Healing Your Relationship with Food & Your Body with Geneen Roth

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I have one of my sheros on the show today, so this is so interesting back I guess it was, gosh, it was probably 30 years ago. It was at least 25 years ago. It's a long time ago. I was leading these workshops with a girlfriend who was a psychotherapist and we were leading body image workshops and so I was obsessed with the work of Janine Roth. And we actually go through the books that I went that I read when I was obsessed, still obsessed with her. Her work is just amazing. But she first caught my attention with a book called When Food is Love. And then I went to a workshop and incorporated a lot of her teaching into what I do. So if you've been into any of my program, read my books, you'll see that I always have some very mindful work in there and awareness and journaling and figuring out your why. And a lot of that came through Janine. So she reached out to me, gosh, I don't know, a year and a half ago wanting to ask some questions about the current state of the book world and I'm like, oh my gosh, my hero is reaching out to me and it's just been amazing connecting with her. And what's so amazing is this woman has just been prolific. She has written 10 books. The number one best selling book, Women, Food and God and it was on the New York Times list for gosh, six months. She had multiple other New York Times bestsellers and she's still leading workshops and retreats. She's been all over the place. She's been Oprah, yes, today's show, Good Morning America, the View, 20 20, Dr. Oz, and again, she's just the reason she's been everywhere and she's done so many best selling books is because her.

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Is great and I am super honored to have her on the show with me today. Now, before I jump in with her, I want to share one of my favorites with you. All right, welcome to the show. Janine Roth. I am super excited to have you here.

A thank you and I'm pretty thrilled to be talking to you.

Well, it's Nothing like interviewing your heroes. Or she rose. I guess. I guess it would be here. So I first found you. Gosh. What. What was your very first book? I'm trying to think of what it was that I found you. I was reading. What would it have been?

It probably wasn't that book, Feeding the Hungry Heart. It might have been When Food is Love.

That's what it was. When Food is Love. When Food is Love. That's where I got started with you. And then you had your book, Women, Food and God. It was a huge bestseller. Six months, more than six months on the New York Times list.

Wow.

Yeah, Pretty great.

That is super great and super hard to do, I would think. Anyone listening who's ever pushed a book out there, it's like raising quintuplets. Now you have this next one. I love the title of this. I love your titles. Messy Magnificent Life.

Yes.

What the heck is this book?

Yeah. Well, this book is about using what I learned to heal my relationship with food. How I ate, what I ate, basically how I learned to eat healthy. The way you actually encourage people to eat, describe people, advise people. I love your work. What was keeping me from doing that in my own relationship with food is what I actually healed. And then using the things I learned with that, with the entire rest of my life, with what I call the messiness in the rest of my life. Everyday challenges, relationship challenges, work challenges, getting sick, breaking bones, family members getting sick and dying. I mean, just sort of the everyday stuff, the little stuff and the big stuff.

Well, I love that. I just love that you called it messy. I had this one boyfriend before I met Fabulous Tim, who everything had to be so neat and organized. And I had this little dog who she. And I'm like, you know, life's messy, life's messy. It's fine.

It is messy. And I think part of the issue with a lot of us is that we keep thinking, if only we could get it neater, if only we get this handled and that handled, then we can relax and then we can start living. And the problem is that never really happens because life is an ongoing unfolding of situations. And I don't want people to keep waiting till they have their life in so called order to live fully, to live magnificently. The messiness is part of it and can be used as a doorway to the fabulousness and the magnificence.

It just reminds me when people say, you know, I'm waiting to have kids till I get my, you know, my job dialed.

My.

This, that, like all this stuff I'm looking, going, so you're never having kids? Yeah, that's just it, you know, it's just the same type of thing now for someone listening. And, you know, they. They have some things in their life.

They want to change.

And I know we're going to talk some about weight loss, too. That's what. Where I initially found you, but just in general, what do you. You have this method for helping people change their lives.

What.

What is it?

Yes. Well, it's a couple of different steps. The first step is, and you know this really well, is listening to and getting into your body, out of your mind and into your body, or what I call standing in your own two shoes. Because that's where the guidance comes. That's where the messages come. That's how you know which foods are not good for you and which foods are feeding your aliveness, feeding your life force, making yourself thrive. But that can only happen when you get out of your mind of your ideas of what's supposed to do it and into the reality of these arms, these legs, these feet on the floor, these hands, just realizing, okay, I've got a body, and here it is, and here I am, and here we are on planet Earth. This is what it takes, this body. So sensing your feet on the floor, your butt in the chair, you know, really being aware of your breathing, just very simple things. Takes a minute or two a day. And another one is to stop what I call the crazy ant in the attic, which is this ongoing noise in the head. You should have. You could have. How come you didn't, if only you would have? How come you're trying yet another thing? What's the matter with you? Don't you realize that, you know, it's best not to take risks? That voice, everybody's got it. It blares on and on and on all day long. And most of us are so merged with it, so identified with it, that we can't tell the difference between us and it or us and her, if you want to call it the crazy aunt in the attic. And so another step is just disengaging from that voice and realizing she isn't your friend. And I take people through a process, which I won't go into now, about how to do that, because that also is very easy. It's about allowing the critic to be critical if it wants to. The crazy aunt's in the attic, but she's in the attic, or it's in the attic. And if it's in the attic and going on all day Long, but you're living two floors down, then it doesn't matter because I think people get discouraged. At least the people that I work with get a little discouraged. They disengage. They tell the antecedent stop. They're aware of the top 10 criticisms that this voice says or the cine critic says. And then it comes back. And then they feel like a failure because it comes back. Well, it's going to be there. But again, if it's living in the attic and you're down in the living room, it doesn't matter. You just learn to not pay attention. It's going to keep. You know, it's been in place since we were 4 years old, and it's lived with us 24, 7, our entire lives. But the. And it's not a problem if you don't listen to and, or believe what it's saying. It's just not a problem. It only becomes a problem when you believe it, or her or him or whatever you want to call it. That's when it's a problem.

Now, I got attracted to you, and I was actually working with a girlfriend in LA who's a. A therapist. And I was a trainer at the time, and we were leading these body image workshops. And, you know, everyone was coming to me as a trainer to help them lose weight. And I started to quickly realize that the issue wasn't with what they were eating or their exercise. Right. So let's like, let's go there because I remember going through this workshop with you, and there were papers all over the wall and people were writing all over the walls about their bodies and their weight. And it was. I'd never experienced anything like it. And very freeing. So what, you have this open secret to permanent weight loss, so let's like, not have it a secret. Right?

It's like.

So what the heck is it? And really permanent weight loss. Really, Janine?

Well, yeah. So it's on two levels. One level is understanding how the weight, believe it or not, is serving you. I know people don't believe that. They don't feel like that. They don't want to hear that. They don't like it. No, it's not serving me. It's getting in my way. I don't like schlepping 20 or 30 extra pounds. I don't even like schlepping 5 or 10 pounds. It's only an obstacle. It's only a source of pain. But what I say to people, and this is on the emotional level, we'll talk about the physical level in a second. On the emotional level, I say, okay, but you're keeping it around for good reasons. Let's just take a moment. And even if the good reasons are only 10% of the weight or why the weight is here, let's just look at that 10%. Let's see why you might be doing that, what the positive reasons are. And some of the reasons are because it keeps me protected. Because if I lost the weight, then I would have to take risks, then I would have to leave my job, then I would have to go for a job that I really wanted. Then I would feel exposed, and I don't want to feel exposed. Then people that I don't want to be attracted to me would be attracted to me, and I don't want that. I don't want that extra attention. And so it's sort of, you know, subversive in a way, asking this question, because people aren't usually aware of it, and yet it's a survival mechanism. And so it's something that's one of those core beliefs. If I lost weight, and then this would happen, and that would happen, and this would happen, Or So, Janine, are.

They even aware of these, or are these in their subconscious?

That's why I'm saying it's subversive, because most people aren't aware of it. And most people disagree with me when I bring it up. There is no good reason. No, you're wrong. It's not happening. No, there's. So, no, they're not aware of it. But it's for that very reason that it's important to bring it up and name it. Just name it.

All right, so let's go into just eating in general.

Yeah.

And you know, how you make that shift from, you know, the. The bingeing, the desperate eating, the anxiety, you know, you know, eating to. To fill up some kind of, you know, need rather than food. How do you. How do you change that, shift that over to eating? What fuels you and what's going to make you feel good and be healthy and loving that.

Right? Yeah, great question. Of course. And the first part of it is what you and I were just talking about. To recognize that there are emotional and psychological and exquisitely good reasons why you are not making that shift. So, you know, people are afraid to name that because they're afraid if they name that, then they'll never make the shift. But that's not true. They make the shift much quicker when they realize and really, you know, have compassion for themselves. Right there. This is where kindness Comes in. This is where you realize, okay, I've been doing this for good reasons, and there's relief. And so you name those. We just talked about that. The next part is to really see what you're eating, how you're eating, how it's affecting you. And you talk about that a lot, J.J. because I read what you write all the time and what you say, and I love it. And so part of it is if you're not eating in a way that is increasing your life force or giving you energy, helping you to thrive, then it's important to look at what you're eating. And if you're still caught in the past about that, because people can know what it is that feels great in their body. Although that does take some attention. It really does take some attention and still not do it. And they're not doing it. And that's my question. What's going on with you not doing it? I find it's very important and very helpful to say to people, what are you eating for? Because if you start taking out things like sugar and processed carbs and the things that people are there, comfort foods, then without understanding that it's because you're going for something. So it's not about deprivation, it's about going for aliveness, it's about going for feeling fabulous. And so you focus on what you're doing and what it's for rather than what you're depriving yourself of.

So I'm guessing you walk through people, people through this at your retreats, and you're still doing these retreats, right?

Yes, yes. So you came to a workshop that I did, which was a night and a day, and I'm still doing those occasionally, maybe once or twice a year, one on the east coast, one on the west coast. But mostly what I'm doing are six day retreats. And so those are long retreats, twice a year. And then I work with those same people also twice a year in between the retreats, and then I work with them in between the retreats. So there's a lot of sustained community support. Work with me, work with other people about what's going on with their relationship with food. It's so important.

Community is the single. To me, like community, a great support system is key. Now in there you have something called this red string project.

Yes, Right, right. So, you know, with this prevalence now of me too, and time's up and all this focus on women speaking up and speaking out, which I think is great. I think it's fabulous. The one piece that's not being addressed in this is how women have internalized the shame and we've internalized the way that we've been treated. And so I feel really strongly about this, that this is work on the inner level, that in order to really feel like no is a complete sentence, and I don't want to is a complete sentence, we need to really just name and address the places where we feel, believe it or not, that our bodies don't belong to us. And I know that sounds wild, but what the Red String Project is. I first did it in therapy with my own therapist, who handed me a piece of red string, told me to put it around me in a circle, make a circle, sit in the center of the circle and feel like that red string on the circumference of the circle was my boundary and nobody could cross it. My body was mine. And believe it or not, I started crying immediately and said, but my body isn't mine, but I'll get in trouble if I say no, but people won't love me. But part of the cost of being alive and being a woman is just to take what comes. And so it was shocking to me to see this. And then I started doing it in my retreats. I gave that red string out to 150 women at a time, and they started crying like me. I don't mean to be laughing, but it was also shocking with the same exact reaction. I'm not allowed to. I'm not supposed to. I can't. And, you know, in working with them, we got to the point where, wow. So it's always the same thing, seeing where you are and naming where you are instead of trying to pretend to be somewhere else. Power doesn't come from pretending you're not yourself. Power comes from gathering up the places where you've left yourself behind, bringing them into the current moment and then moving out, acting on your own behalf. And that's what the Red String Project is all about.

That's awesome.

That needs to get spread everywhere. Hopefully, I will do my. My part here. Now, I know you have a gift for everybody. The breasts I have left. Walk us through what that is and I will tell everyone you're going to be able to get this@jjvirgin.com forward/geneen and you spell that G, E, N E, E, N. And along with the notes and the link over to your book. And I understand also, when people buy your messy, magnificent lifebook, they also get a workshop along with that.

Yes, they do. They get. I'll tell you about the two things.

Yes, we'll have all this in the show notes too. Don't worry about taking notes. So the first thing they get for free and then what happens when they.

Grab the book from you for free? So what that is is a whole understanding and a. Well, I'll backtrack for a second. I realized that I was scared that I was going to get to the end of my life somehow and not have shown up. And I wanted to live my life fully, whatever that took, full out, full out, out loud. And so I explore that and tell people how to do that in the breaths I have left. It's about how to live fully, magnificently show up and not get to the end of your life or even to the end of a day and have any regrets and feel like you didn't really live fully. So the breaths I have left actually refers to that we all have, you know, an allotted amount of breaths in a lifetime that people have figured out and I wanted to use, and I'm sure everybody who's listening to this wants to use the breaths they have left fully, wants to show up as best as you can and as alive as you can. So that's what that is. And a class is when you buy the book, is women, weight and power releasing the energy of obsession. And you know, I ask this a lot. What would happen if we took the energy we have that we have tied up in obsession and in the size of our bodies and worrying about it all the time and released it, the power that that could effect in our culture? It would be enough to light up a city. It would be enough to light up a Toronto nuclear power plant. It would be enough to change the world. And we need that energy now. We need that energy now. And it's available to us when we release it from obsession. And so that's what the class will be about. Walking you through that.

Very, very cool. Great tools. And for everybody listening, I'll put all this in the show notes@jjvirgin.com forward/janine. And again, you spell Janine. G, E, N. All right, Jadene, thank you so much for being with me today. And thank you for pushing out another amazing book into the world. We need more.

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More and more of you out there.

Thank you, jj, for being such an ambassador of the truth and goodness and health. I love it.

Ah, thank you.

I appreciate it.

Now, everybody, after the break, I'll be answering a listener's question. So stay with me. Welcome back. This is the time where I answer listeners question. I grabbed this one off my Facebook Live yesterday. We were talking about.

Food and food.

Addiction and one gal, Tara, said, you know, I'm great during the day, but then at night my evil twin comes out and all bets are off. And here's the thing, everyone chimed in, of course, with like, you know, a thumbs up. I think we all can relate to that. And one of the things I've been saying my entire adult nutritionist life is don't bring the enemy into the house. I do not believe in willpower. I think that if we had willpower, we wouldn't be here. As a people group, we are hardwired to seek out sugar, to seek out fat, to gorge so we can survive famines. It's in our biology, it's in our DNA. So why make this hard on yourself? The first thing that I would tell you is get the enemy out of the house. Now if the next thing I usually hear when I say this is, but I have to cook for my family now, whenever I hear that, I'm like, do you like your kids? Do you like your family? Because if you do, why would you want to bring this stuff in too? Teach them to eat the good stuff first and then if you're going to have a treat, go out for it. It's so much easier and it puts it into the right perspective. So I don't bring the enemies into the house that I know tempt me too much. And we all have our trigger foods. And even if it's something healthy, let's say nut butter or nuts, too much healthy foods, unhealthy. So if you can't handle it, then you shouldn't have it around. And so I want to emphasize if you are having challenges there, grab the materials in the show notes today. Jjvirgin.com Janine Because Janine is the master of really identifying emotional eating. But I, I'm going to come from the more logical left brain approach of let's just start with by making impossible for you to do so and then go deeper with her work. All right, I want to do a shout out to Purple Scuba. Yep. Purple Scuba says JJ is a great source of information. Five stars. This podcast information is very helpful and a great use of one's time. Now that means a ton to me because the, you know, two ways that we commit in life is with our wallet and our time, right? So I take it very seriously when someone gives me their time and I want to make sure it's valuable for you. So thank you Purple Scuba for that and for everybody leaving reviews on itunes. I love to feature them, so leave a review so I can do a big shout out for you. Make sure you put your name in there too. And whole team. We read these reviews every week. They mean a ton to us. They also help us get the word out because, you know, pretty much most of what I spend my time doing at this point point is just getting information out into the world so you'll never have an excuse for not being healthy because I've made it easy and accessible and actionable for you. So I want to make sure you got everything you need in your pursuit of taking personal responsibility for your health. Alrighty, see you next week.

Hello listeners, this is Anne Bogle, author, blogger and creator of the podcast what Should I Read next? Since 2016, I've been helping readers bring more joy and delight into their reading lives. Every week I tag all things books and reading with a guest and guide them in discovering their next read. They share three books they love, one book they don't, and what they've been reading lately, and I recommend three titles they may enjoy reading next. Guests have said our conversations are like therapy, troubleshooting issues that have plagued their reading lives for years and possibly the rest of their lives as well. And of course, recommending books that meet the moment. Whether they are looking for deep introspection to spur or encourage a life change or a frothy page turner to help them escape the stresses of work, school, everything, you'll learn something about yourself as a reader and you'll definitely walk away confident to choose your next read, with a whole list of new books and authors to try. So join us each Tuesday for what Should I Read Next? Subscribe now wherever you're listening to this podcast and Visit our website whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com to find out more.