LU 027: Thom Rutledge – Confronting the "inner Gremlin voice" and learning how to disobey it.

Download Episode! Lovely radicals! In today's episode of the "Life. Unrestricted." podcast, I talk to Thom Rutledge from Nashville. Thom is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, psychotherapist, author and speaker, who has experienced both sides of the therapeutic relationship; as a clinician and as a client. He blends his personal recovery from depression, addiction and excessive self-criticism with 30 years of professional experience to guide his clients, readers, and audiences from self-judgment and perfectionism toward genuine self-compassion. He’s the author of several books like "Embracing Fear", "Earning Your Own Respect" and "The Greater Possibilities“, and he has co-written "Life Without ED" (ED meaning Eating Disorder) with Jenni Schaefer. Thom’s trademark sense of humor, a down-to-earth practicality, and his own compassion are the common threads than run through his unique brand of psychology. Thom will tell us: – How contributing to a bestseller about eating disorders led to him specializing in eating disorder treatment – How he as a recovering alcoholic (who’s been sober for 30 years) can relate to people with eating disorders and disordered eating – Where he sees the familiarity between eating disorders and alcoholism – Why eating disorders are often more difficult to recover from than alcohol addiction – Why he asks his clients about their relationship to fear – Why there often are existential fears underneath eating issues – What his intra-personal therapy model consists of – Why trust is such a crucial part of eating disorder therapy – How we can separate our fear voice (inner Gremlin/inner bully) from our healthy voice (recovery voice) – Why it is normal to often have different feelings or even opinions about things in life – How clever our inner Gremlins are and how they trick us – How this inner Gremlin actually manages to scare us into paralysis – Why the inner Gremlin is a synonym for catastrophic thinking – Why we should never expect to be able to fully rid ourselves of those inner bullies – Why we can only learn to deal with them when we first start to listen to what it actually says – Why it helps to ask ourselves how much of what this inner Gremlin predicts has ever really happened – What we are really afraid of when we say "we are afraid of weight-gain" – How he specifically works with my example – Why rejecting and disobeying the inner Gremlin is the way to recovery – Why in healing from bad body image and disordered eating it often gets worse before it gets better – Why, when we have believed our inner Gremlin for decades, it often feels like shedding our old identity when we are on the way to becoming our true selves – Why the inner Gremlin doesn’t get to use the "I" pronoun – How to strengthen our inner, true recovery voice – How we can become the real decision-makers in our own life – How community and support play a pivotal role for our mental health – Why he thinks the universe purposely designed us to be "forgetting machines"... ... And so much more! Check out the Thom’s website to find out about his work and his books: http://www.thomrutledge.com/ Please consider supporting the podcast with a donation by becoming a "Patreon"; so that I can keep producing it. Thank you! Here's the link: https://www.patreon.com/lifeunrestricted Please: Do subscribe on iTunes (Apple): https://itunes.apple.com/ch/podcast/life.-unrestricted.-podcast/id1130713233?mt=2 or on Stitcher (Android): http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=93987&refid;=   ********* Don't forget!********* Make sure to join my tribe and meet some of the most supportive, loving and kind people of all shapes and sizes, including great coaches and leaders! We’re right over here at: http://www.lifeunrestricted.org/join/