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The Holi-Daze Have Begun: When Food, Feelings, and Familiar Habits Meet · The Relief is Real with Ms. B

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, well, well.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Look who came back.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Girl, pull up a chair.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to The Relief is Real with Miss B.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you were with me yesterday, you already know what's going on around here.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's beginning to look a lot like.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Why did I eat all that?
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh girl, the holidays have officially begun.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, before we go any further, let me tell you something.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: I love the holidays.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: I love the gatherings, I love the laughter, I love seeing everybody come together.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, I love some good holiday food.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're not about to sit here and pretend otherwise.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: But there's something else about the holidays that I remember.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Something that didn't always show up on the dinner table.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: It showed up in my thoughts.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes before the holidays even started.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I want to talk about today.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because, girl, sometimes the holidays begin long before the first holiday meal.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever noticed how early we start having conversations with ourselves about holiday food?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thanksgiving isn't even here yet, and we're already thinking about it.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: What we're going to eat, what we're not going to eat, how we're going to handle all that food.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, there's that famous promise.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: This year, I'm going to do better.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Girl, how many years have we been saying that?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: I remember making those promises.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'd have the whole thing worked out in my head.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was going to be careful, I wasn't going to get carried away, I was going to stay on track.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I did exactly what I planned.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: well, let's just say the plan and I weren't always on speaking terms by the end of the day.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: But here's something I didn't understand back then.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was spending so much time thinking about what I was going to eat that I wasn't paying much attention to what was happening inside me while I was making all those promises.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a very different conversation.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you something.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever walked into the kitchen and reached for something without really thinking about it?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're preparing dinner, maybe you're talking on the phone, and there's something sitting right there on the counter.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: You grab a little piece, keep talking, keep walking, and a few minutes later, you're back.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Another little piece.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Girl, sometimes I wasn't even thinking about food until I saw it.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And here's what's interesting.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: We can spend the rest of the evening thinking about those little bites.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: But what about the moments when we reached?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Were we hungry?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Were we enjoying the taste?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Were we simply following a familiar routine?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Or was something else going on?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: See, those questions weren't part of my old conversations with myself.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: My old conversation was usually Brenda, why did you eat that?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Why couldn't you leave it alone?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Here you go again! And girl, I could have that conversation all night long.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: But it never helped me understand anything.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: It just kept me looking at what I'd done, not what had happened.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a difference.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now I want to tell you something about relief, because this is where my own understanding began to change.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: There were times when I reached for food because I was hungry.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: There were times when I ate because something tasted good.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: And there were times when food seemed to offer me a little break, a little quiet, a little comfort, a moment when I didn't have to think about anything else.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever had one of those days?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody needs something from you.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: You've been answering questions, making decisions, taking care of things, and finally you sit down.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've got something good to eat, and for just a moment, nobody needs anything.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody's asking you anything.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: You can just sit there.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not saying every time you sit down with food, you're looking for relief.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you're just enjoying a good meal.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: But I started noticing that sometimes, for me, it wasn't just about the food.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was about that moment, that little pause, that feeling of finally being able to stop.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I had never really considered that before.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: For years I paid attention to what happened after I ate.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Whether I'd eaten too much, whether I should have eaten something different, whether I needed to do better tomorrow.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I rarely paid attention to what happened before.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: What was I doing?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of day had I been having?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And what was I hoping that moment with food would give me?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I didn't suddenly have all the answers.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Girl, I had questions.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: But for the first time, they were different questions.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of asking, what's wrong with me?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: I could begin asking, What's happening here?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that curiosity didn't require me to stop enjoying my food.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't require me to be perfect.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't even require me to change anything right away.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: I was simply beginning to notice something I hadn't been paying attention to.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that mattered.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what I want to leave you with today.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: As we head into the holidays, I'm not asking you to make another food promise.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not asking you to avoid the sweet potato pie.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm certainly not asking you to count anybody's cookies.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm inviting you into a different kind of holiday conversation.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: One where we can laugh about the things we've done, recognize those familiar moments, and maybe get curious about something we've never thought to look at before.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because looking at the food changes nothing.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Looking under it changes everything.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Not so we can judge ourselves, but so we can begin to understand ourselves.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And girl, understanding creates choice.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: But we're not rushing to choice today.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Today, we're just opening our eyes to something.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, before I let you go, I've got one more thing I want you to think about.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever reached for something to eat and then realized you weren't even thinking about food a few seconds earlier?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: You were doing something else, thinking about something else.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you weren't even hungry, and suddenly there you were, food in your hand.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now here's the question.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: What happened in those few seconds between what you were doing and the moment you reached?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm, girl, that's where Thursday's conversation begins.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's something about that little moment we often overlook.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: And once you begin noticing it, well, we'll talk about that Thursday.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is Miss B, and you've been listening to The Relief Is Real.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: See, baby, you're not the only one.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'll see you Thursday.