From Diet Culture To Self-Trust – Intuitive Eating, Attachment Styles & Alcohol-Free Living with Tiffany North, RN

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

drinking, alcohol, you, intuitive eating, eating disorder, diet culture, self-trust, attachment styles, alcohol-free living, relationship, your body, eating, boundaries, staying sober, people-pleasing, sobriety, women, feelings, experiences, shame,self-rejection, connected relationships, family wellness, conversation, strategies, rigidity control, treatment, therapy, values, identify what matters to you, boundary, sobriety support group, program, recovery, take the step, happier, healthier, getting help, getting more education, healthy, unhealthy, marriage, talk about it, find your support, resources, podcasts, listen to podcasts, dieticians, developed, principles, body attunement, so tuning into your own body, trusting your body signals, learning hunger, fullness signals, tune in and process your emotions, figure out what’s going on with you emotionally, making yourself care about what feels the most, nurturing and nourishing rather than a should or because someone else says I should do it, diet culture says I should do it, struggles, attachment-based, secure earned attachment or preoccupied or anxious avoidant, relationship with food, attachment theory, caregivers, relationships, avoidant, anxious avoidant, fearful disorganized, preoccupied, anxious, self-forgiveness, self-care, childhood trauma, boundaries, addiction transfer, adding shame, patterns, learning, be able to experience the world, move through the world without using substances, without soothing, numbing, recognize what is this discomfort, awareness, acceptance, allowance, acknowledging, appreciating, action, trying to control, then giving up control, starting to cultivate a sense of self-compassion, something we need in recovery from alcohol and substance use, whatever helps you, Bring awareness with compassion to the issues that you’re having, eating in a way that is aligned with your values, that’s aligned with your desires, and that is honoring your body’s needs, listening to your body signals, having appreciation for what your body is doing for you, saying to you, trusting yourself

SPEAKERS: Casey McGuire Davidson + Tiffany North, RN

00:02

Welcome to the Hello Someday Podcast, the podcast for busy women who are ready to drink less and live more. I’m Casey McGuire Davidson, ex-red wine girl turned life coach helping women create lives they love without alcohol. But it wasn’t that long ago that I was anxious, overwhelmed, and drinking a bottle of wine and night to unwind. I thought that wine was the glue, holding my life together, helping me cope with my kids, my stressful job and my busy life. I didn’t realize that my love affair with drinking was making me more anxious and less able to manage my responsibilities.

In this podcast, my goal is to teach you the tried and true secrets of creating and living a life you don’t want to escape from.

Each week, I’ll bring you tools, lessons and conversations to help you drink less and live more. I’ll teach you how to navigate our drinking obsessed culture without a buzz, how to sit with your emotions when you’re lonely or angry, frustrated or overwhelmed, how to self soothe without a drink, and how to turn the decision to stop drinking from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life.

I am so glad you’re here. Now let’s get started.

Hey there, it’s Casey. 

If you’ve ever struggled with your body image, eating habits, or the constant feeling that you need to be more, do more, or weigh less to finally feel enough, I’m hoping this episode will be really helpful for you. So many women who decide to stop drinking later realize their relationship with food or their body is complicated.

So today, I’m talking with Tiffany North. She goes by North, she’s the author of the New Book, Enough, Heal Your Relationship With Food and Body Using Attachment Theory. 

North is an RN, integrative nurse coach and a certified intuitive eating professional.

[00:02:00]

She’s also been sober since 1998, which is crazy. That is a long time. So she deeply understands recovery, not just from substances, but from the patterns underneath them. So North. Welcome. I’m glad you’re here. Hi. Thanks so much for having me.

It’s really nice to be on. I love your podcast and you know, we’ve met in person and you’re just like such a lovely human. So, I’m thrilled to be here. 

Thank you. Yeah, we met, gosh, my, probably my first couple years after I stopped drinking at brunch at my friend Ingrid’s House who lives in Seattle.

 

And yeah, it was amazing. She used to host these great brunches that brought together all these women. Well, before we dive in, I would love to ask you what inspired you to write the book or to get into this work? Yeah, so for me, getting into this work was really because I had been searching for something different, a different way to do Nursing, and I simultaneously was having health struggles and my disordered eating was getting really out of hand.

[00:03:00] 

I happened to find somebody who was talking about Nurse Coaching, and so I became certified in that and then felt like such a fraud because my relationship with food was so messed up. So, fortunately, I went to a therapist who brought intuitive eating to the table and it just was so transformative for me.

I felt like a sense of freedom and ease that I hadn’t felt probably since I was a child around food in my body. And just about everybody. I knew at least most of the women and some of the men were struggling with food and body relationships. And so, I decided to get certified in that and I felt much more aligned in my coaching practice, being able to help people in a way that had also impacted me deeply, but that I felt like I had sort of recovered from. 

 

Right. Yeah. Yeah. And you mentioned the term intuitive eating and I’ve, I’ve heard it many times. But can you define what that is or what the concept is or how one does it? 

 

[00:04:00]

Yeah, intuitive eating is a set of principles that was created by a couple of dieticians, back in the nineties, and they saw the writing on the wall. Prescribing people a list of foods you should and shouldn’t eat or what to eat or all of that, how much to eat, when to eat was not working.

Like people would temporarily lose weight or they’d temporarily be able to follow the diet and then they would, you know, quote, “fall off the wagon” and they would then just feel so much shame. 

And so, the dieticians were like, this isn’t working. And they developed these principles and the principles are really about Developing a body attunement, so tuning into your own body and trusting your body signals. 

[00:05:00] 

So, learning hunger, fullness signals, those aspects of it. And then, also even just being able to tune in and process your emotions and really figure out what’s going on with you emotionally. And then, making yourself care about what feels the most, nurturing and nourishing rather than a should or because someone else says I should do it or because you know, diet culture says I should do it. 

So, it’s really focused on that relationship with self. The nice thing about intuitive eating is that there isn’t a right way or wrong way. But often it becomes that. So, people try to do it, you know, perfectly.

Like, I can only eat when I’m hungry and I have to stop exactly when I’m full. And you know, if I can’t tune into my signals, then I’m a big failure. And so that’s part of why I wrote the book is that, you know, in my work with folks I was realizing it’s so much deeper than. Just tuning in to your body.

There’s a lot of reasons we have struggles turning, tuning into our body or not trusting the signals that we have. And a lot of those struggles are attachment based. And so, intuitive eating is a foundational piece of my book, but the book goes much further than that. 

 

[00:06:00] 

Yeah, I mean, when I was reading the book description about growing up in a world where thinness is equated with worth and millions of people find themselves trapped in the cycles of dieting, shame and self-rejection, it resonated with me because I don’t know anyone who came of age in the 90s or 2000s who don’t feel that way.

 

I mean, I’ve done all of the diets at some time or another. I think we all have everything from, you know, the whole 30 to Weight Watchers too. I mean, I used to have cookbooks like volumetrics and just eat soup and eat this and that, and you know, you need things with more liquid or more protein or less whatever.

I mean. It does take up so much of your mental space and your time and your energy. And then, it’s hard to release in that way. It’s hard to let it go because we’ve been so ingrained to look at our bodies and look at 20-year-old women on the internet and be like, wow, I should look like that. I don’t look like that anymore.

Yeah, totally. And especially we have to also look at the kind of systems that we’re in, right? 

[00:07:00]

And so, in the systems of oppression, we are made to feel that if we don’t look a certain way or act a certain way or sort of fall in this line under a certain line or in this category, then we won’t be safe or accepted or be able to thrive.

And so, looking at ourselves is actually through the male gaze and through the patriarchy. It’s really interesting when we get into like, why, why do I struggle to just eat, you know, the full fat version of something, right? Like just the regular ice cream or whatever.

When we start to peel away the layers, it’s like, yeah, because you’ve been told since you were three years old that you need to. Not get that, or you’ll be rejected, right? No one will love you, or we can’t eat the full fight ice cream because that means we’re out of control and we can’t trust ourselves.

And like, especially for women, we are often told we can’t trust our instinct or intuition or our emotions. 

[00:08:00]

So yeah, it goes really deep. 

Yeah. Well, so tell us about attachment theory. 

So, I obviously have heard about it, I sort of know it in a very, very surface way. 

So, will you actually explain the differences between secure earned attachment or preoccupied or anxious avoidant, what they are? And then, we can go into how that applies to your relationship with food. 

Yeah. I like this question a lot. Interestingly, I came at it kind of from the back door. I was struggling in my personal relationship, a romantic relationship, and found this book called, Poly Secure. And it’s an excellent book.

It’s focused on polyamory, but it’s, you know, for any relationship style. It’s really helpful and was like, oh, I’m more anxiously attached in this relationship. So, I’ll say one thing first is that I love Jessica, for the author. I love that she differentiates that you can have different attachment styles in different relationships and it can change over your lifetime.

[00:09:00]

So, what I’m about to say, whatever you feel aligns for you, this can change. It’s not, you’re not doomed to feel this way forever. And, it was really helpful for me and that brought the light bulb moment of this concept applying to relationship with food and the body. 

So, Attachment Theory was created by John Bowlby and he’s a psychology researcher and he was actually raised by a nanny. So it’s interesting ’cause he was recognizing this relationship with your caregivers and at the time it was really all put on the mother, of course. But these relationships with your caregivers actually really impact the relationships you have and the way that you relate to other people as you grow up.

So, there are different attachment styles. You mentioned a few of them. 

So, one is preoccupied or anxious, and that is one that’s really common that I see in my practice. So, relationships where you’re anxiously attached with a person. You might be texting them a lot or thinking about it all the time or trying to fix it all the time or wanting a lot of closeness.

Yeah, so we’ve got that and I’ll go through how they relate to food and body as well. And then we have avoidant. And so avoidant is gonna be like, I don’t wanna deal with this. I don’t wanna think about it. I don’t wanna deal with conflict. I’m not feeling much anxiety about this. I might have anxiety, but I’m not aware of it. Really, I just don’t want to, I don’t wanna engage, I don’t wanna worry about this. 

And then, we have anxious avoidant or fearful disorganized is how it’s referred to sometimes. And that’s really like a mixture of both. Come close and get away. It says push pull and more ex tends to be more kind of extreme in how you’re relating with other people.

Then, of course, we have secure or earn secure. So, secure attachment is like, I’m in relationship with you. I wanna address our issues. I wanna make sure that I’m aligning with my own values, but also like honoring the relationship. And then Earn Secure just means I didn’t have this attachment style growing up.

 

[00:11:00] 

I wasn’t taught to be securely attached, or I didn’t have the right resourcing and care. But now, I’ve developed this attachment style. So, those are the attachment styles. 

Any questions about that before I go on to how it relates to food? 

Well, my question is, and I think we can get into this after you talk about it relating to food, but I was curious what builds those attachment styles.

So, for example, if you have high anxiety, preoccupied attachment, so high need for control and low avoidance, where does that come from? 

Mm-hmm. Yeah. 

That could come from having a more chaotic home environment. Especially if you have emotionally immature parents or parents who have alcohol or substance use issues, for example, you may feel like, oh my gosh, I have to worry about this.

I have to try to make everything perfect so that it won’t fall apart. Right? So, the world won’t end, so that my parents will survive and I’ll survive. It could come from just having a more anxious disposition. 

[00:12:00] 

So sometimes even, maybe your mom had a high stress pregnancy or your birth parent had a high stress pregnancy, right?

So, it can come from a lot of different things. Some people are just naturally more anxious. But often, it comes from having some insecurity as a child, and then anxious avoidant. That often comes from having childhood trauma. Again, this can also be like just how you are, just disposition.

It can be genetics, all of that. But having a really, a lot of childhood trauma can really create that. Like, I wanna be close to you, but it doesn’t feel safe. And then when we have more, avoidant tendencies. Sometimes it can come from people not honoring your boundaries. People are not listening to you when you say I don’t want that, or that’s not, I don’t wanna hug, or whatever it is, right?

You feel smothered or you feel like people have approached your boundaries. But once again, it can be, anybody reacts to their childhood environment in whatever way. 

[00:13:00] 

Whatever way helps them survive. So it’s really, these are all serving all strategies. Yeah.

So talk to us about how that relates to food and body image. ’cause one thing I enjoyed in your book, when you were talking about the different attachment styles, what resonated with me the most was the very short sentence of the difference between someone who thinks I enjoy food.

Versus food controls me versus I control food and I control my body too, I don’t even wanna think about food. So, I liked how you boiled that down into everyday speech of the way that we relate to food. And I think what was interesting to me is I can think about the last, 30 years, 40 probably.

I’m 50 years old and I’ve gone through every one of those in a reaction to whatever it was previously. 

[00:14:00] 

It’s just such a cycle of trying to fix your thought patterns about food in your body that you sort of ping pong between different approaches trying to make it better, or at least that’s what I did.

Yeah, absolutely. And this is one, one of the reasons I mentioned it can change over your lifetime because it doesn’t, it’s not like if you’re trying to fit into a box, you’re gonna be like, well, this is fit at this time, or this sometimes fits, or this is, you know, right. So, I’ll go into how we use it or around food and body, but one of the things to keep in mind is that we’re looking for patterns or trends that are most present for you right now and past patterns ’cause that can be information, good information. But then we’re using that to try to be like, oh, these are patterns that I have and there’s reasons for these patterns, right? This doesn’t mean I’m bad or wrong or anything like that. And I can start to move toward that more secure attachment, right?

So what does secure attachment look like for me? And then how do I move toward that so that it’s less like, am I doing it right? 

[00:15:00] 

Which actually can increase preoccupation anxiety, right? And more like, oh yes, this feels secure. This feels aligned. I feel like I can trust myself.

I feel ease, balance, freedom, all of that. So, the food attachment style. Like you mentioned in the book, there’s like a succinct line for each. 

I love that you brought that up. So, the food controls me. This is more preoccupied, anxious, like I’m thinking about it all the time. I need to figure out what I’m going to eat, how I’m gonna do this diet starting Monday kind of a thing.

Or like I’m at, I’m out at an event and I’m just like, oh, there’s a food table and I haven’t eaten all day because I’m on this diet. Or I haven’t eaten all day because I, whatever. But would it be weird to just immediately go to the food table, right? Like you’re just having all of these thoughts swirling around.

It’s really so intense and it’s controlling a lot of your mental and emotional energy and it feels out of control. And with body image, it’s also like, I’m thinking about it a lot. 

[00:16:00]

I’m checking like, am I, what’s my body like compared to the other people?

Like you said, compared to the 20 year olds in the room, which I mean, yes. Like your body’s gonna change. If you’re 40, you’re not gonna look like you’re 20. And that’s, you know, part of nature. So, there’s a lot of comparison happening. There’s a lot of worry about, how am I gonna be perceived by others?

I don’t wanna be in photos, like, my clothes aren’t fitting the same, what am I gonna do? It’s a lot of swirling around in your brain and anxiety and so there’s this need for control. And then, like you mentioned, this low avoidance. So, I am really in the muck with food and body all the time.

Then we have our more anxious avoidant. Anxious avoidant is I control the food. And so I control the food and I control my body. I don’t care if my body’s telling me I’m hungry, I’m not going to listen. So I’m gonna avoid my body. I’m gonna avoid signals from my body.

I’m gonna control the heck outta it. 

[00:17:00] 

So I’m going to only eat this very controlled set of foods. It’s likely that it doesn’t change for a long time. Not that if you eat the same thing every day because you like it, that’s not a problem. It’s more like, okay, I have to eat celery and protein shakes and that’s it, or whatever it is so very controlled and often these folks don’t see it as much of a problem because it’s settled in their brain that this is how it’s gonna go. But over the long haul, it’s really hard on your body. It’s also denying the relationship with your body or ignoring your body, that intensely creates longer term problems. So many folks in this who fall more into this category, these patterns, will have an active eating disorder or have had it in the past.

And then, we’ve got more avoidant attachment. And this is the like, you know, I just don’t even wanna think about food or my body. And these folks have low high avoidance, but low desire for control. 

[00:18:00]

So like, I don’t wanna do any food prep, I don’t wanna think about food, I don’t want to really think about my body.

Maybe to the point of even neglecting self-care, like going to the doctor or, some people even struggle to shower or that kind of thing. So, just really like, I just would rather I didn’t have to deal with it. And I think about there’s a person who created like the perfect nutrition capsule or something to the point where he didn’t have to eat ever.

Like, I don’t know this person’s name, but it was, yeah, because he really just did not wanna even deal with it. And I can’t imagine. Personally, never enjoying food again. But for some folks, it’s a reality that they just, would rather eat kind of whatever in a very like, latte way.

And they may have a securely attached relationship with food and body, and it’s like, yeah, I’m able to enjoy food. I’m able to enjoy and appreciate my body. I make my decisions based on what feels aligned for me. And I’m low avoidance. I’m not avoiding things and I don’t need an intense amount of control.

[00:19:00]

I can just be in that relationship and roll with it. And I can imagine, just from myself and the women I know and my history of just growing up in our society, that’s really hard to do. 

Mm-hmm. It’s really hard to let all of that noise in your head that you’ve internalized and sometimes I. I think about it as you know, when you’re quitting drinking, right?

You have all these internalized beliefs about alcohol and what it brings to you and what will happen if you walk away from it, what people will think. But then even as you try to stop, you have that voice in your head that’s constantly going about drinking or not drinking, or trying to moderate, or do you even have to do this?

And it’s different for food because you can’t completely. Walk away from it in the same way you can from alcohol. 

[00:20:00]

So, you’ve been sober for a very, very long time. I stopped drinking almost 10 years ago. Once you get away from it, the noise goes away pretty quickly. Once you’re like, okay, I no longer feel like garbage and my life is better, and I identify as someone who quit drinking, it’s something I’m really proud of.

It’s no longer something I crave. Food and the body you live in is much harder to walk away from and not interact with anymore, if not impossible. You know, you have to eat. So tell me what you think about how people deal with that and how it might be different from sobriety or getting away from alcohol.

Yeah. And yeah, like, you were mentioning this getting away from it or disconnecting. Yeah. We can absolutely avoid alcohol and substances. We can avoid where they’re served for the most part. And that is. It’s a lot more clean cut.

Right. And it can feel really helpful that you’re like, am I sober today? 

Casey McGuire Davidson 

Hi there. If you’re listening to this episode, and have been trying to take a break from drinking, but keep starting and stopping and starting again, I want to invite you to take a look at my on demand coaching course, The Sobriety Starter Kit®.

 

The Sobriety Starter Kit® is an online self study sober coaching course that will help you quit drinking and build a life you love without alcohol without white knuckling it or hating the process. The course includes the exact step by step coaching framework I work through with my private coaching clients, but at a much more affordable price than one on one coaching. And the sobriety starter kit is ready, waiting and available to support you anytime you need it. And when it fits into your schedule. You don’t need to work your life around group meetings or classes at a specific day or time.

This course is not a 30 day challenge, or a one day at a time approach. Instead, it’s a step by step formula for changing your relationship with alcohol. The course will help you turn the decision to stop drinking, from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life.

You will sleep better and have more energy, you’ll look better and feel better. You’ll have more patience and less anxiety. And with my approach, you won’t feel deprived or isolated in the process. So if you’re interested in learning more about all the details, please go to www.sobrietystarterkit.com. You can start at any time and I would love to see you in the course 

 

[00:21:00] 

Yes. Check the box. Like I, yeah, it’s simple, very clear. It’s simple, right? It’s hard and complicated, but it’s also simple. I drank a non-alcoholic beverage versus an alcoholic beverage. I didn’t consume alcohol today.

The line of did you successfully do the thing or not is pretty simple. 

Absolutely. Yeah. 

And then, we have diet culture that tells us that there is a right or wrong way, although, you know, it tells us there’s a million different ways. This is the right way. Right, but, but like you’re doing it right or you’re not doing it right.

And often that is based on how does my body look? And that can be really hurtful because it causes us to bring in that need for control, right? Or that avoidance, there’s something wrong with my body and I, I can’t trust my body because it looks a certain way. Or because I have cravings or because of, right, like there’s all of this noise, like you said, and it can be complicated to just learn how to.

[00:22:00] 

Have your own agency and autonomy over what feels right to you and what your body needs right now. So, sometimes we need this sort of inner rebel moment where we’re just eating whatever, because we, for years, haven’t been. Sometimes, if you’ve been more avoidant, it might mean actually preparing a meal, which seems so simple.

A lot of people are doing a ton of meal prep in the anxious avoidant, or the anxious side. But a lot of people, it’s like I’ve been relying on someone else’s external rules for so long to determine whether I’m doing something right or wrong. And to feel okay about myself or not okay about myself.

Most of the time we’re not feeling okay about ourselves. So similar to getting sober, there is a lot of relief of oh, once I reject all of that all of those expectations, then I can feel more calm in my body. I can trust myself more and I can feel some relief from the constant worry about it. 

[00:23:00]

So yeah, the way that I support people in it is that we really start to question where did this value system come from? How much is it costing you to be buying into that system? And playing that game all the time, and constantly shaming yourself. I think the commonality between the insecure attachment styles which is anything that’s not secure is that piece that shame. And so we really dig into that piece first before I say just eat, just listen to your body. That’s not really fair.

Was that going back to the world you grew up in or the messages you’ve received, when you talk about where these ideas and thoughts and beliefs came from, how do you do that work with people? Yeah. So many times it is childhood messages we received from caregivers, teachers, doctors, our community.

And those messages are typically from the larger cultural messaging.

[00:24:00]

And so, it’s not like it’s all your mother, but for me, my mom, dieted and had very extreme, you know, she would eat only plain wheat bread parrots and celery for lunch.

Or it was like cake and ice cream, or it’s not really like on middle ground with my mom, you know? And so that’s what I watched growing up. She definitely was concerned about my weight. So for me personally, it was very direct messages from my mother, but she also actually had been in the military and not my whole childhood, there were places where she really was like scrutinized and told you have to.

You have to look a certain way and be a certain way, and even looking a certain way and being fit and all of that. In the military, she was still a woman in the military, so she had to fight really hard. So when I look at what it has meant to me personally, what messages did I get from caregivers, but also what did it mean to my family and what did it mean?

[00:25:00] 

What does it mean for people in recovery when we’re talking about food and body patterns, like if you binge, what’s the risk socially for doing that? Why are you internalizing shame around that? Because bingeing, for example, isn’t bad, it’s just. Survival strategy. And so we really normalize those behaviors and look at why I have so much shame and negative self-talk around this.

What are those messages? So yeah, it comes from society, it comes from caregivers, it comes from people that are close to us. It can even be, you know, I had to be weighed in gym class in front of everyone. Now I’m terrified of.my weight getting above a certain point. 

Yeah. Yeah. One thing that I had questions about, ’cause I’ve heard this a lot in recovery spaces where people.

[00:26:00]

Maybe they stopped drinking, but they used alcohol to numb or to seek comfort or to shut off their mind, or whatever it is. And then the worry is people are like, I feel like I’m just replacing that with food now. I feel like I, you know, they’ll say I’ve transferred my addiction and I’ve also heard people within the intuitive eating space.

And anti-D diet cycling being like, no, that’s not a fair comparison. Food is not alcohol, it’s not addiction transfer. Mm-hmm. It might be a coping mechanism transfer or something else. So I just wanted to get your input on that concept that I hear a lot. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I love this question so much and it’s really close to my heart because that idea that, oh, it’s just another addiction really fueled some of my own disordered eating patterns and increased my preoccupation, my anxiety and my shame around it. It’s not the same. So food does not like people say, oh, like, lights up your pleasure centers.

[00:27:00] 

It’s like, well, so does holding a baby. I just held my grand baby, my first grand baby. I was holding him for the last couple days and it was wonderful.

And yes, the pleasure centers were all lit up, but am I addicted to that baby? Like I love him dearly and. Yet I was able to come back to my town and, proceed with work and everything’s fine. So, there are a lot of things that light up pleasure centers and food is meant to be pleasurable.

It does not change your neurobiology the same way that an addiction to drugs or alcohol does. There’s, receptors that become more prolific with certain drugs, for example. That doesn’t happen with food. And yes, absolutely. When you stop drinking or using substances, the world can feel, you can feel really raw and the world can feel really intense because you haven’t been, you’ve been blunting that experience, your sensory experience of the world or emotional experience of the world.

[00:28:00]

And so, food sometimes can help soothe, but it’s more like it helps your nervous system. Come down, right? Your activation kind of comes down and helps you get into more of a regulated state. Do we want that to be the only way you know how to regulate your nervous system? No, because it doesn’t always feel good to eat a bunch of some snack food.

Right? Physically doesn’t always feel good. And what we wanna do is learn how to cope with those emotions. We wanna learn how to. Move through the world without having to have blunt experiences. So it’s similar in some ways that it does kind of help you come down from that heightened experience, but it’s very different in that it doesn’t blunt the experience in the same way and it doesn’t change your neurobiology.

It also can feel similar in that it can feel really out of control. Like, I have to do this. This is like, food controls me. And that’s really more of that preoccupied, anxious attachment style. 

[00:29:00]

There can be other reasons that you’re craving foods and especially like carbs or sugar in recovery.

Like your gut bacteria, especially if you were like a wine drinker can be skewed for wanting that. And so the bacteria is sort of like dying off saying like, give me more sugar so I could live, you know? It can also be like you can be deficient in certain nutrients and things like that.

So, when we just say oh, it’s addiction transfer, and I’m just doing the same thing, we’re adding shame, which is more likely to perpetuate these patterns and cause more problems. 

Nice. So, in your book you talk about the 5 A’s, and I know their awareness, acceptance, allowing, acknowledgement and action.

Can you tell us about that and why the 5 A’s are helpful? 

 

Yeah. I developed the five A’s, actually I’d been doing this process for a long time, and then one day, with clients and one day a client was like, what are you doing here? And I was like, oh, well it’s, and I started naming the different ones.

They’re like, oh, they kind of all start with a, so I guess I’m just gonna write this down right now. 

[00:30:00]

Create this, this, this thing. And there’s actually some others out there that are similar that I’ve discovered since then. But the reason that it’s helpful is that. It teaches us to see when something’s wrong.

Often we blame ourselves or we just try to fix it, but we don’t necessarily spend time looking at why this is happening? What’s going on for me right now? What’s happening in my body? And that helps with that process. 

I was talking just a moment ago, about learning to be able to experience the world and move through the world without using substances or without soothing or numbing or whatever we wanna call it, it helps us to recognize what is this discomfort, what’s happening for me right now? 

And then, actually be like, oh, I’m, it’s okay to feel this way. I’m not going to explode or dissolve away.

Terrible is going to happen if I just sit with this feeling for a moment. And so, that’s really what the allowing is about. 

[00:31:00]

And acceptance sometimes can be really hard to accept. Oh, I feel angry at that person, or I feel I really don’t want to maybe be in this friendship anymore. It can be really hard to have acceptance over our own truth.

We wanna have acceptance there. And then, acknowledging, appreciating, oh, my body is giving me all these signals and trying to direct me. And that’s actually a positive thing. It’s not an annoyance. It’s not bad, it’s not, risky. Acknowledging what our truth is. And then action actually has a question mark after it because we don’t always need to take action.

Like sometimes it’s simply just, oh, I’m feeling this thing and I just need to feel the thing, and then I can move on and now I understand myself better. Or it might be like, oh, I really have to set a boundary with my mother-in-law, but I don’t have the language and I don’t have the capacity to do the right thing.

So, for now, I’m gonna just kind of gr and bear it until I have those skills. So, action is really when you have the knowledge that you need, the understanding that you need, and then the capacity to act in a way that is aligned with your values and your desires, right? 

[00:32:00] 

So, those are steps along the way of once you’ve recognized what’s going on, how to start healing your relationship.

Well, it’s, it’s a process that helps you build that connection and trust with yourself, and that helps you in healing your relationship with food and your body. But again, the first forays are the most important. We don’t always need to take action. Well, I was wondering if a woman’s listening to this and is in the stage that, that so many of us are just struggling with what they eat, when they eat how they feel about their body, sort of trying to control and then giving up control, what would be their first step that you would recommend they take?

I think the first step is. Really getting clear that this is not their fault. There’s nothing bad or wrong with them. 

[00:33:00] 

And starting to cultivate a sense of self-compassion. So, this is something we need in recovery from alcohol and substance use. This is something that we need just generally in our lives.

Kristen Neff’s work is great around this. Brene Brown has some good work around this I do actually call out Brene Brown book ’cause it’s just still promoting diet stuff is, is actually excellent. You know, there’s a book that I thought was just me, but it isn’t, that’s about shame and self-forgiveness. So cultivating that. 

Yeah. Also , just affirming, like there’s a reason that this has been this way. And so again, going back to those five a’s like first just bringing awareness around, like why has it been like this? And really getting resourcing around that. So whether it’s gonna be, group work or just even a friend who gets it re you could read the book together kind of a thing.

Like, whatever helps you. Bring awareness with compassion to the issues that you’re having. 

 

And again, this can sound like people want, like a starting Monday diet because that’s what you’ve been conditioned for is gonna fix the problem, but you’re not a problem, you know? And dieting is not gonna fix it, it’s just gonna make that patient anxiety worse.

So, it can feel very open to be like, oh, look at the underlying issues. I could feel very nebulous, but I promise it actually will help in your relationship with students. I mean, I think that’s a challenge for all of us, right? We want a quick fix. We’re navigating life with so many pressures and thoughts and challenges and responsibilities, and we just wanna take something off our plate.

And unfortunately, it’s not that quick a fix. It’s this processing of healing. What’s the end goal? What would it look like if you had a secure attachment with your body and with food? How would that change the way you lived? 

[00:35:00]

Yeah. I’ll tell you kind of the characteristics, but again, this is gonna be really, each person’s gonna wanna develop what secure attachment is for themselves. Like for someone who really loves to cook, it might mean really carving out and devoting time. Each day, maybe they need to cut back on some volunteer opportunity or something so that they can cook more for themselves.

Some people really hate cooking and they don’t wanna cook at all. Right? So keep that in mind as I say these characteristics, because it’s not gonna be, I’m in the hate category. I don’t enjoy it at all. 

Yeah. All the time because I’ve got a family, but not my jam. Yeah. So if you hate it, it’s not, that’s not like a good hallmark of secure attachment, right?

For you, for someone who loves to cook, it’s a hallmark that they’re doing what they love. So, keep that in mind as I say these. But yeah, I kind of say this thing of being in relationship with food, but it’s really being able to engage in food and then just sort of move on with life, right?

[00:36:00] 

Like, oh, I had a burger and fries and now I’m gonna go. Play pool with my friends and I’m not even gonna think about the bird fries, right? Or I decided that I need more fiber, so I’m gonna eat salad for lunch, but I’m not going to persevere on it. And if I wanna have, if like the salad wasn’t enough and I wanna have something else, I’m gonna have that I, being able to eat in a way that is aligned with what your body’s telling you, your, what your desires are, your what’s satisfying, what you enjoy, and that honors your body’s needs as well, right? Like self-care. So, then, that fiber, or like, I know that I have a five o’clock meeting and I’m not gonna be able to eat until nine o’clock, so I’m gonna eat a snack even though I am, you know, not really hungry right now. For example, So, it’s eating in a way that is aligned with your values, that’s aligned with your desires, and that is honoring your body’s needs.

[00:37:00] 

And then, in terms of body, it’s listening to your body signals. Having appreciation for what your body is doing for you, saying to you, trusting yourself. And that means not just with food and body, but also with your decision making in your life. And it means providing care and nurturance for your body regardless of what it looks like.

I think it’s important that people recognize it’s not their fault and that there are very good reasons that you have these patterns in your life and even if you decided to never do anything about your relationship, with food and body, that’s okay.

You’re not a problem to be fixed. 

There are plenty of high level executives, typically white men, older white men, who just eat whatever the heck they want and they don’t exercise and they just do what they wanna do. And nobody, that’s an eyelash, right? But if you have a woman who’s trying to achieve some goal. There are lots of people scrutinizing, right? And there’s that comparison out there in the world. 

[00:38:00] 

And so, recognizing that like an act of rebellion to just be like, yeah, this is how I am and that’s how I wanna be. And it’s fine. That’s okay, too. Unfortunately, some of those patterns that you might have will often not feel great either physically or, you know, just emotionally because we need other strategies, right? So, that’s why I do encourage people to consider, what the cost is of these patterns and whether working really gives yourself that time and space to work toward secure attachment. It can really just change everything. It can be so powerful.

But again, if you don’t want to, that’s okay. Well, tell us where people can find you to learn more about your work. 

Get the book. So my website’s coachtiffanyrn.com. The book is on there. You can either buy a signed copy from me or you can buy from any, like, there’s buttons for all the different online retailers on there as well.

I, however, if people get the book, I’m happy. 

 

[00:39:00] 

Just love that, people are able to have it. There’s an ebook and an and a paperback, but right now, I’m just about to release the audiobook, so that’s coming, too. And on my website, there’ll be a bundle for a cheaper option. If you’re gonna get the paper and the audio because there’s lots of lists and graphs and images in there that can be helpful to have.

So there’s that. In terms of working with people, I am a little bit full. But there’s a way to fill out a form there, free consultation and when I have availability, I am happy to engage as best I can.

That’s great. So, the book is called, Enough, Heal Your Relationship With Food and Body Using Attachment Theory by Tiffany North. 

Thank you. Thanks for being here. 

Yeah, thanks so much for having me on.

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