In today’s solo episode, Dr. Alex talks about her big aha moment with food shortages that spontaneously happened in her life.
In this episode we cover:
- Understanding experiences we go through in life and why it’s happening
- Seeing yourself from both the masculine and feminine balance dynamic.
- How to expand your toolkit of power
- How out subconscious thoughts can help us create more opportunity to move forward
- How to recognize our patterns and understand them
Ready to learn more?? Let’s do this!
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Dr. Alex Golden: Hi there, this is Alex with you today, hope you’re having a wonderful day, evening night, wherever in the world that you are. I’m so happy to have you joining me today. Thank you so much for coming and hanging out with me on the podcast. As you all know, we just adore our podcast listeners. And I just wanted to love on you for a second and just send you so much love and appreciation. It helps me so much to hear back from you guys, and to interact about this content. And to see the reviews and the shares, it really means a lot to us. So thank you so much, just so much gratitude and appreciation from us being sent your way, I hope that you’re feeling it. So let’s talk about what we’re going to talk about today. And that’s about a big aha moment that I had about food shortages, which this isn’t. That topic isn’t what it started out as. This is something that I spontaneously had come up in life. And what happened was that I was just in the kitchen making dinner. And I was having some smoked salmon. So nothing crazy and no big deal. Nothing that is any different than what I normally would be doing in life. And I noticed myself just thinking along and having the normal chit chat in my head. And I don’t know about you, but it’s like a whole party up in here. Mostly just a mind. And one of the thoughts that I had was, Oh, I’ll leave a little bit for the next person. Except for then I really noticed that because right now there’s no one here sharing the food. So there’s really nobody to leave food for. And I thought about that. And kind of the next thought that followed was, oh, it’s interesting that I have a pattern of leaving a little bit of food in the container, whatever it is, and smoked salmon in the package, or the crackers and a bag. And that I rarely finish it. And then it kind of gets wasted. And so I noticed that pattern. It’s not that I haven’t noticed that pattern before. And it’s something that I have acknowledged and have worked towards. But I guess I just had never focused on it that much just because it wasn’t the biggest problem at the time. Right. And so I’ve noted it, and knew that that was a pattern. But it wasn’t like, worst case scenario, right? It wasn’t a huge deal at the time. And a lot of times are people around so people just finished the food and it’s all good. But I thought well, I don’t, I don’t want to waste food, they from my identity level and who I want to be, that’s not really an aspect of myself that I would be super proud to be and be become moving forward. So I thought how interesting that I’m noticing that now. And, and I’d like to work on this. And of course, then, as as often happens is that my subconscious mind essentially kicked up a memory that helped me understand why I do it, and also pointed me in the direction of moving forward, which is really the whole goal, right? Someone we noticed that we’re doing something, as opposed to noting it and then beating yourself up about I mean, it’d be so easy to be like you have food waste is actually a really bad thing. Like, there’s wasted resources. There’s people that helped me get this food I bought, you know, I worked for the foods so that I could purchase high quality ingredients and get good food for my health and, and for myself and all of these things, right? There’s a lot there that it would be very easy to feel bad about and have some guilt around whether a lot or a little just depending on the day, right? And what what my attitude was around these, the meaning of these topics.
And the thing that I was reminded of was my childhood. And I grew up in Soviet Russia at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union. And things were not good during communism. So you can imagine that as the crumble happened, things got really rocky, and that informed a lot of what was happening at the time, especially me growing up. And there was a lot of food shortages. So my family would predominantly live in the city where my parents worked. And then it was not uncommon for people to have a homestead where they grew their own food, or had little chickens and ducks and one person in the village would have like, the cow, right. And everybody would would trade for cheese and milk and all that stuff cream, and you just barter or exchange or whatever it is that you did. And everyone would kind of pitch in and everyone had their own stuff. And you’d have your cellar where you put your potatoes and your beets and, and if you ask my mom to describe all the stuff she can do with beets, this is like the most Russian thing ever. But it’s kinda like that scene out of Forrest Gump where Baba is describing all the things you could do with shrimp. And that’s essentially what she can do with beats. So it was like you made your sugar from there and your juice, and there were beauty products that you could make and cleaning products at all, just all sorts of stuff, different drinks, and food and all all manner of meals and things to do with the peels from that and all sorts of stuff. It’s amazing, actually, it’s amazing. And I’ve I’ve gotten a lot out from being exposed to that and listening to, to that kind of thing. And it really informed my fascination with DIY buying, right it, there’s something really empowering about being able to be resourceful with what you have. So to me, that’s all cool. That’s great. But the food shortages then created scenarios where I remember when I was growing up. And I certainly never heard this said out loud to me. But kids are observant. And I always knew that there was a lot of decisions that were made on in an unspoken manner about the divvying up of food. And of course, as kids, we would get a lot of times kind of the better portion of things. And then the adults would go for the scraps. So it was like if it was an apple, we get the, the middle part of the apple and my parents would get the peels or whatever. And even though that was normal, I’m doing quotations here for an audio, it was normal at the time. And that was kind of the survivability, everybody just did that that was normal. But I always felt the, the guilt of that in some way. And so I had that, but then there is also actually a flip side. So it was one thing to get the better part of something. But it was also a different thing entirely to be the one finishing the last of something, whether I saw someone else finishing it, and then that represented that that was done for the rest of the family, or if it was me finishing something. And I knew that not only was I someone else sacrificing on my behalf. And then I was also finishing something for the family. And I had clearly a lot of emotions, and interpretations I had built around that. But they were very much under the surface right I’m I’m not a kid anymore. And nowhere close right? I got carded the other day, it was really nice. But the i It hit me like a ton of bricks, this aha moment because I realized that these experiences even though I could rationally understand them, I totally get why all of that was happening, and why that was the case and why everyone was doing what they were doing.
I consciously even though I don’t like it, I can make sense of it, I understand that’s all fine, but my unconscious mind and my experiences that were kind of held and frozen under the surface was a lot of guilt, a lot of lack, that fear, the the shame of being the last person and really it got me thinking on not only finishing my food and kind of breaking this pattern for myself, but also my ability to receive what does it look like for me to get something better than someone else out of love and for me to see that as being loved on and receive the love rather than superseding covering that up with guilt around the receptivity of that right and that’s kind of our feminine nature and and as the years have gone on, I’ve really began to see myself more and more from this masculine feminine balance dynamic. And I knew that being in medicine and being more of that type A and the overachiever that I was more in my mind. masculine? And of course, not surprisingly, I had a lot of female health problems. And stepping into that, you know, it has been quite the journey over the years to to look at how am i flowing with life? How am I receiving? How am I? How is the power to flow and to be flexible and to be responsive? How am I finding power in that as opposed to the power of the masculine side? Which is control, determination, willpower, right? And how do I interplay between both of these things so that I could get the maximum amount of power, instead of just saying it can only look like this, how does it look like to expand my toolkit of power and say, I can be powerful from both the feminine and masculine dynamics simultaneously, and I can choose to flow between them at any given time in the way that I need. And so it really pointed me to it opened the door for some major aha moments for me, in the interpretations that I was making around food, and lack. And it pointed me to what it has in common is the ability to receive and not feel guilty about it. And what that says to me is that when I move forward to working on my receptivity, how do I create create scenarios for myself in my life, where I get to receive, whether that’s me put in doing something for me, and creating that for myself, or working with people in my life, and either taking note of it when it happens spontaneously, or really even working with the people on my life, to create experiences where I get to practice that kind of thing. And that’s why it’s worth beginning to create a support system for ourselves. And that’s why we do groups is because it’s really helpful to have people in our lives that are willing to do this kind of thing with us. And that’s why I have a lot of gratitude for Meghan, and the fact that we work so well together and are so close in our personal lives. Because now, in working on the receptivity be as a factor to all of this, I know it’s going to help me break the pattern of what I do with food. And when we miss out on subconscious, mind information like that, because we’re simply trying to consciously think through like I should stop thinking, throwing away food period, if we leave it at that we are relying on our willpower to get there. But now what that creates is a lot of opportunity to move forward. And not only am I becoming who I want to be across multiple areas of life, it’s not just about food, but who I truly am at the core. But it also creates opportunities that as I get better at one thing it brings along other parts of my life, I don’t have to struggle so hard to be like this is all about food, this is all about my femininity, this is all about my ability to trust. See how that works. It’s less effort, higher impact, which is what Megan I talk about all the time, right. That’s why we harp on this so much. So that is true. And then with my foods specifically, it also helped me understand that my narrative around it and my planning,
as I bring more intention to how I run my kitchen, how I go shopping, how I divvy up my food, you know, I’ve started to actually mentally prep like last time at coming out of this when I bought the next thing is smoked salmon. I actually divvied it up into my usual servings, and I have already predetermined before I even get to the last piece that this is how it’s broken up into four parts. And each time when I open it, I’m just going to take the four parts. And then the last part, I’m not going to deviate further. I’m just going to take that last fourth part. I’m setting myself up for success when I get there rather than expecting myself to get to that smoked salmon and not fire off the usual pattern as I’ve gotten used to it because that is it’s been a long time, right? It’s deeply hardwired into my central nervous system. And so part of that is knowing the pattern and saying how do I impact it before the time of greatest vulnerability. In this example, the time for vulnerability is going to be in that split second decision when I get to the end of the package of what I’m going to do there and depending on my emotional state at the time I could happen to be resourceful. Or I could happen to not be in a place where I’m like, oh, it just feels uncomfortable to take the last bet, I’m gonna go ahead and leave it. Right. And in doing so I will have reinforced the previous behavior. No shame in that. But I’m not really dying to leave it up to chance like that. That is why when I got the package, and I opened it, I just went ahead and did that. And that’s going to happen for every area, some things are going to be really vulnerable, right? And because this is just about salmon, so nothing too triggering there. When it happens in more vulnerable areas of life, it feels more emotionally charged. But it’s the exact same thing. How do we recognize our patterns, understand what got us there, and then begin to create support, and safety nuts for ourselves. So that when we get to that crux of the decision, when we come to that point of vulnerability, we have created essentially a scaffolding for ourselves that helps us navigate it helps us guide it. I feel like people do this for their kids all the time. But don’t necessarily apply it to themselves. Right? If you know your kid has separation anxiety, a lot of times there’s a lot of prep work that explaining the situation talking about it ahead of time, right getting geared up, what are we going to do when we get there? What is going to be the sequence of events that works for everybody, the same thing is going to apply for you. What does it look like for you to help yourself see where the hang up might be an Ask yourself what you need to do, to help yourself move through that in a way that you feel loved, that you feel supported, that you feel seen. From nobody really other than you. That’s what it comes down to. And then layered on top of that is we can absolutely begin to bring in other people into this experience. So as long as we feel comfortable and safe doing so in saying hey, can I get a little help on this? This
is where I’m getting stuck. This is where I see my role. And this is where I see the potential for your role. Do you have the bandwidth for this? Does this seem like something that you’re up for? What would this look like for you? What is it that you need to be successful in doing this for me, and when we work with someone like that, from that point of view, it’s such a beautiful, connected, intimate experience, it moves relationships forward in a really beautiful way. It it not only strengthens our relationship with ourselves, but in doing so begins to deepen relationships with others who we care deeply about that. Oftentimes they are the why, right? There’s a lot of people who can say I want to be best for my family, I want to create these experiences for my family. And I want to be the kind of person that does that. That’s cool. And that’s awesome. And I think that we didn’t come here to be in a vacuum, we didn’t come here to struggle alone, we came here to be loved to be connected to love on others to receive that. All of that is really great. And this is what it can look like to intentionally guide that to bring in that connectedness, the vulnerability like letting people peek behind the curtain of what it’s like being you what it’s like being alixe. And to build trust and faith and connection through that. I really, really am such a big believer in the beauty of that and the power of that. On top of how amazing it feels to stand in your own empowerment, like I feel better equipped to make food choices to treat myself with kindness. As a result of this, it was like a two minute experience in my kitchen. Right? Like, it doesn’t sound like anything at all. And yet with my disordered eating history with the childhood that I had, and all sorts of stuff. There’s a lot of empowerment that I feel having had these aha moments and begin to take action from them and to show up for myself differently. And that’s, that’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m doing this. I really want that for everybody on this planet and feel so strongly that that will help create a world that’s more loving, more kind, more compassionate. And ultimately, here’s the thing more successful for everybody involved, and including the planet and everybody that’s on it. So I’d love to hear your Ha’s as always, I’d love for you to screenshot this share your takeaways, what are your aha moments around food shortages. What are your patterns they could be completely opposite to mine but I would love to hear it because this is something I want to dig more deeply into I’m sending you lots of love thanks for joining me today and I’ll catch you next time