Do you feel like you’re stuck in a cycle of self-doubt, overthinking, and questioning every single decision you make about food, movement, or your body? You’re not alone. It’s common for trauma to show up in our relationships with food and your body after years of dieting. But how do you reconnect to your body and intuition, and move forward?
I was honored to speak with Emily Romero, LPC, SEP, a long-time trauma therapist turned author and creator of The Self-Trust Model™. She has years of experience empowering women to overcome self-doubt, overthinking, and insecurity, and graciously agreed to explore how trauma shows up in our relationship with food and how to start trusting yourself again.
Let’s explore how dieting severs our self-trust, trauma’s impact, how parts work can help, how to hold space for weight loss desires, and gentle ways to reconnect with your inner wisdom.
Why Dieting Often Disconnects Us from Self-Trust
At its core, diet culture tells us to ignore our body’s signals. “You’re not really hungry,” or “you can’t eat that”. Dieting tells us that we can’t make decisions about food, then further reinforces that lack of self-trust when you slip up, scolding you for not being able to stick to it.
This constant narrative is made even worse by the pressure to turn your power over to an external source, like an influencer on social media, instead of trusting what your body is telling you.
Relying on diet culture’s rules and narratives weakens your ability to hear – and trust – your own voice. Start small by simply noticing when those external sources start to take control of your thoughts about food, rest, or movement.
Parts Work & How It Helps to Heal
As Emily explains in the podcast, we all have these different parts of us inside. They all mean well and want to have a positive influence on our life but sometimes these parts are conflicting. By getting curious about how these parts are showing up – maybe by trying to protect you by dieting or exert some kind of control – you can separate these parts from yourself and know that it’s not all you.
This is when you start to build a relationship based on self-trust with yourself and understand why you are drawn to dieting.
Practice internally listening to the part of you that fears food and the part that longs for ease. Let your adult self take the lead while still practicing compassion.
Why It’s Okay to Still Want Weight Loss
When you start listening to how the different parts of yourself show up, you may notice that a part of you doesn’t want to diet anymore while another still wants to lose weight. This is totally normal. Both parts are coming with good intentions, but if you just ignore the one that wants to lose weight, it’ll show up in other ways later.
Instead, give each part its voice and dive deep within yourself to figure out their motivations to integrate what’s right for you. This is where your intuition and self-trust come into play; without them, it’s hard to find the right path.
Gentle Ways to Reconnect with Your Intuition Today
When we start to feel overwhelmed, the body is often on the cusp of a freeze response, making it hard to tune back in with your body and intuition. Emily explains that there are four principles of cultivating more self-trust:
- Radical honesty
- Keeping promises
- Regulation
- Knowing yourself
Let’s break them down.
Radical Honesty
Building trust with ourselves correlates to building it with others. When people are honest with us, we learn to trust them, but when they lie – even if it’s a little white lie or for a good reason – that trust erodes. It’s the same when building self-trust.
The key here is going inward and being real with yourself. Give yourself that honesty to start building your relationship with your intuition again.
Keeping Promises
Similar to building trust with others, keeping promises is all about following through and doing what you say you’re going to do. Think about it: you don’t trust people who flake or go back on their word, right? We have to follow through on what we tell ourselves to build that self-trust.
Now, it’s not always that simple, but at the core, you have to understand where this goal is coming from. For example, if you promised yourself you’d only eat x number of calories per day on this diet, you’re setting yourself up to fail. But if you’re committing to adding more greens to your meals because you want to be healthier, it’ll set you up to follow through better.
Regulation
It’s difficult to trust your intuition when your nervous system is dysregulated. When you’re dysregulated, it’s harder to come back to a state of regulation after experiencing the highs and lows of life. There are a lot of nervous systems hacks out there you can try, but in Emily’s opinion, it’s important to ground in the basics first:
- Fuel. How are you fueling – food, water, supplements – your body?
- Movement. Are you moving your body joyfully?
- Rest. Are you getting enough sleep to allow your body to rest and restore?
- Sunlight. Are you getting some time outside? Even a quick walk can make an impact.
- Connection. Connection with people and connection with nature is vital.
Nurture your relationship in each of these areas to build a solid foundation of regulation. The stronger this foundation, the more you can discern which nervous system or body work practices will help you, and you can build your connection with your intuition from there.
Knowing yourself
We don’t inherently trust strangers, right? So if you want to know yourself, you can’t be a stranger.
This can show up in a lot of different ways:
- Physically
- Mentally
- Financially
- Connection to your body
In other words, this isn’t a one-size-fits-all thing. It constantly evolves over time. But staying in tune will help you lean into your intuition and reconnect with your body.
Rebuilding that connection with your body and food begins with small practices. Start with radical honesty, nervous system regulation, and getting to know and understand yourself again to start creating that self-trust.
Key Takeaways
Healing self-trust isn’t about perfection; it’s about coming back to yourself, step by step. When you begin to listen to your parts, regulate your nervous system, and lean into connection, rest, and your body’s cues, your self-trust starts to build. The more you practice, the stronger – and easier – it gets to show up, trust yourself, and rebuild your relationships with food and your body image.
Listen & subscribe on your favorite platform: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Deezer | Google
Search for Ep. 205 (Transcript): You CAN Trust Yourself and Your Body with Emily Romero
Looking for more support on your journey to food freedom and body acceptance?
– Check out my course, Non-Diet Academy
– Join my Facebook group & community “Intuitive Eating Made Easy”
– Take my FREE quiz “What’s Your Unique Path to Food Freedom?”
– Save $120 on HelloFresh, my fav food delivery service!
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