself or to keep myself safe or to feel like I don't really feel safe with this person or whatever it is and then there's other times where it's old stuff that's not about running from the predator because there's no predator there's no need to run but we are still with our unresolved old stuff our primal brain is telling us to run and so it gets confusing because we're like run no eat grass no run no eat grass and we don't understand that those unresolved pain points wounds traumas patterns what have you, are sometimes unresolved and therefore happening on kind of overdrive. And that can really be confusing for people when they're trying to navigate them, especially with their relationship to food, because when we're constantly having a stress response in our nervous system, that's not because we're unsafe. Literally, it's because of an unresolved thing. Then it can kind of create this cycle with food that's like, okay, I'm going to eat the food to comfort myself, but the sensation is going to still be there because it's been there for 10 years or 15 years or however long. And so it's about how can we learn to resolve what is driving that sensation when there's nothing to be done?

SPEAKER_03: 38:33

What makes this so tricky, I think, with food specifically is that it's probably the first thing that we're taught when we're very young. Even if you think about breastfeeding, right? You're crying and

SPEAKER_04: 38:44

then

SPEAKER_03: 38:45

you're fed. It's such a source of soothing and nourishment and so there's both this association of well this is the quick fix but then there's all of these societal levels and also like family cultural levels of shaming around food and shaming our

SPEAKER_05: 39:01

bodies totally it's so complicated especially for women it's not not for men but I think it's just different for women because you're right our attachment style is foundationally related to food right which is really coming out in the research more and more that a lot of the studies around disordered eating and attachment style are so profound because they're really seeing like so much of how we attach is going to be how we relate to food. And so if you're an anxious attacher, then you're probably going to be feeling anxious around food on a subtle level or maybe on a grand level. And same with avoidant, like you can feel avoidant around food. Because of your attachment style. And so you really nailed it down to the real core ways in which we were tended to as babies, that is foundational to our relationship to food, our relationship to self, and then of course, our relationship with how we are with others in our life. So there's so many ways to look at it. And I think to just peel away little layers at a time to see how we can start to really build self trust. Now, And also to really build self-compassion, because we also just criticize ourself for some of these behaviors that are, I wouldn't necessarily say instinctual, but really close to instinctual. Yeah, like right there, early on origin stuff, for sure.

SPEAKER_04: 40:35

Well, you talk a lot about that the cravings is signals. And I know you did a beautiful experience around what are you hungry for over this past year in the Denver Nova. And it goes back to that. beyond food, like request yourself and listen to these desires, but it's not just food. Can you speak to how you teach? What are you hungry for? I

SPEAKER_05: 40:54

love that. Yes. Thank you. I love that perspective. Well, the first thing I want to say is I believe we have like body hunger. We have mind hunger. We have heart hunger and we have soul hunger. And what I think we often do is we'll be like, oh, I'm having soul hunger, but I don't know that. So I'm going to try to feed myself with food. Yeah. Me. And it's like, okay, so that's interesting, right? Because when we're having soul hunger, like popcorn isn't probably going to solve it. But it's not like there's anything wrong with popcorn. It's just like in the wrong category. It helps a

SPEAKER_04: 41:34

little bit. Especially the popcorn. That's like the churro popcorn at

SPEAKER_05: 41:39

Alamo Draft House. If you've

SPEAKER_04: 41:41

had that, you haven't lived. Oh,

SPEAKER_05: 41:43

I've never. That sounds yummy. I'm like a popcorn person. So I totally get that. I think That does solve soul hunger, I would argue. But, you know, I think if we can identify sometimes what kind of hunger we're having, we can then address it. Maybe we don't necessarily not eat, but we can still think, OK, well, is my body hungry? First of all, like we can go into the physical sensations again and see, am I hungry and what am I hungry for? That's physical and that's physically going to nourish me. But then if we're like, OK, well, no, I'm not actually hungry. but why am I wanting food? It's like, okay, well, what are my thoughts? And if I was to feed my mind, what would my mind want? And that might be like, I know for me, I've seen myself go from like being in a fairly negative mindset to feeding my mind a really inspiring podcast or something like that, where I can watch my energy and my mind shift really quick. I'm like, oh, wow, putting on some really inspirational, fun playlist that really gives you energy that can really shift your mindset. Heart hunger, I think, is so interesting. Like sometimes heart hunger can be something that's reminiscent of someone. Like there's a recipe in my book of my granny. That's what we used to call her. She used to make these ginger sparkle cookies every Christmas. And a few years ago, I was all of a sudden like around the holidays, I was like, I want those. Like I want the scent of the ginger and I want this experience of her. And she's given me so much of my strength I feel like has come from her and anyway so I got her recipe from my mom and I revamped it with a few things because you know of course it was like white flour and white sugar and all of that and I just changed a few things to make it work better for me but I still had the smell and the experience of cooking it and it really was reminiscent but then of course heart hunger can also be like when we're feeling a heavy emotion and we don't know what to do about it and so we do sometimes tend to turn to food and there's nothing wrong with that but then there's also like what else can we do to help emotion move through what are the tools for our emotional well-being and sometimes food's included because it can be nourishing for that but i think it just cannot we talked about this at the beginning like get out of whack and then soul hunger is you guys are the perfect people to talk to about that living from a soulful place and using it as a north star and what we say yes to what we say no to and how we show up for our lives and our work and our purpose and all those layers when we are feeling like really soul satiated it's not really related to food like it's related to feeling like we're living our purpose or we're contributing to society or we're helping our neighbor or we're giving back in some way and that is so fulfilling I remember going through a really hard time and probably about 12 years ago, a really big heartbreak. And my best friend had just given birth and she was going through a really rough postpartum. We were both crying all the time. And I would just go over to her house and we would push the stroller around the neighborhood or I would carry the baby for her. And it would shift my entire experience. I was like, oh, wow, I'm going to come over here all the time. Like when I'm in service, I feel better. And it became like this remedy for my own experience that I was going through and I think sometimes we forget that these layers of being soulful and these layers of enchantment and devotion and giving back that's really what our souls are hungry for and sometimes that might include a soulful meal that's fine but there's more to it than you know chips ahoy when we're having soul hunger right you're just you're actually just wrong It can be included. It can be included. Andrea Crowder, you know, she really offered this in one of her teachings recently, and it's been really helpful for me. And that is often when we're looking for pleasure, we're thinking of two of the three layers of the experience, the imagining of eating the food or the doing of the thing. First of all, I'm going to imagine the thing I'm craving. Oh, I'm going to make this delicious meal. I'm going to like add this to it. I'm going to add that to it. What should we have for dinner? I can't wait to have it. Maybe we'll have a side of this, a side of that. It starts to become an incredible experience of imagining, right? We love that. Our brains love that. And then the experience of doing the thing or eating the food. We go get the ingredients and we make the food and it's like the smells and everything is this incredible experience. And we sit down and we have the sensory experience of the food, hopefully with either a beautiful time to ourselves or connection with others, what have you. But what we're not usually including, which I think can be so helpful is the reminiscing of the doing of the thing. So this particular way of looking at it includes how we're going to feel after. If the reminiscing of that experience is shame, guilt, self-loathing, blame, I don't know, for me it takes away from the experience. So as we're imagining what we're going to do and as we're doing it, can we just at least consider how we're going to feel after and can we at least consider the reminiscing of the pleasure? It was just last weekend we had a family dinner with our kids who now none of them live here, but they do love to come quite often to our house for dinner. And my partner and I each have two kids. So there's four kids, plus some of them have girlfriends or boyfriends or what have you. So there was a lot of them here. And, you know, we were going to bed that night and we were talking. We're like, that was such a yummy dinner. That was so fun. That was so sweet. Our kids were all connecting. And at one point they were all sitting alone and we were not even in the room and they were all having this funny conversation and joking around with each other, which As a blended family, that feels really monumental. And we were just like, wow, the food was so delicious and that turned out so well and the kids loved it. And that's the juice, right? The reminiscing. But I think when we get into these really challenging patterns where we feel like we're in prison with food and we're not able to do that because every time we eat and we're reaching for these foods that we're going to have a story about later, we're going to have a meaning about later and we're going to beat ourselves up for days. It just diminishes the pleasure and it's unfortunate. And I don't think that there's a food that we should do that with. I'm not saying that there's good food and bad food. I'm saying we make up the story about it person by person. There's people who love chocolate and there's people who feel guilty about eating chocolate. And there's people who feel good about all of it and can work with it meal by meal. So that has really been a beautiful way of thinking about it for me. And it's been really helping my clients as well so that the whole experience is pleasurable. I

SPEAKER_04: 49:21

love this. Well, I know we're needing to wrap up and so I would love for you to just share because I know we would love to dig into this more and I'm sure everybody listening would as well. So can you share about your book and where they can get that and anything else exciting that is coming up for people to really plug into your magic?

SPEAKER_05: 49:39

Yeah. Well, my book is Food and Freedom. Discover your personal recipe, which is all about your way, your personal recipe to eat think and live well. It's available everywhere. It's definitely on Amazon, but some of the smaller vendors and that sort of thing are available on my website. And yeah, my work, I mean, there's always so much going on with my work, but I work with people privately. I have some really great online programs. I have one that's kind of my biochemical blood sugar reset called Consciously Keto. That's a really great way to reset your biomarkers and get your blood sugar rock solid. And then I lead women's retreats locally and internationally And I also have Colorado retreats a couple times a year. And Costa Rica 2026 is opening for registration. And that one sells out really quick. I mean, I just love working with people in any way. So whatever speaks to you.

SPEAKER_03: 50:29

Can I ask one final question to close us out? Because you've mentioned purpose a lot and living on mission. And I'm curious what it feels like for you to live in purpose.

SPEAKER_05: 50:41

I love that. That's a great question. I've been really sitting with that a lot lately, actually. And I feel like for me, it feels like aliveness. It's energizing. And there's been things that I thought I wanted to do lately that have not felt like that. And I've given myself permission to not do them because I don't want to show up to my work or to my life feeling frumpy around what I'm doing. Like it just doesn't seem to be useful. So for me, when I feel energized in my body, when I feel alive in my body, when I feel powerful, in my body, when I feel inspiration in my body, creativity in my body, then I'm a yes. And otherwise, I'm kind of a no. I love that you're bringing it all back to the body.

SPEAKER_03: 51:28

I love that.

SPEAKER_05: 51:29

Thank you. I didn't mean to, but that was kind of fun.

SPEAKER_03: 51:32

Thank you so much for sharing your story with us. That really meant a lot.

SPEAKER_05: 51:37

It's so great to be with you guys. I

SPEAKER_03: 51:39

know.

SPEAKER_05: 51:40

Let's just continue. Should we go out to lunch? Just kidding. I know. Well, it's so fun to be with you both. Thank you so much for having me. Such a pleasure.

SPEAKER_03: 51:48

Thank you. Thanks for sharing your wisdom.