276. Progress Is Nowhere Or Progress Is Now Here
If months have gone by and nothing feels different with food, try this: a five-element journaling exercise that turns stuck seasons into earth-first momentum.
Last updated: October 13, 2026
This Whole Episode Was Inspired by a Dream
A few weeks ago, I dreamed I was walking through a library looking for Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland. I read this book maybe a decade ago, and the one part that stayed with me was a girl hiding during a school shooting, writing inside a notebook over and over: God is nowhere // God is now here.
That image has lived in me ever since. The idea that when you shift your perspective the slightest bit — when you adjust the language just slightly — everything can change.
When I sat down to journal about the dream, I wrote: I think the biggest part for me was the reminder of the nowhere/now here dilemma. Only it feels more like "progress is nowhere / progress is now here." That whole, it's not a destination, it's a decision thing.
That "destination vs. decision" idea comes from Elizabeth Benton's Primal Potential podcast and her book Chasing Cupcakes — something I return to often. And it's exactly what this exercise is about.
If you're feeling stuck with emotional eating — if months or weeks have gone by and you don't feel like anything has changed — this post is the medicine. You're going to get a practical, embodied journaling exercise that can shift things starting today.
Before You Fix Anything — Throw a Sacred Tantrum
If you're in a season of minimal progress, here's my wildly unorthodox recommendation before we get to the exercise: get mad.
Sometimes, letting go of the feelings of despondency is enough to create a shift. You might have some belligerent younger parts that have been raging below the surface. Give them the mic for a few moments before moving on.
This is what happened for me. I have two inner teenagers — Girl Boss (clipboard, whiteboard, seething) and Unicorn Thunder (eye-rolling, ponytail-flipping, reluctantly wise). They've shown up in the drama triangle of binge eating and in episode 254 before.
Girl Boss pointed at her whiteboard full of evidence that progress had stalled and said: We need to stop acting like this is okay and get MAD. Because when did being mad become a problem? We're GOOD at being mad. We use it to do hard workouts and crush our to-do list and rage clean the house. Works a lot better than pretending we're okay with this. Because we are NOT.
Even Unicorn Thunder — the keeper of joy — had to admit: You're really annoying. And even more annoying because you're right.
What Happens When You Parent the Inner Critic Instead of Silencing Her
Here's the thing about this moody teenager part: she has valid points. She's also been known to take those valid points and weaponize them. You might have a similar experience with your own inner critic, even if she doesn't have an official name and a clipboard.
So once you let her speak, you also want to parent her. You can do this yourself, or if you're into the Divine Daddies storytelling method, let her dads help. This was absolutely a job for Rex, my inner Fire Starter.
Rex tapped the graph once.
"This? This is information. And you are right about one thing that everybody in this room needs to hear."
His eyes flash.
"You are allowed to want progress."
Girl Boss's mouth trembled.
"You are allowed to be sick of rebuilding ground you already covered. You are allowed to look at a repeated pattern and say, No. I'm done participating in this."
Her shoulders loosened by half an inch.
Then Rex leaned closer.
"But I am not letting you turn that rightful anger into a flamethrower pointed at Kayla."
Girl Boss's eyes filled immediately. "I'm trying to help."
"I know." His answer came fast. Certain. "That's why I'm here."
His hand closed around the marker in hers. Not yanking it away. Just holding it with her.
"You want her powerful." Girl Boss nodded hard. "You want her moving." Another nod. "You want her to stop pretending she doesn't care when she cares."
Her face crumpled. "Yes."
Rex's grip tightened around the marker. "Beautiful. Then your new job is not prosecution. It's standards."
This is what parts work can do during a stuck season. You don't ignore your inner critic — especially if she has valid points about broken promises or a lack of consistency. She's not pointing these things out because she hates you. Every part of you is in love with you and wants what's best for you. If you remember nothing else, take that home.
You listen to this part. You appreciate the positive intention. And then you parent her in such a way that you preserve the positive intention while taking away the weapon. Thirteen-year-old girls shouldn't run wild through the house with scissors. Here's more on how dreams and parts work shaped the entire Food Freedom Fantasy method.
The Exercise: 10 Reasons Progress Has Been Slow
Once you've had the tantrum, given your inner critic the mic, and parented her so she keeps her desire for progress but loses her sharp objects — then you move on to this brainstorming exercise.
Write down 10 reasons why progress has been slow or nonexistent.
Two rules:
First, these things must be in your control. External circumstances don't go on this list. Only the levers you can actually pull.
Second, critique behaviors and strategies — not character. A correct example: I haven't seen progress because I keep doing X. An incorrect example: I haven't seen progress because I am [insert nasty descriptive word].
I'm asking for 10 because this makes your brain work. You come up with more things than you expected, and often it's the 8th or 9th item that creates the biggest insight.
Sort Your List by Element
Once you have your 10 items, categorize each one:
Earth — the practices, habits, and tactical things you DO on a daily basis.
Water — the emotional experiences that have been derailing your progress.
Fire — the energetic stuff. The power moves. Whether you're playing or shrinking.
Air — the mindset-related things. Limiting beliefs. The excuses that keep surfacing.
Ether — the bigger picture, existential, or spiritual patterns. Operating from pressure because of a lack of trust. Trying to control everything, which leads to self-sabotage down the line.
If you're not sure where something goes, give it your best guess. It doesn't have to be perfectly categorized for this to work. Here are some examples from my own list to help you see what this looks like in practice:
I haven't been using the Divine Daddy SOS's and emotion coaching fast enough when hard moments or cravings show up. — Earth
When progress slows, I've tended to start bracing and going into a stress response. — Ether
I haven’t been doing Ocean Brain returns as regularly. — Earth
When I start feeling bad, I stop playing and having fun and laughing. — Fire
I've basically stopped doing Dance Alchemy®, which I KNEW helped with emotional eating. — Earth/Water
Reddit. Not that Reddit automatically makes me eat, but when I go on lifecoachsnark and see posts about how life coaches suck and everyone's a grifter... yeah. That creates Fire Brain, which often leads to Rock Brain — Air (but also Earth because of the physiological response)
Always Start With Earth
Here's the part that changes everything: start with Earth. Always start with Earth.
These are the daily actions that shift your physiology and make tackling the rest of the list dramatically easier. Once you pull some key levers in the Earth element, the other stuff often gets smaller or melts away on its own.
For me, when I dance regularly, do Ocean Brain Returns, use the Divine Daddy SOS — I feel better. And when I'm not feeling bad to begin with, I automatically start to play and have fun again. By prioritizing Earth, Fire took care of itself.
This is also critical for any Air items on your list. One of my favorite truths: you can't think your way into a new way of acting. You have to act your way into a new way of thinking. You don't fix limiting beliefs through inner work alone. You create evidence those beliefs aren't true in the first place, and you do that through actions. Earth before Air, always.
This is also why affirmations have such mixed reviews. The people who say affirmations don't work are probably not changing any behavior, then getting frustrated when nothing shifts. The people who swear by affirmations are likely taking different actions — consciously or not — that make those affirmations feel true in their body. Because they are.
Turn Your Earth Items Into Mechanisms
Pick 1–3 Earth items from your list and turn them into mechanisms. Because truths don't execute — mechanisms do.
It wasn't enough for me to write this list. I needed to go back and schedule Ocean Brain Returns. I needed to commit to sending the Divine Daddy SOS sooner. I needed to put Dance Alchemy® on the calendar, even if it was only 2–3 songs in the morning to shift my energy for the day.
This is putting handles on your poems. Insight without a mechanism is just a beautiful observation that dies before dinner.
And if Ocean Brain Returns and Divine Daddy SOS sound like they're from another language — they're not. They're rituals from Food Freedom Fantasy, and they're exactly what I mean by mechanisms. The Food Freedom Fantasy book is the full syllabus — Ocean Brain Returns, Divine Daddy SOS, Dark Fire, Drama Triangle triage, the whole toolkit — so if you're about to write your list of 10 and you want Earth levers that already have handles on them, it's $7.99. Less than the pizza. Works better.
FAQs: Feeling Stuck with Emotional Eating
Q: What do I do if I can't come up with 10 reasons? A: Keep going. The first 5–6 come easily. Items 7–10 require your brain to dig, and that's where the real insights live. If you're truly stuck after sitting with it for a while, check whether you're unconsciously listing character traits instead of behaviors — the "because I am" trap. Reframe to "because I keep doing" and the list will open up.
Q: What if most of my items land in Air or Ether instead of Earth? A: That's actually useful information. It might mean you've been trying to think or spiritualize your way out of a problem that needs tactical daily action. Check whether there's an Earth version hiding underneath each Air item. "I keep telling myself I'll start Monday" (Air) might really be "I haven't scheduled a specific practice for tomorrow morning" (Earth).
Q: How is this different from a regular journaling exercise? A: Two things make it different. First, the elemental sorting gives you a diagnostic — you can see where your stuck energy actually lives instead of treating everything as one undifferentiated blob of "I need to do better." Second, the Earth-first rule prevents you from getting trapped in the healing loop of endless reflection without movement. The five-element framework comes from Narrative Alchemy, the identity-based process inside Food Freedom Fantasy.
Q: Should I redo this exercise regularly? A: Yes — keep the list handy and refer to it a few times a week. Your Earth items will shift as you pull those levers. New patterns will surface. The exercise isn't a one-time diagnostic; it's an ongoing practice for staying in authorship instead of drifting back into autopilot.
Q: What if I've already tried everything on my Earth list and I'm still stuck? A: Then the issue might be a misdiagnosed wound — you're applying the right effort to the wrong element. If Earth levers aren't creating movement, check whether a Water wound (attachment, shame) or Ether wound (chronic control, lack of trust) is running underneath. Sometimes the reason Earth actions don't stick is because a deeper wound keeps pulling the rug out. This is exactly what the five core wounds framework is designed to address.
Progress Is a Decision, Not a Destination
Whether you do this work with me inside a program or on your own, this is how you go from progress is nowhere to progress is now here. You let your inner critic get mad, get noisy, and point out the truth. Then you find the levers you can pull that are in your control. And I guarantee you, there is some micro version of something on that list in the Earth element that you can do today.
And suddenly, progress is now here.
The Food Freedom Fantasy book is $7.99 and teaches every ritual mentioned in this post — Ocean Brain Returns, Divine Daddy SOS, Dark Fire, Drama Triangle triage, Dance Alchemy® integration, the whole map. If you want Earth levers with handles already on them, start there.
And if you want the one thing the book physically cannot do — I can explain why Dance Alchemy® works on emotional eating, but I can't dance with you through a paperback — Embodied is nine full-length Dance Alchemy® classes matched to the key chapters of the book, two tech walkthroughs for setting up your own Divine Daddies on whatever AI platform you like, and three check-ins with me. Not homework review. Witnessing. It's $147 when you grab it alongside the book, and every dollar credits toward the full Food Freedom Fantasy program if you decide you want more.
Now go pull some Earth levers. I'll meet you back here in a future episode.
To Your Power & Freedom,
Kayla
