142 [Healing Series] Food Insecurity
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Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/142
Haley Radke: This show is listener supported. You can join us and help our show grow to support more adoptees by going to adopteeson.com/partner.
You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm your host, Haley Radke, and this is a special episode in our Healing Series where I interview therapists who are also adoptees themselves so they know from personal experience what it feels like to be an adoptee.
Today we are talking about food insecurity. We do touch on the topic of intuitive eating in this episode, but we are not referring to losing weight or dieting or any of those types of topics, if that is a challenging subject for you. We tried to make this as safe as possible. Okay with that, let's listen in.
I'm so pleased to welcome back to Adoptees On, Janet Nordine. Hi, Janet.
Janet Nordine: Hi, Haley. How are you doing?
Haley Radke: I am a level…I don't know. I was gonna say I'm a level 5 but that doesn't mean anything. What does that mean? Yeah, we're in unprecedented times here. We're recording during the Covid crisis of 2020 and, yeah, it's a perplexing time.
Janet Nordine: Yes. We here in Nevada call it “stay home for Nevada.” That's where I am.
Haley Radke: That's nice. In Alberta we're supposed to stay home, but there's no cute name, so stay home for Alberta.
Janet Nordine: We have a hashtag. It's a hashtag.
Haley Radke: Come on. That's perfect. Love hashtag.
During this time we've had a few zoom calls for the Adoptees On Patreon, and there's been some themes coming up that people are struggling with some similar things, and one of them is food. And you kind of jumped in right away and were talking about some things that really I had some light bulb moments about. And we had a couple people say, oh my gosh, you guys have to do a Healing Series episode about this. And so what you were calling it was food insecurity? Can you explain what that means?
Janet Nordine: Sure, and I can kind of explain that from a perspective of my own life experience. I've been on the show before, so people have heard kind of my story, but the part that I didn't share then was I came to my parents at about seven months old and I was underweight and I couldn't eat off a spoon, and the back of my head was flat.
I'd been in an adoptive placement prior to them and then in foster care. And I had a lot of difficulty just relating to food and being able to be fed. And I've worked on that and thought about that and struggled with that most of my life. And had I been a baby born today in that situation, I would have been probably diagnosed with failure to thrive, which is when a baby can't take in nourishment and has a difficult time with that process of eating.
All of my life, I have worried about food. As a child, I was the kid that hid the food. I never wanted somebody else to have a special treat because that meant I wasn't a specialism. So even into adulthood, and even as a therapist, it's something I still work on. Carbs and bread, that's the crack cocaine for me, that's the thing that gives me comfort.
I grew up in a family where food was a big deal. My grandmother was an amazing cook. Both my parents were amazing cooks. A lot of things rotated around the family dinner time. So food insecurity for me really means is there going to be enough food? When is the next meal? What am I going to eat? I'm planning ahead, always thinking about it.
So my insecurity and other children and adults’ insecurities wrap around that early childhood, even in utero experience of food. So that's where the term food insecurity comes from.
Haley Radke: I've heard this from other adoptees, especially those that have been in foster care, multiple placements, orphanages for a long time. That food hoarding thing, like sneaking things away and hiding them in your bedroom or having a stockpile somewhere and this really gets me, but I've seen some adoptive parents who will put a lock on the pantry or the fridge because of that. Is that something that is actually, I don't know, I wouldn't say it's like super common, but is it? I don’t know.
Janet Nordine: In some foster homes I would say that is super common because the kids will get into food and it becomes a power struggle, doesn't it? And what they can control is what they're putting in their mouth and their belly.
And then the parent or whoever is the caregiver doesn't want them to eat all the food, or have it be gone, or not have it be there when they need it, so they'll put a lock on it and then it becomes a shaming issue. I'm not supposed to have food, now I'm shamed because of it. So yeah, that does happen. I wouldn't say it's helpful at all.
Haley Radke: And so kids who are now adults but who had a stockpile in their room or felt they need to save food just because they don't know when the next meal is coming, or they're afraid that there's not going to be another meal coming.
Janet Nordine: There's some of that that happens. Yes. And so I have to hide food because I need to know what's available to me when I need it. I'm the one that needs to know where it is, so if I get hungry, I can go and find my little stash in the closet and I can be able to feed myself when I need to.
Yeah, it's a control issue. It's also just a biochemical response to stress. I'm feeling stressed and when I eat that cookie or that sweet thing, I get that sugar rush and I have that moment of, oh, I feel better because those good brain chemicals got released into my body.
Haley Radke: I'm not gonna say whether or not I grabbed a cookie right before I came down here, but I did.
Okay. Now, this in the context of Covid, people are under shelter-in-place, or we're watching the videos of the grocery stores with bare shelves mostly. Toilet paper, empty, but also pantry staples.
Janet Nordine: I can't find pasta. There's no pasta.
Haley Radke: Guess what? All you gluten eaters are also buying the gluten-free pasta. So you're welcome for what you have to eat now.
But it's really highlighting this in us, right? If it wasn't obvious to us before that we might have had a little issue with food insecurity. I don't say “little” to minimize it, but if it wasn't top of mind as an adult, this can kind of bring it out, which is what I'm sure seeing in some of the adoptee groups.
Janet Nordine: It definitely does exacerbate the problem. Like, if there's nothing at the store, then there's really nothing. What am I going to do now? Where is that going to come from? I can't trust my community to provide food for me. I can't trust; my parents didn't provide food for me. Where is that going to come from?
Yes, it's very scary when you go to the store and here in Las Vegas there's lots of stores that have lots of empty shelves. It's getting a little bit better now that we're 4-5 weeks in. But in the beginning it reminded me of the seventies during the breadlines in Russia, when you would just see people lined up waiting for the food.
That was something that just came to mind as I was seeing people lining up and waiting and, yeah.
Haley Radke: I definitely noticed heightened anxiety in myself when I couldn't find the gluten-free pasta because especially since I'm celiac I can't have gluten, right? Or it makes me violently ill, whatever. It's kind of a big deal. My family can all eat gluten, but I can't. And so that was this extra layer for me of, oh my gosh, what am I going to eat if I can't find the things that are safe for me to eat?
Janet Nordine: And then we, as adoptees, if we've had any of those food insecurities as little people, little children, we have that feeling as if I don't have food, the instant I need it, I will die.
That's kind of that intense feeling that you go through.
Haley Radke: Wow. So I know that there's lots of people experiencing this heightened anxiety and around food, not just adoptees. But specifically talking to adoptees who are listening, what are some things that we can kind of learn about ourselves?
And, I don't want to say work on during this time, but it's calling attention to something in ourselves that maybe needs addressing.
Janet Nordine: For me, as I began to research and I began to work with a new therapist that does a lot of body psychotherapy, it really normalized things for me to know that I'm not the only one.
And little babies that are not adopted, they have some of these same struggles. Other people that are not adopted have some of these same struggles and adoptees have these same struggles. So for me, getting the information. Knowledge is power.
When I can learn something about how my body responds and how it's responding perfectly normal for this situation that I'm experiencing right now, I feel like I can work with the situation or the problem or whatever is being presented and I can heal and I can move forward.
So as I've done research, my relationship with food really starts in utero. So what I know about my own experience of being in utero, since I've met my birth mother, is she shared that she was hiding in a trailer during the first of her pregnancy with very little food, smoking cigarettes. So when I was born, I was low birth weight, which we know is a contributing factor from smoking.
And I didn't get a lot of food in utero so I started off with that implicit memory, like Dr. Julie Lopez speaks about, of food is life and I don't have a good relationship already with food, so having that information was great for me because then I could really say, oh, now I understand what's going on in my body when I feel like I don't have enough food.
When the relationship ruptures, any relationship, it creates a lifetime of wondering will I ever have food again? This relationship with food, if it's had some attachment issues. Is there enough food? Will I need to hide the food? When will the food come to me again? So just learning about how your body functions and listening to people that are super wise and seeking out guidance and support has been so helpful for me.
Haley Radke: One thing I will never forget, I might not have the wording exactly right, but I was talking to one of our mutual friends, Anne Heffron, and one of the things she said was, I'm still waiting for my first good meal. And she was talking about that in context of she didn't get breastfed after birth. And this is not to shame formula versus nursing or any of those kinds of things. But we don't necessarily know what our first meal was in hospital.
Janet Nordine: Sure, and that was one of the things I said on that Zoom call that I was just amazed by the response. I said, who fed us first? I have no idea either.
I know I went out one door and my mother, birth mother, went out the other door, so I don't know if some nun who was a nurse gave me a bottle or if it was propped up or what happened. My brain can create all kinds of scenarios and stories, and none of them are great.
But yeah, I've spoken to Anne about food, too, and we talk about what we are hungry for. What is that? What are we hungry for? What we are looking for and what that little baby needs is that attachment and that attunement with the person that feeds them. As you're holding that baby and you're making eye contact, and whether you're breastfeeding or using a bottle or however the baby's getting food, it's the eye contact and the attunement and the connection that they need.
And then, if the person that's doing the feeding, the caregiver, is anxious or angry or annoyed at the end of their shift, whatever's going on, the baby's picking up that. What babies can do, they don't know they're hungry, they just know that they need some need met. So they cry.
So then they come to get fed. And the anxious caregiver is feeding them. The baby picks up on that eye contact and that energy of the anxiety that the person's feeling. And then they get the clue that, oh, this food means that I'm not really attaching to this person. So then their little body and their little nervous system has other responses because they're not attuning to the caregiver that's giving them the food.
So the baby's looking for the attachment, not necessarily the food. So when you've been feeding a baby, your own or somebody else's, it's that cooing and that's that “Oh, what a good little”, and all of that, that the baby needs and loves and helps it grow. And if they're with a foster home or a nurse or whomever, maybe that's not happening for them. And I'm not saying foster parents and nurses are not doing that, but maybe not in the way the baby needs.
Haley Radke: Wow, that's fascinating. And then, of course, these are like our earliest memories that are getting built. Non-verbal.
Janet Nordine: The baby learns that the food is the comfort, not the attachment. So it's meeting the need. My tummy's full, but I'm not really attaching. But now I feel better because I'm not crying because my tummy's full.
So food becomes comfort. And for me that means cinnamon toast becomes comfort.
Haley Radke: The food becomes comfort, not the attachment.
Janet Nordine: Yes, the signal to the body is that the food is satisfying and it's very confusing because they're not getting the attachment and the attunement, but they're satisfied.
Haley Radke: So how is this related to just oral stimulation in general because people have this thing with putting things in their mouths if it's food or a cigarette or chewing on your nails. What I've heard, I don't know, I didn't research this, but that's a comforting thing and a lot of people are going back to maybe nervous habits that have to do with the mouth during this time because it brings some sort of comfort.
Janet Nordine: Yes. It's exactly the comfort. It's not necessarily the process of eating or the process of smoking or the process of touching your mouth or, we can't touch our face. We do it all the time. Now I notice so many times I touch my face more than ever.
But we have in our body, we have two brains. We have a brain in our head and we have a brain in our belly. So what's happening when you're eating or you're using that oral stimulation, your belly brain is saying, oh, I'm getting satisfied. I feel better.
Haley Radke: So it's just things aren't right. Something is off because, yes, I'm stuck at home with my children.
Janet Nordine: Yeah. The belly brain speaks to us about our language of satisfaction and sensation, like it needs that sensation of eating or that sensation of chewing or all of those things to feel satisfied and feel comfort.
Haley Radke: It's just an extra way of giving ourselves comfort. But it's unconscious, right? Like we can kinda just start doing that without deciding to,
Janet Nordine: Yes. So I have this book that I've been reading and I love it. It's called The Heart of Trauma by Dr. Bonnie Badenoch, and that'll be one of my recommended resources.
But she said “the quality of our relationships both past and present impacts our ability to take in nourishment.” Isn't that interesting?
Like our ability to take in nourishment, not that we need nourishment. But how is our relationship with our caregiver? How is our relationship with food? Do we eat it because we're hungry and we’re nervous or anxious or bored or whatever the reasons, or do we eat it to really nourish our bodies? What's the purpose of the food that we're putting in our mouths that's going into our stomachs?
Haley Radke: That is interesting. Wow. Okay. So at the beginning you were kind of sharing that this has impacted your life and you've shared with me privately that this is something that you are working on.
Can you talk a little bit about that, about your personal journey and what led you to reading this book and looking more into this food insecurity idea?
Janet Nordine: On a personal level, I've always wanted to kind of get my eating under control. I'm an overeater and I am seeing a therapist and her name is Wendy Dingee and she is an integrative body practitioner, a psychotherapy practitioner.
And amazingly enough, she was someone in Las Vegas that does this type of therapy who's also adopted. So to me, finding this unicorn of somebody I didn't already know and that also has this shared experience has been huge for me. So one thing, I chose this particular therapist because I really wanted to work on body stuff, not just food intake but how I feel in my body.
One thing in one of our very first sessions, we were talking about the process of adoption. And for me, I started out as a problem. The person that was carrying me, she couldn't keep me. So that became a problem. I was placed for adoption. So that was another problem. And for a lot of years I felt like I shouldn't even have a body.
Like I couldn't feel my body; sensation was weird. Sometimes when I eat, I don't really notice that I'm full so I'll keep eating. So we talked about that and she uses the phrase: “of course, of course, you feel that way.” “Of course, that's your response.” And just the more that I heard the “of course,” the more I was able to recognize like, oh, I've been doing all these things, of course, because of how I started out in life.
What's amazing is the more I accept the “of course,” the more I'm able to make changes and make some space between the trauma of some of those things and the ability to make change and heal. And now I'm starting to feel like I deserve to have a body and I deserve to do things. And I don’t have to hide and live small anymore.
And it's really feeling the sensation of my body. We do a lot of breathing work in our sessions, which has been amazing. And connecting. And the more I'm able to take in a deep breath, I can feel like my lungs filling and I can feel like the cells in my body moving. So it's really been a life-changing, life-altering experience to do this type of work.
And I think as an adopted person, if we don't feel like we deserve or have a body or can do anything with our body, then finding a therapist or somebody that can do some body work is just an exceptional way of trying to get back in, live your full life and live the life you deserve.
Haley Radke: Don't we practice so often just ignoring all those cues? Like we're so disconnected. And not just adoptees, but you know, I think a lot of people are just completely disconnected.
Janet Nordine: Yes. Then you don't feel like you should exist at all. Of course, you're going to disconnect from your body because you shouldn't have been here in the first place. Of course.
Haley Radke: Of course. Wow.
Janet Nordine: And then that “I don't deserve” is such a theme for adoptees. We don't deserve whatever good comes into our life because, of course, we don't deserve. Our very first person that brought us into the world couldn't keep us, didn't want us. Of course, we feel that way.
Haley Radke: And I guess I'm going to say now that we're having this discussion and it's not “let's eat less to go on a diet” or something. It's literally not about that whatsoever.
Janet Nordine: For me, it's about noticing: Oh, I notice I'm kind of full. I don't have to finish this huge plate of mashed potatoes on my plate. I just notice it. There's no shame in it whatsoever.
There's no I'm going to go on a keto diet or I'm going to take something away from me because that's what my body's had all this time. I was taken away and so I took away the deserving. So now I'm just noticing. This is the first phase of this change for me. I'm just noticing when I'm full or I'm noticing when I think I need to go eat.
What is the emotion I'm having? Generally it's anxiety. Or boredom. I don't have anything else to do, let me go have a bowl of cereal. But as I'm noticing those emotions, I can work with them differently. I can do some different exercises. I can take a walk, I can pet my dog, I can do some polyvagal exercises that I've learned and that's so helpful to help me balance things that are happening within my body.
I'm not really hungry. I'm just whatever the emotion is.
Haley Radke: That’s rebuilding the connection, right? Wow.
Janet Nordine: Yep. Neurons that fire together wire together, and that's the relationship with food.
Haley Radke: You're a science nerd. I love that you have a little rhyme for that. Can you talk about this a little more, about the brain science? What's happening when we're eating? I mean, period.
Janet Nordine: I mentioned the belly brain, right? So the belly brain has about 40 trillion neurons, give or take a few. So there's a chapter in Dr. Badenoch’s book called “The Belly Brain,” and she talks about the neurons and she talks about the science, and I love the way that she explains it and it's really deep, but then she has little parts in it where she'll stop and say, let's pause for reflection, and I enjoy that.
But what happens when we're eating is we're trying to satiate our hunger, of course, but also it's telling our belly brain ways that we are interacting with our environment. It's telling us about our relationships. It's really helped me understand how I function as a human being. Like, everything that's happening within our body with the stimulus of needing to eat and the response of being full is exactly how it's supposed to happen.
So the more I notice, the more I'm able to pay attention, the more I'm learning about how to not feel that shame about eating or the shame about overeating. So I'm just noticing those things, like I said.
And “the greater intensity that we listen without judgment or intention is how we can make change and have a healing practice around food.” And that's a quote from her book as well.
Recently I listened to a webinar by Robyn Gobbel, who's a social worker that I've done training with, and she's a great friend to adoptees. She works with adopting families and children and she recently had a webinar on how we love food and how food will nourish us.
“Loving and feeding a child with a history of trauma” was the name of the webinar. And I love that she talked about how digestion is suppressed in the fight or flight. And this may tell us we are not full or we don't have an appetite.
So those of us that have learned to pay attention to that trauma response, a fight, flight, or freeze. I'm a freezer. It affects our digestion. And when I learned that my freezing, when I'm feeling anxious or my anger level is up and I'm fighting, that my digestion is suppressed and that I don't feel that I'm full, that was a game changer. Like I can think about or I can feel in my body, what is that emotion I'm having?
And then my belly brain will kick in and it'll be able to say, you don't really need to eat right now because it's suppressing your digestion. It's suppressing that need to eat. So everything's all connected, which is amazing. Both our brains are connected. Our bodies are connected, everything is working exactly how it's supposed to for our situation.
And when we can recognize that and give some space for acceptance, we're able to make changes and heal. The plasticity that I've spoken about on your show before, how we're plastic. Not only is our brain and our head plastic, but our body is too. So it can change and grow.
Haley Radke: And what's happening in your brain when you're walking through the grocery store and there's the empty shelves of things that you were hoping for or actually needed?
Janet Nordine: Well, isn't that disappointment and a little bit of fear too, right? Like we're afraid of what's really happening in our community. We don't know what's going to happen next. So if we're able to calm our nervous system, we're able to do some of those, like I'm going to do this butterfly hug thing where you just cross your arms and pat your left hand, right hand opposite on your shoulders. That's a polyvagal exercise that you can do that's calming.
It might look weird in a grocery store aisle when you can't find the pasta but, you know, who cares? We're all wearing masks and gloves anyways, so we're all looking weird in the first place. But that's something I do with my clients. We do butterfly hugs and I know other therapists that do those as well. And it's helpful. I mean, I just did that and I feel a little calmer. That settles me.
Haley Radke: That's something that my psychologist has recommended for one of my sons when he is anxious before bed. Because you can do it to yourself.
Janet Nordine: Sure. There's lots of little things you can do with your body. The whole key is feeling your body. Where in your body are you feeling that? What's your body feel like? Like right now, I'm sitting in a chair with a cushion. I can feel the cushion under me. I'm touching my knees. I can feel my knees with my fingers. I can see this wall in front of me. I can see you with your beautiful goldenrod blouse on and just naming things and it helps to settle that down.
Haley Radke: That's pretty good info, Janet. What else do we need to know?
Janet Nordine: I was going to share with you a sensory grounding activity that I like to do with kids, and adults can do it too, if that's okay.
Haley Radke: I love it. I'm always your guinea pig. So let's go.
Janet Nordine: So, Haley, name five things you can see right now.
Haley Radke: A mug, a whiteboard, audio foam. My microphone, kleenex.
Janet Nordine: Okay. Name four things you can hear.
Haley Radke: My furnace hum. Which is very irritating.
Janet Nordine: Mostly cuz it's April and the furnace is on.
Haley Radke: Yeah. When we're recording I have a heating pad on as well. Just I can't hear it but I hear my dog breathing because she's sleeping next to me. I can hear the rustling from my headphones touching my head.
Janet Nordine: That’s really good awareness. Good. What's the fourth thing you can hear? Maybe my voice when I'm talking to you.
Haley Radke: Thank you. I'm like, I don't hear anything else. I'm listening because I'm like, are my kids still upstairs? Quiet. They're being quiet. That's good. I can't hear them.
Janet Nordine: Can you name three things you can touch?
Haley Radke: My desk, my laptop, my water bottle.
Janet Nordine: Perfect. Name two things you can smell. That might be a little harder right now.
Haley Radke: I can smell the foam around my microphone. I grabbed my lip gloss. I can smell that.
Janet Nordine: What scent is it? Can you name it?
Haley Radke: It smells like vanilla.
Janet Nordine: Perfect. And the last thing, number one, the one thing you can taste, maybe you don't taste anything right now, but what's something you look forward to tasting?
Haley Radke: Ginger snap. Gluten-free.
Janet Nordine: And that's just a grounding activity. You're using all your senses. You use psych, you're hearing, your touch, your smell, your taste. And what that does is it allows your brain to go into the senses and it gets you into your body. So it's a grounding activity you can do when you're feeling stressed.
Haley Radke: Okay, so before I came down, I was hungry. I grabbed a cookie, sat down. My stomach was kind of unsettled. I always kind of get nervous. Even if I'm talking to a friend when I'm recording, I'm like, oh my gosh, please let the technology work right. I have all those things going on, and when I finish that my stomach is calm and fine. I don't feel like it's upset.
Janet Nordine: Yeah. You know, what's interesting about our physical response you just explained, we can either think it's anxiety or excitement, they feel the same. So which do you think it was?
Haley Radke: Oh, for me it's both.
Janet Nordine: Okay, and they're one and the same. The label doesn't matter. It's just you're noticing in your body how you're feeling. You described it perfectly.
Haley Radke: That's so interesting because in adoption we talk about having this “holding the joy and grief at the same time.” And so excitement and anxiety at the same time.
That's totally true. I love that you said that for me. Because I am concerned about tech failure during recording or me screwing up in some way, being so unfocused I can't ask the right questions or whatever. But I am also excited. I'm excited to engage with you.
Janet Nordine: Yeah. And if I can quote my therapist, Wendy, one more time, she says, being human is messy. And I love that. It doesn't matter if you messed up. It doesn't matter if I misquote or if something happens. It's just being human and it's okay.
That's given me such permission. Just that one phrase has given me permission not to be perfect in everything I do. Because don't we all, as many of us have as adoptees, have that “I have to do it just right.” I have to be compliant. I have to do things in a certain way. I can mess up now and I don't shame myself into eating all the toast.
Haley Radke: You're like, this is just a human thing.
Janet Nordine: Yeah. And I can be a therapist that works with people and I can have flaws. That's another thing that's amazing that that has given me permission to do.
Haley Radke: I love that. That's such a good thought. And, I mean, people have big feelings about food anyway.
Janet Nordine: Food is amazing. I mean, Anne (Heffron) turned me on to Chef's Table. I can turn on Chef's Table on Netflix and completely lose myself in the music and the process of cooking. And that's something I love too.
I love to cook and I love to nourish people and I love to make cinnamon rolls and share them with my friends and family because it gives me this great pleasure, but it also really tastes good.
Haley Radke: Yeah. And that's one thing about my views, I'm in the Health At Every Size camp and have learned a lot about intuitive eating and those kinds of things which are nothing to do with losing weight or body shaming or any of those kinds of things. And it's so good to just talk about what those adjacent issues are that some of us struggle with, without coming to it from a shaming sort of lens.
Janet Nordine: Sure. You know, when you can embrace your curves, that's a game changer.
Haley Radke: Yeah, that's right. That's so good.
Thank you. Is there anything I didn't ask you about that you want to make sure we get to?
Janet Nordine: I think that one of the things that I wanted to share is nutrition and relational safety. This is from Robyn Gobbel again: When they were offered together in infancy, that's when we know that we're okay.
What we're still doing as grownups and as humans is we're seeking safety all the time. And sometimes that safety comes in food. And when we can recognize that we can be safe, even without the food, that's really big. We don't have to do the overeating or undereating or punishing ourselves with food.
But we can seek safety and we can be okay just because we know we're safe.
Haley Radke: I think there's something freeing about knowing that there are these underlying reasons for the way we are. That there's other people who are thinking about these things the same way. Just like you said at the beginning, I'm not alone.
Janet Nordine: Right. Any little baby that would've been taken immediately from their mother to go into the NICU has some of these same struggles. Not adopted, they're staying with their family, but they were taken right away and they didn't get that immediate nurture that they needed.
So, it's that phrase “any little baby who has these experiences” is helpful.
Haley Radke: Thank you so much. I think this was really valuable. Now, you mentioned the book, The Heart of Trauma
Janet Nordine: Yes. It’s by Bonnie Badenoch and she's in the Pacific Northwest, and I know she does trainings and consultations and things, but all of her books are just amazing.
Another one that she's written is called Being a Brain-Wise Therapist but, really, I think anybody that's interested in psychotherapy, that's a good book for them too.
Haley Radke: And the thing I mentioned about intuitive eating, one of my best friends is a dietician and she recommends this book, Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. Oh boy, my pronunciation, I'm so sorry. I do my best.
It's really well done, very informative and helpful and a lot of the things that you were talking about, Janet, about noticing and those are like in the first stages of intuitive eating and paying attention to feelings and those kinds of things.
It's a very step-by-step process to learn how to get to that point where you are eating in a way that is the most helpful for your body.
Janet Nordine: Yeah. It's more nourishing for yourself so you can have safety. And you know, Haley, I'm not there either. I'm still in the infancy stage of making change in my life, but what I do know is I want to live long.
I want to live as long as I can, and I want to be healthy, and I want to feel good. So these are the reasons I really want to make changes in the way my relationship with food is.
Haley Radke: Thank you. And thank you for sharing some of your personal story. I think a lot of people will identify with that and I think as soon as we think of our early days, it will bring up things for people, and this is just one of those factors.
Janet Nordine: Yeah, and when I think of that little baby Janet, I can send her love and I can support her and I can visualize what I might have looked like and I can provide some of that for her. I have this phrase that I'm using now and just in my brain and my life, like I'm looking for the full Janet-ness that is in me.
I'm really trying to find that and by nurturing that little baby me has been really helpful to be this grownup person that can live in all of my Janet-ness. I don't have to hide anymore. It's awesome.
Haley Radke: Once again, I'll say I love that.
Janet Nordine: Yeah, so you can live in your full Haley-ness.
Haley Radke: Full Haley-ness, yes. Wonderful. Thank you. Where can we connect with you online?
Janet Nordine: You can connect with me online on Facebook: Experience Courage Therapy & Consulting. Janet Nordine, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Registered Play Therapist Supervisor. I'm on Instagram as well, so just look for Experience Courage.
Haley Radke: And you are taking clients in your own practice now, aren't you?
Janet Nordine: I am. Smart me, the week before the quarantine, I opened a private practice. Isn't that awesome?
Haley Radke: It's great timing, but I know you do things online.
Janet Nordine: Yes. Also, in my infinite wisdom, I did keep a part-time clinic job, too, so I'm pretty busy in this world of teletherapy. It's been going well.
Haley Radke: I've shared a couple places, but I am doing my therapy online with my psychologist because my boys are home and I don't want to take them into the office. And it's been fine.
Janet Nordine: The greatest thing for me right now is my therapist, Wendy Dingee, is still seeing some clients in the office and I get to make a trek across town and have an adventure and go to therapy once a week. So it's been really good.
Haley Radke: That's so good. Thank you so much, Janet.
Okay. Confession time. I am struggling. Oh my gosh, I told my kids to be quiet and they're still making noise upstairs, like how do you record with little kids in the house? I don't even know.
Anyway, I'm struggling to keep to a weekly schedule and I already told you a couple weeks ago that has meant some interviews have been canceled because people are struggling and aren't able to record, not in a good mental space, which I totally respect. And then I am struggling to find quiet times where I can actually book someone and have that hour of focus.
Anyway, I think what I'm going to do during this time is go to an every other week schedule, which is not what I wanted to do, but that's where we are now. I don't think I have a choice at this point, so my apologies.
I am really doing the best I can. I have some other extenuating circumstances, which I will tell you about in a few weeks probably. But yeah, we are working on some things here and it's just woo, it's a whole juggle.
So if you are working from home, if you are sheltering in place, if you have little kids with you, if you are by yourself, whatever your circumstance, if you are feeling it like I am, I am sending my good thoughts toward you and solidarity. It's a whole thing.
And I never expected, none of us did, really, to be living this way. And I mean, frankly, I'm speaking from a place of privilege because I still know that we have groceries and a house and all of those things, and I feel safe where we are and I feel like there's lots of people that aren't able to say those things, so I understand the privilege I'm coming to. And yet this is still hard.
So anyway, I thank you for listening. I hope this episode was helpful for you in some way if you deal with food insecurity, and I'm going to keep putting up new episodes but, like I said, they'll be every other week.
And I also have a Patreon podcast that I put up every week. So if you really want to keep the show going and you want to hear me ramble on every week, for some reason, adopteeson.com/partner has details of how you can get the Adoptees Off Script podcast, and that is for monthly supporters as a thank you for helping the show continue.
And there are instructions on Patreon for how you can have that podcast drop right into your podcast app where you like to listen, just like you would play this show. So it's really simple and I'm updating Patreon. There's going to be some new things that are happening over there.
And one thing we've been doing during this time of sheltering in place or quarantine or whatever you're experiencing in this lockdown (I don't know what to call it even) is we've been having some Zoom calls with Patreon supporters and those have been really good and helpful and encouraging to me. So I'm going to continue to do that when I'm able.
And so that's another bonus as well. And there's a link for that in Patreon. Also when there's a new Zoom call, I put that in Patreon as well as in the secret Facebook group. Okay. Adopteeson.com/partner if you want to support the show. And we're going biweekly. Why did it take me so long to tell you that?
Sending you love. I hope that you're doing well and that you're keeping healthy and staying safe. Thank you if you are out there working as an essential employee in some fashion; thank you if you're staying home to keep everyone else healthy. Thanks so much for listening. Let's talk again and two Fridays from now.
