Hey there, it's Susan Peirce Thompson, and welcome to the Weekly Vlog. Someone just wrote into support maybe a month ago or so, “I'm just curious, and I'm not sure you'll even have an answer for me, but have you ever seen people succeed after returning to Bright Line Eating® for the umpteenth time? I wonder if my intermittent reinforcement has done me in and Bright Line Eating is now my equivalent of the university that I'm dropping out of and re-enrolling in five times a year. That Bright Line Eating is a broken system for me. I'm just wondering how many resumers, and that's spelled without the zoom because they're not quick about it, how many resumers you see turning into success stories or if 99% of your success stories come from first timers? Thanks for your input.”
It's a great question and oh, I hope you're watching this vlog, but you know what, if you're not, I bet that there's lots of people watching who really relate to that question. What happened was our head of customer support sent that question in via Slack, our online work system, to all the coaches and said, what do you think about this person's question? Do you see success coming from people who are retreads? They have just chronic relapses. They've come back over and over again, but then they finally get it. The outpouring of responses from our coaches in that thread was astounding. First of all, I read the question and I'm like, that's my story. I have broken and Rezoomed™ countless times. I literally couldn't tell you since the day that I first was introduced to no sugar, no flour, weigh and measure your food. And I started doing it faithfully and I got six months of beautiful Bright Lines up and then I relapsed. I cannot tell you how many times I've picked up the food since then, but I can tell you it's more than a hundred. I mean, I think it's more than, yeah, it's more than a hundred. It's a lot of times, and I stand here now five years off sugar and flour, two years with the most immaculate, shiny Lines I can imagine and utterly peaceful and free. It is absolutely possible. I was just reading that thinking, oh my gosh, I'm one of those success stories. And then I started thinking, oh, and I know a lot of those success stories actually. I started thinking, I think it's the rule more than the exception, frankly.
I read what the coaches wrote in, and they all said the same thing. We see it all the time. We see it all the time. In this vlog, I want to speak to that a little bit because I think it's a very wise question actually. There is insanity in doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. And at the same time, one of the coaches pointed this out, and I've talked about this on the vlog, if you think about how many times the average smoker tries to quit smoking before it sticks, before they really cross over officially and become a non-smoker for the rest of their life, it's on average a couple dozen times, two, three dozen times they try to quit. There's data on that.
One of the coaches wrote in something very wise, a couple of people said, people succeed after failing for a long time because they start doing it differently. The bottom drops out in a different kind of way. Basically two things happen. The bottom drops out in a different kind of way, and suddenly they're willing and surrendered in a way that they weren't before. They start doing something different about it. They start to really want success in a different kind of way, and they engage with the materials, the Boot Camp, the community, the support. One of the courses, usually it's Reboot Rezoom™ or the Boot Camp that people engage with in a different deeper kind of way. They actually come all the way in and sit all the way down and they're ready and takes. We see it all the time. It's so frequent. It's so frequent.
But like I said, I think this is a wise question, and I think it is worth asking, is Bright Line Eating your path or is there something else you should be trying? Is there some other factor that's not in play here that needs to be in play? Let me give you a couple of examples. Do you need to go to inpatient? Should you be doing one of these SHiFT Recovery by Acorn intensives? Maybe you need to do that to really put the plug in the jug, right? Really, really stop and get some, they do 12 weeks of aftercare after their intensives take you through all 12 steps. Really hold your hand through those first 12 weeks, right? Do you need someone to hold your hand in that kind of way? Maybe you do. Another option is do you need the kind of support that you would get in a 12-step program and not hear, which is to say spiritual and with a sponsor talking with you every single day, right? I don't know. A lot of people here either prefer or want a secular approach. They don't want God or books that have a lot of antiquated, Judeo-Christian God language in them, sort of in the mix as they recover from food addiction or lose their weight. They don't want that, right? Other people are happy to have God in the mix, but they get it from their religion. They have their own practice already, and they don't need that from Bright Line Eating. But for some people it's necessary. Do you need to go to a 12-step program to get access to a higher power and talk about it and guidance on that, that you're not getting here to have a sponsor to talk with you every single day? Now, there's pros and cons to that. When you have a sponsor in a program like FA Food Addicts and Recovery Anonymous, and you can find them at foodaddicts.org. When you have a sponsor in a program like that, you give up a lot of your autonomy. And autonomy is one of the things that's necessary for human flourishing. So, sometimes I hesitate to recommend that. I'm also not a spokesperson for their program. I'm a spokesperson for our program. But for some people, having a sponsor to call every day and having that level of accountability and support is what's needed for them. Do you need to try something like that?
Here's a third option. Do you need to do some kind of trauma therapy? Do you need to go to Everett Considine website, everettconsidine.com and sign up for a package of deep dive sessions to figure out your Parts and figure out what's keeping you from being, what Part of you is keeping you from being successful, where that self-sabotage is coming from? Those are three other opportunities, approaches, suggestions that could be done in concert with Bright Line Eating, or instead of Bright Line Eating to try to get the result you're looking for, right?
I think it's a good question to ask, but the question you did ask is, do we see people being successful after years and years and years and years and years of spinning their wheels, starting and restarting Bright Line Eating? And the answer is, we absolutely do. We absolutely do all the time. As a matter of fact, you're only ready when you're ready. A lot of people have to trek through the research Rockies a lot before the penny drops, and they're just willing to follow the fabulous plan. I don't know when that's going to happen for you, but I do know that you're way more likely to have the experience of being successful if you're here trying it, than if you're out there just eating and not close to support and not available to receive the guidance, the wisdom, the inspiration, the role modeling from people who are living Bright.
Those are my honest thoughts. I think it's a great question. I think it's important that you're asking that question. I don't have your answer, but I've shared with you my range of thoughts, and everyone's on a trajectory, everyone's on their curve, and the point at which you're ready to really recover from food addiction doesn't always come at the first moment. You watch the Food Freedom Videos, it does for some people, but for a lot of people it comes years later. As they say in 12-Step programs, don't give up five minutes before the miracle happens. Don't you dare quit five minutes before your miracle happens, and that's the weekly vlog. I'll see you next week.
