Body Energetix: Renew your Mind, Regulate your Emotions, Regenerate your Body

29: Unveiling the Emotional Roots of Overeating

• Lauren Saracione • Episode 29

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What if your unprocessed emotions are the real reason behind your chronic health issues & overeating? Join Lauren Saracione as she unpacks her 23-year journey in the fitness industry and a 14-year inner work process following a PTSD diagnosis. 

Ever wondered why external validation never seems to fill the void? Lauren explores the intricate relationship between unprocessed emotions and our quest for validation, particularly in terms of body image and dieting. Understand how our mind-body system craves certainty from external sources like social media likes and compliments when grappling with feelings of inadequacy. Through a client's journey of making small, manageable adjustments, such as consuming half of what she initially thought she needed, Lauren illustrates a practical approach to breaking the cycle of failed dieting attempts and negative self-perception. This episode offers invaluable insights into why emotional well-being is crucial for sustainable physical health and self-esteem.

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Welcome Body Energetix! I'm Lauren Saracione, 23-year fitness pro. I started my Hero's Journey of reconnecting with my Inner Child to heal my mind-body disorders 14 years ago. In my podcast, I share my 3-step system to renew your mind, regulate your emotions & regenerate your body.

Go to https://www.bodyenergetix.com to join my free community, where each week, we expand on the theme of the current episode so you can reconnect your mind-body to restore your physical health & create your desired aesthetic.

Body Energetix is the culmination of a lifetime of healing and over two decades of client experience. I have A LOT to share! Listen to episode 000 to navigate the Body Energetix System through podcast episode categories!
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Speaker 1:

no-transcript Awesome. Hello everyone, this is a live stream that I am recording onto Facebook as well as Instagram, so if you see me going up and down, it's because I'm trying to look at the two camera lenses. I wanted to hop on and share with you a recent result that one of my clients has had. If this is your first time meeting me, I want to give you some context. I'm Lauren Circion.

Speaker 1:

I've been in fitness for 23 years and I have been on a 14-year inner work journey ever since I was diagnosed with PTSD. I was diagnosed with PTSD and I was at that mental health appointment because I was under a lot of stress and binge eating had stopped working. I was in a moment in the binge full of tears, and I wasn't able to chew the food, swallow the food. I had to spit it out because I was crying so hard and in that moment I thought, oh, if eating is not going to get me through this, what will? So, long story short, I learned in that first appointment with a therapist that childhood experiences impact the adult ability to manage stress, and at that time I looked very, very good on paper. I was just starting um at gym, which was a group fitness program for autistic children. I was a teacher trainer for an international Pilates company and I was doing international textile manufacturing for that Pilates company for their equipment, and then I also had my own Pilates clients. So I looked fantastic but my insides were a mess.

Speaker 1:

And since that time I have had different health issues that have come up that are a manifestation of the unprocessed emotions from events that I didn't understand as a child and that I created mechanisms to contain the unprocessed emotions. But those mechanisms ultimately destroyed the health of my body because instead of processing the emotions, my body just lived in a constant state of stress, as if those events were happening at the present moment. And then also because the body mind connection is an identifier. So whatever the body is feeling energetically or emotionally, the mind makes the identity of the person a match to that feeling. So if we don't feel good from any unprocessed emotion, we could make it mean that we're unworthy, that we're not good enough, that we're too much, that we're bad. And when we have that identity in the back of our head, that we are totally oblivious to, it changes our ability to follow through with the things necessary to reach our goals, whether it's financial or with our relationships or with our health and fitness.

Speaker 1:

So in the 14 years I've been working steadily, peeling back the layers and trying to understand what has gone on in my body, especially when I had two cervical disc injuries that didn't have an exterior accident. That's when I learned about psychosomatics from Dr John Sarno and how we have a mind body division that creates chronic conditions and pain. Then time progressed and then I had severe inflammation in my lower GI tract and I changed my diet my diet as in regimen of eating to eat foods that weren't going to aggravate my organs. Molecular environment of those emotions, the chemical environment of legitimately inflammatory molecules of emotion, impacts how our body is operating. And then, when I decided that I was not only going to be on a regimented short list of food to keep my inflammation down, that I wanted to do macro tracking, that is when I really started to see how our emotions project onto the tools to get us our dream body. And I used attachment theory during that time to understand what's going on within the mind body system that prevents us from following through with our goals, because oftentimes you may even hear yourself say this that I know what to do, I just need to do it, or I get sick, I get my knee, my knee goes out as soon as I'm on a roll with my diet and health, my diet and fitness. So I really questioned those two things because those are energetic, they are emotional, they are mindset and self-belief issues. So in this 14 year journey to understand my health issues and process unprocessed emotions and change the meaning I made about myself, I've discovered that I can put it into a very simple system to break down through diet and exercise habits for you to understand what's going on energetically, emotionally, in your mind, body, so that whatever goal you have if you want to lose weight, or if you just want to stop worrying about your weight, if you want to change your aesthetic, to have a certain look to it, or if you just want to figure out how to be consistent and with healthy movement, we can do that together in a couple of coaching programs that I've put together, that I have curriculum that I'm going to take you through step by step. So that's who I am and I'm so excited to share that with you, because it's been such a long journey and it's been rewarding for me to have my health issues and my self-esteem and body issues clear up, but then also to pay it forward to other people who might be experiencing the same thing.

Speaker 1:

Which brings me to my client who just lost four pounds in a week's time since she rebelled against her food narrative. Since she rebelled against her food narrative. So what she did she had this food narrative that said, if I'm going to be out of the house for many, many hours, I better eat now in case I get hungry later. And what that did is it added calories to her calorie ceiling that put her in a calorie surplus, because not only was she eating when she wasn't hungry, because she was so stressed about food, she still overate when she got home. So it wasn't even serving the purpose that she had in mind.

Speaker 1:

Now, the reason why she made that rule is because that was part of her protection mechanisms in her mind that were covering up the unprocessed emotions. So what's really interesting when we have an issue with food and we have rules around our eating, is that the rules and the issues are just where we're focusing the unprocessing emotions of things that we experienced at another time that made a meaning about us. That's negative. We're not enough, we're too much or we're bad. So these feelings that we have are being covered up by rules to guarantee us certainty and validation.

Speaker 1:

And the reason why those are there is because when we have unprocessed emotions or when we have an event that we don't understand, a feeling in our body that we don't understand, we have to figure out some way to make sense of it, which usually just resorts to I'm feeling this way because I'm not good enough, I'm too much or I'm bad, and we want to have certainty that, even though we have these feelings, there will be something that we can do that someone else will end up reflecting back to us that we're good enough, we're not too much and that we're not bad. So it's just a general rule that the mind-body system makes, based on a feeling that doesn't feel good, to create some sort of way in the external world to make us not feel that feeling. And it makes sense because when we're little or we don't understand something that's happening inside and we have eyes and this is a mirrored universe where we experience ourself through other people we want to look on the outside to then have that confirmation that we're not. We are good enough, we're not too much, and we're not we're. We are good enough, we're not too much and we're not bad. So this is why there's so much stuff like with social media how many likes we get, how many comments we get, how much adoration we get from people. It makes sense. So when we have these mindsets and rules that we make, it could be applied to any area of life. It could be if the sex that you're attracted to says, yes, you're beautiful or you're handsome, if the money in your bank account says, yes, you're good enough because you're wealthy, whatever it is.

Speaker 1:

So in the context of food, what ends up happening is we have these unprocessed emotions and we have a way to create certainty from a strategy. So we pick out 21 day fixes, you know, 90 day challenges, different supplements that say this is the herb that's going to help you lose 10 pounds without having to change anything in your lifestyle. We search for something that sells us certainty, and so we go for it and we may stick with it for a certain amount of time until there's enough certainty given to us in that thing to quench a small thirst, or quench a thirst temporarily, that we do feel good enough, right, because we've been doing whatever it is for two weeks or something and because the certainty is met from the outside in and the actual emotions we're dealing with have not been taken care of. The certainty doesn't last, so then that's why we either forget to take the supplement or we think that, oh, we're doing great, we've been good for two weeks, so I can afford to eat this, I can afford to do that, I deserve this, I deserve that. And then the results start to go away. And we did it because we had a false sense of certainty. Then, when we start to backslide and we go back on those habits and we start to go back to the body that we had before we bought the thing or started that strategy, now those unprocessed emotions are like yep, see, you're not good enough, you ate too much, you're bad. And then the search goes on again. And every time we do this to ourselves, from the very first moment we started dieting, we apply everything that we learned prior and every time that we were mean to ourselves when it didn't last, to the next thing. So the momentum gets further in the direction that we don't want. So each time we try a new thing, we get less and less results and we get harder and harder on ourself.

Speaker 1:

The other reason why we do this is because we're looking for validation, and this also is very simple that if we're little, if we are young and we're learning this from our caregivers and the environment, from our peers when we go to school, especially when we're teenagers and we really want to fit in, the validation from the outside in means that we can fit in and we can be connected to people and on the primal level that keeps us alive in our reptilian brain. This means that if we're connected to people, we won't die. That's how deep and unconscious it goes. So when we're looking for validation from the outside in to help us not feel a certain way about our body because we're focused on the food, the validation will also be short-lived, because the validation can shift whenever somebody else that you're around is in a bad mood and doesn't give you a compliment and doesn't confirm your hard work. So the thing that the unprocessed emotion is trying to achieve by sticking to a food rule to get the validation doesn't happen. Now we just have confirmation that we're not good enough or too much or that we're bad, because those emotions get to have a solid experience from the outside in that says from the outside in that says that's right, that's who you are. So we have that internal thing going on. So it doesn't matter what diet you're doing or what rule you make up, it's going to get applied and it's going to destroy your results, your mindset, your self-esteem and, ultimately, areas of life that you're not paying attention to because you're so preoccupied with this internal battle.

Speaker 1:

So what I said to my client we are helping her get in her body and understand why she's having some physical issues, why she's been able to lose weight in the past and why she's back up on the scale, and this was one of the things that we were taking a baby step to change. So I shared with her every week. We're just going to add a physical habit that you're going to be doing. So the week that she got four pounds of weight loss was eat half of whatever it is that you think you need to eat to prevent hunger in the future. So if it's fruit, eat half a piece of fruit. If you're drinking a protein shake, drink half the protein shake. And the reason why was because we wanted to still allow her body to go through the motions of the habit that she already built so that she doesn't go into shock Because the body is habitual, so that you can spend less time thinking about your body and more time being present to whatever activity you're focused on. So I said just still do it, don't let go of the habit. Just eat half as much and then seven days later she's down four pounds. So that was awesome.

Speaker 1:

Right Now, part of what we're doing with this habit is that, because it's so simple and because we're still using something that she's already doing, we're still using her quote unquote bad habit, but we're shifting it, and so the ability to shift a bad habit will give you the slow picking away and uncovering the unprocessed emotions that are behind the rule. So then what happens is when we go slowly with this habit change and we feel the resistance to not wanting to eat half or the temptation to just do away with the habit altogether, because she wants to be good and she wants to be disciplined and she wants to apply a rule to guarantee the validation and the certainty, to resist going too hard and to resist the actual habit of eating half instead of all of it. That's like half the battle instead of battling a hundred percent. It's a smarter strategy. So then what happens is as she slowly faces the unprocessed emotion associated with this rule she made, then it's like tiptoeing into your inner child, into the unprocessed emotion that makes the mind think that we're unworthy, that we're too much, we're not enough or we're bad.

Speaker 1:

So when she faces that 50% resistance, she can reach out to me and she can do inner work on her own and be like what am I feeling right now? What am I making this mean about me? How old do I feel? Because if we can sit with that 50% of resistance, especially when we're alone, when we don't have support, it'll be easier to feel and identify the emotion that the mind made us mean that we're not good enough, we're too much or we're bad.

Speaker 1:

And when we can find the age we were 11, if we were 15, if we can identify the age that that emotion started, we can kind of take a look in our memory to see like what was going on, that I felt this way and that I made myself a negative identity. And in while I'm looking at this memory, can I find where there was certainty, where there was validation, where there was a sense of connection. And then can I take this younger part of me on a little walk through my memories and show her all the amazing things that I've become because of her. And that's our integration of the unprocessed emotion, the memory that we repressed, and then changing the identity of that younger part. Because Because within the mind-body system, the subconscious mind is like a hard drive that is downloading every single experience so that when we come near something similar we know what it is.

Speaker 1:

That means when we have unprocessed emotions and we have memories that we have created a negative identity about ourselves with, they're actually always operating and active in the present moment, all the time, and we can see them in our habits and our sabotage or our resistance to following through in our habits and our sabotage or our resistance to following through. We can see them in the interactions with other people, especially if you keep dating the same person with a different name. That's a pattern that's from that subconscious. So when we connect with the younger part of ourself and we show this part of ourselves, all we've become because of her, then she doesn't feel alone, she has a sense of connection and now your nervous system becomes more regulated and coherent. So then that way, when you are faced with stress or you are feeling a little insecure, you can be aware of the mindsets that go off, that want you to do something with your diet and exercise habits as a way to get certainty and validation, and when you can recognize that, moment by moment, you end up not having your body flare or get a headache and you less and less use food as your coping mechanism.

Speaker 1:

And this process is exactly what we're doing in Renovate, which is a three-month program. You can do it privately or in a group setting, where I'm going to bring you every single week into your body through very specific exercises that are going to restore your joints, restore your muscles and restore your connection to your body so you can really start listening to what it wants with food and also with movement, rest and self-care. I'm going to teach you what you need to know about mindsets and unprocessed emotions so that you can understand what the internal battle is between your brain and between your emotions. That then is reflected in your health and your habits. Because when you create this understanding as a foundation, whatever it is that you want to do with your body, that's going to require more effort and more discipline. And whatever happens in your life as more people come into it, as more job responsibilities increase, as more stress happens with an election year, you're able to feel your emotions and your body and objectively listen to the mindsets that happen because of it, so that your body doesn't sneak up on you and give you a headache, so that you have to rest or you have to decompress and so that you don't reach for the food to regulate your system. The program starts on August 19th.

Speaker 1:

We are in pre-sale and the pricing will be going up the more details that I share with you. So, right now, if you want to renovate just your body, through the exercise portion and the mindset portion, that goes with the body. Or if you just want to do restoring your relationship with food, through the exercise portion and the mindset portion, that goes with the body. Or if you just want to do restoring your relationship with food and the emotional regulation, that goes with the food portion. If you want to just do one or the other, it's $600. If you want to renovate both in a three-month period, it's $850.

Speaker 1:

But, like I said, this is the pre-sale time. So if you want, if you know you want to do it and you don't need the details. You trust the process, that this is what you're going to learn how to do. Go ahead and buy it now, if you have. If you want to like wait around and like see, like, the details of exactly how it's going to happen, you can totally wait until later. Details of exactly how it's going to happen you can totally wait until later. But when you do that, just know that the pricing will be going up. So you can email me if you're watching this replay on YouTube, lauren, at Lauren Ceriseoncom, you could always DM me from any social media at Lauren Ceriseon or at Body Energetics, with an X on Instagram, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have or just give you the link. Thank you.