Join host Dr. Pinkston and special guest, psychologist Tori Janae, for a powerful and transparent conversation on how past trauma and relationships shape our destructive connections with food. Dr. Pinkston, who once struggled with her own eating disorder and obesity, and Tori Janae, who shares her personal journey of healing generational trauma through addressing food addiction, dive deep into the emotional and psychological roots of disordered eating. Discover why food becomes a source of comfort, the role of dopamine in the “eat, repent, repeat” addiction cycle, and why so many people struggle with guilt, shame, and self-sabotage. Learn practical, free tools rooted in an integrative approach to start your healing journey, including: Identifying the core psychological wounds (e.g., abandonment, guilt, people-pleasing) that drive addictive behaviors. The importance of self-awareness and how to use your triggers as teachers. Techniques to “finish the stress cycle” and down-regulate your nervous system using movement and Box Breathing (physiological sigh). The power of neuroplasticity and mind-body techniques like EFT Tapping to rewire your brain for safety and self-acceptance. This episode offers profound insights and actionable steps to break free from the cycle of emotional eating and move toward The Better Life.
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Healing Your Relationship With Food Transcript:
Hello everybody. I am Dr. Maryanne Pinkston. Welcome back to the Better Life with Dr. Pinkston. And today I have
got another wonderful show to bring to you guys. I think that the topic is a
little near and dear to my heart. I’ll be very transparent on this one. And I I think that talking about our
relationships with uh food based on some of our past experiences with, you know,
uh parents or um you know, friends, exes, uh people that, you know, we’ve we’ve come to love that don’t
necessarily love us have shaped and developed our relationships with food. And I have a wonderful guest today, such
a bright star, Tori Janae. And so she has multiple degrees in psychology.
She’s got a long list of of education and very bright young lady here. And so
she has I think her focus is in trauma, relationships, and confidence. All those things that we need help in and I
welcome you to the show. Thank you so much for coming on and talking with us today. Oh, thank you so much for having me. I’m
excited to be here. Absolutely. Thank you. So, we’ve mentioned a lot in that. you know, I think uh uh talking about trauma,
relationships, confidence, you know, that’s that’s a large uh a large book to unwind. And and so I think when I think
about my past and always very transparent about the things that I’ve experienced because I do believe that
other people are experiencing the same thing, maybe don’t really want to talk about it, feel very ashamed to talk about it.
Absolutely. Uh well, one thing that I had and and most most of my audience knows I was 300 lb at one point, very
overweight, and that was based on a horrible relationship with food, going
to food for comfort. And I think if we look around us today with all the obesity and uh you know metabolic
disorders that we have in society, I think there is a huge button to push. Uh
so if you don’t mind, we will focus on that. Please tell me tell us a little bit about you and how you came to do
what you do. Yeah, I love to kind of start at the beginning because that tells us so much about um my qualifications are long.
Yes, I’ve got a great list of education, but I think my greatest qualification is that I’ve walked the fire of mostly
everything I teach. Yeah. So, I now today live in Beverly Hills, California.
I’m, you know, like have all these degrees, but this was never who I should have been statistically. I was actually
conceived in a heroin rehab facility by my mother who was I was the result of an affair. My father was already married
with two children, so he left. And I was raised on on and off welfare.
My mom was married multiple times. She struggled with addiction her whole life. I’m the oldest living member of my
family. Everyone has passed. I ended up taking care of my siblings. There was just so much trauma as a child having
both of my parents, my stepfather also had addiction problems. Everyone my mom was surrounded with obviously had that.
My sister ended up becoming an addict. She overdosed. Um she didn’t even make it till 40. I’m the first woman in I’m
the fourth. So my my grandmother, my mother, my older sister were all had drug and alcohol problems. So I’m the
first woman to not have that. However, mine showed up as sugar and
food and different things different things cuz I made a conscious choice to not engage with alcohol early on. But we
now know children of alcoholics and addicts, we’ve got the same dopamine addiction issues. So
I’ve but I’ve literally had to heal tons of trauma. I’ve been through death. I’ve been through divorce. I’ve been through
so much grief that, you know, cracks your soul open. And so when I speak about these things, like yes, I’m giving
us really clear and easy to use tools, but I always love people to know that like I don’t say this as someone who has
not been in the lowest places of life and had to pull myself out of that or amazing.
Yeah. So I want to that’s so important and thank you thank you for being very transparent about
that and I I I do the same and and it’s uh it’s been a long road and I think there are so many women I I know there
are men out there who experience these these issues but I think there are so many women who are you know dealing with
these underlying uh issues and and so thank you for for sharing that and the dopamine the dopamine drive that we get
I I think addictions can come in many different flavors. Um we we don’t realize that porn,
gambling, smoking, you know, then alcohol and drugs, but eating eating is
definitely an addiction that uh many aren’t I don’t I don’t know if it’s just a lack of knowledge that that can be an
addiction, but uh but it is and it’s very important that that uh we look at
it in that fashion which you’ve you’ve mentioned and thank you for doing that. So where you know where does somebody
start when whenever you know whenever you identify that you’ve got they’ve got a problem where does somebody start?
Well, I love for people to kind of look at like how do they self soothe, right?
And how are they feeling? Like I love a lot of people don’t recognize that they have things that have happened to them
that are affecting their self soothing now. And like you said, it can be gambling. It can be your phone now. It
can be truth because we have to eat. Food is the most slippery slope. And it’s really hard to
see that like going to that. But I love to also look at the psychology or the internal feelings which is you won’t
feel good about it. You’ll be stuck in perfectionism, performing, people pleasing,
right? You’ll suck your feelings down and then go to the fridge, you know? So, it’s like having that moment of
self-awareness to say checking in with yourself and saying, “How am I feeling about the action that
I’m taking? What is triggering that?” because we’re just trying to meet a need
and it’s usually emotional or psychological but we we start to meet it physiologically because maybe no one
ever met it for us mentally, emotionally or physically and so food became what I love to say food
became our mother. Food became the thing that soothed us and it is such a powerful chemical
release that it does make us feel better. And I know that cuz like my grandmother as a child, you know, I had
all this traum all this trauma and my grandmother was emotionally distant. She was a lovely woman, but you know, she
was a German woman and just, you know, very different. And anyway, but she fed you. That’s how she showed love. And so
many of us don’t even know how deeply ingrained that is. That food equals love. Like if I got cookies, it’s like,
wow, I’m loved. And that was the only deep love I’d really experienced. And I think a lot of women don’t recognize
that with our partners, our parents, our children, we’re not feeling those connections. And so we’re looking
desperately for that connection. We’re hardwired for that connection. And if we don’t get it, we will seek it in the
easiest form possible. Yeah. Very, very, very well said. And so and it it is an addiction in that when
you you know when you partake in that act and you raise that brain chemical
dopamine and it provides you with that boost that high you do get a high from
it but then after that after you engage not too long after that then you experience that grand low again and that
guilt you know why did I why did I you know do that to myself people know they’re not doing the correct thing and
so powerful right very powerful and that uh and that high that you get.
Yeah. It’s like I love the way I’ve described it is like it’s like drinking salt water but not being satiated. It’s
like we get the we get the momentary relief like we feel the relief when we
eat the food. We get that that dep temporary high. But what we don’t understand about dopamine is it’s like it’s not bad, but when we’re constantly
skyrocketing it, right, then we need more and more and more to get that same effect. And so it keeps
getting worse and it becomes this horrible cycle. And I can’t I want to say maybe Janine Roth said this but like
it’s called someone I read with food particularly they call it the eat repent repeat
right and so we’ll eat we’ll feel bad and guilty and we’ll say I’m never going to do that again. But the guilt and the
shame actually lead us to do it again but often even worse the next time.
True. And so I love to just kind of share that and know that that’s just the cycle in the brain. There’s nothing
wrong with you. You’re not broken. Your brain’s just trying to get the same relief it once got before. And it’s
actually trying to now relieve you from the guilt and the shame you feel from what you just did. And a lot of times that
the core driver that’s actually making us do that has nothing to do with the food at all, but the emotions that
underly it. And I think particularly with trauma, we’re really scared of that word. And I love Dr. Pinkton. Swson said
earlier that it was like a buzz word right now. Now it is. It’s real. It’s real. And it’s and I love to redefine trauma
for people because I think we think of trauma as like being robbed or going to
war or phys sexual assault. All these things are absolutely huge traumas, right? But there’s also emotional and
relational trauma. So it might even be having a parent who had mental health issues or a sibling who had health
issues and like you couldn’t be tended to. Your parent could have just had attachment disorder, meaning that they
were an avoidant detacher and didn’t know how to soo you properly. That gives you just as much trauma
because your nervous system got wired to not feel comforted, soothed, taken care
of. So, you had to do it yourself. And so, I love to redefine trauma as it is
just the disconnection from feeling safe and loved. And we’ve all experienced
that. Whether it was a crappy boyfriend, a stressful boss, a critical mother who talked about your
weight all the time, who said, “You shouldn’t eat this, you shouldn’t eat that.” That is still trauma. And so 99%
of the women I work with just say, “Oh, I’ve never I’m not traumatized.” It’s like, well, you wouldn’t have these behaviors
if you weren’t, babe. So, let’s look. Yeah. So, it’s kind of like allowing
ourselves to not It’s not about blame or anything like It’s like I always say it’s not your fault what happened but
it’s your responsibility to understand it and how it affected you. Correct. Correct. And so based on that
with with that you know attachment to food and and the guilt you know that we have and and that you know repetitive
behaviors it it’s very t you know fighting an eating addiction is as tough
as stopping smoking. I mean it is incredibly tough to draw away from. So you know I did that. That’s something I
had to face. And I literally had somebody sit and say you know Dr. ings, you have an eating disorder. And I took
that really hard because I imagine, you know, I imagine bulimia, anorexia, I imagine these really, you know, drastic
uh um uh you know, diseases that that women have with with eating disorders. And I thought, you know, just that
relationship, bad relationship with food, wanting to go back and and overeat and and using that to soo myself is an
eating disorder. Yes, it is. And it’s very important to to look at it as such before you can take those next steps to
to heal. This was eight years ago and I still deal with it. I may be thinner. I
may be in much better shape, but I still deal with that in my head. And I find too that some people then will transfer,
they won’t eat as much, but maybe they’ll go to shopping or, you know, some other behavior. Many people who get
beriatric surgery with uh you know a gastric sleeve, gastric bypass, you know, they can’t eat as much will turn
to alcohol now and just transfer you know their uh their addiction to
something different. So where does a person begin to to look take a look and and start to unravel all of that?
Yeah. Most people who are struggling with any form of addiction, like you said, whether it’s porn or gambling or alcohol,
you know, the reason we’re getting buriatric surgery and going to alcohol is because the food is no longer available to numb the pain.
That’s right. And I believe that all addiction at root cause is some form of pain that we’re
not able to deal with. Absolutely. And so it’s finding the source of that pain and being brave enough to say like
what what feelings am I actually running from? And you know you’re this person if you’re always busy. You can’t sit still.
You’re always finding the next thing to worry about. You’re worried about your kids. You’re worried about your partner. You’re worried about your job.
But you never even know if you have to go to the bathroom, right?
I know. And I’m telling you, these are the signs internally that you are running from your own stuff.
And I was hurt. Trust me, I was a 20 something yearear-old workaholic who
worked full-time putting herself through school. You know, I was a I was a typea hyper critical driven perfectionist. So,
these are all the things that are showing us that we’re running from our pain. I had dumpster fires full of trauma within me.
But I was terrified to look at it because I thought if I did, it would explode and blow my life apart. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
But it’s really what opened me up to actually receive the love and the care and the connection that I actually
desired. Yeah. Because a lot of women particularly who have like this addiction to food to another like
psychological trait I see is they are overgiving over functioning over lovers
and they worry about everyone else in their life but not themselves. Not themselves.
And so that’s another big one is like if you notice in your life you’re taking
care of right. I don’t know if you see that too but that’s what I’ve always noticed. Oh gosh. Yes. Oh gosh. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
I give the speech all the time. Put your mask on first before you somebody else.
But I find a lot of that is in trying to please. It’s not the over love is is
there for sure. You’re loving somebody else much more than you love yourself because you you’ve never understood, you
know, love for yourself. But also just trying to please, trying to find approval.
And pleasing is what’s fascinating is that is a trauma response. Yeah. Yeah, you know, we have fight, flight, freeze,
fawn. Fawn is people pleasing. So that means somewhere in your history, you had to make someone happy or deal
with someone’s bad behavior to stay safe. What does that mean? That means you threw out your boundaries. You read
other people and you worried if they were okay and not you. And you had to suck down how you really
felt, you know, and I can I can relate to this in my own life. Like I was just talking to my brother about this. Um
because of my mom’s addiction, I always had to kind of read her and see how she was feeling, right? And I could never call out her behavior
and say like, “Wow, this thing you did was horrible and it really hurt my feelings.” I just had to suck down my feelings and find another way to soo
myself. Absolutely. And I carried that into all of my relationships because I didn’t know how
to actually express what I felt. And I see this so much and particularly like, you know, with women who
have eating I I love to call it disordered eating. So that way we don’t feel as bad when we label it.
Yeah. Because anything that’s not eating to nourish and take care of myself, and that includes having chocolate here and
there, of course. I’m I’m a big fan of the 8020 rule. Um, and I weigh like I
weigh less now than I did when I was younger. For sure. When I was in all that trauma, I ate a lot more. You know,
I’m pretty tiny. I’m only like 53, so I definitely weighed about 20 plus pounds more. And I’ve never dieted. I’ve really
done the inner psychological work to change how I show up. Yeah. Because for me it was like like I said, it was
cookies, it was cake, it was candy. Like I was someone who always had that
to kind of escape to. That’s how I that’s how I dealt with my feelings. I didn’t have a mother who would actually
do anything for me. So I just love to kind of help people kind of tick these inner boxes of like, am I aware of my
own needs? Do I know how I feel? Am I concerned about everything everyone everything and everyone else because
that’s a sign that you’re abandoning yourself. Right. Right. And abandonment is so that
that is kind of the trigger. So in in a lot of people that I see and me too. So
I feel like if I’m in a relationship and I feel like somebody I’m trying to, you
know, meet my needs and trying to get them to to, you know, meet my needs. If they don’t, there’s this internal like
flip that sends, you know, sends the anxiety and and the, you know, that
thought process that workaholic kind of type A kind of run run away from or, you know, just trying to grasp around me
something that doesn’t feed that abandonment. It is it’s it’s deep. It’s really No, I love I love that you said that
because actually like that’s one of my my free books is um the seven psychological wounds
that create this disconnection from oursel. They erode our confidence. But that’s I think that’s one of the core
wounds that a lot of us like we have the abandonment wound, the guilt wound where we feel guilty if we ever ask for our
needs to be met, the betrayal wound, you know, all of the like kind of the not enough wound. We all have these in us and it’s like if we
can recognize how they show up but like that fear of abandonment is so deep because
we are hardwired to connect and we feel like we’re going to be left. I love to explain this to women particularly is
like we kind of feel silly that we get so anxious when we feel someone withdrawing or not giving us what we need or we
don’t know how to ask for it or we feel them pull away and we we cling more. You know, we kind of think like, oh, so
annoying. I can’t believe I do this. You know, we get frustrated with ourselves and I’ve been there, too. Um,
but historically, if we were kicked out of the tribe back in the day, we died. So,
our nervous systems are ancient. They still remember. That’s a survival mechanism.
Yeah. Exactly. So, it’s not that anything’s wrong with us. It’s just that our wiring
has to be retuned and retoled. It’s like faulty, you know,
it’s just ancient wiring that has gotten triggered to keep you safe and now it keeps you stuck in negative
dynamics. Absolutely. And I think we are hardwired for negativity anyway, aren’t we? I think some like 80% of our thoughts are
negative, but it’s based on, you know, we we don’t we don’t, you know, live being fanned and fed grapes, you know,
back in the back the day of cavemen or whatnot. You know, we weren’t hardwired for survival. We if we were surviving
that way, right? But no, we were chased by the bear. We were constantly on the hunt for food. We were, you know, it was
all survival. So, I think our brains are are are trained more in a negative
fashion, right? Yes. In neuroscience, they’ve proven this. Like, it’s actually called the negativity bias. So, we are hardwired to
look for what’s wrong and to solve problems to survive. Of course. And so, the body is completely designed
to survive. And I love to explain this too when it comes to like weight loss and health with women because it’s like if I if my body has to choose how to use
it make its hormones. I have the master hormone pregn. But if it has to choose between progesterone which is the
calming hormone or cortisol, it is always going to make me some cortisol because that’s what I need to survive.
Exactly. Yeah. So that just goes to show us like we are
biologically wired to survive. And so I think if some part of me got wired to think
that like someone leaving me, I won’t survive. Me not people pleasing, I won’t survive. Me setting boundaries, I won’t survive.
I won’t be safe. We’ll always prioritize that. And there’s nothing wrong with us. It’s just an outdated survival strategy
that we can absolutely rewire, right? And outdated is is well said
because if you live like I’m 56 years old, I’m still living this way. Like when are you going to get it? Right?
have a great survived a lot and everybody know who knows me well knows I I’ve turned things around. I’m in a
great marriage now and and things are wonderful around me, but my goodness, that ghost comes back to haunt. And it
comes back to haunt often. And so, you know, I I I know my I I have my own
support system around me and everything that I’m trying to to master, but there’s a lot of people who don’t have understanding and support around them to
be able to try to change this thinking. And it is about that. It is within you
to change that thinking. But if you don’t have if you aren’t taught those tools, you know, then how do you start?
Where do you begin? Well, luckily there’s so much information out there. Even start with
like listening to podcasts like this, starting to do that self inquiry. I would say 15 minutes of self-awareness
each day is better than, you know, can be as as effective as weekly therapy,
right? Because you’re just taking time to say like, how did I feel today? What was I avoiding? What triggered me? Because
your triggers are your teachers. Your triggers are showing you. They’re literally identifying your wounds. Well said.
If I got triggered, Yeah. If I get triggered, I can sit with that trigger and say,
“Gosh, what did you know, like my boyfriend said this, what did that make me feel? What do I believe about
myself?” Right? Oh, I believe like they’re going to leave or they don’t love me or I’m not good enough. Whatever it is, it’s like
just that core self honesty. And I know that’s scary. Um, there’s a work by there’s a book by Dr. Nicole La Pera
called How to Do the Work. I think she does a good job of explaining this like for, you know, buy a book for $10. And
so I love to start with the free things that we can do to start healing this. Yeah, absolutely. I always I jokingly call it the ABCs of
healing. I start with my awareness. In that awareness, I start to learn what I believe about life
and myself. And then I can be in that like the C’s, which is like the consciousness. and I
start cleaning house mentally, emotionally, physically. And that doesn’t mean I have to change
everything. People get really terrified of that. They think, “Oh gosh, if I really look at this, I’m going to have to break up with my husband or stop
talking to my parents or whatever.” But you you shifting a lot of times will naturally change that relationship with
them. I’ve seen that thousands of times. Yeah. Yeah. And don’t look at it as changing somebody else. Look at it as
changing you. and th and that those it’s like a ripple effect, you know, you drop a little a little uh uh drop in in a
puddle and you watch those ripples effect, right? And and and that that’s it. It does that with your children, you
know, with your family, with your spouses and and it does that ripple effect is is amazing. You just sit back
and be patient and watch that. And that’s hard to do. Be patient. Yeah. So self-awaren like Yeah. sitting with yourself, taking a walk, finishing
the stress cycle is huge. like a 15-minute walk. If you have a a fight with your partner or your boss says
something awful, get up, move your body, dance, like get your do your deep breaths into your belly. These are all
really simple things that will start grounding you in yourself so you can start giving yourself the own your own
nervous system safety. Like if you want to go eat a pan of brownies, count to 10, take four deep, you know,
box breaths and just be honest. Honest about, okay, I really want to do this. I’m just gonna
pause. There’s the power. All your power is in that pause. And then one of my favorite tools to teach my clients is
even though I’m gonna eat this entire pan of brownies, I deeply love and accept myself.
Wow. It’s hard to do. It is. But that and look and look in the mirror while
you do that. If you can. Yes. That’s really That’s next level
that that is a great way to start breaking that shame cycle right away. Right. Right. It’s like, okay, even though I’m gonna
eat this, even though I’m gonna do it, I’m still gonna do it. I’m I’m hellbent on it. That’s okay. I I still deeply love and accept. Or or
even if you can’t say, I can’t I love I love myself. You can say, I accept myself and what I’m doing right now and I know it’s just what I need and I can
always make a better choice tomorrow. It’s just saying something that stops us. And the even though is important
because that’s that’s a little psychological trick. Absolutely. It’s like a It’s a resistance factor,
like intentional self-sabotage. It’s it’s uh it definitely it can it can be okay for a moment, you know, but uh but
eventually you’ve got to I love what you said though, finish the stress cycle.
I think that’s a a little pathway there that uh that’s interesting. Explain
that. Yeah. So whenever we get triggered in any way and triggers look different for
everybody you know it can it can be a body sense it can be a mental sense like you can you know your partner can say something
and you can snap or be like how could you say that or think that you know triggers look different for all of us sometimes we suck it back and we just
feel it in our throat and our stomach like I can’t believe they said that or did that. Um, so when you have that
response, whenever you feel triggered or upset or off, your body has now been
kicked into fight or flight and you’ve got to do something physically to stop it. So that ancient
system like we talked about, if we were being chased by a bear, we would have run, we would have completed that stress cycle. We would have got away and our
body would have we did it. Yes. We don’t do that anymore. We don’t complete a stress cycle. We get
triggered by our boss or our partner, our child or whatever. And we sit with it and we hold it and it keeps going.
Our body doesn’t know to flip out of trigger, stress, fight or flight, and
into rest and digest. So, we stay in gas pedal on. And there’s
a woman out of I can’t remember if it’s Harvard, but Emily Nagowski, she’s done a lot of research on this
and she found that taking a quick walk, a 15 minutee walk with blood serum levels was one of the most effective
things to start reducing cortisol. Wow. And get us out of that state. And I always love to explain to people this.
Think about a time when you got into an argument or a tiff with someone and you
kind of shut down or you didn’t say the right thing or like you’re almost embarrassed by what you said or did. You’re like, “Oh my god, I just stood
there and I didn’t know what to say and I feel so stupid now.” Right? And then about 4 hours later, your mind comes up. You all of a sudden
it just starts to flow. You’re like, “Oh, I should have said this and I should have said that and blah blah blah.”
And that’s Yeah. And that’s because it took about four hours for your frontal loes to come back on. It took about four
hours for you to complete that stress cycle by just sitting in it. So if we do something physical, you know, if your
kids ticked you off this morning because they were being brats trying to get out of the house to get to school, turn on a
song, make everybody dance. Like get it out of the system. It will shift you faster than any thought process. I always say
if you’re stuck in your mind, drop into your body. Very good. Oh wow, that’s really good.
And also too, you mentioned box breathing, which I love and I tell people about all the time. I don’t know
that I’ve ever had anybody explain it though. And so would you would you run through that? Would you explain box
breathing because it’s it’s insanely helpful. Yeah. No. So I what we know about trauma
is that it actually lives in the body. Um trauma, stress, like we said like the
triggers all lives in the body and the only our breath is the easiest
thing. Our breath movement are the things that connect us to our nervous system. So, if I do a box breath, I’m
going to do like imagine just seeing a box in your mind. You’re going to do that inhale up for
four. You can hold it for four and then you’re actually going to exhale for eight.
Okay? So, and the reason why it’s the physiological sigh. It is when we exhale
longer than we’ve inhaled, our body gets the signal that we’re safe. Wow.
Sometimes you see this in little kids when they’re really upset and they’ve been crying and when they start coming down they start going
Yeah. Yeah. And you’ll actually see them like like you’ll hear the double sigh. You’ll hear the long release.
Yep. It’s natural in all of us. So we’re taking that mechanism and making it intentional.
Wow. We’re telling our body now, I’m going to inhale for four. I’m going to hold for four. I’m going to exhale for eight. So
you can keep think, you know, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. Sometimes people call it the box breath. I’ve called it the triangle
breath. It goes a million ways, but it’s the most it’s most commonly called the box breath. So, I love that. There’s
also um I’m a yoga teacher as well. There’s also something we call naughty shoddana, which is very calming to the
nervous system. And you can Google how to do that. It’s n a d i s h o n d a na.
But it’s ultimately alternate nostril breathing. So I take in a breath through
one nostril. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. What is it doing? It’s taking both sides of my
brain and it’s integrating them. Interesting.
And so that’s also very calming to the nervous system. If but box breath is the easiest. If you really get triggered
then go to the alter that’s another way to call it alternate nostril breathing. Okay. That is also very good for the nervous
system. It’s like taking each side of the energetic system. It’s, you know,
the lunar, the solar, the masculine, the feminine, all those things are kind of all intertwined into it. But it’s the
easiest self- energy work you can do. There’s also I love EFT tapping energy psychology. You can Google how to do
that for free. But that is like neuroscience and acupressure, how to baby. Y
it’s just teaching my nervous system to calm down in that triggered state. You
can even just tap the sides of your hands together like along the sides of the palms like even though I’m craving
this food really bad right now, I deeply and completely accept myself. We’re just looking for anything to give
you that pause and that a bit of calm to make a better choice. Absolutely. Absolutely. Which is great.
I think that the with many people will and I don’t know a
better way to say it just kind of poo poo the the tapping the you know yogas or or things like that but they don’t
realize that the neurological system is is changeable it is what we call
neuroplastic right so we’ve been told that once we are hardwired to something
that that is it is hardwired the neurological system once it dies it can’t be restored it can’t be changed
changed, but uh you know I can’t teach an old dog new tricks, you know, all those things uh come to mind. And it
actually is neuroplasticity is something that we can use to change
our behaviors. Not only our behaviors, but some of our uh actual um uh you know
physical uh changes that we want to make you know psychological, physical, you know, spiritual all of those things. We
can make the brain change and these are ways of contacting those things together. the neuro the you know
psychological the spiritual you know all that together is to get the brain so tapping and yoga I love yoga I love I
love meditation all those things that have been poo pooed for a very long time are are actually changing the the uh
neurological system and and making so we know first of all these have been around for
like 5,000 years absolutely they have anything that’s been around for 5,000
years yes and I love and believe me I was a young psychology student who didn’t believe in any of this stuff. But then I
took my first yoga class at like 21 and I floated out of there. I’d never actually felt calm before that class.
And so that’s what got me interested in it. And then later like the the number one doctor in the world on trauma is Dr.
Bessel Vandelk. And he he’s out of Harvard and he wrote a book on how to heal trauma
and he really talks about you can’t ever really truly heal the trauma but you heal the body. He has an entire chapter on yoga. So what’s beautiful is that
neuroscience is now proving that all of these tools change the
brain. How meditation changes the brain. We’ve got functional MRIs that show it. Breath work, sitting at the ocean,
taking a walk in nature. Like we can actually see the brain changes. And I think we we like to poo poo it because
it’s so simple. It it shouldn’t work. Thank you for using my term and making
it scientific today. like one of
one of my group one of my good friends is one of the foremost neuroscientists in the in the UK and the US Dr. Tara
Schwart is MIT trained MD PhD like you name it. Um she’s been on everyone from
Lewis House to J Shetty to like you name it, she’s on it. She’s But we talk about
this so much like really not much is hardwired. Yeah. Yeah. And the older that she’s
gotten, now she’s in her 50s, the more she’s actually getting into this stuff. And she’s like, as a doctor, like I did
put all these things to the wayside. And and I did not really think any of them would work.
You know, we’re trained that way as physicians. You know, we know we’re trained that way because I was there,
too. No. Absolutely. Wow. Well, I I want to uh have let people know where they
can find your information. We’re going to take a very very short break. Um, where can people find you your
information? You said you’ve got some publications. I love it. Let’s uh let’s let them know where they can find it. Yeah, the easiest way to find me is my
website, which is torijana.com. T o r i je.com.
And then, of course, you can connect with me on Instagram if you’re on there, LinkedIn, all those things. But tori.jana is on Instagram. And I love
people when they DM me and ask me questions. Totally good for that. That is great. You’re still in contact. I do the same contact form if you go to
drp betterlife.com my contact form is there I still answer all my own stuff it’s a lot of work and I love it because
we still we still have to reach out to we still have to be in contact with people so I appreciate that very much we
are going to take a very short break and be back on the other side and continue our thoughts here depression anxiety low energy weakness
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better life with Dr. Kingston. I have to thank Magna Webb. They are the Magna Pharmaceuticals, tiny little
pharmaceutical company, have been so sweet to me and I appreciate them very much and so and I appreciate you. Thank
you for being on today. We are talking about a lot of things, you know, trauma.
I I wanted to kind of go the direction with the relationship with food because I find so many people, you know, are are
overeating at the at the sake of their self-confidence and and um you know, we’re getting into a lot of metabolic
disorders and and uh you know, heart disease, dementia, and all these things just from this behavior and and this is
something we’ve got to face and stop. But it’s a deeper issue, you know, it’s it’s much much deeper. Um
you’ve mentioned a couple of fantastic things uh you know ways that uh that we
can you know things that we can read ways that we can approach this from home. Uh the two thoughts one is
therapy. I think therapy you can call it life coaching you can call it whatever you want to. I think the support is
mandatory. Um I you know find many people are very afraid of therapy and
very afraid of coaching and very afraid of sitting with another um another person who exposes their you know their
exposes their stuff. Um and so I want people to understand therapy though and
coaching and how it works and why it’s something not to be ashamed of and to
seek. For sure. Yeah. I always say like you know we want to be mentally and physically well
and we know that if we want to be physically well we have to go to the gym or we have to you know we have to exercise our bodies we have to move it
we have to do something daily the same if we want to be mentally well it’s it’s no different than if you
wanted to really get in great shape you would get a personal trainer and that will keep you accountable that will show you things that you don’t know
and it will make you show up and it’s the same thing with therapy or coaching and I get that it can be scary and I was
you know I was scar scared as well cuz like I said I was afraid to kind of open Pandora’s box. Yeah.
And it won’t be easy at times because you’re going to have to see things about yourself that maybe you don’t want to see initially, but that’s where all the
freedom comes in. Like I can’t imagine going through life now without that self-awareness. If I had
not done the therapy that I did, I and you know the selfwork that I did, the coaching like I’ve done so many healing
modalities. That’s what gave me the strength to get through. I lost my mom, my sister, my grandma, my dad, my best
friend, my 18-year marriage, all within like a couple years. Yeah.
And if I didn’t have those tools that I’d learned, I would have never got through that. And by the way, I did that without any alcohol, drugs, food
addiction, like I did that stone cold sober, you know? Amazing. So, I love to tell people like
if you want to be mentally well and healthy and resilient, which is what we all want to be, so that we can actually
feel happier and it’s not about being happy all the time. This is a big misconception. I love to tell people
like look your life, you know, if I hooked you up to a heart monitor, what’s it going to do? It’s going to go up and
down. That means you’re alive. If it flat lines, which is what we think we should be, you’re dead. And it’s the same thing mentally and
emotionally. Absolutely. Great analogy. So, we want to be able to handle the
lows and enjoy the highs of life and and allow
ourselves to let it in. Allow ourselves to enjoy. Give ourselves permission. And therapy should give you
self-awareness. Absolutely. Tools. Now, make sure it’s the right connection. Of course,
it’s okay to break up with your therapist. I would say if you’ve done 12 sessions with someone and you don’t feel
any better, they are not helping you. go to someone else. I literally with my clients when they’re new, I will say,
“Do sessions with me. If you do not see a difference, no harm, no foul.”
Right? It’s because I’m so confident that I’m always choosing the right relationship with people. But it’s like I want them
to know like you are going to feel better. You’re going to see yourself differently. You’re going to have some new tools or I’m not effective and you
should find someone else because I truly believe that. And a lot of people try to, you know, like you should not be in
therapy for 17 years. That is not helpful unless you feel like you are constantly growing. So I always want to
explain that to people too. It therapy can be a short-term thing to learn something, to get through something, or
it can be something like I’ve got clients who I’ve seen for 11 years, but they come to me like twice a year just
to check in or they’ve gone through something. So it can look any way you want it to look. Remember, you’re in
charge of your healing. But the biggest reason it’s so helpful is that we are harmed and traumatized in relationship
and we are healed in relationship. So having another human witness you reflect back to you hold you properly.
You should never feel judged. You should feel seen. You should feel heard. That is more healing than anything you could
possibly do. Well said. That is absolutely amazing. And I do I agree with you. I’m so glad
you said that. I tell my patients all the time about their physician if you’re not getting what you need from your
provider. You know, you you can fire that or you know, break up, however you want to see it, and move to somebody new
and get what you need. You are welcome to search for what you need. You know what you need. And I tell that all the
time about uh about, you know, therapy or or coaching or however you want to look at it. uh that yeah, if it’s like
having a a a boyfriend, if you’re you know, if the chemistry is not there, you know, your needs aren’t getting met, you
kind of have to break up with that one and and go date the next one, right? It’s like dating. So, definitely
something to to shop for. Yeah. It’s like give someone a chance and recog, you know, and that’s where a little bit of self-awareness comes in.
Like, are they telling me things that I really just don’t want to hear or is it just not helping? Because, you
know, I’ve had so many clients tell me that like seven sessions with me has been more effective than years of
therapy. And it’s because I can work differently. I am a coach. You know, I can ask different questions. I can go deeper faster.
Absolutely. Therapy. And I love to tell people the difference sometimes because it’s it’s different. So sometimes therapy is
something you need to get to functioning well. So if you’re really struggling with deep food addiction, you know, find someone who specializes in that,
right? Um therapy will get you to functioning well. Coaching will really help you get
to flourishing. It’s kind of your next level. People who work with me, I’ve typically done a little something before
they get to me because I’m going to go deep. I’m going to get to root cause. We’re going to do everything. Energy
work, you know, energy psychology. We’re going to we’re going to really work on rewiring things. So, you got to have
enough self-awareness to do the kind of work that I do, right? So, being honest with where you’re at in your journey. If you need a little bit
help, you know, gaining that self-awareness, connecting the dots, therapy is a great place to start. But
anyone that again like makes you feel seen, makes you feel heard. I really believe that everybody needs some form
of therapy or coaching because like I said, we we need that person who can be objective
but loving and reflect back to us not only our greatness but where we get in
our own way because we all know what we should do, right? But this is why New Year’s resolutions don’t work, etc. Like I know exactly
what I should do. Yeah. That doesn’t mean my psychology will let me do it. Yeah. People will say, you know, well,
I’ve got my friends. I’ve got my church. I’ve got, you know, my my spouse. And I’m like, you know, it’s different. They
don’t really understand tools and, you know, guiding you as to how to
f they’ll listen and they can be a great sounding board, but sometimes they can’t be very objective first
and next then they don’t understand the tools that you need to start to change and that needs to be pointed. It is
uncomfortable at times. It can be very difficult. You can walk out of a session and feel completely drained, but but you
know you’ve done some work then like a good workout, right? You go and you get a workout, oh my gosh, you kicked my
rear end and Yep. But you did some work. You’re building something. You’re changing your your body’s changing. So,
same thing with the mind. And it’s true with our friends and our partners. I love that you brought that up because I love to explain like the
role of our partner is to be loving, accepting, and always be on our side. And we don’t always need that to grow.
Right. The role of our friends is to support us, to tell us we’re right, to tell us that that boyfriend was awful, you know, all that
kind of for sure. Right. Right. Yeah. So, it’s like we want that in our friends and we all should have that friend who will and I definitely
have two of them like, you know, thank God that will call me out and say, “Okay, girl, like this is what’s on you.”
Exactly. But both of those friends for me are trained, right? So it’s like right
99% of what people say to you when they are your friends, your church members, your partner is about your relationship and about
their own stuff. And that’s what we call projection. And so I love I love to explain that to people because we can feel really bad after a
conversation with friends sometimes. And it’s not even our fault. It’s because that’s what they said is about them. And
there’s not really right or wrong globally. There’s right or wrong for you. And so a therapist will help or a
coach or someone who’s well trained will help you get that clarity within yourself. They’ll help you understand
who you truly are, what you need to do, and like you said, give give you the awareness, the
understanding, and the tools to actually move forward for once and to stop feeling, you know, I always say we go to
we typically do this when we’re sick and tired of being sick and tired. Yeah, absolutely. Why do you have to reach your absolute low to start, you
know, finally picking up and coming back up? And it seems to happen every time. And that’s okay. That’s okay. Don’t let
it powerful teacher and that’s that’s what it’s designed to do. You know, humans were we’re pretty pretty easily wired to
go away from pain and toward pleasure and that that gets us into a lot of trouble
come from and every addiction I can think of an example
the pain of staying the same has to outweigh the the momentary
pleasure that we get and that’s what we change. That’s so true and I think I even again I always relate things back
to my own experience but that’s there was a moment where I was so tired of being overweight and feeling so horrible
that it was just time and everybody has to reach that level on their own only you know when that time is but really
it’s that ultimate moment where you’re like okay enough is enough and u and when you reach that point just
look for these tools you know to help catch you as you’re falling don’t do it alone do it alone
really don’t. Especially when it comes to rock bottoms. And rock bottom, you know, I love the saying in addiction work where like the rock bottom looks different for
everyone. You know, we don’t have to go to the basement. Rock bottom might be floor four. We’re like, “Okay, I’m low
enough. I’m lucky you, right? Right. Lucky you if you didn’t go to the basement first, but
yeah, most of us have to go to the basement.” Absolutely. And I I mentioned that there were two things that I want to ask you
about because and one was that but the other is something like EMDR or I think
it’s art. There’s a lot of different therapies now that are very interesting and that functions on that
neuroplasticity that our neur our neurological physical neurological system physiological neurological system
can then also help to control just our emotional you know mental health as
well. Is that something that you support? I don’t know if you do or not, but is that something you advise in sport?
No, I think EMDR is great, particularly if EMDR is called eye movement rapid
desensitization. So, think of it as like if your brain has a very stressful file, like a big trauma. Let’s say you’re in a
car accident, there was a physical abuse of some sort, particularly if it’s like one or
if it’s a specific one you can remember, it is so effective because what the brain does is it has that’s what
flashbacks are. It’s like the brain bringing back a stressful thing and saying, “Hey, don’t forget about this. Don’t forget about this. We don’t know
what to do with this. It keep it’s really bothering us, so don’t forget about it.” And so it wants to be filed.
And so essentially, EMDR helps the brain file it properly. It it reduces the charge
because when we have a charged emotional connection to a memory, it keeps coming backward. And sometimes we’re aware of
that and sometimes we’re not. Depends on that. I do something called energy psychology, which is a little bit
different, but it’s an energy healing tool that’s approved by the APA. The difference between the two is that with
EMDR, you have to be able to tune into what happened. You might have to relive it. I have a very good friend who did a
lot of EMDR for um childhood sexual. Yeah, she had to go through a lot of it and it
helped her a ton. Some people get too retraumatized by doing that. Understood. So, if you have what I call
complex PTSD, which is what I have, I have so many. My entire childhood was
was a trauma. Like, I can’t even pick out all of them. Like, it took me 10 years of work to get through a lot of
it. So, sometimes I just had to focus on the feeling. Mhm. Just that feeling of disconnection or
unsafety or whatever it was. So, I like to kind of explain like where you are.
If you’ve got something really specific, look for someone who does EMDR because I find it’s very effective. Okay. If you’ve got some core memories like
childhood bullying, things your mom said to you, whatever it is, EMDR will help you. Like I said, it will file those files and make them
less come up for you less. Gotcha. If it’s just a constant feeling that you
have all the time, let’s do more nervous system work. Let’s get you feeling safe in your body. That can be yoga. That can
be coaching. That can be somatic work. That can be um dancing. like I want to just help you get into your body at
first. Wow, that is great. So, thank you for for delinating that because that it’s
not something I was aware of AMD. I was so focused like that, but it is I’ I’ve had people who, you know, had fear of
heights for some reason, you know, be able to get on an airplane after one or two treatments. It’s it’s so effective.
So, like I said, it can work for the other kinds. It depends on how good the practitioner is. Good. I get it. Yeah.
But I feel like it can work really fast. like you just described, if you’ve got something really good, like specific.
Yeah. Like you kind of know, like it doesn’t have to be exact, but you kind of know like, gosh, I was bullied a lot as a kid and that that comes up for me a
lot and I see how like maybe I don’t speak up because of it or you know, whatever. Like you just kind of know what it is, then they can
dive right into that with you and you get results really fast. Interesting. Wow, that is amazing. You
know what? We could go for hours. This is amazing. Thank you. Really, really enlightening
and and I think extremely effective. Ed and unfortunately we are running out of time but I do want people to know where
they can find you your information and and some of these tools and I’m going to have this on my website too but please
let us know where we can find you. Yeah, connect with me at toyjana.com my website which will be in the show notes
and then also just on Instagram. Those are the two easiest. I’m found on lots of other places but I always find it’s
easier to just remember to o r.j J ne on
Instagram and same name for you know to Tori jana1word.com.
You can connect with me there. You can apply to talk to do a introductory session. I only work with people that I
truly know I can help or I’ll just tell you what might help you more effectively. Beautiful. Beautiful. Perfect way to be.
So I love it. And again she’s right. You can find all this in the show notes and on the website drpetlife.com
and as well as all my other shows. Been doing this a couple years and I love it. And I but this is this is going to be
one of the top ones. Thank you. This is fantastic information and very helpful.
And again, we we try to get on the course of, you know, eating, but I think trauma occurs in so many different
areas. I mean, it’s, you know, it shows up in uh so many different areas of your life. And so, if anybody’s struggling,
please reach out. And what I love about that is that like eating is the symptom of something deeper.
Absolutely. And so, we went to we went to root cause. Like, yeah, eating is what’s showing up, but that’s not really what’s
wrong with you, love. Absolutely. You’re so correct. Thank you. I absolutely love it. Everybody, I
hope you have any last thoughts. I I usually give you a last thought moment if there’s anything we missed or a last
thought. Yeah, I guess last thought is just to know that that you you can overcome
anything truly. I think my life is a living testament to that. You can heal anything. So, just remember
you are not broken. There is nothing wrong with you. And you can you just have to unlearn some old behaviors.
Absolutely. It is as simple as that. A lot of work to do it, but it is as simple as that. Thank you so much for
the inspiration and and the honor of joining us today. I hope everybody has a fantastic week and have enjoyed this.
Take care of each other, please, and we’ll see you next time. [Music]
