Latest / The Priestess Temple Podcast / Ep 2: Relapse! Your Advantage Towards Sustainable Behavior Change
Transcript
- Embodied By Jenna: Okay. Today, we are going to talk about a topic that is near and dear to my heart: the topic of relapse and why it is my favorite stage of the behavior change process. Yes, you heard me right. Your girl Jenna loves a good relapse moment. Okay. As a former alcoholic and drug addict who is now sober, I have had Several throughout my life. I've also been trained in the behavior change process as a registered dietitian who helps women heal from eating disorders. And I want to talk about the topic of relapse because it is a stage of the behavior change process that is not talked about, often due to cultural associations with guilt and shame. You see, we are marketed. This process of transformation that just takes you from point A to point B. We see these shiny, perfect before and after photos, but we don't see the messiness that occurs in those in between phases. And we need to embrace the relapse to help us make the changes that we want to make in a way that is healthy and sustainable. So this episode What I'm gonna do is I'm going to talk to you about a relapse story from my own personal life. And I'm gonna tell you what I learned, and then I'm going to give you the tools that you need to navigate the relapse stage of behavior change as you are trying to become a better version of yourself in your own daily life. So let's get started. Now, This is a hard thing for me to talk about because as a dietitian and a yoga teacher, this bad habit that I have is not socially acceptable. And it is the habit of smoking cigarettes. Yep, that's right. I smoke cigarettes sometimes. And so if you want a dietitian and a yoga teacher who's perfect, who's never smoked a cigarette in their life, and who's probably gonna lie to you about them being perfect, well then fuck it. Stop listening to my podcast and go find someone else who you think is going to be that perfect person to help you. But if you have ever struggled with addiction, with alcoholism, with eating disorders, and you want a dietitian and a yoga teacher who's lived it, who's been in the trenches of their own behavior change process and come out on the other side, well then I can help you. Well then. I'm the dietitian for you. So keep listening. Now, my relationship with smoking cigarettes started when I was really young. Okay. I would say I was about 17, 18 years old. And I was drinking heavily in the streets of South Buffalo. My vision was blurred from having so much vodka. And my friend asked me if I wanted to smoke a cigarette. She pulls out this pack of Seneca menthol 100s and I graciously accept. I light up the cigarette, I take my first puff, and I'm like, damn, this shit is good. I really liked it. Smoking and drinking and being in communion with my friends, it was something that I really wanted during that stage of my life as a rebellious teenager. And so I continued to smoke. It wasn't like a crazy addiction, but I would smoke a couple of cigarettes a day and I lived right near the Seneca Indian Reservation. And so I would often go there and buy cheap cartons of cigarettes. And that habit stuck with me for a little while, but eventually it just completely fell to the wayside. I didn't really smoke and I didn't do it for years until that is, I moved to Puerto Rico. And when I was living in Puerto Rico, I got this job as a yoga teacher at this beautiful Ayurvedic resort. And everything was fine until it wasn't. And my dream life fell apart. So this is gonna be a whole other episode of the podcast because it's a crazy situation. But for right now, what I want you to know is that I was under a lot of stress. And I felt like I was Kind of out of control in my life. Like there were circumstances outside of me that I had no control over. And so one of my roommates, she was under a lot of stress too because of the situation. She brought home a pack of cigarettes and I started smoking with her. And then I kept smoking and then I kept smoking and then I kept smoking. Even though I left the stressful situation and I found new housing and I was in a different part of the island, I still kept smoking. And all of a sudden I was a half a pack a day smoker. I'm not even freaking kidding you. It crept up on me real quick. And it was like the first time in my life that I was truly, truly addicted to smoking cigarettes. So I lived there for about a year and then I moved back home to Buffalo, New York. And I smoked in Buffalo for a little bit, but then I quit. And this was in 2023. So ever since 2023, I have been on and off with smoking cigarettes. Now I had a period of abstinence from smoking for several, several months before this last relapse. And I want to talk to you about this most recent relapse because it's fresh on my mind and I think you can learn a lot from it. So I was getting ready to launch my business. And in the launch of my business, I was having this really big identity shift because I was coming out to the public about being into kink. And sensuality. And I debuted this signature event of mine called the Kinky Food Party. So you're gonna hear a lot more about the kinky food party, but we had the first one for my birthday, and pretty much I was just posting online asking women to come to my house and have this kinky food experience. And so it was really, really stretchy for my nervous system. I felt so much anxiety over how I was going to be perceived by the public through doing this work. And it was a time in my life where there was a lot of positive emotion, right? I was very excited. There was a lot of fear tied in with that. But overall, it wasn't like the same stress as the stress that I had experienced when I lived in Puerto Rico. However, again, my best friend who I live with brought home a pack of cigarettes, just like how my roommate brought home a pack of cigarettes in Puerto Rico. And she had been going through a stressful situation in her life, too. And she was like, Hey, do you want to smoke a cigarette with me? And I was like, you know what? Fuck it. Yes. Yes, I do. And we start smoking again. So me and my best friend start smoking again. We have another roommate. He starts smoking again. All three of us start smoking again. And it's just like all of a sudden, we're all buying packs of cigarettes and smoking together on the outside porch. And I'm like, how did this happen? I know that you felt that way when you have been trying to make a behavior change, whether it's quitting smoking like me, quitting drinking, quitting drugs, trying to work on your diet or your exercise routine, right? There's this. Time when you're doing so good, and then all of a sudden you revert back to the old habit, you relapse, and in the blink of an eye, you're like, what is going on? And we found ourselves in this situation. Now I get through the kinky food party. The kinky food party is a huge hit. I experienced so much love and connection and fulfillment through having that event. After that event, because my Hormones of stress and my excitement were so high, I crash. I crash. My body is so tired, and I ended up getting sick. So I was having this weird cough in my lungs, lots of mucus, lots of phlegm. And I'm like, okay, this has been going on for about a week and a half now after the party. I need to go see my healthcare provider because. I just cannot deal with this situation anymore. I need to keep working. I need to keep moving forward in my business. And so I go to my healthcare provider. She is amazing. Her name is Tracy from Energetic Interventions. I'm going to link her in the show notes because she does a combination of nutrition response testing and emotional healing. And so I'm like, maybe I need some supplements to clear out my lungs. Maybe there's an emotional component behind this, right? So I go to my appointment with Tracy and she starts testing me for all different vitamins and supplements. And she was like, You don't need any vitamins or supplements. There's nothing like that going on here. It's something emotional. Which I knew, right? Because I was going through a lot of stress and emotional overwhelm with the debut of the kinky food party. So in our session, she starts to get into my body and into my subconscious mind. And this moment in my life arises where I was about 17 years old. And she asks me, What was going on in your life when you were 17 years old? And I'm thinking about it. And I was Really acting out at that time in my life. I was being a little rebel bad girl, right? Like I told you on the streets of South Buffalo drinking vodka and smoking my first cigarette. And I'm like, ⁓ my God. I go back to that time in my life and I realized when I was 17, I felt like I didn't have autonomy over my life. I felt like I couldn't be who I wanted to be. I felt like I couldn't. Make choices that genuinely fulfilled me in my life. And so I chose to smoke and to drink and to act out as a way to minimize my power because I felt like I didn't have that autonomy at that point in my life. And then it fucking hit me. I was like, ⁓ my God. This is the same situation. This situation, as I'm turning 34 years old, is a mirror to that situation when I was that rebel bad girl at 17 years old who smoked her first cigarette. Because I was experiencing the same kind of power struggle with myself as I was stepping into the new identity of the woman who hosts the kinky food party. Okay. Like it was really so. Scary. It was really big for me to come out because I was nervous. Is anyone gonna come? What are people going to think about me? And it thrust me into a new level of visibility and truth and power that I had never experienced before in my life. And my body did not feel safe. So what did it choose to do? It chose to smoke cigarettes just like when I was 17 on the streets of South Buffalo, just like back in The year 2022 when I was homeless on the streets of San Juan. It's the same situation. And coming to that realization for me was such a big win when we think about this relapse. Okay. Because I learned something new about myself. I learned that my body was trying to keep me safe through clinging to smoking cigarettes. As a way to prevent me from stepping into my next level identity of the successful businesswoman who hosts Bad Bitch Embodiment Podcast and the kinky food party. Whoa. Okay. ⁓ So now that I understand that, I understand that I was not a bad person for relapsing and that I don't deserve to throw guilt and shame all over my name. Fuck that, right? I needed to meet myself with compassion, ask for support, and then come to an understanding of wow, okay, I was feeling a lot of stress in the moment. That stress caused me to reach for cigarettes so that I could dim my feeling and so that I could actually remove myself from stepping into my own power. Now that I know that, I can go into my coping skills toolkit. And I can say, well, what do I need next time? And in this next time, I know a few different things about myself. I know that I need to have more time for rest and play during my launch because I don't want to crash out the next time I throw a kinky food party, right? I need to have space and rest and play and just make it a little bit more stretched out. So I need more time during my next launch. I also need to think about healthy ways to cope with my stress. So maybe that's going to be a yoga class. Maybe that's going to be taking a walk. Maybe that's going to be phoning a friend. Maybe it's going to be taking an Epsom salt bath, right? I need to expand the skills in my coping skills toolkit and then choose something that's going to be appropriate for that situation so that I don't have to revert to the old habit of smoking cigarettes. The next time I'm going through this higher level identity shift. If I didn't relapse, I wouldn't know any of that shit. And that's why I tell you to embrace the relapse. Because in these periods of relapse are when we learn the most about ourselves so we can collect the data to help us make sustainable behavior changes in the future. So now that you understand my personal situation, right? I'm no longer smoking cigarettes. And you know what? If you ever see me smoking a cigarette again. It just means I'm in a lot of stress. Okay. That's what it means. It means I'm not perfect. It means I'm human. But for right now, right? I understand more about myself. I've reverted back to my behavior change, which is no longer smoking. And I have more skills in my coping skills toolkit. So this is what I want to tell you. I'm going to give you some practical tips the next time you're facing a relapse in your behavior change process. Now, this could be if you're trying to quit smoking or drinking. This could be if you're trying to start a new habit with your diet or lifestyle. It could really be with anything. Because first off, we all want to strive to change and grow in this lifetime. That's the whole point of life is transformation and aligning yourself more with the ideal of who you desire to be. And in this process, there's two ways you can go about it. You can be a drill sergeant and you can be really harsh with yourself, or you can be super freaking compassionate and patient. So this is the first tip. When you are facing a relapse, the guilt and shame is only gonna make you spiral and it's only gonna make you stay in this negative behavior loop for longer. So you need to stop and you need to look at yourself and say, Hey, girl, it is okay. I am here for you. What do you need? Self-compassion, self-compassion, self-compassion. I'm telling you, acceptance is key. You need to come to a level of self-acceptance before you can make any type of behavior change. And at embodied by Jenna on Bad Bitch Embodiment Podcast, this is a guilt and shame free zone. Okay. You can tell me anything, and I want you to be able to hold space for yourself through. Anything because at the end of the day, you are the one who is always going to have your back. Now, once we step into self compassion, this is when things get really juicy because we can look at ourselves from a place of curiosity. So I want you to separate yourself from the relapse and from the situation and look at yourself like a detective doing an experiment or investigating. And I want you to look at yourself as a detective investigating a crime scene. Okay. You need to come and you need to separate yourself from the situation and kind of look at yourself from a little bit of a distance here. Because this distance allows you to get curious. I want you to look at your behavior and say, hmm, that's interesting. That's really interesting that I have reverted back to my old behavior that I don't necessarily like. What about this time made me do this? Once we can get curious, then we can come to an understanding of what do I need? Typically, there's going to be two different scenarios. Okay. You're either going to be trying to feel something, or you are going to be trying to. Not to feel something. So ask yourself, what am I feeling now? What am I trying to feel? Or what am I not trying to feel? And in this question, you can then answer okay, this is what was going on in my body. I was experiencing anxiety with my smoking, right? And so the smoking was a way to help me not feel that anxiety. So I was trying to not feel the stress. So once I understand that I'm trying to not feel the stress, well, then I can go to asking, what do I need? And this is where the coping skills toolkit comes in handy because there are different Things that we could implement for different situations when we're talking about coping skills. So for me, because I was trying to not feel stress, I chose smoking. Now, smoking can be in my coping skills toolkit. Okay. Like any behavior or thing can be in your coping skills toolkit. It's just that some things are going to be more appropriate than others for certain scenarios. So if you're thinking about your coping skills toolkit and trying to change a behavior, you need to write a list of things that are going to bring you pleasure and that are going to help soothe your body and create more regulation in your nervous system at any given moment. So I kind of went over some of mine earlier. You know, I have the choice of smoking, I have a choice of eating fried chicken, I have a choice of calling a friend. I have a choice of taking an Epsom salt bath, doing a yoga class, reading a book. ⁓ I could cook a very healthy meal that has zucchini and broiled chicken, right? Like there are an endless array of things that I could do that would bring me pleasure. And I want you to literally get out your phone and in the notes app, I want you to write coping skills toolkit. I want you to list a bunch of activities that you could do to help you meet your needs when a situation of relapse is bound to arise. So that way, when you're feeling triggered in the moment, you can open your phone, you can look at the coping skills toolkit, you can ask yourself, hey, what am I feeling right now? Am I trying to not feel it or am I trying to feel something else? And then you can look at your skills in your coping skills toolkit and say, okay, here are some good options to fit the current situation that I am in right here, right now. Through doing these steps, what you can do is learn a lot more about yourself and how to meet your own needs. And that's why relapse is my favorite part of the behavior change process. Cultural conditioning makes us believe that if we don't do something perfectly the first time, that we should feel guilt and shame. Well, I say fuck that. Okay. I want you to embrace the relapse. I want you to give yourself compassion. I want you to look at yourself like a detective and get curious. Ask yourself, what am I feeling and what do I need? And then Entertain your coping skills toolkit to see if there's something there that's gonna scratch that itch other than the behavior that you're trying to change. And if you choose to change and if you choose to engage in that so called bad behavior, anyways, who the fuck cares? Okay, embrace. The relapse, my friend, because on the other side of that relapse leads to a sustainable Embrace the relapse, my friends, because on the other side of that relapse is a really good opportunity to learn a little something about yourself and have a little bit more acceptance for the person that you are.