Who Do You No Longer Want to Be? Who DO You Want to Be?

Have you ever heard the question, “Who do you no longer want to be?” At first, it might sound a little negative—but when you dig deeper, it’s actually one of the most empowering questions you can ask yourself.

In this episode, I share how I first heard this question from meditation teacher Joe Dispenza, how it completely stumped me at first, and how I eventually learned to use it as a powerful tool for change. You’ll learn how to break it down into practical steps so you can use it to transform your self-concept, your daily habits, and your relationship with yourself.

We’ll talk about:

• Why your self-concept drives all of your behavior (and how to change it)
• The real reason you keep doing what you say you don’t want to do
• How avoiding or escaping negative emotions is keeping you stuck
• Simple ways to identify your patterns—and change them for good
• What it looks like to continually “up-level” your life once you’ve made progress

By the end of this episode, you’ll have a clear process for answering the question, “Who do I no longer want to be?”—and turning it into the more powerful question: “Who do I want to be?”

If you’re ready to stop living on autopilot, break free from old habits, and step into a stronger, more empowered version of yourself, this one’s for you.

Resources & Links:

• Book: Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Joe Dispenza

Interested in speaking with me about how we can work together? Click here to head to my website: https://www.modernbodymodernlife.com/ and schedule a free consultation with me.

Transcript

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Foreign Welcome to Modern body, modern life. The podcast for women who want to lose weight permanently feel in control around food and learn how to stop obsessing about their body and food a modern way of thinking about your weight, your body and your life includes mindset. I'm body and life coach Courtney Gray, and each week I'm going to teach you the mindset tools that are necessary for changing the way you eat forever. We will uncover why you're eating when you said you were going to stop, what to do when you're really craving something, and how important it is to decide what you want to believe is possible for you, I believe we can get in the best shape of our lives at any age, a modern body, a modern life, all starts in your mind, and when you learn how to manage that, losing weight permanently becomes so much easier. Welcome to the podcast episode 93 Who do you no longer want to be this one sounds like it's possibly coming from like a negative lens. It sounds like kind of a negative question to ask yourself, but I promise you it's not. I don't want you to see it that way. It's actually very empowering. So I will dive into that in a moment. I am really looking forward to this weekend. I am having a stay cation all by myself. My youngest went back to school. My husband is going to be gone for the weekend, and I'm stay occasioning. What does that mean? I don't know yet. That's what I'm so excited about. I'm sure I'm gonna get some things done around the house, because I love, I love cleaning my space and making energy for, like, a new start and a new you know, as we were kind of heading into fall, I just feel like, I feel like taking care of the things I already love and maybe watching a little bit. What is that series? It's the Outlander like series that's like a prequel to Outlander, blood of my blood, or bone of my bone. I don't know what it's called, but I'm excited to start that. I'm excited to read. I'm excited to do some meditation and work out and go to dinner with my sister and go on walks with my kids. I'm excited for all of it, but it is going to be a beautiful staycation. So I'm just looking forward to a little time off, and I'm really excited to record this podcast for you. So if you've ever heard of Joe Dispenza, he is, gosh, he's kind of a guru in the meditation manifestation, thought leadership space. And if you have ever dove into meditation, you probably know who Joe Dispenza is. He has a book. What is the name of that book? He I mean, he has a few books. I have to remember the name of that book. Let me find it. Joe Dispenza, I just had to look in my audible. Has a book that I've read three times. He has a few different ones, but one of my favorites is breaking the habit of being yourself if you love this podcast and you're wanting more, but in a different flavor, from a different lens, from someone who has more authority in different areas, because he has he's very he has a lot of experience with meditation and thought leadership. It's a great book. I love it on Audible. I also have it in hard copy as well. It's a great book. My husband's listen to it. It's a great book. One of the things he says in quite a few of his meditations, is he will ask you, kind of towards the end of the meditation, who do you no longer want to be? And I remember when I first heard this, you know, I was in this meditative state, and I heard this, and it kind of snapped me out of it. I was like, What? What? What does that even mean? It was so it kind of snapped me out of it. I'm like, Who do I no longer want to be I don't even know what that meant. I didn't really understand the question. And so for this podcast, I'm gonna kind of break down the power of this question and how I have come to deconstruct this question and answer it in a way that now I understand it so much more. I feel like I have broken the code, and I'm going to break it down for you so you can answer this question for yourself. And so this question, Who do you no longer want to be? Really dives into our self concept. It dives into what you think about you and and and you might think about you things at a surface level, a conscious level, but also at a subconscious level. If we really allowed ourselves, all of us, even if we're a confident woman, at a subconscious level, we have some thoughts about ourselves that sometimes we didn't choose. And if we don't go to our subconscious level and really figure out what those thoughts are about ourselves. If we don't do that, we can't change them. We can't dive into them, see how they're holding us back, and we can't then change them. So this question helps us do that. This question helps us really figure out, what do you really think about you? What do you think about. You're capable of. And then, what do you think about you in terms of a mom, in terms of a partner, in terms of a friend, in terms of a child of God, if you believe in God, a child of universal energy, if you believe in universal energy, what do you think about you in terms of your role as a woman in this time, in space like so there's so many ways to look at it. What do you what is your self concept? And why does it matter? Great question. It matters because all of the action we take or don't take, all of our behaviors, stem from what we think about ourselves, so and when we and when I say, all of our behaviors, literally all the little things we do on a day to day basis stem from what we think about ourselves. If you've been trying to, I have many clients right now, if you've been trying to watch social media less consume social media less part of the reason why you maybe are on social media, more than you'd like to is because of the way you think about yourself, about what you're capable of, about what you're dealing with in your life, and how you're dealing with it. What you think about you determines what you do, and so that's why you deciding what you think about you is so important. And remember most of what we think about us unless we have done the work to decide on purpose, what we want to think about us and practice and strengthen those beliefs. If we haven't done that, it is most of what we think about us has been given to us from childhood, and unless you had some rock star parents or guardians, you might not love your self concept. You might not love what you were told you were capable of. You might not love what you were told was your job. You might not love what you were told about, what's possible for you, what you're capable of, and even if you did have rock star parents, I feel like I have rock star parents, and I still had some things that I learned outside of my parents as a child that has really affected my self concept, and just in the last few years, I'm unraveling it and choosing a new so self concept matters, because it really is the foundation that all of our behavior drives from to understand who you no longer want to be, I have decided that I love starting with what you no longer want to do, what you no longer want To allow, how you no longer want to live, and make sure when you're thinking about this as I'm walking you through it, and I've got a few examples, but as you're applying this to you, you really look at your day to day activity. This isn't a situation where we want to go meta, like really big. We want to get really granular, like on a day to day basis. What do you no longer want to do now? You probably already know, like, I have a feeling. You're probably like, Oh, I wish I didn't do this perfect. It really can be very simple. It really can be I want to stop snacking in the car. I really want to stop overeating at night. I really want to stop skipping the gym because I make any excuses. I really want to stop saying yes to my kids when they do this. I really want to stop saying no to this when I really want to do that. Right? It might be very simple, which is good, but this is where most people stop. Most people stop with, oh, I need to start going to the gym. When I say I'm going to go to the gym. Ah, why do I always do that? And then they stop, and then they redirect to something else in their life, and they keep going, or they'll say, Oh, I really need to stop eating at night. Tonight's the night. I'm gonna be really good tonight. And then they redirect, and they go about their day, right? I always eat a second serving. Oh, what's wrong with me? Stopped redirect. Oh, I knew I'd have another cocktail, dang it. I always do that. I never follow through redirect and go about their day, usually with a promise to do better tomorrow. We simply shame ourselves and then decide to try again, usually the next day. But what I want for you to do is to stop, and I want you to decide that it's time to go further than that. If we're going to answer this question from Joe Dispenza, we need to go further. Mindset is what is going to help you go further. So the question to ask yourself is, why did I do that? Why do I always do that? Why do I find myself doing or not doing that thing that is important to me, and your answer at first might be, I don't know, but I want you to give it time and say, if I did know if someone was going to pay me a million dollars to answer, what's my best guess? You'll find that oftentimes your best guess has some truth to it, and you will find that it's usually one of two things. Yes, you are either escaping a negative emotion or avoiding a negative emotion, meaning you are stressed or confused or overwhelmed or doubtful, and in order to get away from those emotions, you are doing this thing, this thing that you no longer want to do, or you're happy, there's no negative emotions present. But all of a sudden when it comes time to either do that thing or not do that thing. So either do that thing work out or not do that thing not eat the food, for example, all of a sudden when it comes time to do it, following through with what you truly want means there's a negative emotion there. It means you're at a restaurant, and by not having another drink, you feel sad. It means all of a sudden, getting your workout clothes on and going to the gym makes you feel exhausted, and you're like, Oh, you don't want to do it. So oftentimes we are either escaping or avoiding a negative emotion that is the why we are not doing what we truly want to do. So it's a great question to ask yourself, Why have I done or not done this thing that is important to me, to one part of me, it's important to one part of me, and then, what kind of woman have I been? What kind of woman have I been in the past? Have I been the kind of woman that makes a plan and doesn't follow through? Have I been the woman that keeps breaking promises to herself? Have I been the woman that tells herself it's not important? That was me for a very long time this I would tell myself, my primitive brain would tell me, this isn't important, it doesn't matter. And I listened, and this is who I have been, and now we can answer Joe Dispenza question. This is who I no longer want to be. This is the work I did in order to lose weight and maintain it, and this is the work I'm doing now to continue to get better and better and in better shape, more flexible, more stronger. Eat even better. Enjoy when I when I decide to have dessert, even more. Enjoy myself. Enjoy my life. I'm taking my life in every way to the next level by doing this work. So let's break this down. Let's break this whole thing down into a process where you can understand this beautiful question of Who do you no longer want to be, and actually have it work for you in your life. And this is what I did. So I took that question, Who do you no longer want to be? Thank you, Joe Dispenza for the question. My first thought was, I don't even know what the hell that means. So I turned it into, what do I no longer want to do? And long ago, I said to myself, I no longer want to overeat. I was overeating throughout the day, but especially at night, and it was keeping me from losing the weight I wanted to lose. It was keeping me in an overeating cycle where I would overeat and then every day start anew. It was exhausting. Specifically, I was making cookies a few times a week. Okay, so who do I no longer want to be? I don't know what that means, so I change it to what do I no longer want to do? I no longer want to overeat. Second question, why am I doing this? It's so simple. It's such a simple question, but ask yourself, Why am I doing this? And what you'll first think is, well, I love cookies. Life is too short all these but really get down to the nitty gritty. If I really want to lose weight, why am I eating? And what I came down to was, I'm bored. And then when I dove deeper, when I dove underneath the boredom, when I allowed for the boredom, I sat there and allowed myself to be bored. I found that I was having doubt, I was having anxiety and I was having frustration. I was making cookies and eating like five of them to escape these negative emotions. I was being the woman who said she wanted something, which was weight loss, but I was letting my primitive brain run the show. Anytime I experienced any negative emotion. In the evenings, I would eat to escape those negative emotions, and that was usually at home. When I went out, I was more of an avoidant of negative emotions. I would tell myself I was going to not eat the bread or only have a few chips or whatever. But then all of a sudden, I was there, and I felt like if, if I was going to not eat more chips, I was going to not have a margarita. That made me feel victim me, made me feel sad, made me feel frustrated, and so then I would eat so I would have to not feel those negative emotions. So who did I no longer want to be? I no longer wanted to be a woman who let my primitive brain run the show. I no longer wanted to be a woman who eats to escape. I no longer wanted to be a woman who lived in this over eating Psych. Physical I no longer wanted to be a woman that didn't take herself seriously. I've always kind of thought like, if something keeps coming back to you, it's something that matters to you. And I even use this philosophy when I go shopping. Sometimes I'll go and especially if I'm in town, and if I see something that's really cute or I'm like, Oh, I love that dress, maybe I should buy it. If I leave the store and I don't ever think about it again, I clearly don't want it that much. But if I leave the store and a few days later, I'm still thinking about it, it's something that really kind of piqued my interest. It's something that I resonated with. It's something that I desire. And when we think about the many times that we come back to wanting to drink less, wanting to feel strong, wanting to be proud of ourselves, wanting to fit in certain amounts of clothes, wanting to feel good when we're naked, wanting to feel in control, it fucking matters. So again, for me, who did I no longer want to be? I no longer wanted to be a woman who told herself it didn't matter. Clearly, it fucking matters. Can you hear my passion? And so I have used this. Who do I no longer want to be? Break down for years now because I lost the weight I wanted to lose. And I'm continuing to use this in order to up level all the time. Whenever I do a meditation now, and Joe Dispenza says, Who do you no longer want to be? I think, Oh, is there? Is there a part of me that I no longer want to be? And I go through this process again, because I get to decide at any moment that I can change totally my decision on who I want to be and who I no longer want to be and who you are is either helping you or it's hurting you. So you get to decide. Let's dive into another example that comes up with a lot of my clients, especially it comes up after clients have lost weight, but they still have more weight to lose. So they come to me when they're in a lot of emotional pain, because they're like, enough is enough. That's kind of the energy. Women come to me like, enough is enough. I really want to get a hold of this. Enough is enough. I've tried it on my own long enough or or enough is enough. I've had some success listening to the podcast and enough is enough of trying to convince myself that I don't deserve to work with Courtney. You know what I mean? There's many, many iterations of enough is enough. I'm ready to do this. So when my clients specifically come to me in emotional pain because they want to get stronger or lose weight, be healthier, and they lose some of that weight, and they feel relief. People are telling them, Oh, you look great. They're feeling proud, they're feeling accomplished, they're feeling in control, they're feeling the relief of the emotional pain that they were in when they started with me. They're in this place between the pain they were feeling and the ultimate pleasure of where they want to go. They've made progress, but they're not necessarily there yet. Or they get there and they realize, Wow, I think I could even keep going. I think there's a next level for me. What a beautiful thing. But sometimes they hit this limbo, and they don't even really know they're in limbo. They are just feeling good. So they're in this space of limbo. And so I can ask them a question, Who do you no longer want to be? And they might be like, What are you talking about? I'm feeling great. They've come so far right? They're feeling pretty good. So they might say, I have, I have no idea. They might say, what? Just like I did, what the hell is Joe Dispenza talking about? Who do they no longer want to be? They're they're feeling some relief. They're so proud of themselves. So then we break it down to the next question, what do you no longer want to do. They've come so far. They've changed their thinking. They've changed some of their habits. They're feeling good, but they do want more. And that's a beautiful moment of really being radically honest, going back to why they started this in the first place, and them looking and going, you know, I think that as great as this is, I think I no longer want to drink quite as much. Or maybe they no longer want to just walk and lift really light weights. Maybe they no longer want to do kind of just what their friends are doing. And that could mean a lot of different things, but a lot of times, lot of times, they're kind of ready for their own next level, beyond what their friends have made acceptable. They no longer want to scroll as much. Remember, I told you, we're getting down into the nitty gritty ways we live our day to day life, things like scrolling. Things like going to bed later than we'd like. Things like this sounds silly to some of you, but leaving the kitchen in disarray when you go to bed, hitting the snooze button in the morning, not having a kind of morning routine that sets your day up to win. And these might seem insignificant to you, but to my clients, they know these things are a big deal. They know these intricate little ways that they are living adds up. It compounds to the weeks and months and years and it come. It affects every area of their life. So when my clients really dive into what they no longer want to do, it might be something like, I no longer want to drink as much I no longer want to scroll as much. I no longer want to stay up late. And then we ask, why are they doing this? And many reasons have come up for my clients at first. Many of them just say, you know, it's just the habit. I just have been in this habit for so long. It's just what they do. And I'll tell you what I tell my clients. You might not understand why you're doing this at first. You might just claim it's just a habit. It's just what you do, but you will uncover why you do it when all of a sudden you take it away. If you say, okay, usually I scroll at eight o'clock. I usually that's when everything kind of shuts down, and usually that's when I kind of start scrolling. If you set an alarm for your phone at 745 and you say, no scrolling, you are going to find out why you scroll, because negative emotions are going to come up, and then you're going to say, Oh, I scroll because I'm avoiding feeling bored with my life. I feel like I should have more to do at night I scroll because I'm lonely. Whether you have a partner or don't have a partner, maybe at that time of night, you feel lonely. You scroll because when you're not scrolling, you're stressing out about your kids. Can you see that we don't even really understand a lot of times, why we do what we do, what emotions we are trying to avoid or get out of, until we take the thing away? It's not just a habit, and even though something like scrolling or watching TV or something like that is a highly addictive habit. It does serve a purpose. It serves a very primal purpose that is probably aligned with dopamine. Because instead of sitting there thinking about your kids and what they're going through and how that's stressing you out, or thinking about the next day and the projects that's due, or thinking about what that person said to you that's making you feel insecure you can't believe you said that to someone else. Should you send a text and apologize instead of sitting there thinking about all of that tick tock makes all that go away, because every time you actually swipe on tick tock, you get a dopamine hit, and when you uncover why you're doing it, instead of focusing on the tick tock or focusing on the wine or focusing on the thing that you are doing to avoid the feeling, let's actually get good at understanding our feelings, being able to manage our feelings, being able to choose another thought that serves us better, be able to process through some emotion instead of just avoiding it and live a better life, a life aligned with habits that actually make us happier overall. Many of my clients that want to get stronger, they want to be more consistent with their workouts. When I ask them, why are they not doing what they truly want to do, they worry that they're going to hurt themselves. They worry that they shouldn't be running at the age they're at. They worry because they hear people saying it's bad for their knees if they run. They hear people saying that they should be wearing a weighted vest when they walk. And they don't have a weighted vest, maybe they should order one on Amazon and wait to walk. My clients sometimes are embarrassed to try out new machines at the gym, my clients are thinking that they don't know how many reps to do with that weight. Maybe they should hire a personal trainer. Maybe they've never done this before, and probably one of the biggest whys that is getting in the way from people doing what they want to do, especially when it comes down to like working out, moving their body more is time when your primitive brain tells you you don't have time and you believe it. So the question is, now that we know why, what's getting in your way? Who do you no longer want to be? My clients have decided that they no longer want to be a woman that lives on autopilot and lets her primitive brain run the show. They no longer want to be a woman that feels like they don't have enough time, but yet they scroll and they know the scrolling is taking up time that they could be devoting to working out. They no longer want to be a woman who just goes with. Flow and doesn't question why they're doing what they do and not doing what they want to do. They no longer want to be a woman who lives in a way that serves someone else, or maybe that served themselves in the past, but now they've changed their mind. Right? We can change our mind. We can do things differently. We can decide at any age that we want to change the way we're living, and not everyone might love it. There might be resistance from other people. That's okay. My clients have decided they no longer want to be the women who let potential embarrassment and insecurity fuel their decisions. So answering this beautiful question from Joe Dispenza and breaking it down like I've broken it down for you, really helps you gain the power from the question. From the question really helps you gain the insight in the power to why you do what you do, and how you can actually make changes. It really takes us from thinking, Why do I always eat when I say I'm not going to eat, and then just kind of shaming ourselves in that moment, which is what I used to do to then thinking I want to be more consistent. I want to stop giving up on myself. So why am I doing this? And then being able to solve why I'm doing this, and from that place you know who you no longer want to be, and it is deeper than just what you're doing or not doing. It's why you're doing it and who you need to become in order to create real change. I think this is why diets don't work for a month, just stop eating candy. But why are you eating candy? Why are you the woman that wants to stop eating candy, but yet eats it? That's what we need to figure out. That's the power of this question. When you know who you don't want to be, you decide who you do want to be, and then you can think to yourself, What would she do? What would she think? What would she tolerate? How would she invest in herself? What would she think is possible for herself? So what starts out is kind of a question that seems a little bit negative and seems a little meta Like, who do you no longer want to be? When we break that question down, it really turns us into, who do you want to be? What do you want to let go of so you can step into a new version of you? This is one of those podcasts you might have to listen to two or three times. This is mindset I know a lot of people will come to me so often on consultations, and they'll say, I'll say, tell me why you you decided to schedule a consultation. I'll say, you know, I've tried everything. And we usually laugh because so many people say I've tried everything. But I realized that the one thing that you're talking about that I haven't tried is mindset. But a lot of people, if I said to them, if I just picked a woman off the street and said, What is mindset, they'd be like thinking positive. It's so much deeper than that. So much deeper. It's understanding how to look deeper into why you do what you do. Because why we do what we do starts with what we think about ourselves, what we think we're capable of, what we think we deserve, what people have told us in the past. And do we want to keep thinking that, or do we want to think something new? If this podcast blew open your brain a little bit, I would love to offer you a free consultation. You me over zoom, getting clarity on why you do what you do, what you truly want for yourself, and do you think it's possible, and how you can start believing that it is possible. Consults are so fun. There is a link on my website, Courtney Gray coaching.com head over there. Find a time that works for you. I would love to meet you over zoom. I'm headed into my staycation. Have a great Tuesday. If you are ready to lose weight and keep it off permanently and feel confident and at peace around food, I invite you to head to Courtney Gray coaching.com to learn about how to work with me. I work with women privately, one on one, and I also offer small group coaching. There is a link to my website in the show notes you.