The Role of Mindfulness in Recovery from Eating Disorders and Substance Use, with Maureen and Josh White
Host: Brenda Zane, brenda@hopestreamcommunity.org
Instagram: @hopestreamcommunity
Guest: Maureen and Josh White, MA, LPC, LCMHC, CGP, WPA, Founders, Red Mountain Sedona
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About this episode:
Among the red rock cliffs of Sedona, a group of young adults sit together in the Arizona sun, meditating with their roshi - a master instructor in zen tradition. Many of the students have already been through wilderness therapy or other recovery programs. They reside at nearby Red Mountain Sedona, an independent living program where they’re learning how to integrate, alongside more traditional therapies, mindfulness practices to create a healthy, productive, and sustainable substance-free life.
Episode resources:
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JOSH:
You know, at best, half of what's going on with your kid at best, young people have a developmental task, which is called differentiation, which is to establish a separate identity outside of you and even in a healthy. young person, they're, they're not going to tell you everything because they're trying to figure out what they are separate from you.
So whatever you think is happening, it is, and it's worse. So that's first rule. Second thing is, in 25 years in behavioral health, I have never once had a individual or a family say to me, You know, I think we came to you too soon.
Brenda:
You're listening to HopeStream, the place for those parenting teens and young adults who are misusing drugs and alcohol. It's your private space to learn and to gain encouragement and understanding from me, your host, Brenda Zane. I'm fellow parent to a child who struggled, and I'm so glad you're here to learn more about all the resources available to you besides a podcast, please head over to hopestreamcommunity.org.
As I was preparing for this conversation, I thought about how hungry I was for information eight to 10 years ago when I started realizing we weren't going to be able to parent our son out of the issues that he was having.
This was 2013, 14, and I definitely had never heard of a podcast before. And because I'm a data nerd, I checked, and in 2014, only 30 percent of adults in the U S had ever listened to a podcast. Today, about a third of the U S population listens to a podcast every week. Amazing. Anyway, I think it's just awesome that through this platform, we can learn [00:02:00] about so many different things.
Like there's literally a podcast for every topic. And today I got to tap into the amazing brain of Josh White, who has so many letters after his name is like alphabet soup, but in a nutshell, Josh is a licensed professional counselor, a licensed clinical mental health counselor. And a certified group psychotherapist.
He founded and runs Red Mountain Sedona, which is a transitional program for young adults of all genders, aged 18 to 28. And in addition to his clinical licenses, John is also a senior instructor, and the second ranking active practitioner of 10 Chi Kenpo, an innovative martial arts that combines karate, jiujitsu, judo, a keto, and Tai chi.
Josh is also a Roshi or a master teacher in the Zen meditation tradition. Also fun fact, this is what you learn if you dig deep enough, Josh [00:03:00] is an avid guitarist and former professional musician who opened for groups like Run DMC and the Violent Femmes back in the day. Who knew? If that wasn't enough, Josh himself is in long term recovery.
So he gets it. He knows the struggles that his clients face when it comes to mental health and addictions. I love to share people's bios like this because I think it helps humanize the amazing people who work in the field of treatment. They're not just stuffy academics or clinicians who use these cookie cutter approaches.
They're often fascinating humans who have rich life experience and they bring all of that to treating the young people in their programs. So important. I wanted to talk with Josh about a couple of things. One being eating disorders and eating and food issues in young people. I see this in the families that we work with, and it's a topic I have never touched on before, so wanted to cover that.
The [00:04:00] other very interesting thing I wanted to talk with Josh about is how mindfulness based cognitive therapy can help young people who are working toward finding recovery. Meditation and mindfulness is a cornerstone at Red Mountain Sedona, and so I wanted to tap into what that actually means. And how they use it in helping transitioning young adults.
We covered a lot of ground, including a very important perspective Josh holds about the degree to which young people under report their substance use. This is something that he sees over and over and over and something that parents are often blind to. You are going to get so much from this. Here is my conversation with Josh White, founder of Red Mountain Sedona.
BRENDA:
Welcome Josh to Hopestream. I'm thrilled to have this conversation with you and to have a little bit of time with you today, understanding in particular, um, eating food [00:05:00] issues, um, and then also one of my favorite topics, which is mindfulness. So thank you for joining me.
Josh: Thank you for having me
Brenda: me. Yeah.
This is, um, it's such a treat to get to speak to people who have such deep. Um, knowledge in these areas that I think a lot of us just. Kind of, we, we touch on a little bit, we're a little dangerous because it's like, Oh, I know this thing that I saw on this YouTube video and we really don't know. So it's really wonderful to have an expert to talk to, especially somebody who's connected with and, and meeting with and working with young people every single day.
Which I know you are. So, um, thanks for taking the time. Cause I know you're extremely busy. I would love to have you just share with us a little bit about your background. Like, how did you end up doing what you're doing today? So we can get some context for that and the program that you have Red Mountain and where, where do you see yourselves kind of that sweet spot so that we just have some grounding in that.[00:06:00]
Josh: I think most. Therapists, or people who work in a therapeutic environment, if you ask them to do a deep dive, they'll tell you some kind of story of difficulties that they had, and that therapy helped them, and that it helped them to the extent that they decided that they wanted to give back in that way, and help other people.
For me, I had a lot of insecure attachment as a child. I grew up in a, in a home with divorce, and then I ended up... With my birth mother, and I say my birth mother because then subsequently I went to live with my dad and then he got married. And, for all intents and purposes, my stepmother became my mother because my birth mother had a lot of mental health and other issues that kind of kept her from being able to parent me adequately.
Um, mixed in somewhere in there was a stepfather who was very unstable as well. [00:07:00] And so, without getting too much into the, you know, the gory details, there was a lot of trauma and a lot of... Insecure attachment and a lot of anxiety. And uh, so as is so often the case, when someone is going through those sorts of things, at some point in time, they discover any combination of drugs, alcohol, gambling.
Food, sex and love, whatever, and they find that that gives them respite and makes them feel better, because generally they don't feel very good, usually. And so then often those behaviors become problematic in and of themselves, and then there's some sort of aha moment where you realize that you need to change, and then you hopefully get into some kind of treatment and you, you get the benefit of that.
For me, uh, the primary issues were food and alcohol and relationships. I certainly dabbled in other things as well, but those were [00:08:00] the primary things. Most of my adult life, I've been working in this, in this field because I was pretty young. Uh, when I got into therapy and when I started doing 12 step stuff, and I started practicing meditation daily when I was 19.
Wow. So all those things. Took root pretty early on for me and it was, it was pretty obvious that I wanted to pursue this as a vocation just because I felt very keenly that if people hadn't helped me that I wouldn't have made it and I really wanted to do that for other people and then met my wife in graduate school, both of us wanting to be therapists and on our third date, Marine said to me, so What do you want to do with this?
You know, do you want to do private practice? What do you want to do? And I said, well, I want to have a mindfulness based healing community for young men, where we do mindfulness and therapy and help them get better. And she said, well, that's interesting [00:09:00] because I want to have a mindfulness based healing community for young women.
And so it was how convenient, delightful, yes, very convenient, divinely inspired, I think, in retrospect. Yes. Uh, so it became very obvious. Yes. And, um, Now, we don't say that Red Mountain is co ed, we say that it's all gender, because of course in recent years there's been a lot of shifts in our societal views around gender fluidity and non binary and transgender, and so we are a GLBTQ plus affirming environment here, and so we don't even say co ed, we say all gender because we have people who identify male and female, we have people who are cisgender, we have people who are transgender, we have people who are transgender.
Uh, non binary, and so it's really a healing community for, for anyone. It's not limited by that. And we work with students who are 18 to 28 years old. Here in Sedona, Arizona, which is a very beautiful, idyllic environment to heal in and get [00:10:00] better in. I'm a, a Roshi, which is a, a senior Zen teacher in the White Plum Zen tradition.
And Marina is a meditation instructor in a Tibetan tradition, actually two Tibetan traditions. So, there's a, um, a very rich mindfulness menu offered here. There's another Zen teacher and another Tibetan teacher as well. So there's four of us that do mindfulness here and as well as a yoga teacher who's amazing.
So the students get all of the usual things that they would get in a young adult. Transitional program, meaning case management, academic support, vocational support, therapy, group, individual, family therapy. But the rocket fuel that that really makes Red Mountain different from from others is the mindfulness piece and having four legitimate trained, sanctioned mindfulness teachers that can help them learn.
So the Buddha taught that [00:11:00] meditation is what we do on the cushion and mindfulness is what we do off the cushion. And so a lot of people think mindfulness and meditation are the same thing, but they're not. Uh, mindfulness, you have to have a meditation practice to cultivate your ability to engage in mindfulness.
And with respect to problematic behaviors, which almost always result from us feeling overwhelmed or triggered in some way, the, the mindfulness piece is very helpful because you can, you can see when you're starting to get wonky and you can take deliberate action. Before you end up in the compulsive behavior, because a compulsive behavior usually happens, you know, it's a relief valve when we're suddenly overwhelmed.
So, we talked a lot at Red Mountain about calling the fire department when you first smell smoke. So, rather than the house being engulfed in flames, which is what most of us did before we got better, uh, you know, [00:12:00] learning to be able to go, okay, I'm a little tired today, or... I had an interaction with a family member that didn't go well, or my relationship is funky today, or whatever it is.
So that you can exercise, you can reach out to a close friend, you can journal, you can go to therapy, you can take some action that relieves some pressure, uh, before the pressure is so overwhelming that promiscuity.
overindulging in food, uh, limiting your food intake, restricting, whatever it is. And one of, one of our core tenants too, is that you can't just ask someone to stop the behavior. You have to give them alternative behaviors to do when they feel overwhelmed and you have to help them understand that the craving will, [00:13:00] will dissipate.
So another helpful thing about the mindfulness is when you're, when you're sitting on the meditation cushion, if you do it enough, you start to notice this pattern, which is that I'm sitting there, and a thought or an impulse arises, and then it becomes stronger, and then it becomes almost unbearable, and then if I don't do anything, it just naturally starts to dissipate, and then it goes away.
So you're, you're practicing that when you're on the cushion, you're developing the muscle that lets you tolerate those unpleasant feelings, and know I can just sit here and observe this, It's going to get worse for a minute, and then it's going to just go away. It'll just go away on its own because that's the nature of all phenomena, is that they arise, they intensify, and they dissipate.
So that's, in a nutshell, what brought me to it and the, the point, I suppose, of doing mindfulness for people who have [00:14:00] these issues. That
Brenda: is really a powerful perspective shift, I think, from what we hear, a lot of approaches that don't seem to incorporate mindfulness. And I, it just makes me I'm so curious about why this isn't taught.
Um, from such a young age, especially in schools, because this, and I, and I recall my son coming home from wilderness and he said, I, you know, we were talking about what he had learned and he was like, mama, where was I, how was I supposed to know any of this stuff? And I was like, I don't know, but you know, it seems like some kids do okay and they figure out kind of the distress tolerance and they figure out how to get through stuff.
And some don't, but it just seems like it makes so much sense. that it has to be kind of mind boggling to you as you see over and over and over these young people coming without the tools to deal with [00:15:00] this. Right. It's just, it's just, I don't understand it.
Josh: Right. Well, you make a good point, which is that we are not taught these things.
And, uh, there's a lot of things we're not taught. You know, we're not taught how to balance checkbook, for example, which is another thing we do here. We do a lot of executive functioning. day to day life skills, and it's filling in a lot of blanks of the things that we didn't learn in school. And, and it is cool, because a lot of times students will say when they graduate, I'm really glad that everything went the way it did, because I'm much more equipped to succeed as an adult now than my peers.
And, um, we'll often say that to them too, because Many of them go to Wilderness first, about 70 percent of our students go to Wilderness or some kind of primary first, 30 percent come from home. But, because our weeks of stay is typically around 8 or 9 months, it could be 6, it could [00:16:00] be 12, it depends on the student and what their issues are and how complex the discharge planning is.
But between Wilderness and being here, It's often about a year out of someone's life, and they have this FOMO, you know, the fear of missing out, and they see their friends off at college, or they see their friends back home doing whatever they're doing, and they have this perception that they're falling behind in some way.
So we also do a lot of work with them around, well, actually you're getting ahead during your time at Red Mountain because you're learning all of these things that are very helpful to know in life, and that Rain and I... Learned on our own and staff weren't on their own, and we're making it very palatable and, and reasonably easy to access.
Obviously they need to make some effort, but it's, it's, um, a very comprehensive program that really [00:17:00] does set them up to succeed as, as young adults. And so they do often end up feeling grateful, even though they went through a lot of painful things to get to the point of being here. I mean, we, we sort of joke that nobody ends up at Red Mountain because things went well.
The reality is things go well after you're here.
Brenda: Well, I just think, you know, you were saying that you, you found this around 19 years old. I did not find a mindfulness or meditation practice until when my son overdosed. So that would have been just, you know, 5, 6 years ago. And I think, wow, what would life have been like if I had found this when I was 19?
So for sure, they're going to be ahead from that perspective. I have kids ranging from 17 to 26 and I think the younger ones if I talked about. sort of, you know, meditation, all that, they would just kind of like zone out or think I'm, this is like woo woo. So I'm so curious when, when [00:18:00] young people come to you, are they hesitant?
Are they like, these people are weird? Like, I don't know what's going on, kind of what's the intake like, uh, when they start realizing that there's some practices like this that could really help?
Josh: That's a great question. Well, we, we do a very thorough intake process and admissions screening. So the students know what is Expected of them and what the routine is here before they come and they have to choose to be here.
Um, you know, they're all over 18, so they're not, you know, they're not mandated in a custodial sense. I don't think they think we're weird. I think we, we work really hard to make it very accessible. I think that they sometimes have misconceptions about it. It's just very common for people to tell me I'm not good at meditating.
And then I will say, well, what makes you think that and they will say, well, I sit there and I have all these thoughts. [00:19:00] So it's very common for someone to have this notion. I am bad at meditating because I have thoughts and they think they're just supposed to sit there and have a blank mind. Yeah, which, which for most people.
It takes a very long time to cultivate that, and, ironically, the way you cultivate it is by noticing the thoughts that are present, and noticing them, again, arise and intensify and dissipate, and, and, you don't chase them. So if I have a thought of, I'm hungry, I just notice I'm hungry and, like, let it be there and then let it go.
What most people do who don't have a mindfulness practice is they'll think, oh, I'm hungry, I wonder what I'm having for lunch, oh, I'm gonna go eat at that restaurant, oh, I hope that that, Server isn't there with a bad attitude. He's such a jerk. Oh, he reminds me of my brother. Oh, I forgot to call my brother.
[00:20:00] Oh, my brother's gonna be mad. And then you're just off to the races, and you started out thinking about going to get a burrito, and now you're thinking about, you know, your family dynamics. If you can train your mind to go, oh, I'm thinking about food, and then you're not. Oh, I'm thinking about a movie I want to see tonight, and then you let it go.
You just, the, the thoughts become less frequent, and they become less intense, and they don't couple together the way that they used to. But I always tell people, if you're having thoughts, that's good, because it means you're alive and your brain is functioning. You know, your, your lungs are of the nature to breathe.
Your eyes are of the nature to see. Your mind is of the nature to think. The thoughts are not the problem, it's the thoughts about the thoughts that are the problem. Yes. And so, um, it's often quite revelatory for people just to say... It's not a problem that you're having thoughts. Just notice them. Just pay attention.
Or I'll get, I'll get students come in and say, Well, you know, I'm just really preoccupied, [00:21:00] and I'm thinking a lot about my schedule, because I'm in school, and I'm working, and I have Red Mountain things to do, and there's a lot to keep track of. So usually when I'm meditating, I'm just thinking about my day.
And I will say, Well, are you aware that you're thinking about your day? And they'll go, yeah. And I'll say, well, are, are you aware of your breath while you're aware of thinking about your day? And they'll go, yeah. And I'll say, it sounds like you're meditating to me. Yeah. You know? Yeah. My teacher likes to say the purpose of meditation is to become friends with yourself.
And I really like that. It's true. You're always with yourself. So becoming intimately familiar with your mind and comfortable is really important. And certainly you don't want to be sitting there telling yourself you suck at meditating. While you're meditating, that's antithetical to becoming better friends with yourself.
So, um, but even that is Christopher the Mel while I'm sitting here judging myself. Okay, and then you [00:22:00] take another breath, and then you might notice yourself judging yourself more, or you might notice that you're not anymore. But it just, it really, over time, it just weakens the volume of the thoughts, and especially the judgments, and those toxic cravings.
I mean, I remember a buddy of mine in recovery when I was first... Getting sober used to say, you can do whatever you want, you just have to be willing to accept the consequences. And when I would get really bad cravings, you know, wanting to eat food that for me is an abstinent or drink or whatever, I would call him and I expected him to say, well, you can't do that because you know, it'll have a bad outcome for you.
And he would just say, yeah, you know, well, so let's play that out. What do you think will happen if you do that? And that every time would work to talk me out of it because it just that's a mindfulness practice to like thinking through if I do this behavior, every action has an [00:23:00] outcome or a consequence that's just the rule of karma.
So if I can slow down my mind enough to think through, I'm having this impulse or this craving, the impulse or craving itself is not bad. I can act on the impulse or craving if I want to. Am I willing to deal with the consequences of doing that? Then it really shifts from being this dogmatic, you must not do that, you bad person, to, I have control of my life, I can't control my thoughts and my impulses, but I can control my actions, so let's sit and have a think and decide whether we want to go do those things or not.
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Now let's dive back into the show.
Brenda: I'm trying to envision some of our younger people this the same age range that you're working with. Um, who really struggle with, uh, and we're going to get to eating disorders, but I, I'm just thinking about, you know, like this, the high potency THC products, um, the opiates, the [00:25:00] benzos, the drugs are so powerful from a chemistry hook standpoint that it almost seems like, ah, I don't know, could that really work if my kid is really, you know, craving and cravings for
Josh: I think that there's a combination of factors, you know, one factor is, is the person ready to change? Yeah. They, do they want to change? One of the things that we ask students when we're interviewing them for admissions is Do you want to change? Because if you want to, if you don't want to change, that's your business.
If you do want to change, that's our business. We're in the change business. It's what we do. From a certain point of view, as a Zen teacher, things are always changing. I mean, impermanence rules are reality. However, if someone [00:26:00] is really clinging to their present state, and if they really feel like This substance or this behavior is the key to my not having an overwhelming amount of suffering.
Then it is very difficult to make forward progress with that person. You know, they, they do need to be in a space where they are prepared to change. It doesn't necessarily have to be that they are 100 percent committed to the change. It doesn't necessarily need to be that they are not scared of the change.
But they have to be open to it and feel like this could work and this could make my life better and I'm, I'm willing to try something new because you could always go back to using or abusing whatever it is that you use or abuse, but you may not have another opportunity to stop doing that. So iron's hot and make [00:27:00] that change.
I do think to your point that depending on someone's acuity, it's relatively harder or easier. And if you have all of the factors in place where someone's creating a life worth living and they're working in therapy on the underlying issues, and we do neurofeedback and brain spotting and EMDR here and all of these nonverbal modalities as well as cognitive behavioral therapy, and I'm a clinician, so I'm a big believer in therapy.
It's not that mindfulness alone will do it all. Sure, right. But if you bring the two things together, and that the person has a certain level of motivation or willingness, then, I mean, I officiated a wedding this summer of two of our staff members, who are both alumni of the program. Oh, I love hearing that.
Yeah, it was awesome. I mean, outside of the day our son was born and my wedding day, I mean, it was definitely up there as one of [00:28:00] the best days of my life. These are two people that we love a great deal and, and we're very proud of and are like, you know, um, I don't know if I'd say like our kids, but like nieces, nephews, I suppose, like that level of care and they both, I mean, one of the things that I said, because everybody at the wedding, of course, knew their stories, it was all their family and friends there.
And one of the things I said was, you know, it's, It's miraculous that we're here today, not only because these two have found one another, but that they're alive. Yes. Uh, but both of them are alive and very, very well. All human beings are trying to avoid pain and seeking pleasure. So, if at some point in time, the thing that's bringing them pleasure starts to cause them enough pain, they will re examine it and go, This is not working.
And they see [00:29:00] people around them struggling, going to jail, dying, and they go, This is not a good outcome. This is a band aid. This makes me feel better for a while. But now it's ruining my life. The answer to your question is yes. In the right circumstances, it's not a panacea. It doesn't, it doesn't always work because some people are not ready, or they're not fully committed, or they're really entrenched in their illness, or, uh, they or their family doesn't give us enough time, you know, to do the work with them because it's, it's not, it needs to not be time bound, it needs to be Open ended because just as in any kind of treating any illness, heart disease, cancer, some people need more treatment than others.
You don't necessarily know why, just, they just do. So, but in the presence of willingness and time and effort, we tend to succeed.
Brenda: I'd love to just pivot a little bit [00:30:00] toward, um, eating disorders. I know you said that was something that you struggled with, so maybe we can launch off from what that looked like for you and what you're seeing today.
I have a million questions because it's a topic I really know nothing about. So, but maybe we can start there and you can just introduce us, um, in that
Josh: way. Sure. Well, from a clinical perspective, I understand, uh, anorexia and how that works and anorexia is typically Driven by one of a few factors. One factor being control.
I have control over what I put in my body and what calories I consume. So even if I feel completely out of control in other areas of my life, this I have control of. There's also often a high degree of body dysmorphia. So in other words, it's almost like a funhouse mirror. Uh, someone who is anorexic will look in the mirror and, and generally see.
Themselves [00:31:00] having weight on them that they don't actually have. And so they're, they're trying to hit some ideal that people outside of them see as unhealthy and undesirable, but they see as really important. I don't have any personal experience with that. Uh, I do have personal experience with bulimia because when I was active in my eating disorder, I've always really liked food and found food very comforting.
So for me, I understand clinically the idea of restricting food as, as a thing, but it's kind of like I understand clinically why people self harm, but I never did it. So there's, there's certain things that as a clinician, I can still treat it, even though I didn't go through it myself. Like someone can be a heart surgeon, having not had a heart attack.
Sure. But if my heart surgeon had the exact same kind of heart attack that I had, and they, they have been through that, there's a certain connection that forms that's helpful. So people who are bulimic. [00:32:00] Uh, I personally just, I understand it better because I went through it firsthand. Now, we do have people on staff who've struggled with anorexia themselves, so anyone here would have someone they can talk to with a first hand experience and or a clinical experience with it, but when you get into bulimia, there's different kinds.
There's, there's when you regurgitate food, so you, you eat all the food, but you don't want to put on the, the calories, so you You void the food and then there's exercise bulimia where you exercise a ton as a way to not gain weight while overeating and it's, that one's a bit tricky because when you are working out more, like I had a health scare about a year and a half ago that got me back into the gym.
I hadn't been in the gym. I've been traveling a lot for work and I'd been at that time we had another site and I was just overextended. And so I had a health scare. Marine encouraged me to go to the gym. I did. Started working out, started losing [00:33:00] weight, but I found that as my fat converted to muscle, I needed more calories in order to sustain how much I was exercising.
So this one gets tricky, and this is why we have a health and recovery coach to help with where is the line between, well, now I'm working out a lot, but I'm not eating enough. So is that anorexia or is that lack of information? Or Well now I'm consuming more food because I'm working out a lot, but is that exercise bulimia or is that just a, a correction of taking in healthy calories because my body's burning more calories?
Um, those are all tricky and eating disorders are one of the hardest things to treat because of the fact that a human being cannot survive without eating. So you know, you can like. You will function perfectly well in your life if you stop doing heroin. You will function perfectly well in your life if you stop drinking alcohol.
Uh, [00:34:00] provided that you detox in a safe manner. But if I don't eat, I will die. You can't simply stop the behavior. So there's a lot of education that we have to do with the students who have eating disorders around. First of all, are you ready, willing, and able to track your food, track your exercise, talk openly with the health and nutrition coach, have someone shop with you, have someone check on your eating?
And we are not specifically an eating disorder program. It's something that we can work with, but the person has to have a high degree of willingness because they also have a lot of freedom here, and they do most of their meals on their own. So they have to be willing, if that's an issue, to really... I'll be very transparent and open with us about what's going on.
Brenda: Yeah. How does it look different between male and female or between genders? Does it show up differently or is it, is it pretty similar?
Josh: We are seeing more eating disorders in, in males, wherever you want to say it. Biological males, male identifying [00:35:00] people. My personal opinion, which is not based on any research I've read, but just my anecdotal observation having done this for 25 years.
I think COVID had something to do with it, and I think that the isolation of COVID, um, has really done a number on our youth, and I think we're going to be dealing with this for the next 10, 15, 20 years. Um, certainly for us relatively high functioning, formed adults, it was very difficult. I think for people whose brains were still forming, it was very anxiety producing, and so we, we see a lot of people who in the isolation of COVID took to food as a comfort, and so it's hard for them to, You know, because there's anorexia, there's bulimia, but then there's also just compulsive overeating where you don't avoid the food at all.
You just, you just eat and you grow heavier and heavier and you can't stop. So we are seeing more of that. I think another issue is, uh, I am not an anti internet person or an anti social [00:36:00] media person because I think there's a lot of benefits that come from it. You know, for example, people finding mindfulness, people finding the Dharma through these kinds of mediums.
People hearing my voice and your voice right now are seeing our faces. Without being on our physical presence, that's, if you stop and think about it, it's quite miraculous. I think that part of the prevalence of eating disorders that we're seeing in all genders right now is, is partly to do with the negative comparisons that they're doing.
Because nobody ever posts on Instagram when they feel or look bad. They do it when they feel or look good. And so we're comparing ourselves to this false You know, optimum person who doesn't really exist and, uh, you know, in the recovery community, we call it comparing my inside to your outside. So I feel bad, but you appear to feel good.
So I'm bad. And that is more prevalent than it's ever been. So that's the negative side of our interconnectedness. And that [00:37:00] definitely. I mean, anecdotally, we are seeing a lot more people struggle with body image than, than we used to. It's also become more socially acceptable to talk about an eating disorder.
So there's probably a certain amount of people that had this all along, but weren't talking about it. And so that, I think, is also positive. So, I do think it's becoming more prevalent, and I think that it's more reported than it was. So it might seem more endemic than it really is, if that makes sense.
Yeah,
Brenda: totally. And I, and I agree. I think there's been some really good, um, information out there and, you know, you, you have the double edged sword of COVID to where, yes, it may have fueled some of this, but also fueled a little bit broader conversation about. and about some of these things that, and even especially for young people to be able to speak up about it.
Um, and no, I need to let you go. I'd love to know just what parents should be looking for if they're, [00:38:00] if they have a young person who's at home or maybe they're in college and they're. They have a little inkling, like, something doesn't look quite right from a eating standpoint. Yeah. Are there things that they should be aware of or looking for that might signal a need to get some more help?
Josh: A good general thought to have as a parent is that you know at best half of what's going on with your kid. At best. Because they're hiding certain things from you, probably. They're omitting certain things not intentionally, not trying to hide it. They're just not sharing it with you. Young people have a developmental task, which is called differentiation, which is to establish a separate identity outside of you.
So, they are exploring who they are and, and even in a healthy young person, they're, they're, they're not going to tell you everything because they're trying to figure out who they are separate from you. So, [00:39:00] assume that, that if you're concerned that it's at least twice as bad as you think it is, probably four times as bad.
You know, you've been through that as a mom who, who's had a child, struggled. You probably had a period of time where things were getting revealed and you were going, Oh, man, I had no idea it was this bad. So, whatever you think is happening, it is, and it's worse. So that's first rule. Second thing is, in 25 years in behavioral health, I have never once had a individual or a family say to me, You know, I think we came to you too soon.
I think we've gone. I've never heard that. Not once. Yeah. You know, geez, we spent all this time money and energy on treatment and we didn't really need to. We overreacted. I've never heard that. Not one time. I have many, many, many times heard we probably waited too long. We probably let this go too far. So If you're not worried about your child, then you're not worried about your child.
If you're worried about your child, you probably have reason to be worried about your child. [00:40:00] Uh, now there's always going to be exceptions to that. People who have Munchausen's by proxy are people who, um, really are just so anxious that they're just looking for issues with their kid and their kid's just going through a normal developmental process.
Um, but for 99 percent of people, you know your kid best and if you suspect something's wrong, something is wrong. And you have to also be mindful of... Any system seeks homeostasis, so you haven't seen your kid for a while, and you go to lunch with them, or there's a party, or they come over, or they come home for the holidays, or whatever, and you're going, something's off.
You will try to convince yourself, your spouse will try to convince you, the kid will try to convince you that everything's fine, and your natural wish is to believe that. Because if it's not homeostasis, then that means we need to make some changes, and that's uncomfortable and painful and hard. Now, you might get lucky and your kid might come to you and say, I have a problem.
But if they don't and you think something's [00:41:00] wrong, then it is important to seek out someone like you or someone like me, or an educational consultant, or a therapeutic consultant, or someone who can, you can bounce it off of, who's got some experience, who can say, you know. I understand why you're worried, but it's actually fine or can say, wow, that's actually very alarming and we need to do some kind of intervention or we need to have a conversation with them or whatever.
But I think that the main warning sign, if you will, is if you are worried because usually we're not worried if everything's fine. Yep.
Brenda: I always talk about the spidey sense and it's real.
Josh: Yeah. And I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard a parent say. I really thought it was not okay, but I ignored that feeling, or I repressed that feeling, or I believed some line that I didn't really believe, but I wanted to believe it, and...
And it's hard. We have to have compassion for ourselves because [00:42:00] again, the system seeks homeostasis. So we don't want to believe that something's wrong. Thank you
Brenda: so much for this information. We have links in the show notes. If you're wanting to get in touch with Josh, if you want to have kind of continue this conversation a little bit more, we'll make sure that you can get in touch and enjoy beautiful Sedona.
Next time I'm down there, I'm going to have to come see you guys. Awesome. Thank you
Josh: so much. Really enjoyed it. Thanks, Brenda.
Brenda: Okay. That is it for today. If you would like to get the show notes for this episode, you can go to brendazane. com forward slash podcast. All of the episodes are listed there and you can also find curated playlists there.
So that's very helpful. You might also want to download a free ebook. I wrote, it's called hindsight, three things. I wish I knew when my son was misusing drugs, it'll give you some insight as to why your son or daughter [00:43:00] might be doing what they are. And importantly, it gives you tips on how to cope and how to be more healthy through this rough time.
You can grab that free from Brenda Zane. com forward slash hindsight. Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate it. And I hope that these episodes are helping you stay strong and be very, very good to yourself. And I will meet you right back here next week.