Jimbo Paris Show #80- Improve Life with Gratefulness (Benedita Sousa)

Hi, I'm Jimbo Paris and you're listening to the Jimbo Paris show Alright guys, Jimbo Paris. Welcome to the Jimbo Paris show. And today we have Benedita Sousa, founder and director of Beyond Binging. She is a binging counselor. She has battled binge eating for most of her life. And she works with women and people in general every day to help fight for their freedom, from binging and also to live happier and healthier lives. So let's see what she has to say.

That's right. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jimbo. Nice to see you. Nice to meet you here. Thank you, everyone for being here as well. And that's right. So I had problems with binge eating, which led to depression which led to not wanting to be in this world anymore, and suicidal attempts. And I have dedicated the past kind of 10 years of my life in this huge discovery, what leaders to wanting to binge to numb ourselves down to be heavy on the outside, but feel crap on the inside. And at the end, why on earth, people that have nice jobs, have a nice life also don't want to live in this world anymore. And in the past 10 years, I have been in this discovery in this journey, learning what makes people go to those extremes to those situations where they can't handle life anymore. And now I dedicated my mission is to help other people to overcome binge eating, which it's just a symptom to a lot of other problems that we have in life.

How did you take that first step?

I had a moment where they I was coming back from one of the again another way of looking for help. I was coming back I don't know if it was from a therapy session or counseling sensor or from the GP I can't remember exactly from where I was coming from, but I was walking down the street and I was thinking I had this thought to myself I had, okay, if no one can help you because I had been looking for someone to help me for quite a while if no one can help you, you're gonna have to help yourself because you cannot carry on like this. I had been already in a downward spiral in a downward journey been doing therapy and counseling for many years, had been feeling like things were not right for a very long time, I had this moment of thinking, Okay, if no one can help you, you're going to have to find a way because you cannot live like this in between worlds. You are living in this hole but you don't want to be here you want to go to summer, nowhere lands but you're not going so what you can't be in this in this situation. So you're gonna have to find a way to live in this world and be happy. And then slowly bit by bit I started to rebuild myself. So when I went back to work, that was kind of the playground let's call it the playground that was kind of my education, my classroom. And I started to learn how to be in at work and not be angry and and overcome the binge eating slowly bit by bit. I started working on myself and learning all the things I needed to learn not just about myself, but how to live in the world in a way that would be fulfilling, happy. And until one.

To add to that, you know, just for a few people that don't know what this is. What is binge eating?

Oh, yeah, very good question, Jimbo. Sometimes people know it as emotionally eating, stress eating overeating. Imagine that you ate a normal meal. At home, you cooked a bit of pasture, a bit of rice, whatever it is, and you ate a normal meal. And then at the end of that, you feel like you need to eat more your food, your food, you're not hungry, but you want to eat more. And you have this desire of eating more. It's almost like trying to fill up something that never gets food and and then the other the other problem with this what is also binge eating is when you're starting to obsess and you just want to get home and close yourself in a bedroom or in the living room or if you live alone. You just want to get home and eat everything that you can whatever it's available in your inner carport just eat it it's to the point of feeling numb and sleepy. You don't even getting to feel full because you even you don't feel the fullness, you don't feel because if you if if binge eaters would be able to stop eating, when they would be full, they wouldn't be binge eating. The problem is that we are not able to, we have a disconnect, there's a disconnect between here and between our stomach, and we are not able to go like Okay, that's it, I'm full, I'm not going to eat more. But unfortunately, there is a disconnect. And we just eat, eat, eat until our body just switches off because he can't handle any more food. And, and for me it for me, most people 80% of the binge eaters struggles in the evening. At the end of the day, when they get home. They just eat everything or as much as they can. Sometimes some people wake up during the night and eat a lot to the point of feeling numbed, feeling sleepy, feeling tired, exhausted, and then there is no other solution, then go to sleep and wake up in the morning and forget about what what we've done. And that's it.

Again, I think it's important for other people to sort of know that know what binge eating is technically, because

Absolutely.

we just assume that just eating a ton of food, you know, is something else. So we think, Oh, I'm going to binge tonight. But even though people use this word a lot, I don't think they know what it means to at least your level.

The problem with binge eating is when it becomes for a very long time. It's not just a one meal once every six months or one meal once a week, it's every single day, sometimes twice a day. So it becomes a recurrent thing that happens. And very often, most of the cases starts to happen. Very young, when we don't have someone controlling what we eat. So yeah, so most of us we've been suffering for it for so long. That's why it's been eating because it's quite chronic. And it's something that has, it's damaging our health for a long term. And you know, there's all these problems and mentally psychologically, we've been battling with a lack of control on what we eat, how much we eat, cheating, and the worst is that binge eaters we are always hiding. No one knows we're binge eaters, we don't have a label. And then for us, like it was my case where I don't I never I was not obese, I obviously I had some extra kilos that I didn't want. But I was not obese. I was quite happy, bubbly, sexy girl and so on full of confidence in myself. No one would look at me and say, so it's, it's in secret. We live our lives in secret. And that makes it even worse, because it's more difficult to get out of it.

How did you get out of it?

I hit rock bottom, I had no idea that I just knew I had a problem with binge eating. So I started counseling and I did more than a year every week speaking with a therapist, then I was in a horrible deep depression I was stuck at a stuck in my bedroom. I didn't want to leave my bedroom. And that's when the suicidal thoughts and suicidal attempts and all of that started. And I was still binging. Depressions I have different ways. You know, they come on people in different ways. I was what some people call working depression. I was in depression for quite a while but I was in denial. Lots of doctors for quite a while was telling me you need to stop you need to urine you have depression, you need to do something about it. And me. Now, you know, I'm quite happily isn't it happy, sociable. I go out I go to work. No, no, no. I wanted to go to a psychiatry hospital. Because I thought I was completely crazy. They said you're not in a state that we can send you to a psychiatric hospital. And I said, so what else is there for me to help me because I want to go back to my normal life. I want to feel normal, I'm not normal. And they just didn't have anything for me. And, and then that's when this clarity moment came where I just said, dammit, if no one can help you, you're gonna have to

So you're saying binge eating is a mental thing help yourself. and sort of by addressing your mental health. That in turn, helps you to stop binge eating. What we forget is that we are energy bodies. We are human beings that have a body. We have intellect, mind thinking. And we have a soul we have spirits, whatever you want to call it, which is energy. We cannot just address the binge eating problem at the physical level or at the mental level. But we have to address everything physical mind and spirit because the deep inside, in our energy body in our spirit we have the problem that we are trying to fix through eating. Sometimes we just have to be a bit more aware that there is something else underneath that we are trying to compensate with food. And that's why I think people like myself, and there's many people that doing the same work that I do. We approach this model in a holistic way, because we've been there. We've been there. You explain this to me very well. But how did you begin, even want wanting to teach this to other people, when you go through situations like this, where you thought you had quite a normal life, and then you see yourself in a really horrible situation in your life that you want to give up live. And then you come out on the other side, you're like, No, I want to make I want to help other people this, because I don't want other people to suffer like I suffered. For me, this is now my path. This is my purpose. That's why I came in this in this world. And now to be here and saying to other women, you don't have to suffer with binge eating, you can live a life of happiness, fulfillment and purpose. And I am the proof because I, I was really in a bad situation, I nearly did not exist. And I'm here today. So if I am here, they can also continue and you know, overcome and be happy and so on. And why did you get into yoga?

Well, I knew I wanted to move my body. And I've always been quite an active person I like I like to move and do things. And I never really found an activity or physical activity that would fulfill me. It's difficult sometimes to explain these things. But I hope some of your listeners can relate to this. Because it's common, it's normal, we, we just very driven people, and we want to succeed, and we want to do things. But sometimes we don't know how to use that energy. And the thing is, we do it unconscious, it's a web of things that we have to look into.

Interesting, okay. And you also start a podcast as well. I have a group of colleagues and they are all coaches, they help people with different situations. And, and I wanted to talk more and more about what we do, because I think that we as coaches fill up a gap in the market and I was talking about how nowadays health system is not equipped to deal with certain situations, you know, 21st century problems, mental health problems. And I think that we coaches, we actually fill up that gap in the market, either through the specific field that we are specialized in, or because we've been through it, we've been through it, we've gone through the pain, the suffering, we found solutions, we came out on the other side, and now we want to share with other people. And I have found these coffee chats very important to raise the awareness that we deserve more, we deserve better, we go through some really challenging times some really dark moments and a lot of regrets a lot of disappointment, a lot of a lot of shame and guilt and all of that. But the most important is that we are able to hold on keep doing the work keep doing because at some point, we're gonna reach the top and we're gonna open like a lotus, white 1000 petals, 1000 Petals bright in the sun. And, and I see my journey exactly like this. And I see every client's journey exactly like this, the most important thing is that all of them go through this murky waters go through the darkness go through the the messiness. And then they get to the to the light. And when they get to the light, they just flourish because you know, we men have so much to give, when we are at our best, we have so much to give. And sometimes we forget that we forget, one of the things that I'm very proud of is that all our clients, they just flourish. that lotus flower metaphor was quite good. You'll definitely put that in our next post with your name on it, of course, but yeah,

Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Let's take a look at the website. So the website is actually taking people to a master class. And the master class then is going to give a training on the five steps that our clients do to break free from binge eating. And then at the end of the of the webinar, people are free to book a breakthrough session with us the breakthrough session is free, it's a 45 minute call, it's completely free. Most people, when they watch this training, they get a sense of clarity and a sense of awareness that they didn't get it before. And that for me, it's already I've done my job, I've done my job, if I was able to get people on the call to just talk about what's going on with them. And for the first time, they opened up to someone, and we were the ones listening to them, and we are the good place to listen, because we get we get. This has been a good interview. Um, do you have? Actually, here's another question. If you could go back in time and speak to your younger self, what would you say to her?

I think the first thing I would say is, don't let the conditions don't let family don't let friends don't let the dedication be something that stops you. If maybe she would have known that she could go against those currents, you know, those things that we think are normal? In a way? I feel like we don't have that understanding the younger self doesn't have understanding the younger self is just going through a journey learning. So yeah, I don't know if I if she would have got the message. But thank you for asking. Never never thought about that, actually.

So yeah, this is been, you know, a great interview. Do you have any final? You know, remarks you'd like to make anything else?

Yeah, sure. First of all, I want to thank you, Jimbo, thank you so much for doing the work that you're doing. Thank you so much for bringing so many interesting people to your show and watch some of your podcasts. Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about something that I'm very passionate about. And guys, you know, follow Jimbo, make sure you check out the other podcasts, they're very good. There's lots of different topics. So it doesn't really matter if you're into fitness or dogs, you will find something that it's interesting. And if you are struggling with binge eating, if you know someone that maybe they didn't open up to you, but you know they're struggling with binge eating, just share, you know, like, very softly share this with them. And then it might just spark interest on them to do something about it. And and otherwise, I just really want to thank you. Thank you for this opportunity. And guys, reach out beyondbinging.com.uk or reach out directly to me on Facebook Benedita Sousa or beyond binging. And, Jimbo, thank you so much. Once again, I'm so happy to be here to leave you today. Thank you.

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Thank you bye bye.

Thank you for listening to the Jimbo Paris show.