Habits & Health episode 31 with Tricia Nelson an internationally acclaimed author, transformational speaker and emotional eating expert. She has been featured on FOX, NBC, CBS, to name a few.
Tricia has successfully helped hundreds of people overcome a variety of eating disorders and addictions and we discuss that in this episode.
Tricia’s struggles began in early childhood, where she attempted to cope with life’s stresses and emotional pain by overeating and other destructive behaviours. Continuing into adolescence, she began binge drinking, and eventually gained more than 50 pounds. After years of experimentation with 12-step programs, therapy and self-help books, Tricia finally hit a spiritual and emotional bottom.
She began working with a spiritual healer, who helped her recognise and heal the root causes of her addictions. By creating a lifestyle steeped in positive self-care, self-love and improved self-esteem, Tricia was able to stop drinking and overeating. She has maintained a fifty-pound weight loss for close to 30 years now.
Tricia has spent the past three decades studying the addictive personality, and shares her findings in workshops and retreats both in person and online. Many doctors, psychologists and other health practitioners benefit from her insight about what drives people to overeat and how to stop.
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This video is related to an episode featuring Jonathan McLernon
Tony Winyard 0:00
Habits and health Episode 31.
Jingle 0:03
Welcome to the habits and health Podcast, where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. Brought to you by an educator and coach for anyone who wants to create a healthier life. here's your host, Tony Winyard.
Tony Winyard 0:20
Welcome to another edition of health and habits or habits and health even. Today's guest is Tricia Nelson. She's an internationally acclaimed author, a transformational speaker and emotional eating expert and has been on many radio and television networks including Fox, NBC, CBS, and many others. So today we get into talking about body image and emotional eating and many areas around those areas. So that's coming up with Tricia Nelson. If you do enjoy this episode, if you know anyone who you think would get some value from some of the information that Trisha shares, please do share the episode with them. Hope you enjoy this week's show. Alright, so now, my guest today, Trisha Nelson. How are you Trisha?
Tricia Nelson 1:09
I'm great. Thanks for having me.
Tony Winyard 1:12
It's good to see you here and you're in United States. I'm presuming?
Tricia Nelson 1:18
Yes, I'm in Los Angeles.
Tony Winyard 1:20
Oh, is that where you're from?
Tricia Nelson 1:22
I am originally from Boston area actually.
Tony Winyard 1:26
So how long have you been in LA?
Tricia Nelson 1:28
I've been in LA I'd say about 17 years.
Tony Winyard 1:33
So you
Tricia Nelson 1:35
Yeah, I am I'm a I'm a California girl at heart You know I grew up in Boston but you know it was it rained and snowed and I thought this is not me. I need warm I need freedom to be outside so it's it's it's it's ideal weather in LA
Tony Winyard 1:52
and what is it you do in LA?
Tricia Nelson 1:55
So I'm the founder of heal your hunger heal your hunger calm and my business is totally online. And what I do is I help people who struggle with food and weight who chronically struggle with food and weight to basically make peace with their food and their weight and really to lose weight without diet crazy diets or impossible exercise programmes so it's a process of addressing and healing emotional eating.
Tony Winyard 2:29
And how did this all come about?
Tricia Nelson 2:31
Well totally from personal experience as many of our of us entrepreneurs you know happen upon what we do so I was an emotional eater completely completely obsessed with food and I you know, spend my every waking hour thinking about food and what I was going to eat and I love to eat I love to cook I love to serve food other people I love to go out to dinner. So you know is totally just really into food which would not have been a problem had I not gained weight so easily so you know this obsession with food turns pretty ugly when I would become when I became a binge eater so I would eat massive quantities of food in front of the television you know I lose control basically. So I'd be eating ice cream and brownies and then all of a sudden you know I'm eating more and more finishing off the package and then having chips with it you know because you have to salty with your sweet and so I was you know I'd go overboard and then I would feel completely sick and so mad at myself and so ashamed that I would lose that I lost control. And I would do this pretty much in secret people didn't know how much I ate and you know my body you know betrayed betrayed me because I put on so much weight and it was very obvious that clearly I was not I wasn't sticking to my my healthy plan. So that was it. I was an emotional eater and it wasn't until I came to know you know I tried so many diets to control my weight. You know diets and exercise programmes and pills and potions and lotions and you know all these different things and 12 step programmes and therapy I went to an eating disorders therapist twice a week for a year. But nothing really changed with my eating you know, I mean I would hit a good for a while but then I always break out and binge and I had like five different sizes of pants in my closet because I never knew what size I was going to be. And I rarely hit the low sizes. You know, so it was like up 30 down 20 pounds up 10 pounds down 20 up 40 you know I was all over the map. So that's how it went for me with for a long time and it wasn't until I finally was able to dress and heal my emotional eating and the under causes that I really, you know, my way evened out. And, you know, thankfully for several decades, I've been in the thin body. And I'm super, super grateful for that because it was really helpful for me. But based on what I did to heal, I created a system, you know, very, very simple, simple system for overcoming emotional eating. And that's what I do with heal your hunger as I teach no women across the globe, how to overcome their their eating struggles, not by dieting, but really going deeper and dealing with the underlying causes.
Tony Winyard 5:36
And, well, I mean, there's a few things that we could talk without, I'm wondering, when you were having those issues, were the health issues as well as the emotional issues,
Tricia Nelson 5:46
you know, I, this, I'm very blessed in that I, these struggles that I had, were in my late teens and early, you know, early in my 20s. And then I found I somehow, really, by the grace of God, I had a revelation at a very young age that this whole yo yo thing and diet thing. And, you know, this was not a way of life, you know, that this was insanity. And if I didn't do something totally, you know, off off the reservation, I was gonna do repeat this pattern, because I've already done it. So many times, I was gonna repeat this pattern for the next 80 years of my life. And that I couldn't possibly do that. And so that turning point for me was so valuable, it just came at such a young age that I hadn't really, you know, racked up a whole bunch of physical ailments because my body was young, you know, so, whereas my clients now are in their 50s, and 60s, and they have joint pain, and, you know, diabetes and heart conditions, and all these kinds of things. I was spared that, because I just had this aha moment. So Young, in my life, I've spent the rest of my life helping others, you know, heal. So I was very blessed not to have a whole lot of I mean, depression, sure, you know, depression, self hatred, you know, not wanting to have sex, because I thought my body was gross, you know, just completely isolating at times when I was in binge mode. I mean, those kinds of symptoms, for sure. But in terms of the physical toll, it was really obesity was I mean, which is bad enough, but it was obesity without all the other, you know, symptoms that so many my clients experience,
Tony Winyard 7:38
which, you know, I don't know if you if there are actual statistics, so if you could hazard a guess. But how many people do Would you say that, who's who are obese maybe, is because of emotional eating or, or along those lines?
Tricia Nelson 7:56
Well, of course, I'm biassed, because this is my jam. This is what I do. But I The reason why I do what I do is because I think it is so it is such a gap in the weight loss conversation. And I absolutely think pretty much you know, apart from a medication somebody has to take, that gives them the side effect of gaining weight, apart from a physical ailment that has weight gain as a side effect, or just makes it hard for somebody to get out and exercise apart from that. And my feeling is anybody who struggles chronically with food and weight is probably any emotional either. Even if they have hormone, you know, a lot of times there's hormone, again, some physical things, hormonal, you know, dysregulation and that kind of thing. But I've talked to so many women who even if they have hormonal issues, you know, that has weight gain as a side effect. If we dig a little and there's, you know, a little bit more self revelation, it's there still emotional eaters, you know, it's, and it's to nobody's fault. You know, that's the thing is people have so much shame around it. And it's like, I think, I mean, honestly, I think we're all hardwired to have some kind of an emotional connection with food, otherwise, we wouldn't, you know, subsist as a species. So there's got to be some kind of like, feeling when you taste something yummy. But in terms of people who use food for reasons beyond nutritional need, I think that's a whole lot of people
Tony Winyard 9:23
would in any order sort of people that you come across that you've been working with, since you've been doing this? Well, the most frequent underlying causes of the emotional need to manifest
Tricia Nelson 9:37
there's a lot and and my experience is a lot of, you know, people who have the problem. They always want to look for one thing like, What's that one? Like? What's the one trauma you know, if they're digging around looking for it? They want to find that one thing and it's my experience, it's impossible to find one thing. Why? Because that one thing that happened is A kid and trust me, it usually has happened. You know, we've all you know experienced something, but emotional eaters especially have trauma have abuse of some kind you know, not everybody some people had idyllic childhoods but but most people have alcoholism, mental illness, you know, abandonment, some kind of drug, drug addiction, alcohol, addiction, all different kinds of sexual abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, there's something there was with me, I had sexual abuse, there's something that causes them to turn to food, but it's not just it's not that simple. Not that that's even simple. But what happens is, as kids is that, you know, yes, food is like the most handy inaccessible painkiller, you know, way to cope. But we experience other ways of coping through that kind of experience that, that then turns into a way of being in our adult life. So, so my point is, you have that one thing, but it spawns other other coping skills that work as a kid, but turn into dysfunctional ways of being as an adult. So and it's a web of thing, because the longer you have this dysfunctional way of coping, and it's not just with food, you know, the more that the Messier it gets, in the the bigger web we weave of, of ways that just need to be taken, you know, we have to take a look at and the problem with the weight loss industry is it's all about the symptom of food and weight, you know, how, you know, calories and diets, and, you know, all these different things that are based on the physical. And there's, that's just to surface, you know, like, we have to look at that web of ways that we've developed for coping, that don't work for us anymore. Especially because they, they, they cause a lot of the stress that we stress eat over. And so, you know, in my experience in my work, we have to dig into, you know, ways of lessening stress and ways of showing up in the world in a different, you know, in a different way that is, you know, creating a much more peaceful existence, so that we're not constantly needing food to anaesthetise. So. So that was kind of a long answer. But, but basically, it's it's never one thing. So so let me I will more directly answer your question. After saying all that, my experience is, there's three primary emotions that I've observed in my research that drive emotional eating, and, and they're sort of, they're sort of umbrella emotions, because there's a whole lot of other emotions around them, are below them. But there are three primary ones can be summed up in something I call the pep test, and pep p Ep is an acronym, which, which helps just sort of understand helps people understand why we turn to food, and really, honestly, it works for all addict. I mean, it's a great way to explain all addictions, but for me, it was true for food. And it's a way of seeing what food does for us. So instead of seeing what it does to us, which are pretty clear on what overeating does to us, but what I get my clients to see is what it's doing for them. So the first P stands for painkiller. So we use food as a form of painkiller, because we don't like to feel uncomfortable feelings. And a lot of the reason why we get into the fixed we're in is because we've tried to avoid anything uncomfortable at all costs, and especially things that just aren't pleasant. So, you know, we've, we have a job, that we're no longer a fit for you or we're in it if we're really an entrepreneur, but we're still stuck at intergeo B, you know, there's a disconnect there and it's in, we're suffering from that we may eat to kill that, you know, that the pain of being somewhere we don't want to be if we're in a relationship, you know, that's, that should have ended five years ago, we may be eating to kill the pain of being there, when we don't want to be there or of abuse that's happening or just loneliness when, you know, we're like ships in a night, you know, passing in a night. So
it goes on and on, you know, a parent who's sick or responsible for taking care of financial burdens, you know, a massive tax bill that we didn't plan on. So these are all painful emotions and the food numbs that pain. So it's a that's to me the number one reason why we overeat. The second letter E and pep stands for escape. So we use food just to get the hell out of our heads. Yeah and overeaters are often over feelers. So we feel a lot. And we also overthink. And we think a lot, we have racing minds. And so eating just kind of, you know, getting our goodies sitting in front of our favourite TV show, it just sort of takes us to a faraway place. And so, you know, that's one of the reasons why food helps us in. And certainly there's no other time in history, I think we're, this is true than in a pandemic, you know, all of a sudden, our entire lives are offended, we had to be at home, we had to, you know, have stockpiled food in our house, we'd be with our families, 24, seven, you know, where we hadn't been before, we had relief before. So, so everybody was turned into food. I mean, it was so hard not to, we were afraid we're stressed out anxious, we could walk out our doors and die. I mean, it was a terrible reality all of a sudden, and of course, we want to escape that reality. So that's another way that foods certainly serves us. Excess eating serves us. And then the third letter and pep is P. and P stands for the second P stands for punishment. And so we use food as a form of beating ourselves up and and that it's weird to say punishment, because it seems like food is a reward. Like, we're like, why I'm not punishing myself, I, you know, I'm, this is my reward. I wait all week for this chocolate, you know, candy bar, or, or whatever? And how am I punishing myself, but if somebody like me, and they eat more than they plan on eating, and then they feel yucky, and then they're bloated, you know, and then they have a cascade of health issues, gut issues, you know, whatever, in response to what they ate? It's like, why would you do that? You know, why would somebody eat excessively when they know it's going to have these physical, mental emotional consequences? Like, why would you do that when you end up hating yourself? Why would you know, a rational person would say, That's insane, you know, and so it's like, why would I do that? So it begs the question, you know, and the answer is, well, I there's on a subconscious level I am, I'm doing this I'm beating myself up. And it's because we have a lot of guilt, you know, over eaters or over feelers as I said, and we feel guilty about everything, we're so sensitive, you know, so it's hard when things don't roll off our backs like they do for other people. We're like constantly thinking, what did you know? Why did I say that? Why did I do that I should have done this. You know, it's relentless. And it's, it's a subconscious desire, I believe, you know, an account of guilt, to just beat the crap out of ourselves by our eating or eating things that we know are going to cause us pain. So to recap, P P stands for painkiller escape and punishment, you know, because we want to, you know, kill the pain that we're feeling emotionally. We want to escape our reality when it's tough. And we want to just sort of beat ourselves up, you know, when we're down on ourselves, and food does all these things, you know, and it's all in one mole in one package, one all in one package of cookies, you can accomplish these things. So that's really just a way of sort of helping people see, you know, first somebody might hear emotional eating and think this is exactly what I thought when I heard about emotional eating. Like, that's really stupid. Like, I that's not me, I just like food. I like food. But if somebody digs in a little bit, then and after hearing this, I think it's hard to not know this right or not, you know, and I appreciate you having me on because anytime I get to say this stuff, I think it changes somebody's consciousness about their relationship with food, hopefully, you know, where somebody is looking at it and thinking, you know what, there's something more to it than I just like food, you know, the fact that I go to the refrigerator five times of an evening, like looking to see if there's anything else that appeared there, you know, the satisfy me? It's not, you know, it's it. I'm hungry for something deeper than food.
Jingle 19:27
We hope you enjoy this episode of the habits and health podcast where we believe creating healthy habits should be easy. If you are looking for deep support to create the health and life you want, we invite you to consider one on one coaching sessions with Tony. coaching sessions give you personalised guidance to fit your unique goals and life situation. Only a limited number of spots are available, but you can easily get started by booking a free introductory call at Tonywinyard.com. Now back to the show.
Tony Winyard 19:54
I mean, one of the things I was thinking of as you were saying that is that I guess the issue is compounded by You mentioned in your own issue that you tried numerous different diets and the food industry or the diet industry. There's so much misinformation and people naturally are just going to get despondent after trying so many different things. So then added to the whole thing, and it becomes a sense of hopelessness as well. I imagined, we have a lot of people who become,
Tricia Nelson 20:22
oh, my God, of course, it's, and that was me, you know, I just, I got there sooner. But you know, when you try so many diets, and they don't work, you know, when you're when everybody's like, raving about intermittent fasting, and you try it, and you just binge your brains out, the minute your window opens up to eat, you know, you're like, I am such a loser. Like, that's what I saw it. I'm like, I am so hopeless, and everybody gets it. You know, it's working for everybody, but me. And that's so not true. You know, but that's the story we tell ourselves. And that's why all my programmes are done as a group, because there's so much healing benefit of hearing from other people and realising we're not the only ones who can't follow the diet. It's so powerful. And so. But yes, the shame and the self flagellation, that comes with failing at diet after diet, you know, and having a doctor or a health coach, say, Oh, do this, eat this? And we're like, Okay, then we go eat something else that we shouldn't. It's like, so humiliating. So there's a lot, there's a lot of that going on.
Tony Winyard 21:37
So what steps did you take to, you know, to solve your issues.
Tricia Nelson 21:42
So I, I was so blessed to find somebody who told me my problem was not food, it was much deeper than that. And I that's I went deeper. But it's, it's a combination of things. It's not just, you know, and people say, Oh, go deeper, I should go to therapy, you know, my experiences, I therapy didn't heal my eating issue, my disordered eating, because I was in my head too much, you know, and so I had to get down into my heart. And my experiences that happened once I was in the company of other emotional eaters. So like, my mentor had been obese, you know, and was showing me how to heal and that connection was so much more powerful than a therapist, not to not therapy, but I needed to, I needed somebody who got me who got who knew what it was like to be powerless over a cookie, you know, and so that is that, to me is a component, that's one of the, you know, requirements in my experience of healing is that you are, you know, it's kind of like Alcoholics Anonymous, one alcoholic, you know, sharing with another like nobody else can. So. So that's super important to be in community with other emotional eaters, for sure. That helps me tremendously, because I've done so many weird things with food, I mean, I'd thrown binge foods out and then gone out gone, and, you know, dug through the trash to get those those last cookies, you know, left, I mean, how, who else is gonna get that? It's really gross, but I did it. So there's a lot of shame and humiliation in any addiction, frankly, but with food for sure. So that's an important component. For me, also, I learned how to bring down my stress and to really manage my stress in a healthier way. So I mean, I used foods so many times to modulate my stress, and I think a lot of entrepreneurs do this, you know, is that, you know, having a business is stressful. And I know, from personal experience, so there's a lot of pressure on you, there's a lot, you know, there's just there's pressure, and there's stress. And so and especially if it's an online business, and we're online, at you know, all the time near the kitchen, so, so it's easy to stress eat, so I had to do something to manage my stress in a healthier way, then then using food. So I developed a meditation practice, you know, with the emphasis on practice, I'm still not good at it. I've been doing it for 30 years, but I'm still practising it. That's so you know, it's a daily thing, though, daily habit, that is, like, non negotiable for me. So I do that as a non negotiable. And I teach that to my clients. And so, meditation is so powerful in so many levels, you know, and it also helps me get connected with myself. So, you know, I can't, I can't, it's not about food. It's not about diet, what it's about, it's about going deeper. How do I do that? Well, you got to get you got to wake up, you got to wake up to yourself. And meditation is a good way to do that writing is a good way to do that journaling, you know, certainly, you know, going through your day what what things bothered me what things you know, pissed me off, like, like, what's heavy on my heart, like, I got to get that out. You know, if I don't get it out of me, I'm gonna stuff it down. Another thing is communication. You know, emotional eaters, tend to stuff what they want to say, you know, and that's because they tend to be like big people pleasers. And so like, We want everybody to like us, we're not gonna be honest. Well, that has a high consequence and the consequences I stuff what I really should have said instead, and not that I'm to go around being mean to people, you know, say what you mean mean what you say, but don't say it mean
super important because I want to guilt from being a bitch. So, so but but learning how to communicate my feelings in a responsible way, learning how to be honest, you know, and not feel bad if I have conflict, or if I have feelings that aren't so, you know, aren't the Happy, Happy high notes, you know, I have to be real about life is not all happy, happy, high knows life. You know, there's there's different there's highs and lows, and there's great feelings, and there's not so great feelings, and I have to embrace all of it. So, so much of the time I used food to stay up, you know, to stay happy, because I thought it wasn't, if that was like not okay, if I was down or bummed out, you know, so it's just so much of it's about really embracing myself, you know, works on all emotions and all and really learning how to address those emotions. So those are just a field in the meditation, the writing, spiritual reading, is really important to fill my mind with positive thoughts. So that I can, you know, get off the negative track the negative, I suck track, you know, so a lot of these things is just feeding myself nourishing my soul. Like, it's really important that you know, we're not hungry for food, we're hungry for nourishment at a deeper level, spiritual nourishment connection with other people. So I have to, again, find replacements for the food. That's why diets are silly, because you just take you take your number one coping tool away and expect to be happy, not going to happen, you know, you're going to be barren, and without coping, you know, mechanisms, and you're going to go back to the food. That's what we do. We're like, Whoa, life is hard, we're gonna go back to food. So in order for life to not be hard, we had to find new and healthier coping tools.
Tony Winyard 27:13
So your clients that you're helping, um, that so once they've actually lost weight, and they're now they're far more happy with what their waste is. But then I imagine there's, there's gonna be a confidence issue as well, because I think and I will now, if I stopped working with Tricia, am I going to go back to the ways I had before? How do how would you say you help them give, give them that confidence that they feel I can stay this way for the rest of my life? I'm okay.
Tricia Nelson 27:42
Well, my experience is there's no cure. And so it's, it's really important to stay in connection with other emotional eaters. So that's, I mean, I have community where people can actually at a very, very, you know, nominal fee, they can stay on and get continual support. But you know, 12, step programmes are free. So, so my experience is you don't walk away. You, you have to do certain things on a daily basis, in order to remain free as I do, like I do what I teach, I have to do what I teach, so I can remain free. So in terms of confidence, I'm always going to tell people that they need support from somewhere somehow, to continue, you know, as other people are on this personal development path, because food is food just got my attention, but I needed to change my life. Like I had a living problem, not just an eating problem. And so it's really important for people to know that if you just, you know, there's you have to continue these habits, you know, for sure, I know you're a habits person, so you have to continue it. And so, you know, my experience is easier to do when you have support for getting support from from the right people who understand what you're trying to accomplish, and can encourage you and people who are doing similar things is really important, like on your own, with any addictive habit, you're not going to do it on your own. You know, so I just think it's really important that people realise that the food is what gets our attention, but it's really about our personal development. You know, so if you stay on that, you stay with, you know, beginner's mind of wanting to learn and develop personally develop and become the best version of yourself if you keep that attitude, and always trying to improve yourself. You know, not that you're like, you know, exhausting yourself with with the idea of personal development, but just always remember that that's, that's why we're here like, that's why we're here and food is foods what, you know, got us on that path. I'm very grateful I was an emotional eater so that I could start meditating, you know, I could start doing things that were going to benefit me regardless of whether I was emotional eater or not. But getting support to continue These habits i think is vital.
Tony Winyard 30:03
So if someone may be listening to this now, and they're not happy with their way, they're maybe not happy with their with their body image, whatever the case may be. And they feel they've tried everything. So would Well, I guess it's just a case of what taking a look at your website, see what you offer? And I mean, do you do like a sort of exploratory call or anything along those lines?
Tricia Nelson 30:28
Yeah, we do. On my website, actually, there's an opportunity to sign up for a breakthrough session, emotional eating breakthrough session, for sure. There's also a quiz where people can find out where they are on the emotional eating spectrum, because as I said, I think we all have the tendency, it's just a matter of how like what kind of control you have, and what kind of consequences you're starting to, you know, build up. And so somebody takes that free quiz, they're going to learn where they are on that spectrum. And that's often I say, that's the best, you know, first step, but they can also book a session as well.
Tony Winyard 31:02
So where do your, your clients mostly in the state? So is it quite so geographic geographically spread?
Tricia Nelson 31:09
Primarily the states, but probably like your listeners, UK, Australia, some South Africa, New Zealand, you know, other English speaking countries?
Tony Winyard 31:22
And work so people do want to find out more about the programme, where would they go?
Tricia Nelson 31:27
Well, I have a podcast. So it's called the heal your hunger Show. I'm on Instagram, @TrishaNelson_ And then my website for sure is probably the most direct which is www.healyourhunger.com/
Tony Winyard 31:44
Okay, and they can find out more there. And if you have you considered writing a book or anything along those lines,
Tricia Nelson 31:50
well, thanks for asking. I do have a book. I should have mentioned it. Nice, nice job. It's called heal your hunger seven simple steps to end emotional eating now. It's on Amazon. It's also on my website, there's a link to it from my website. So heal your hunger seven simple steps to end emotional eating. Now it's a great place to start as well.
Tony Winyard 32:11
And as we're talking about books, is there is there a book that is really moved through torture,
Tricia Nelson 32:17
um, I have a book that is what is like daily spiritual reader, like I mentioned spiritual reading. And the book that has changed my life the most, I'd say is this book by, by a sort of a theologian, philosopher from early 20th century and his name is Emmett Fox, Emma is E M, M, et, and that fox fo x, and he has a book called around the year with him at Fox and there's daily, you know, I'm kind of daily messages I'm kind of a DD so I, you know, reading long things at a time is not my jam. So I need quick and easy messages. So this is like a daily reading from his different sermons and lectures. And it's what it did for me. I mean, he was a Christian theologian, Minister, but kind of more around the philosophy of metaphysics, not so much a religion. And so I that reading this, I've read it for 20 years, probably Dale, you know, the daily reader and I just keep going around, you know, to start the book, it helps me really get a sense of God not being a bearded man in the sky, white bearded man in the sky, you know, it helped me realise that God and the Spirit of God is in my heart, you know, and inside of me, and that has been so powerful for me over the years to get that transition, because I grew up religious, I had, you know, we went to church every day. I mean, every Sunday and that kind of thing. And I didn't resonate with it, it just it didn't appreciate it. I loved the hymns. You know, I loved some of the rituals, but in terms of feeling personally connected with a higher power with a god, I didn't feel it. Much, I guess I should say, I probably did a little bit but, but this, this book just helps me realise that wow, God's everywhere God is love. And God's right here in my heart. And that just helped me so much.
Tony Winyard 34:24
When I believe you have an affirmation that you quite like,
Tricia Nelson 34:28
yeah. And it's kind of connected to that. So somebody told me my mentor told me many years ago that I'm God's favourite baby daughter. And so even though God isn't really a literal Father, you know, but the idea of that was so sweet. That I, I'm like, Okay, and so I it became my affirmation. I am God's favourite baby daughter. And I say that all the time. And it's just again, it's helped me believe it. It's helped me believe it and I just, I live in the world with this Have entitlements like on God's favourite baby daughter, like, of course good things will work out for me like, of course, of course my life is awesome. Like Of course, like even though I'm afraid it's all gonna work out. It's all in divine order. So just affirming that I'm God's favourite baby daughter, and anybody can say it, of course, and any man can say it about being God's bear, baby son, you know, it's just, it's just helps me realise how loved I am and how protected I am. And that's, that's lesson to my fear, because so much of my eating came from fear, you know, just feeling a sense of uneasiness, and like, everything wasn't going to work out. And so I you know, so many people have eating disorders that eat out of anxiety. So the more I know that, you know, I'm totally you know, whatever this God is, and I don't claim to understand it, but I know it's, I know, I am protected and loved and it's and it's with me everywhere I go, because it's right inside of me. So that's helped me tremendously.
Tony Winyard 36:02
Patricia, thank you very much for the last half hour or so. And yeah, thank you for sharing your your journey and all that you've done. And yeah, hopefully you can help some of the listeners to this show as well.
Tricia Nelson 36:13
I would love that. Thank you, everybody, for listening. And thank you so much for having me on your show.
Tony Winyard 36:19
Thank you. Next week, Episode 32 is with Dr. Renee Wellenstein. She is a functional medicine practitioner, and went through quite a few changes in her life, she had quite a bad accident in 2012. And she fell off a horse and had numerous injuries and she ended up with a broken back and broken spirit. And it was when she was laying in a hospital bed that she didn't realise she needed to make some changes. And we're going to go through some of the things that happened in her life and how she got into functional medicine and and how it is that she operates now, and how she helps people, so that's next week, Episode 32 with Dr. Renee Wellenstein. If you know anyone who would enjoy this week's episode with Tricia Nelson, please do share the episode with them. And hope you have a great week. See you next week.
Jingle 37:17
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