When Doing More Never Feels Like Enough | Sherry Shaban | The Journey: Awakening

What happens when doing more never quite feels like enough?

More achievement. More discipline. More control. More rules.

In this episode of Delay the Binge™, Pam Dwyer sits down with Sherry Shaban, osteopath, health and life coach, and founder of Make Peace with Food, for a conversation that begins with food, but quickly becomes about something much bigger.

Sherry explores the connection between overeating, overachieving, people pleasing, perfectionism and control, and why some of the behaviors we call self-sabotage may have originally developed as ways of protecting us.

Instead of asking “What's wrong with me?”, what happens when we begin asking:

“What is this behavior trying to protect?”

Pam and Sherry talk about awareness, delayed reward, restriction, emotional eating, identity, childhood patterns, responsibility without blame, and learning to honor the version of ourselves that once needed an old coping strategy.

This isn't a conversation about giving up ambition, discipline or growth.

It's about becoming curious enough to understand what's underneath the behavior before trying to change it.

In this conversation:

• Why doing more can still leave us feeling like we're not enough
 • Overeating, overachieving, people pleasing and perfectionism
 • Why awareness comes before lasting behavior change
 • Behavior versus identity
 • Restriction, scarcity and unwanted patterns
 • Delayed reward and interrupting automatic behavior
 • Curiosity instead of shame
 • Moving with respect instead of revenge
 • Responsibility without blame
 • Honoring the person you had to become to get here
 • Creating the pause that allows another choice

Connect with Sherry

SherryShaban.com
Make Peace with Food
Instagram — @makepeacewithfoodofficial
LinkedIn — Sherry Shaban
YouTube — Make Peace with Food
TikTok — @sherryshaban
Facebook — Make Peace with Food

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Transcript

The Pause Before Reaction

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Delay the Bench Podcast, where we explore what happens in the moment before the reaction. Because whether it's food, work, perfectionism, people pleasing, or just shutting down, the behavior is rarely the beginning of the story. That's the pause we're here to explore. I'm your host, Pam Dwyer, and I am so glad you're here with us. My guest today is Sherry Chabon. Sherry is an osteopath, anti-diet health, and life coach, founder of Make Peace with Food, and creator of the Hit Dex app, and someone who has spent more than 25 years helping people understand why lasting transformation begins long before behavior itself. Just days before her 17th birthday, Sherry was hit by a car and suffered a devastating spinal injury. Doctors told her she would never play sports again. A life-changing moment that eventually led her on an unexpected journey of healing, resilience, and discovering that true transformation doesn't begin with more willpower. It begins by understanding what's happening beneath the surface. Today she's helping thousands of people break free from self-sabotaging patterns by creating peace with food, movement, and ultimately themselves. Sherry, welcome to Delay the Binge. I am so excited you're here.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

Thank you so much, Pam. I'm so excited to be here too. I think we're having a great, great conversation today.

unknown 1:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Yes, I do too. But before we we

Proving Yourself And Finding Stillness

SPEAKER_00 1:40

get into the deep of all of it, let's talk about your work. I'd love to know you. Who is Sherry today that maybe wasn't true 25 years ago?

SPEAKER_02 1:50

Wow, Sherry today is a centered, much calmer, much more responsive person than she was 25 years ago. 25 years ago, I felt like I almost had to prove myself. It was very reactive responsing to almost everything in my life. And I think a big part of that was growing up in the environment that I grew up in. My dad, father of four children, two boys, two girls, always, even though he tried to treat his children fairly, there was always a difference between the boys and the girls. And the girls were more delicate and there were more vulnerable. And so he was very delicate with us. And there always felt like there was double standards when it came to how he raised us. And so I always had this, this, this desire to prove myself. Like I gotta prove that I'm strong and I'm as strong as boys, and I can out push up boys and I can outrun boys. And that's really how I grew up, actually in elementary school, always trying to compete against the boys and sports and then and all the things that I did. And a lot of it was really having to fulfill this not enoughness, which now I see is really all about the stillness, being still and from this still centered place with a regulated nervous system, which you know I share and talk about a lot, is where we can actually create and be able to respond to things versus reacting to things.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

You are talking our language. I love that. I so get that with competing with boys because early on, girls are taught that we're the weaker sex and that we have a certain place in society. And it's drilled into our heads early, early when we're young. And that's what we carry into adulthood. Kudos to you for discovering that early on.

SPEAKER_02 3:47

Yeah, and it's a journey. And what I love so much now being in my 40s, I'm 46, just turned 46 this year, is being able to really see how I transformed over the years through my hardships, never through all my successes, never through all of the amazing moments, but it was really through the difficult, challenging moments and going through COVID and having to close down my business and then pivot and start another one. The loss of my mother in 2019, which was literally nine months right before COVID. I mean, when you look back at all of these different points in our lives, and even just as you were introducing me, being hit by a car when I was 16 years old, being told I'd never play sports again and having to completely reinvent myself. These were the greatest, greatest moments. And I believe anybody who's struggling with unwanted eating, who's also struggling with weight release, who's tried for so many years, I'm gonna share that it's actually during these moments where we have that opportunity to grow and reconnect with ourselves. And why sometimes we get stuck in these patterns is because we try to escape these moments. We label these moments as being bad. These emotions are bad, and we try to soothe with food or drugs or alcohol or anything else that can help us regulate that emotion.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Well, I just hope you can be on my podcast every single day, every single episode. Let's go, Pam. I'm in the same way. You're the epitome of the message that I'm trying to get out there. And it's so important that we use our past difficulties as fuel, energy, make purpose out of the pain and stepping stones out of the struggles. So I am really in awe of that in you, and I'm excited that you're sharing it. What have you, speaking of, what have you made peace with besides food?

SPEAKER_02 5:49

What in your life have you had to overcome and make peace with anyone who is overeating, and a big part of my story was me struggling secretly with binge eating, but anyone who's struggling with overeating is also struggling with over other things. So over-achieving, over-people pleasing, over-perfectionism, over control. And so when you make peace with food, and and a big part of that really is about making peace with yourself, it is again learning how to feel very centered in all of the things that are going on in your life right now, being okay with yourself. When when we turn to food, we are filling a void. It's it's a scarcity mindset. So whether we're emotionally eating or we are binge eating, and I could talk a little bit about how I see both being different behaviors, but we're filling a void. It's it's a it comes from a place of scarcity. And so does over-perfection and this feeling of over-not enoughness. And I actually see my drive. I always used to believe I was super ambitious and and I'm just type A personality and I'm just a go, go, go person. But really, what I was doing was trying to compensate for feeling like I'm not enough. And no matter what project I did, no matter how successful anything I did was, it was still never good enough. And I

Doing Less And Nervous System Calm

SPEAKER_02 7:20

never even gave myself that pause to say, wow, Cheryl, like good job. Like wow, like just enjoy this for a moment. I was always on to the next thing. So this year, actually, it's it's really funny that you asked that. This year is all about the stillness. This year is I am not creating anything. I'm just going to enjoy the pause and just allow things to unfold and show up in a matching energy with all the things that are happening around me instead of always trying to be so forceful and pushing so hard and overachieving and overworking. And it's just really amazing because my business is the same. My relationships are the same. It's really amazing. We feel like we need to do more to have more. And this year, my greatest awareness was wow, doing less and just being has been the most rewarding feeling and season in my life.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

I I can relate to that too. Do you think that the stillness and the awareness is healing? Is it healing things that maybe you were still struggling with? Did your whole perspective change with the accident in your life, or was it a gradual process? A lot of times people don't realize the shoemaker sometimes has the worst-looking shoes. I keep trying to improve myself. I'm never done. I'm always in this state of evolving. But it does require that stillness you're talking about for you to see which way am I going to go next? What is my calling? Where do what do I need to do? I love that you you shared that about the stillness, because I really didn't think about it being that. But it is Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:03

I would say so many things, Pam. And and you know, when we when we observe energy, right? Energy, it could be a wave, as as we know. And if we we look at a wave, there's there's ups and there's down. And if we look at the laws of the universe, there is always polarity, there is night and there's day. And when we watch our breath or even our heartbeat, there's a contraction and then a relaxation period. And when you look at your life and it's always a go, go, go, a not enoughness, even what you shared. And I think this is actually one of the dangers of personal development. And by the way, I'm so big on personal development. I 100% believe it's all of our responsibilities to work on ourselves, to reparent ourselves, if you will. But the dangers of that is always feeling like there's something wrong with you, like you're always trying to fix yourself and always trying to get better because it's not good enough. And it's just a mindset shift. It's a very, very small shift. It's instead of trying to fix things, we can grow and we can expand. But growth and expansion also comes with other people. It comes with connections. And just like you and I today have formed this beautiful connection, like attracts like, we're both aligned in our visions and in our mindset around the topic we're talking about today. But this is part of growth. It's it's not just me having to continue to work on myself, it's evolution. It is you allowing yourself to expand your mind, even if that means you're going to listen to something that you may not agree with, or you may try a different perspective than you're used to. So a lot of it has to really happen in that stillness. And stillness is our parasympathetic nervous system state. Our sympathetic nervous system is our fight, flight, freeze. It's the go, go, go. And it's beautiful. It's not a bad thing. It is a useful thing. We need to take action to get out of an emergency situation, but it also provokes emotions of fear and anger. And when we are in parasympathetic, that is the that's the stillness. That's where creativity can happen. That is the place that we get to when we pray, when we meditate, when we sleep and we heal and we recharge. You have to allow yourself to be in that place. And I find what has been the most useful for me to actually get into that place this year was to create space between me and outside influences. And I'm talking primarily social media. When you're an entrepreneur or when you're a coach, you can get on social media and always feel like, I'm not enough. Oh my God, people are doing more. I gotta do more. And it's it's this constant thing where you can't help but compare yourself because that's what humans do. That's what we've done to evolve, is we've always tried to improve and we kind of just figure where we are compared to where others are. For me to take that space and really just focus on my well-being, on my mental health, on my spirituality, on my physical health, and still be able to run my business without having the go, go, go and the do-do-do all the time and that obsession that I used to show up with has been incredibly eye-opening.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Gosh, I appreciate you sharing that because I think many, many, including myself, many of us feel that way, that pressure to meet expectations that we're setting based on other people. And just being still and trying to find out, okay, who am I really? What do I really what makes me happy? What gives me energy? And the only way you can ever hear that is if you're you're quiet and you're still just for a moment. But then a lot of women that are go, go, go, so busy doing, doing, checking all the boxes, they don't want to slow down because as women, we don't want to fix what we think is broken, because who are we without it? Right. That's all we've known. It's kind of scary sometimes, but it's important that we connect and have other people like you in our lives that we can learn from. I think the way you do it is so awesome, and I appreciate it because you don't shame people. You get curious about them. It's just like sharing with me, well, let's let's reflect on what you just said and and let's look at this in a different light. And it was easy to hear that from you. I didn't feel offensive at all. I love that you have that skill. And that's the thing, right?

SPEAKER_02 13:43

Skill, skill is something that we can learn. It's something that we practice. It's it's very different than a gift, for example, that that we're born with. And, you know, to your point, Pam, yes, a lot of women have this constant need to fix, fix, fix because it gives them that sense of significance or that sense of purpose. And I believe we can find that sense of purpose elsewhere. And it doesn't have to be grandesque, it doesn't have to be this life-changing thing. If all I've done in my community is raise, and I've got two daughters, raise beautiful, smart, intelligent women that are respectful, that show up with love and compassion, that are patient, then I then I have done a great service for the community. It doesn't have to be this huge, huge thing. And I think that's more of a lack of a value thing. And that's definitely something that we can learn how to get back when we have been told that our value is very much tied to what we look like, what our weight is, what our body looks like, and who we are surrounded by and how much money we're making and all of these things, I think it's very, very easy to get distracted and to lose sight of how simple our purpose actually can be. And I actually move away from trying to teach my clients to find their purpose. And instead, I help them find how to be on purpose. And I think there's a very, very big difference there. When we try to find our purpose, we basically are saying, I am, I exist in this world for this one thing and I better find what it is. And oh my God, I don't know who I am. Oh my God, I don't know who my purpose is. Well, my purpose is, and then you we get so stuck on that versus I'm just gonna be on purpose, meaning I'm gonna be intentional and I am gonna show up with so much presence with everything that I'm doing. And that could look very different in every single season of my life.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

I I love that. I love that a lot. The simplicity of it is beautiful, but we we tend to complicate it. I was listening to one of your podcast uh episodes on YouTube today, and I was taking notes, but there was one sentence I couldn't stop thinking about, and I kept hearing

Awareness Over Willpower And Avoidance

SPEAKER_00 16:00

you repeat it. Your solution number one is awareness. Yes, and that collie, that really means a lot to me because delay the binge is really about creating a pause long enough to become aware before we automatically react to whatever it is. Right. Why is awareness so much more powerful than any other strategy?

SPEAKER_02 16:26

Awareness is so inward. Normally, when when you look at, let's say, the the fitness world or even the health space, we outsource our power to other people. And and this could be our doctor, this could be the app that we're using that tells us how many calories that we should eat every single day. This could be the coach that we hired that we want to tell us how we're feeling. This could be the therapist that we're working with. But awareness is something that I do for myself. It's not waiting on someone to tell me how it is, it's me realizing and coming to terms with what that pattern is. And everything that we do is a pattern. And all of our behavior, all of our behavior is stored in our unconscious mind. So we have our conscious mind. Our conscious mind is the rational mind, it's the thinking mind, it's the analytical mind, it is the mind that we use to calculate things, to be able to predict the future or try to put things together. But the unconscious mind doesn't work that way. The unconscious mind just groups things together. It groups an event with an emotion, with a reaction, with an action, with a behavior. So when we are triggered to a certain emotion and we find ourselves downing that pint of ice cream, it's not about the ice cream and it's not about the food. And it's not because ice cream is full of sugar that we should be upset at ourselves for, which is really what we do when we find ourselves at the end of a binge, is where we're like, oh, why'd I eat that? And that's so bad. And let me find that app that's gonna help me calculate the calories. Instead, if we can become aware, what we can actually see is I was at my mother's house today. She brought up XYZ. Every time she brings that up, it's so passive aggressive, it makes me feel like this. Ah, that feeling. When did I first feel it? When I was six, I was six years old and I felt that for the first time. And I remember not knowing what to do with that feeling, and that every single time I ate something yummy, I was able to forget about that feeling. So, what actually happened in that moment is because you gave yourself that time to pause instead of scrutinizing, which is what we do, and instead of berating, which is also what we do, instead we go back and we try to just find the links. And that's all that it is. It's a link, it's a chain. And you'll notice that when you give yourself that time to just create those associations, that is the awareness. And then it's like, oh my God, I thought that when I was six, but I'm 46 now. Like, of course I don't think that way. Like, of course, now I understand from a more rational perspective, from a more mature perspective as an adult, this is why that happened. And this was a belief that was formed from a mind of a child. So that's the awareness piece. And many of us try to skip over that. So we get into that cycle of binge and then punish ourselves and then promise ourselves we're not going to do it again. And then we restrict and then we find ourselves binging again. And whether again, we're binge eating or emotional eating, that's gonna be the cycle. But the way that I suggest and I want to invite people to look at their behavior differently is instead of denying yourself that ice cream, like, okay, I have this feeling, I know what always fixes it. It's always that ice cream. All right, I get to have that ice cream, but first, let me think about how I felt. When did I feel that the first time? How old was I? What was the context? What belief did I formulate? What did I believe about myself? What did I believe about the world? And now you can unpack this. And before you know it, that craving for that ice cream disappears. And a lot of programs that help people recover from binge eating or emotional eating. I mean, I was working with a lady, and this is so beyond me, but I was working with a lady who worked apparently with a specialist who helped with binge eating behavior. And one of her solutions was just stop watching commercials. Just deny yourself from any interaction that's going to trigger that binge. And I absolutely disagree with that. Our goal is to neutralize it. Our goal is to be able to be in that situation, to be in that experience and not be driven to food, to actually watch that craving disappear. And the only way to do that is through awareness instead of avoidance. So I have a pool and I don't want my kids to drown. So you know what I'm going to do? I'm not going to ever let them swim. I'm that's that's going to be my solution, which makes absolutely no sense. But if you want to keep your kid from drowning, it's not about keeping them out of the pool. It's about teaching them how to swim. And that's what we want to do with these unwanted eating behaviors.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Exactly. And I want to just pause for just a second because I want to make sure everybody listening catches what you just said. So what I'm hearing is we spend so much time trying to fix whatever it is. If we eat sugar, if we do whatever, we beat ourselves up, but we spend so much time trying to fix it that we skip over understanding why the behavior exists in the first place. Is that right?

SPEAKER_02 21:49

So well said, Pam. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

I get notes from from listeners saying that was really difficult for me. I was overwhelmed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:59

Oh, this is from who Overwhelm, there we go. That's another over something, overeating, overwhelm. That's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

Yes. You describe emotional eating as a pattern. And one thing I often say on this podcast is the binge isn't always food, as you said before. It's overworking, over pleasing. Even scrolling and shopping, spending perfectionism. What would your your framework apply to all of those behaviors?

SPEAKER_02 22:30

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. How we do anything is how we do everything. And when you understand the root cause, which is the awareness piece, then you understand why you have a need to escape or a need to cope or a need to numb how you're feeling.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

It's because they think they're fighting the behavior instead of understanding what the behavior is trying to accomplish.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

That's right. And and I love that you said that because it is trying to accomplish something. So usually the way that we try to go about fixing the behavior is oh, I'm gonna go keto. Oh, I'm gonna hire a nutritionist, oh I'm I'm I'm gonna do something to to prevent me from eating, versus I am going to work on what is driving that behavior.

Scarcity Mindset Behind Binge Patterns

SPEAKER_02 23:30

And the reason why we've developed this behavior is because on a very unconscious level, we're actually trying to protect ourselves. That's what we're trying to do. And and a lot of, especially when it comes to emotional eating. So maybe now would be a good opportunity to just break down the difference between emotional eating and binge eating. And this is not, this is not to label yourself if you're listening. This is not to try to put yourself in a box. It's just more to try to understand the difference in what's driving each. Binge eating does not necessarily imply that you will sit down at one time and eat four, five, six, seven, eight thousand calories worth of food. Whether I ate that entire cake today in one sitting or because I kept walking back and forth to the kitchen and grabbed a piece, that would still be considered binge eating. It's it's you feeling out of integrity with what you want to do or what you want to choose around food. And that's actually what I personally struggled with. So I got into the fitness space because, as you shared in the intro, I got into the fitness space because I was told by doctors that I would never do sports again. And I grew up as a child athlete. And so after a back surgery, after listening to doctor's advice for years and being in such chronic pain and completely relying on pain medication to get me through my day, I decided one morning after a night of partying and being so out of integrity with who I had become that I'd sign up at a gym and I would just start copying people. And at that time, I was doing a master's degree in chemistry of all things. So I was Supermiss Science Nerd. I wasn't actually working with people yet. But I signed up at this gym, I showed up consistently, I copied people around me. And eventually I was able to overcome the pain medication. And that's when I transitioned into fitness because if I could do this and doctors told me I never would, then I want to help other people do it too. And then I started learning a lot about nutrition. So I want to start training people. I dropped out of my chemistry degree. I went back to school. I studied exercise science. I became a certified athletic therapist. Eventually I became an osteopath. And all along the way, I took every course I could on fitness, on nutrition, and just tried to learn all the things so that I could help my clients with all the things that they wanted to accomplish and really help them also release weight and help them manage whatever goals that they wanted to. So initially, my venture into diet culture wasn't about me trying to release weight. It was about me trying to find the truth, the right way to eat, the way we're supposed to eat. And so that was bouncing back from one diet to the next. I started calorie counting because that was a thing at the time. And then all of a sudden, everyone was talking about fats are bad. So then I went on a low fat diet because the science was there. And then this dude named Atkins was saying, well, actually, you know what? Fats are good, meat is good, and veggies and carbs are horrible. So then I'm like, all right, science is there. So like I then became Miss Atkins. And then all of a sudden, I started opening CrossFit gyms, and everyone was eating like a caveman. So I started eating like a caveman, and then it was a zone diet, and then it was macros, and then it was keto, and then I was even vegan for a while because there was the whole plant-based movement. So I was jumping from diet to diet to diet, and that's when I actually started to notice I my Friday night cheat meal was no longer a Friday night cheat meal. It now was an entire week-on, weekend long annihilation of all the foods that I had deemed were bad that week because Pam, my food rules kept changing. Sometimes carbs were good, sometimes they weren't. Sometimes I was fasting for 72 hours, sometimes I wasn't. It was, it was actually very, very confusing. And that's when I realized one day, like, wow, me, Sherry, who should know all the things, who helps their clients with their meal plans and tox nutrition and has all these degrees, I am out of control with food. I cannot control my binge. And what I had developed was a scarcity mindset. I had trained my body, I had trained my unconscious mind that food was not safe, that I had to fear food, that there were good foods and there were bad foods. And so anyone struggling with binge eating, most oftentimes it is rooted in a scarcity mindset. It is rooted in your body literally turning on a mechanism in the brain that is there to protect us. It is a very uh primitive part of the brain that allows us to be able to feast after a long famine. And we all can do this. Again, it's not about what you know, it's not about how you want to show up around your nutrition. It's literally about turning on this mechanism that we all have in our primitive mind. And then emotional eating, that is a completely different trigger. Emotional eating is us feeling a certain emotion that drives us to eat. And that emotion is different for different people. So for some people, it could be stress. Some people might feel stressed and actually lose their appetite. For some people, it could be sadness. For some people, it could be fear, it could be worry, for others, it could be boredom and even joy. It could even be happiness that drives you to emotionally eat. So it's really, again, coming back to that awareness piece, it's about understanding your own pattern. And so when you understand your pattern and you understand what's driving the unwanted eating, then you can start to work with what is stored in your unconscious mind. Because the majority of our emotions, the majority of our beliefs are developed by the time we are six years old or seven years old. And when we don't know how to regulate these emotions, when we feel certain emotions and we've been relying on food to soothe these emotions, we've just trained the body, we've trained the unconscious mind that that is how we seek out safety. So anyone who's dealing with emotional eating, just know that this was developed at a very young age and it was there, set in place to protect you. And it and it's done its job. So we tend to demonize these behaviors. We we tend to be so upset at ourselves when we find our, find that we're repeating these behaviors and these behaviors are no longer serving us. In fact, they're causing all these secondary health issues. Well, just know that that the reason your unconscious mind set it in the first place was because you had to survive. And that was the way and the only way it knew to survive. And now that you know that, now that you honor that, now that you can love that part of you, that's where the healing can start as you unpack that programming.

unknown 30:26

Gosh.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

That is so important. And I love the phrase you use, the protection mode. I love it because it immediately removes the shame. Right. If I'm understanding correctly, you're saying that our brain isn't trying to sabotage us. I refer to that part of the the brain as the caveman. Mm-hmm. That's right. Yeah. That helps me associate with what it is, but it's trying to protect us, even if the strategy it's using isn't serving us anymore. Is that correct? Is that what you mean?

SPEAKER_02 31:04

That's right. Yeah, a hundred percent. And language is so important. So all the things that you're saying, I'm so curious as to how people use language, right? And we we tend to want to move away from good and bad, and this is good for me, this is healthy, this is not healthy, because I don't know about you, but I eat broccoli and man, I'm I blow and I've I've got gas. And like, I mean, that broccoli is supposed to be a super food and it's supposed to be super healthy, but for me, it that doesn't serve me, right? So, so using language that is more neutral, and it's not, it's it's not to follow some of the things they teach us, and we spoke about this a little bit earlier, but in in the intuitive eating space where you know, all food is neutral, have all the things that you want. At the end of the day, if if we want to really honor ourselves and truly give love to ourselves, it's also acknowledging there are certain things that serve me and other things that don't serve me. And anytime you're finding yourself self-sabotaging, it's not because you're lacking information. It's not anything you need to learn from Chat GPT or Google or or anyone else or a nutritionist. You don't, you just need to learn how to be more accepting, more gentle, more loving, more kind to yourself. And self-sabotage is driven by a fear. There is a fear there somewhere. And you may be aware of it, you it may be unconscious to you, but self-sabotage is driven by fear, not lack of information.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

Gosh, that's pretty profound and very, very knowledgeable because I don't think a lot of people look at it as fear. And I do want to point out, I hope everybody notices that everyone is truly unique. Just because you can eat broccoli doesn't mean I can eat broccoli. That's right. And that's why you have to be curious and just do and be and give yourself enough grace to learn and to get that clarity you need. How do you know you don't eat broccoli? Well, you don't know unless you pay attention. Just be a little easier on yourself.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

Well, and another thing that surprises me is that I always tell a lot of people, if you're tempted to eat the chocolate cake, right? And you're about to consume the whole cake, just tell yourself, like a child, you say, you know what, we can't have this right now, but if you still want it tomorrow, you can have it. Don't eat the cookies. But if you need to eat the cookie, give yourself permission to eat the cookie, but pay attention to what it does. Or if you get a little bit of control, pause and just think to yourself, why am I really going to eat this cookie or this cake? Why do I really want it? I know it doesn't serve me. And that's the whole point I was trying to make is that we're all smart. We know what our bodies need and it doesn't need. I mean, we've done all the diets like you you explained earlier. We've done them all and with no long-term results and maintaining the the progress you make, but we are so busy starting over every time with a new diet, a new plan, just not paying attention. And so you point that out. You give us the space so that we can figure it out because we're all so different.

SPEAKER_02 34:21

That's right. So well said. And you know, I I call that exercise that you just talked about delayed reward. And and that's exactly how I interrupted my binge eating pattern. So notice also the language I just use. I didn't say I'm a binge eater, I was a binge eater. I said binge eating pattern because it is a pattern. I remember I would crave, this would be like eight o'clock or nine o'clock at night, when I know that I've nourished my body properly and fueled myself well that day, I'd have these cravings to just destroy a box of chocolate chip cookies, which was my thing, chocolate chip cookies. And then I would say to myself, all right, Cher, you know what? Tomorrow morning, when you get up and you're ready to have breakfast, you can have as many cookies as you want, like as many as you want. And so remember, binge eating comes from a scarcity mindset. And scarcity is I can't have something. I'm not allowed to have something. I shouldn't have something. That is a restriction. And anytime we restrict, we create the scarcity mindset. So that delayed reward allowed me to give myself full permission to annihilate all the cookies I wanted. And then also just see what would happen the next morning. So I didn't restrict myself. The permission was still there. And then sure enough, when I'd wake up in the morning, I'd be like, ew, I don't want cookies. Like, no, right. And that was amazing. It was just again to show you that it was coming from a very different part of my brain, the the scarcity part of my brain. So that's a really, really important tool. And something else that you said, Pam, that was so important was about curiosity. And I think as adults, our greatest fault is that we've stopped being curious. We've stopped experimenting. When we were kids, if you remember, we would oftentimes think to ourselves, well, what would happen if I touched this? What would happen if I jumped off this? What would happen if I did this? And that was like, that was our mindset. Everything was like, ooh, discovery. Ooh, what would happen? But now what we do is it's New Year's Eve. This year I'm gonna use 50 pounds. I'm gonna do this. I'm never gonna eat carbs again. I'm gonna go keto. I'm gonna, and it's like so absolute, without even trying it on for size, without even questioning it, it's it's like we make this decision and then we try so hard to implement discipline and willpower. And then if we can't do it, then we're we're weak and then we're lazy, and then we we label ourselves with all these things. But really, instead of asking ourselves, well, what would happen if for 21 days I just took out refined sugar? What would happen? If nothing happens, I'll bring it right back in. But but maybe something will happen. I don't know, right? And and just leave it open to curiosity. And so if you can invite that curiosity without blame, without guilt, without shame, without absoluting everything and making these really concrete, rigid decisions, then you actually allow for that inward reflection. So we we were talking about this a little bit earlier about awareness. And awareness is me really learning more about myself, whether that means kale serves me or doesn't serve me, or beans serve me, or legumes don't serve me. And and that is a beautiful place to be. And there's no, after trying all these diets, I think Pam and I can agree, there's no one diet for everyone. There's it, it's there are different things that work for different people and at different stages and seasons of your life.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

I couldn't agree more. I always say, listen to your body. It is a well-oiled machine. It's so amazing the body. And it is trying to communicate with you, believe it or not, that you just have to listen. That's right. And instead of saying, What's wrong with me? I think Sherry is inviting us to ask, what is this behavior trying to protect? That's right. And that's a very different conversation. Would you say that is correct, Sherry?

SPEAKER_02 38:26

So good. So good, Pam. We're such a good team. We're such a good team.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

It's so nice to validify stuff.

SPEAKER_02 38:34

Yeah, right. You shared with me that that the objective is to simplify. And it really, really is very simple. And I couldn't agree more about what you said about how magnificent the human body is. I mean, if if you've ever been pregnant, I mean, you had to do nothing. Like, what? There was this thing growing in you with fingers and toes and eyeballs, and like you didn't have to do anything. When you cut yourself, what? It just heals on its own. If you look at the universe, if you look at the world around you, birds find food every single day. There's growth every single day after every winter, there's spring. I mean, when you look at all this, you realize actually, wow, why am I trying to overcontrol everything? Like things can just unfold around me. And I, I am part of all of that is unfolding all the time. And therefore, there's this life force that just wants abundance for me. It wants growth, it wants healing. And all I have to do is get the heck out of the way. Because it's it's me that's creating the resistance with all that negative self-talk and and all of the conversations that I have in my head and create that self-concept. That's that's what's actually keeping me stuck.

unknown 39:48

Gosh.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

You're right. You're awesome and right about that. Because did you know that even the speed of the rotation of the earth is so exact? And if it were off by one second, either way, faster or slower, then a lot of life on earth would die. That's that's how perfect it is.

Childhood Fear Reparenting And Healing

SPEAKER_00 40:10

And our bodies are no different. Right. I love your way of thinking. You mentioned something that well, it meant a lot to me. You said many of us were never taught how to regulate emotions or thoughts or our just our outlook on the world. Can we stay there a moment and visit like when you look back on your own childhood, what what do you wish someone had taught you about emotions?

SPEAKER_02 40:37

Uh I want to add this actually as a preface to before we we begin and especially exploring childhood. The goal of going back to explore childhood is not to find blame. So that that's really, really key. And especially if you had an environment where maybe parents didn't do or couldn't do what they should have done, I actually like to look at how my parents also grew up and what was given to them. And they only taught what they learned from their parents and so on. And so it's it's this generational trauma that is passed on. And when we explore childhood, if you really want to gain back your power, you you just become aware without blame. And when I grew up, I mean, you know, both my parents were physicians, but they came from a very from scarcity, basically, from a very poor background. They they grew up struggling, their parents were struggling. So it was a big deal for them to actually become physicians and and to give us the life that they never had. But what came with that also was a lack of of emotional resilience, a lack of of emotional intelligence, if you will. And so my dad really believed in physical discipline. So he physically disciplined us. Like I shared, there were four kids. I'm the second of the four. My older brother got the most hittings and beatings. I got the second most. So, I mean, this was belts, this was this was constantly living in fear of you doing something wrong and then never knowing when that wrong thing was. So I grew up with a lot of fear. I feared my dad. I learned to keep secrets, I learned to hide everything, I learned not to share. And it it wasn't until I actually started to do a lot of healing. And one of the most powerful tools that I use and I also teach other practitioners to use with their clients, is hypnotherapy. And hypnotherapy is the ability to connect your unconscious mind, so things that you're not even aware of that that exists in your behavioral patterns with your conscious mind. And again, not to go back and blame my father, because even though he he used physical discipline with all four of his kids, when I look back at how he was raised, well, that's what his parents did to him. So that's all that's all that he knew. And he thought he was doing the right thing. So I really believe that we are responsible for that reparenting part. And and when we can take on the responsibility, not the blame, but the responsibility, we take back our power. So it was me learning how to break some of these patterns. In my household, there was a lot of fear and there was a lot of anger. So we we saw my dad angry a lot. And I learned how to cope with things with anger. And again, I I just modeled what I saw. So I wish that I had a little bit more balance. In all the different emotions. She's the most amazing mother in the world. And as I recall my childhood, she only did the best that she could. She never got in the way when my dad disciplined us. She never tried to stop him. And that was also something I had to process too, is that I realized that she was almost enabling that in some ways. And so, and again, being able to bring yourself back to those moments as an adult, watching what happened from a more mature mind is how you can start to heal it. And we can blame society for how we are, we can blame diet culture, we can blame our parents, we can blame our childhood, our upbringing. I truly believe that we we all have something. But that blame keeps you from taking back the ability to make a change. And so it's our responsibility to educate ourselves, to develop emotional intelligence, to be able to reparent ourselves. And that's where I truly believe that personal development becomes a very powerful tool. It's not to fix something that's broken, it's to fill the gap.

unknown 45:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:16

And fill that void and fill those moments that could really bring us to that place of regulation.

SPEAKER_00 45:28

First and foremost, I I so respect what you just shared with us because I had an abusive childhood as well. But I try to focus on all the good things that came out of that. I mean, it's it made me a fighter. And it's right I learned at that time being curious was painful. I tried not to be. But um what you shared with us is so huge because uh it really has impacted you. I noticed on your website something that really caught my attention and it it actually invited me to go further into your website, which is what you should do. But it was move with respect, not revenge. And maybe if you didn't have the childhood you did, that might not have been such an important thing for you to share with the world. Because it's not about fitness, correct? It's right. It's about what does that mean to you personally? Is it because of your childhood? Is it because of the way you grew up that that means so much to you?

SPEAKER_02 46:36

I I think it's an accumulation of of so so many different things in our lives. And and when you think about oftentimes our motivation behind things, our our motivation could be fueled by anger. It could be fueled by fear or by shame. So whether we are looking back at our childhood and we're trying to heal what happened, that could be motivated by anger and hate, maybe even towards parents or towards that environment. And if we look at our fitness, a lot of people decide that they want to make a change in their body because they despise how they look. They despise themselves. And so, to your point, Pam, and you also said this too, is looking for the beautiful things in the moments. And there are beautiful things in every single moment. So, just as I feared my dad like so much growing up, he's he was also the most generous person. He is the man in my life that has my back at all times, and I'm so grateful he's still alive. I am so grateful. I I mean, I was very, very close with my mom. She passed away in in 2019. And at that time when she passed, we didn't all have such a strong relationship with my father. We used to communicate with him through my mother. She was like the person that called us and just held it all together. But because she passed first, well, what came out of that, what came out of that is an incredible friendship and such a strong bond with my father that had he passed first, I would never have had. So when you look at everything, there is, you can assign whatever meaning you want to whatever experience you have. But the revenge part is what's going to keep you stuck. If you are blaming yourself, if you are blaming other people, if you decide that you want to do something, change something, accomplish any goal, and the motivation comes from a place of fear or scarcity or shame or guilt, that is not the right energy. But inspired action is and feeling excited about I'm gonna honor my health. Yes, over the last three years, I've put on 40 pounds and I still love myself so much that I am going to make myself a priority and I'm gonna be gentle and kind to myself. Instead of, oh my God, I put on 40 pounds, I'm so disgusting. What is this? So gross. Like, how what have I done? And then I'm gonna go get this done. I'm gonna go hire this, I'm gonna stop eating that. That energy never works. And and we if if you're a parent, you know that that doesn't work. You can't shame yourself towards success. You can't hate yourself towards success. And you have to come from a place of respect and and respect bringing this back full circle. That older version of yourself, that previous version of yourself, man, she was a badass. She got you out of a lot of things, she really helped you heal. She, I mean, sure, the way she she went around it maybe isn't serving you any longer, but but because of her, you are where you are today. And and she needs to be honored for that.

unknown 49:55

Gosh.

SPEAKER_00 49:56

Thank you for sharing that. We all need to hear that over and over. We may have learned this, but uh just hearing it from someone else is so helpful. So helpful. I appreciate it a lot. And I do want to point out, even in corporate America, I am noticing more and more they are incorporating the whole emotion and behavior and pattern thing into their teams. Because it can affect you not just at home, not just with your health. I mean, it affects you at work too.

unknown 50:30

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 50:31

If you don't get curious and understand what the patterns are, what why am I behaving like this with my coworker? Why do I feel so anxious? Why am I so scared to make a move? You know? But it can help you in all aspects of your life if you just take a moment. And it it's not done all

Respect Not Revenge Closing Tools

SPEAKER_00 50:50

at once. You know? For our final question, I I just want you to share with everyone how we can find you and how we can take advantage of your wonderful programs. Tell us how to find you.

SPEAKER_02 51:04

Thank you so much, Pam. I I just want to say before we move on to that, I have loved this conversation. I love what you're doing. I love how you're showing up in the world and the service and the ability to transform lives through this platform. And I think it's something to be acknowledged. So thank you for doing what you're doing. The easiest, easiest place to find me is through my website, sheryshaban.com. I've got a YouTube channel where I have way more discussions around some of the topics that you heard about. So that's Make Peace with Food. That's the name of the podcast as well, and tons of free resources too on the website and through the podcast to get you started. Um, and then if you want to reach out and write me a message, Instagram is also a place that I check often. And the handle there is at MakePeace.

SPEAKER_00 51:53

And we will put all those links in the show notes, y'all. So don't worry about writing it all down. Thank you. Delay the binge is really about the pause before the reaction. So I'd like to end here with you. If someone listening recognizes I'm about to repeat another unhealthy behavior or pattern that doesn't serve me, what would you want them to whisper to themselves in that pause?

SPEAKER_02 52:26

I am loved. I love myself, I am enough, I have everything I need right now in this moment. And there's a higher power that's always taking care of me, no matter what.

SPEAKER_00 52:39

That makes me want to cry. I don't know why. This is so powerful. That's beautiful. Sherry, thank you. So thank you. One thing I'll be carrying with me from today's conversation is that awareness isn't the finish line, it's the doorway. Because we can't interrupt a pattern until we first recognize it. And you know, thank you for helping us better understand that, understand ourselves, and for reminding us that lasting transformation begins with compassion, curiosity, and one intentional pause at a time. I'm so grateful for everyone that is listening and spending this time with us today. My hope is that somewhere in this conversation you recognized a little more of yourself because lasting change rarely begins with another strategy. It begins with awareness, right, Sherry?

SPEAKER_01 53:40

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 53:41

And awareness gives us something incredibly valuable. The pause. So this week, before the next reaction, before the next old pattern or the next binge, pause, stay curious, choose intentionally, and keep becoming the person you were meant to be. See y'all next week. Thanks again, Sherry.

SPEAKER_02 54:07

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 54:11

Hey, it's me, Pam, and before we go, just a quick reminder: everything we share here is meant to encourage, educate, and get you thinking. But it's not a substitute for professional mental health, medical, legal, financial, or any other licensed advice. I'm simply someone who's walking through life, learning right alongside you. And I'm grateful we get to learn together. Always seek the guidance of a qualified professional for your unique situation. Thanks for spending this time with us. Until next time, remember sometimes the biggest change begins with one small pause. I'll see you on the next episode of Delay the Bench.