The Courtney Gray Podcast

What is your Body Story? Is it Helping or Hurting You?

• Courtney Gray • Episode 99

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We all have stories we tell ourselves about our bodies.  Do you know yours?

Your stories determine the body you live in.  Listen to find out how.

Want to speak with me directly?  Schedule a consultation with me HERE

Courtney
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I work 1:1 with women to lose weight permanently, using mindset and strategy.  My process is exciting, life changing, and empowering.  Join me!

I have 2 bits of Exciting News! I have a NEW podcast called Modern Body Modern Life....here is the link to Listen...

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/welcome-to-the-first-episode/id1720478442?i=1000637985103

And Enrollment is NOW OPEN for my March Group Program, click HERE to find all the details,


Courtney

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Welcome to the Courtney Gray podcast the show for women who are ready to lose weight permanently, and love their body love the way they feel. And look, I'm going to teach you how to stop overeating and obsessing about food and your weight, so you can be more confident and empowered to then create an even bigger life. I'm life and body coach Courtney Gray. And each week, I'm going to be teaching you how losing and maintaining your ideal weight can be so much easier than it's been in the past. And by taking care of you and achieving your health goals. You will live in even more amazing life than the one you have lived so far. Let's get started. Welcome to the podcast episode 99. What is your body story? Is it helping or hurting you? First of all, next week is big. I'm going to be at episode 100. What is happening, it's so exciting. So tune in next week, make sure you tune in next week to hear all about my new podcast that is coming. This podcast. The Courtney Gray podcast is not going away. It's still going to be available to you. I'm just not going to be making any new Courtney Gray podcast podcast. All of the details are coming next week with the new podcast. I am it is it is Sunday night right now. And I'm very happy to finally be recording this podcast. It's the beginning of December happy December. And so possibly every neighbor around us is like blowing leaves off of their yard and mowing lawns. And so all day, I've been trying to record this podcast, but every time I go, one of my neighbors like gets out their blower and you can really for some reason you can really hear from my office when the neighbors are doing their work. So finally, I think we have quiet we have already we're ready to go. It is the beginning of December man has this year flown by it's been an amazing year. I'm so happy to have you listening to the podcast. If you are on my email list. You are going to get some details about the new podcast later this week. So if you're not on my email list, you want to be on my email list. It is the place to be to get kind of like the inside scoop the behind the scenes of what's going on with me and the business and any offerings or masterclasses coming up anything like that. The name of this podcast is what is your body story? And is it helping you or hurting you? You have heard me talk before on the podcast about what I mean it's by stories, the stories we tell ourselves. It really is the conversation we have in our head about things all we have stories that we tell ourselves about so many different things. We often even speak out loud our stories like The most common one I just think of if I'm just thinking of a general story is like someone going, I am just I have a very busy day, I just don't even have time for anything for myself. It's just very busy. That is a story you're telling yourself. And usually we not only are saying it in our head, but we are saying it to people around us. We're saying it to people at the coffee shop, we're saying it to our friends, our clients, all these things, right? The way we tell ourselves a story about what is going on in our lives, it really affects our experience, and it affects the results we're creating throughout our day. And stories really are just thoughts that we have about something going on. It's not necessarily the truth. One person's really crazy busy day is another person's every day. So the stories we tell ourselves are really just the perspective we have about what is going on in our world and is going on in our body. Let me give you another example about personal example. So last Friday, I had a colonoscopy. Ladies get your colonoscopy. It used to be age 58. Now it's age 45. And I didn't know this when I turned 45. And so I just got mine when I was 46. And it really wasn't that big a deal at all. But I will tell you what was a big deal to me. And the story I was telling myself about this upcoming colonoscopy is I'm going to feel horrible the day before, because they I found out that you can't eat like the whole day before. So I had caught my colonoscopy was scheduled for 1030 on Friday. So starting for a Thursday morning, I couldn't eat anything. And they turned out after I called them and we talked about it, I could have a little bit of apple juice and bone broth and all that. And it was fine. But going into this like on Wednesday, I was literally telling myself a story like canceled my whole schedule. The world is coming to an end and I was dreading the day because I literally thought I can't do I can't not gonna be able to do this. I'm, I'm a touch of a hypoglycemic which means I just kind of have low blood sugar, and I can't go that long without eating or else I just really feel sick. And when I was a kid I actually passed out a few times when I would be on an empty stomach and I would have to like give a blood sample or so I've actually passed out the doctors off So, so it's a legit thing. But that was the story. I was telling myself, I'm gonna feel horrible the entire day. And I recognized this as a story. And I decided to tell myself a new story. I'm so happy that I have. I have all this experience with thought work. And the new story I decided to tell myself is hunger is not emergency, people fast for days and days and days on end, and they're fine, I'm going to be fine. And the other thing I told myself is everyone over 50. Now 45 really has a colonoscopy, they're fine. And that really calmed me down. So can you see how when you're telling yourself a story, oh, my God, I'm gonna have that Thursday's gonna be horrible. And I was literally getting myself like into this frenzy of dread. I was thinking about canceling my whole day. And then I decided to tell myself a new story. Hunger is not an emergency. Everyone does this. And I just felt calm, like, no big deal. Thank God because I had my, my master class on Thursday. And then I had a concert Thursday night, and I was fine for both of them. So let me go over some of the most common body stories I have heard a lot. First one, I have never been able to lose weight permanently. So I don't think I can. This is a story you're telling yourself. And this is a story you probably have heard other people tell whenever you've told your story. People have probably said, yeah, I get it. They probably agreed with you. I wouldn't agree with you. If you told me this story. I would say yeah, just because something has been the way it's been does not mean that that's how it's going to be in the future. But a lot of people just agree when we say things like I've just I've never been able to lose weight. So I just don't think I can do that. People go I hear you. I hear you hold up a little all right. But what happens if you're telling yourself that story? Are you going to try to lose weight? Probably not. You're not even if you do try, it might be like kind of a half assed try, it might be like, well, it's going to be I'm trying but we know where this is really going. We're going to try for two days. And then we're going to be like, see, we knew we couldn't do it. So let's break this down. When you have this thought I've never been able to lose weight. So I don't think I can, what is the feeling that that thought creates in our body? Discouraged, I think is probably a universal, feeling discouraged is when you tell yourself, I've never been able to lose weight, I just can't do this. You're discouraged. And then from there, the action that you take when you're discouraged is you don't try you find evidence to support that new thought, right? Yeah, see, she couldn't do it over there. And she couldn't do it over there. And you think about all the times you've tried, maybe you will give it a half assed try. And then when it doesn't go, well, you're just going see, that's proof that I'm right, my story is true. And then the result that you are creating is you're living in the same body over and over and over again. And the bummer about this, and with all these different things, when they all these different stories when they produce a negative feeling, unfortunately, when especially if we're discouraged, or we feel shame, or we feel doubt, we end up often eating from those emotions. And that's what's this vicious cycle that people get trapped in. So frustrating. So probably the second most common body story that I've heard a lot is, is really painful. It's I should not be at this weight in the first place. People say this, I should not be at this weight in in the first place when they're at the weight that they're ashamed of. But people also say this, even after they've started, just started to lose weight with me working with me, they'll say I should not have been that weight in the first place. This often comes up for them when someone says oh my gosh, you look like you've lost weight, you look great. Sometimes they will think See, I shouldn't have been ever heavy and whatever heavy is for you in the first place. And the feeling that comes up with this one if this is a really painful one is shame. Usually it's shame or regret, when or just pain. And some times when you are feeling shameful about where you are right now, right? If you're thinking I should not be at this weight and you're feeling shameful again, sometimes the action we take from feeling shame is actually eating to make ourselves feel better. Or sometimes people will sabotage their weight loss results if they've lost some weight. Sometimes they will end up sabotaging an eating because they feel shame that they shouldn't have had to lose weight in the first place. As if the fact that they have to even lose weight is like a problem. And when I work with clients on this, you know one little tip I can give you if this is you if you're listening to this thinking yeah, I have that thought that body story that I shouldn't be at this weight in the first place. One little exercise I do with my clients that I can offer to you as well is to write yourself a letter and to forgive yourself at either the weight you are now or the weight you were, if you've already started losing weight and you still are finding that you have like shame about what where you were, write a letter to your past self with that was at that size. But right now if you're listening to this podcast and you are feeling like I should I'm, I don't know 180 pounds and I should not be at this weight, write a letter to yourself right now, one thing you can do that's actually pretty powerful is think about you. When you lose like if you are 190 pounds and you want to lose 20 pounds. Imagine her that vision of you 20 pounds lighter feeling in control around food, feeling at peace feeling so proud. writing you a letter now what would she say to you about where you are now. It's a really powerful exercise to really just forgive yourself and make you realize that you are completely worthy at any size. We need to accept ourselves right where we are now, if we plan on getting better if we want to lose weight, if we want to get stronger, if we want to feel more at peace around food, we need to be okay with where we are now. Even if you're not loving where you are. Now, even if you say I you know, I really want to lose weight, find security and peace where you are now. Another common body story I hear a lot is I'm in menopause. There's no hope for me, this is just who I am, or some iteration of that. It's like the menopause cart. I call it like when someone lands the menopause card. Now I've talked about menopause on the podcast before I do not want to negate that it is a legit thing. The body is changing and menopause, for sure our hormones are changing, we sometimes carry weight differently, we sometimes need to adjust the way we're eating. Sometimes we need to go on hormone replacement. Sometimes oftentimes, we need to move our body more or in a different way for sure. But if you find yourself kind of telling yourself the story that the where you're at right now with your body is because of menopause. That's not a great story to tell yourself. Right? This is whole. This is just who I am. I'm in my 50s or I'm in my 60s or I'm in my 70s I guess this is just who I am. Now, that is a painful thought. Especially if you want to feel and look better in your body. It's not helping you. Again, it's got to make you feel discouraged. It makes you feel a little bit justified. Which isn't positive for you. Feeling justified isn't making you curious. It's taking away any curiosity. I've been going through menopause for a while now. And I am constantly iterating and curious, what can I do about this? What can I do about that? What how can I figure this out? Another common body story I'm too old to change my body. Stop it right now with the I'm too old. This one I have no tolerance for. At any age, we can decide to feel amazing in our body, we can decide to get leaner, we can decide to get stronger, we can decide to get more flexible. And now that I'm going on a rant, we can decide to start a business we can decide to write a book we can decide to move countries, we can decide to adopt a baby, we can decide to do anything. At any age. This is an amazing time to be alive ladies, right? Do you agree with me. And to say I'm too old to change my body is just a story that is not serving you. If that is a story, you're telling yourself, I have clients that range from 40 to 70. And at any age, you can change your body. You can do things differently if if anything, I feel like once we hit mid 40s and up, we start getting really more into our own magic. I feel like we all of a sudden start caring less less what people think we start owning our own power we start we have more resources than we often did when we were you know sitting around with babies or in college, right? We have more money, we have more time we have more resources, we have more life experience, too old to change your body is a story that does not serve you. next most common body stories. If my partner ate better, it would be easier for me. Now this story, it might be a little trail. It might be true. My husband eats really well. And I do think it helps me out. But if this is a story, you're telling yourself if we're giving the husband excuse, right? That you that it would be easier for you. It's just not helping you. Even if there might be some truth to it. That story is not serving you. What I would say to you is you let your husband eat what he wants to eat, and you eat what you want to eat. How powerful does that sound? What story could you tell yourself if your husband decided He was never going to change he's going to eat the way he's going to eat. What story do you want to make around that? How about it doesn't even matter what my husband eats? Yeah, it sure would be nice if you would be eating healthier, but it's totally not a problem. I'm going to do this for me. I love my husband, I hope to understand I hope to inspire him. But it does not matter at all. And I shouldn't say husband, I should say, partner, any kind of partnership, you get to do your thing, they get to do their thing. Another common body story, I eat healthy. First of all, healthy is so relative. And let me tell you, let me give you a personal story. So I had a colonoscopy on Friday, I actually had a colonoscopy and an endoscopy. And so I don't even know if I'm saying that word, right. But I have had for over a year horrible reflux, like, horrible it has been negatively affecting my life. I don't know what is going on. I know. And I'm telling you, I eat healthy. And I'm saying this with air quotes. Because healthy is a relative story we tell ourselves, but I have had horrible reflux. I don't know when it really started. But it sometimes sounds like a dry cough. Sometimes I feel like I have like a ball of mucus like right at the base of my throat. And it doesn't matter if I take music, it doesn't matter if I take what is that one thing you're supposed to take the over the counter Pelisek it never fully goes away. And I'm I don't want to take any medicine, I want to fix this problem. So I've tried going off coffee, I've tried going off of oats, I've tried going off of eggs, I've tried going off of chocolate, I've tried doing all the things, and nothing has affected it. And so I made an appointment to get an endoscopy and it took like six months to get this appointment. And I went in on Friday, and I was gonna have both done at the same time. And so when the doctor came in, I told him, I go, Hey, listen, I said it just like this, my laugh that I've met him before. And I said, Listen, I eat really healthy. I know that that is a relative term. And I said but and I've also tried to take out tomatoes just thought about that, because that's what a lot of people say tomatoes and onions. But I told them, I really tried to take out the things that say cause heartburn, things that cause GERD, the things that cause silent reflux, I've done all my googling. I've tried all the things and I am like at my wit's end with this. So I'm really I'm actually excited to be here for this appointment, because I want to know what's going on. I want to fix this. And he kind of laughed at me. And then I went in for the procedure. And afterwards, he said, he goes, I think you might have this thing called E O E. E OE, I think it is. It's nothing life threatening or anything like that. And he's not even sure I have it yet. But he goes, you might have this thing. I'll meet you in four months, keep eating what you're eating. And I said, Well, no, no, no, don't. And he was trying to walk away from you. I said, Hey, listen, I know you're busy. But you need to stand here and talk to me for a minute. He laughed, because I'm very busy. I go, I know, but I need you to tell me. What can I do with Mike, what can I do to fix this? And I said, you know, I drink black coffee, and he goes stop drinking coffee. And I think he thought that I was gonna like go Oh, because I love my coffee. But I was like, Done. Done. He goes, Yeah, if you do have this coffee is not good for it. I said done. Can I drink tea? And he goes, you can. And I said okay, and so that's all he gave me. And I think I will talk to him again in four months. But I came home and I did my Google's I did my googling. And I figured out that a lot of my healthy and if you could see me I'm doing air quotes. A lot of my healthy eating is actually really bad for E OE. I'm taking a moment to tell you that I work privately one on one with women to help them lose weight permanently, and create a body they love. This is not a diet program. This is a customized program to teach you how to eat the way you want to eat forever. No more restriction, no more willpower, no more losing weight only to sabotage and then gain it back again. The problem is not you. We women are so hard on ourselves. And we think if we could just get motivated or more determined if we could find the right diet plan or cut out certain foods, we will lose weight and be happy. But the answer is changing your brain and how you think and feel. Changing your self image and how you talk to yourself. Learning how to trust yourself. This is how you lose weight permanently. It sounds too good to be true. But I promise you it's not. The work I do with my clients is powerful, exciting and loving. And it's hard work to but the result is change forever. The women I work with are smart and successful in so many areas of their life. They just haven't been able to figure out their body. This is where I come in, head to my website to schedule a consultation and we can talk about all the details back to the podcast. And so if you're telling yourself a story that you eat healthy that Have might not be serving you. Because if you're not where you want to be, and you keep saying, but I eat healthy, but I eat healthy, but I ate healthy, but it's not working. So let's figure out let's have some curiosity, let's figure out what we can do to get new results. It also reminds me when I was lifting weights, and I kept saying to my son, I'm not gaining muscle, I'm not gaining muscle. And he's like, Mom, you need to lift heavier. I know, you're telling yourself that you're lifting heavier, you need to lift heavier. So anyways, I need to totally change my diet. I can't eat eggs. Well, this is what I'm going to test because we're not even sure I have it. Yeah, but for now I've taken out eggs, I've taken out all nut products, which is all almond milk, almond flour, almond, almonds, almond butter, all the things it's a huge up uproar to my diet. But you know what, I I'm so grateful that it wasn't something worse. And if I could fix this with my diet, I'm going to be so happy. And here's what I will tell you. I talk a lot about the results I get from my clients. Some of you might be thinking, I can't even imagine taking away coffee, taking away eggs, taking away all nut products. And there's a whole slew of other things I need to take away that I can't even think of right now. Chocolate, you know all these things. Dairy? Yeah, it's a lot. Anywho, I will tell you, now that I'm at a place that I've done the work all the work that I teach my clients that I teach you guys here on the podcast about learning how to get in control around food. This really isn't that hard. For me. It is a little bit hard because I'm having to figure out what do I eat for breakfast? I'm a very habitual eater. And I've usually been eating egg whites with spinach, and onion. And so I'm figuring out like, what am I going to eat? I can't eat that anymore. What am I going to eat? So it is hard. It's challenging, but it's not. It's not so hard that it's stopping me. I feel very much in control of all of it. I feel very empowered. I had about five minutes of oh my god, I can't believe I can't have coffee. And then I thought, What do I want to think about this? And then I thought I'm so grateful that possibly taking out coffee and eggs and chocolate and, and dairy and all these things. I'm so grateful that this might fix this. I'm so grateful that like of all the things that that could have been this, what is my potential? In fact, as I was getting ready to leave, this was kind of hard to hear. But they were the nurse was talking to another patient in the room because there was a bunch of us in the room, you know, and all you have are those cloth screens, you know, separating everyone and she was telling the man as he was waking up that they found what was it she said they found a mass and she says it doesn't necessarily mean it's a tumor. I don't even know what she said it was I'm sure all very in line with whatever the protocol was, but I just thought, oh my God, that's tough man. Can you imagine if, if you're sitting there it can I was thinking can I imagine if they would have said, you know, we found a mask, but we're going to test it and we'll let you know. That isn't my situation. I'm so grateful that he said, I think you have this thing. It's not going to be that big a deal. You know, it's a disorder that you can control with your diet. It's like a autoimmune thing. And stop drinking coffee. I'll tell you know what, I'll fucking take it back to that was a huge tangent, probably way too much about me that you you didn't need to know. But I went into this thinking I eat healthy. Well, it turns out you're healthy is not working, Courtney. So if the story you're telling yourself as you eat healthy, but if you're not where you want to be, I think that's great that you eat healthy, but maybe we need to re need to look at your healthy and change it up. We need to figure out a new healthy for you. Because that story is not serving you. When you say to yourself I eat healthy it probably doesn't make you explore other versions of healthy so when I'm thinking about all these different stories that people tell themselves about their body and we didn't even get into a lot of the really horrible bore with stories about like your fat you have your arm sag and and all that which is of course just painful, right? One of the things you can do is you can say and I've said this before on the podcast if your child or if you don't have children, your niece nephew, some young person you love came to you with a story you tell yourself what would you say to them? Let that guide you of how to talk to yourself. But first you want to see is this story serving you what what is this story producing in my life? And if you get a piece of paper, and if you say okay, this is a story and you write it down. How does that story make me feel? It's probably frustrated, justified, doubtful, regretful, list the emotion. And then when you're feeling that emotion, what are you doing, and write those things down what you're doing. You're not trying to find another options. You're not working out your probably eating more, what are you not doing? And then what are you doing? And then what are you not doing? Write down a list of what that feeling is creating for you in your life. And then in the end, write write down what the result is that you're creating. And the result, I believe you're creating with all of these stories, you're not changing. That's painful. We don't change because we don't want the pain of changing. We don't want to do the hard work. But you're already doing hard work, girl. So where do these stories come from? The stories come from our youth like growing up, who are parents or teachers, friends, whatever society? What stories are you taking from your childhood? What did your parents say, that you have taken on? As adults, one of the beautiful things about being adults is you can become aware of the stories and actually change them, you can actually go Oh, growing up, I was taught this. And I don't want to think that anymore. These stories also come from us wanting to feel good, I think they're protective. If we believe these stories, we don't have to do the work necessary to change, necessarily to be curious and to try something new. These stories really do keep us from possibly failing. The stories keep us consuming. And when I say consuming, it's listening to this podcast. I'm so glad you're listening to this podcast. But if you're just listening, and you're not implementing, you're consuming, you're feeling good. Like God, it's such a great story. It's such a great podcast. God, I just love what she's saying. And now I'm gonna go about my life. And I'm not going to change, because we have this story. So your story determines how you live, what you allow what you give energy to, that's why it's so important to become aware of them. You know, another exercise for you might be to actually just get a piece of paper and say, what, what stories am I telling myself about my body? What stories am I telling myself about my life? What stories am I telling myself about my work about my friendships, you can write it about so many things, and really decide what story you do want to tell yourself and decide what the results that story is going to create for you. So our stories really do determine so much of the life we are creating for ourselves, it's really important to become aware of them, it's really important to become aware that you are telling yourself stories all day long inside your head sometimes out loud, and that they are affecting the life you are living the body you are living in, and you have so much control to change that story. You know, sometimes in the past, when I've created a new story, I don't really believe it yet. And that's okay. It takes time to continue to tell yourself a new story and to believe it. And what that looks like it is telling yourself every day this is the story. You can even say it like this. This is the new story I want to believe. And I'm going to find evidence as I go throughout my day that this is possible for me. I'm going to find evidence that other people are doing it, I'm going to find evidence that I can change. I'm going to find evidence that I can do things differently, and that there are so many different stories I could be telling myself about my body and what result ultimately do I want to create for myself. I hope you have a great Tuesday. If you are ready to lose weight and keep it off permanently, if you have tried diets and you know they don't work and you're ready for real change. I would love to have a conversation with you. I coach women privately one on one, and I'm currently offering consultations to talk about working together. click my link in the show notes or head to Courtney Gray coaching.com Or you can find me on Instagram at Courtney Gray coaching