Hey there. It's Dr. Susan Peirce Thompson, and I have a question for you. Have you ever made a decision, decided something like, "I'm done with sugar. I'm not going to eat this anymore," and immediately had a voice rise up in your head that said, "You can't control me. I'm going to go get a donut right now." Has anything like that ever happened to you? If so, you are really not alone. You're not broken. You're not unique. You are not incapable of food addiction recovery. You're not incapable of keeping Bright Lines. You are experiencing something very deeply studied, a real phenomenon. It's called psychological reactance.
What is psychological reactance? It is the phenomenon where someone has an uncomfortable uprising of a desire to do something that becomes really strong the minute it becomes threatened or taken away in some form. The minute it becomes off limits, there's an astronomically heightened desire to go do it right then, which is clearly problematic at times, especially if you're trying to do Bright Line Eating®.
Who is susceptible to this? I want to say that everyone is susceptible to some degree, and that would be called state reactance. So, in any particular state, like in any circumstance, in some circumstance, anyone could be subject to this phenomenon. We call it the forbidden fruit effect. The minute someone's off limits, they become more attractive. The minute someone says, "Don't go into this room in their house, you immediately want to go in there and see what's in there." That's natural, right? But some people have trait reactance, meaning it's a built-in part of their fiber. They are someone who is likely to be highly independent and autonomous, deeply skeptical, and someone who sort of questions or challenges norms, someone who wants to protect their own boundaries and their own rights really strongly.
We talk about Internal Family Systems in Bright Line Eating. Internal Family Systems is a form of therapy. It's also a model of the human psyche that talks about the protective Parts of us that are trying to keep us safe and happy in the world. And what happens when someone starts Bright Line Eating is a Manager Part of them, this is a protective Part of us that's trying to protect us from future difficulties or harms by keeping our life really orderly, a Manager Part of us that might be a Food Controller Part gets really excited and really happy because the Bright Line Eating structure is just what they need to keep the food in order, finally. And they can feel it. They can sense it. From the minute they start reading this food plan, they're like, "Oh, this is going to work. I can do this. We're going to execute this. This is going to be amazing. I can dot these I's. I can cross these T's. I'm the one." And this Food Manager Part of us gets really happy that we're following the Bright Lines. What happens then if we're prone to psychological reactance is that a Rebel Part of us can rise up. This is the reactance Part. This is what's called a Firefighter Part. It's a Part of us that swoops in when we're uncomfortable, and this removal of autonomy is a form of discomfort. And so, this Rebel Part swoops in to say, "Oh no, you can't control me. You can't tell me I can't eat sugar and flour. Artificial sweeteners, that's ridiculous. You can't tell me I'm not going to chew my sugarless gum. There's not even any calories in that. Come on." And this Rebel Part of us rises up to protect our autonomy.
This presents a challenge for someone who's trying to do Bright Line Eating. What do we do about this? Well, let me tell you a little bit about the neuroscience of what's going on because I feel like the science sometimes helps. What's going on here is that the amygdala, you've probably heard of the amygdala, we call it the fear center, and one of the things it's charged with doing is protecting our autonomy. The minute autonomy is threatened, the amygdala sounds the alarm, and before the prefrontal cortex can even come in and evaluate, "is this a reasonable boundary? Is this a boundary we're imposing on ourselves? Is this a boundary we actually want to keep?" the amygdala can sound the alarm and activate the fight Part of the fight or flight system. So, suddenly we're fighting for our rights, and it happens fast. That's what psychological reactance is made of.
What can be helpful is to get the prefrontal cortex back online. Language matters. Language matters. Watch how you're talking to yourself about the Bright Lines. If you're talking about, "I can't," or "This is off limits, it's forbidden, I can't eat sugar, I can't eat flour, I can't have sugarless gum," can you switch that to, "I choose not to. I can have whatever I want." Even go so far as to completely affirm your autonomy in language. "I'm an adult. I'm a free agent. I can go into the supermarket or this Quickie Mart and buy anything I want to and eat as much of it as I want to. For today, I'm choosing not to because I want to follow this plan because I prefer how I feel in my body when I stay bright because I want the goals of losing my weight and getting a lot healthier and being clearheaded and clear eyed and my self-esteem rising and my peace and joy increasing. I want that more than I want X, Y, Z food product." You can really start to language what you're doing so that it's clearly an expression of your choice and your free will.
You can also talk to that Rebel Part of you. Literally talk to it. You can say, "I hear you. I see you. I know that you're trying to protect my autonomy. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. I am so free in this world because of you. And you know what? Today we're actually choosing to stay Bright. This is not anything that anyone's forcing on us. This is something I want to do because I want to lose some weight. I want to be healthier. I want to see if I can have more control over my food. I want to see if I can conquer this food issue finally. Would you partner with me in that?"
Give that Rebel Part of you a new job. Give that Rebel Part of you the job of fighting back against big food, of giving your dollars to these companies that are just trying to hook people. That can be actually an angle that a Rebel Part can really be reallocated toward. You make sure that we do not spend a dollar supporting this ultra processed food junk industry that's just in a sinister way, literally making sure that they hook as many of us as possible. We're going to fight back against that and not give our dollars to that cause. We're going to give our dollars to the people growing real food in the ground for the health of actual people who want to live a long time. So. that might be a way to reallocate the energies and efforts of that Rebel Part of you. But talk to the Rebel Part of you, really connect with it and say, "I see you. I hear you. Thank you for keeping me free. Thank you for keeping me sovereign. I value the autonomy that I have, and I thank you for it."
Finally, you want to focus on the gains, not the losses. It's easy in Bright Line Eating because there's this no sugar, no flour, Bright Lines, no snacking to focus on the losses. Oh, I can't eat this. I can't eat that. And instead, focus on all the things you're getting. Focus on the blood work that's getting better day over day. Focus on the scale that you're losing weight on the scale. Focus on the sanity that's being restored as you have a more structured pattern of living. Focus on the brightness that you feel when you wake up in the morning without that sugar hangover. Focus on the clarity of your thinking as the food fog lifts. Focus on the friends that you're making in Bright Line Eating. Focus on how much better you feel about yourself. There's a lot of positives to focus on instead of focusing on things that are going to be framed in such a way as to activate that reactance Part of you.
I wanted to introduce you to psychological reactance in this vlog. I also want to say before I close that we've got an event happening this week that's got a lot of free stuff and informational educational offerings for you. There's a link down below. It's all about doing the inner work and achieving inner peace, exactly the kind of stuff that if you feel you suffer from a wicked case of psychological reactance, this is the kind of thing that would be really helpful for you. It's all about finding peace within and becoming deeply resourced. I've got a webinar. I've got a masterclass. It's only up for just another couple days. There's a course called the resource self that is open for registration right now. So, click below, make sure you catch all the free stuff before it goes away. A lot of great education there for you. I'm so grateful to be here with you this week and I will see you again next week.
