Creating More Joy, More Confidence, and More Peace

In this episode, I’m sharing a real, in-the-moment conversation with you. I wasn’t feeling my best physically, but it brought me back to what actually matters—not just weight loss, but how we feel in our lives.

I talk about how easy it is to be hard on ourselves and carry quiet shame about where we are. And what I want to offer is a different perspective—what if nothing has gone wrong? What if you could want more for yourself without tearing yourself down in the process?

This episode is really about shifting how you approach growth. Moving forward not because you “have to,” but because you want to. Because you’re ready for more joy, more confidence, and more peace.

I also talk about self-trust—what it looks like to build it, and how deeply it impacts everything. Because when you trust yourself, everything changes.

And throughout it all, I invite you to consider a new way of doing this—one where becoming your next-level self doesn’t feel heavy or restrictive… but actually feels empowering and even fun.

Enrollment is NOW OPEN for my April Modern Change Group Program.  If you are loving the podcast, click HERE get all the details of my program.   It is for women who not only want to lose between 10 and 15 pounds by summer, but also want to finally do it permanently and without dieting.  In my program, you will become a woman who is in control of her eating, mindset, and follow-through.

Transcript

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Bob, welcome to modern body, modern life. The podcast for women who want to feel powerful, healthy, strong and confident, inside and out at every age. On this podcast, we talk about becoming a woman who is fully in control of her eating and movement, so weight loss, strength and energy become permanent. We also talk about something bigger, becoming the woman who takes her deepest desire seriously and goes after more in every area of her life. I'm body and life coach Courtney Gray, and I believe you can get in the best shape of your life at any age, and when you do, it becomes a catalyst for everything else, your relationships, your confidence, your joy, because when you feel like you and your body, all of life gets better. Let's get started. Welcome to the podcast episode 124 creating more joy, more confidence and more peace. I'm so happy to be here with you, but I'm a little sick. It's not sick. I have a really, really bad head cold and sore throat. So it's been a wonderful week in many ways. My son came home from college, and he's going to be here for over a week, which is very rare. He's a wrestler, so he doesn't often get, like, a full week to be here. So it's just going to be so fun to have all three of my boys around me at the same time. So that is wonderful. I did a really great workshop this week that I thought went really well, and I had so many women sign up, and so many men women join live. So that was awesome. But all week I have really not felt well, and so that has been hard. But I'm also very proud of myself for how I showed up. Also tomorrow is my birthday, so I'm really hoping that I'm going to finish this podcast and just really take the rest of the day to lay like broccoli and watch some TV. And I made myself some healthy soup last night. So I'm just going to really take care of myself, because I really hope that I feel wake up tomorrow morning feeling better. I want to go for a long walk in the park, and right now, I don't feel like doing anything. I want to dive into the podcast. If you are listening in real time, enrollment is now open for my modern change program, Summer Edition. So it is my small group coaching program where women work with me and learn how to lose weight in a sustainable way, in a way that works for their life, you can expect to lose between 10 to 15 pounds permanently without dieting. And this is a small group coaching program directly with me over zoom for women who live all over the world, and it is for up to 10 women. So it really is a beautiful space to connect with other women who not only want to lose weight, feel more joy, feel more confidence, feel more peace, but also want to do it in a way without dieting, because they know they're tired of dieting, and they want to do it in a way that is sustainable. So you can head to the link in the show notes, or you can head to modern body, modern life.com, and it's right there on the front page. You can also go to work with me, modern body, modern life, comm slash work with me, because this summer. The cool thing about this program is, is right as we end summer begins. So this summer really can be different, not only for how you fit into your clothes, but how you feel right, how you feel like your level of control, your level of peace around your body and your eating and your habit. It's a beautiful program. I'm really excited to have you. Okay, I have some powerful questions for you today. Instead of spending a few hours really creating a beautiful, well thought out podcast, I didn't have it in me, but what I did have it in me is to think, what do I think my people, meaning you need to hear right now? And I always, whenever I'm looking to to create a new podcast for you, I kind of look at what I've been teaching over the last 510, podcast. I think about the last podcast which was so good my my client, Brittany, just did such a great job on that podcast. So I look at all those. I'm like, What do I even put my hand on my chest. And I say, What do my women need right now? What do they need to hear from me? And so I really want to talk about creating more joy, more confidence and more peace. Because weight loss is great, especially when you do it in a sustainable way. Well, you know, putting your pants on and feeling like, Oh, it feels like me is so amazing, but doing it in a way where you're also feeling more joy, more confidence and more peace. That that's, to me, the best part. So I have some powerful questions for you today to really help you understand yourself better, understand what you really want for yourself and what you want to change. So here are these powerful questions. And if you know me, if you've been listening to the podcast for a long time, you know that one of my favorite things to do is ask myself powerful questions. Tony Robbins always says the quality of our life depends on the quality of the questions we ask ourselves, and I so believe that. So here is the first one, what if you're exactly where you're supposed to be? And that's. Sounds like it's not it sounds like it's a statement. But I want you to think of it as a question, what if you're exactly where you're supposed to be, and you can go to your next level simply for the joy of it. So I want to start with the first part of this. What if you're exactly where you're supposed to be? The reason I love that thinking of that as a question is I think so many of us are not happy with where we are at, and we tell ourselves we shouldn't be here. And when we tell ourselves we shouldn't be where we're at, we shouldn't weigh as much as we weigh, we shouldn't be in where we're at in terms of our health, we shouldn't be where we're at in terms of our strength, we shouldn't be where we're at in terms of the wrinkles, all the different things we shouldn't be where we're at, what that produces is shame. And I think that shame is one of those emotions that we are feeling a lot, but we're not admitting it to ourselves. You know, we think of being frustrated like whenever I say to someone, how does that make you feel? Very rarely does a woman say shame, we admit that we're frustrated, we're agitated, we're like sometimes hopeless, but I think that we don't admit that we feel shame, and when we're telling ourselves we are not where we should be, that is shame, and shame is a horrible emotion that I just don't want for you. I certainly don't want it for me, and admitting to myself that sometimes I do feel shame makes me think, okay, I really don't want to feel this emotion. How can I get out of feeling shame? And the best way to get out of feeling shame is not telling ourself that we are not where we're supposed to be. What if you're exactly where you're supposed to be? What if you made peace with that? Now, oftentimes we worry that if we make peace and we give ourselves some grace where we're at now, we're just going to continue going down the path of getting, quote, unquote, worse. We've created such a life from mentally whipping ourself and thinking that we need to change. We need to start doing things differently. We need to be a different person that we we use that as motivation, right? The reason we start changing is because we've hit rock bottom in some capacity. But I want to offer it doesn't have to be that way. You don't have to tell yourself I shouldn't be here and feel all this shame in order to get so low that you finally start going high. What if I'm going to offer you something else? What if you're exactly where you're supposed to be right now, and you could go to your next level simply because you want to, simply because the joy of it. And when I say your next level, I'm specifically not saying lose weight, because this is more than just you losing weight, right? If you're going to lose weight in a way that is sustainable, you're going to have to go to your next level. You're going to have to understand yourself at a deeper level, your brain, your wiring. You're gonna have to understand your emotions, you're going to have to understand why you tell yourself tonight, I'm not going to go back into the pantry. And then you do. And so think about what your next level would look like, and what if you got there just because it would be fun, just because this is your one life, and you are deserving of it. What I want to suggest is you go to your own next level, but from a place of going, I'm good right now. And this leads me to my next question to ponder, what if you're good enough, worthy enough, beautiful enough right now? What if you could again go to your next level simply because you think it would be fun to do. And the reason I am specifically saying fun to do is we have a history of believing that when we want to get in better shape, that it is not going to be fun, that we are going to have to restrict and deprive and it's going to be hard, but what if that's not true? What if it actually could be amazing? And I love the word amazing, because I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but what if, in the hard work, what if in the work you do to go to your next level? What if it's amazing? What if it can actually be enjoyable? I think it's more enjoyable if you really say to yourself, I am good enough. Now I was coaching one of my clients this week, and she was in a place we recognized that she was in a place where she was feeling a lot of shame for how she was showing up for her life and showing up for the work she and I were doing together, and I said, Do you believe in a higher power, in either God or universal energy, or Buddha, or all the different things? Do you believe in something that there's a reason you're here and that there's something out there that, like loves you more than anyone? And it's such an emotional question, even as I say. It just makes me emotional. And of course, when I said it, she got emotional. Even thinking that right, it makes us emotional. And she said, Yeah, I do. I believe in God. And I said, okay, is God looking at you right now and shaking his or her head and saying, shame on you, like you shouldn't. You shouldn't be where you're at right now. You shouldn't be slacking off. You shouldn't be not doing the work. You shouldn't be frustrated at yourself. No. And she said, No, too. And I said, What do you think God is saying to you? And she said, yeah, she was he's saying that I'm right where I'm supposed to be, and that everything is fine and I'm doing my best. And I said, beautiful, beautiful. And I said, So now, how can we do better? You've been doing your best. How starting right now? Can we do better? So is it possible that you're good enough now? You're worthy enough now, nothing has gone wrong. Now, if you're 20 pounds heavier than you'd like to be, maybe it's okay. Maybe right now is the perfect time for you. There's just no nothing helpful with thinking you should not be where you're at. There's nothing helpful about thinking you should not have let it got this bad. There's nothing helpful with thinking. I should know better. I should have figured this out by now. That was one of the things in my workshop the other day. One of the women commented in the Q and A that one of the thoughts she has is, I, I shouldn't I should have figured this out by now. And I said, we worked it out. I actually did a model, and I taught her how that that thought is not helping her. But I also told her the thought is optional, not helpful, and it's optional. If you've thought that in the past, no shame. But right now. We can put that thought down. We can say, Oh, that's a thought for my primitive brain trying to keep me right where I'm at. And a better thought to think is, I'm right where I'm supposed to be right now, and if I don't love it, then let's make some changes from a place of love and joy. Here's my next question for you, my curiosity question, what if you decided that you want to choose your hard it's really important that you recognize that you're already doing the hard work. It is a lot of hard work to be living in a body that doesn't feel like you. It is a lot of hard work to be turning to food to comfort yourself and then shaming yourself for it. That's hard work. I remember it so clearly. So if you're already doing hard work, what I want to offer is you do the hard work of actually learning to become a woman who follows through, because it is hard work, but it's so much better in the end, it's so much more worth it. It's the hard work that gets you to the body and the Health and the Mental joy, confidence and peace that feels so much better, and it starts with answering the question, Am I actually causing myself pain right now? Am I actually doing hard work now by not being where I want to be? And I think you'll find that the answer is probably yes. So often women will come to me and they will say, ah, you know, I don't want to restrict myself. I don't want to deprive myself. I don't want to go on another diet. It just is hard. And I'm like, I get it. You don't need to go on another diet. And I said, but if you're telling yourself that in order to get to where you want to be, that it's going to be hard, and you don't want to do that hard work, I want you to see that you're already living a life that's hard, and that's a beautiful awakening. Whenever I say that women, usually they get this look on their face and they go and their eyebrows kind of go up, and they're like, Wow, you're right. So what if you decide that you want to choose your hard and even though it's going to be hard, could it be more fulfilling than the hard you're doing now I believe yes, what if you're the only one who really cares whether you lose weight and get healthy or not? What if you're the only one that really cares? When I finally decided that it was okay for me, that I was the only one that cared, it just opened up so much freedom for me. And I have found that women who especially want to lose like 20 pounds or less, usually they're the only one that cares. Now if, for some reason, if it's 20 pounds or more, usually, women feel like their spouse is like, yes, I want this for you. Usually it starts getting into, like, more health implications, like, oh wow, like you might have to get an honest statin, or you might take blood pressure medicine. So usually, when we have to lose more weight, it's affecting our health in a in a heavier way. I think most people would agree with that. But usually, if it's five pounds, 10 pounds, 15 pounds, even. And 20 pounds, everyone else is like, you're fine. And that can be hard. It can make us feel crazy. It can make us feel like we want something, and then we Rage Against The wanting we want something, until we're in front of the food, and then we're like, what does it matter? No one else thinks this is a problem. I went through that for years, and so I ask you the question again, what if you're the only one who wants this, and can that be okay? I think the most important thing is that we're doing what we want, let other people have their opinions. And I think if you really are thinking about people that love you, what they just want is for you to be happy and for you to feel good in your own skin. So what if you're the only one that really wants it, and can that be okay? What if it were possible for you to become a woman who trusts herself, to become a woman who puts herself first? What would that look like? This one is one I would love for you to spend time thinking like go on a walk and think about it. What would it look like? How would my whole life be different if I actually trusted myself to make a plan and stick to it? What is self trust even look like? I'm telling you, self trust is a gift, and I think that is what creates more joy, confidence and peace. I think if you listened to the podcast last week, and you heard Brittany talking at the very end, she talked about how she has this new level of confidence. It's because she trusts herself to make a decision and actually stick to it. It is a beautiful gift to yourself. And I think most women part of the reason why they're not happy, and part of the reason that they are not feeling like they're good enough as is, is because they don't trust themselves. They want something, but they don't feel like they're the type of woman that follows through. That is one of the biggest things that keep people I know from joining my program for sketch, for scheduling and consultation, is they worry they're going to invest time and money and then they're going to give up on themselves. So what would it look like paint that vision for yourself, of you being the woman that actually trusts herself. And can you get excited about that? Can you believe that that's possible for you? Because it is possible for you. But there's some new skills you're going to have to learn. You know, we think we should be able to just wake up one morning and start trusting ourselves, but we have to learn how to trust ourselves. We have to learn how to put ourselves first. Some of these life skills that we assume we should just be able to do are skills that we should be taught. I talked about on the on the workshop the other day, I said, I think the content in this workshop should be taught in school. We are teaching history and math and sewing and science. We're teaching all these things, but we're not teaching people how to live a life they're proud of. This should be taught in elementary school. It should be a sixth grade class, how to create a life you love. I mean, like, I have a feeling that there might be some day, like, after I am retired or something, that I actually go into the school systems and I create a program on how to, like, live a life you love. These are skills that have to be taught. We just don't wake up one morning and start trusting ourselves. We don't wake up one morning after years of putting everyone else first, we don't start putting ourselves first. Here's my last powerful question for you, what if it worked? What if you're at whatever you're thinking about doing, whether it's writing a book, whether it's losing weight, whether it's starting a business, whether it's finding a new love, whether it's joining my program and losing weight permanently. What if it worked? Here's what I want to make sure you know. Is that your primitive brain is going to tell you that anything new that you want to do is risky. It's going to tell you that it probably won't work. It's going to tell you that you probably won't make it work. But you have to remember that anything new to your primitive brain, it feels like danger, because our primitive brain wants us to rinse and repeat our lives over and over. Because even if we're not necessarily joyful, even if we know we're capable of more, we are surviving, even if we're not as healthy as we should be, we are surviving right now. So your primitive brain is working against you. And so when we start thinking, what if this worked, your primitive brain goes, Yeah, you know you you're going to give up. Yeah, it won't work. You're going to do what you always do. You're not capable of this. Our primitive brain always wants to take us back to the past, and we can't go back to the past if we want to create something new in the future. So what if what you want worked? Spend more time there, your primitive brain is already going to take you to all the worst case scenarios. If it doesn't work, you need to guide. It to, what if this worked? And then I have one last coming in hot with one last question, what if this could be fun? I really know that it is, even when it can be hard work. What if you becoming the next 2.0 version of yourself? What it could be actually fun and empowering? I am constantly saying that to myself every time I want to do something that feels hard and something that I'm worried is not going to work. I think, you know what? How can we have fun going for this? There's a part of me that's worried it's not going to work. There's a part of me that feels like, Oh, this is really hard because we're doing something we haven't done before. But what if this could be fun? I'll tell you. One thing I'm doing right now in my business is, I have been creating podcasts for you, and right now I have no makeup on. I'm in my pajamas with my cup of tea next to me. I am in no possible way, camera ready. But then what I do is, later today, if I'm going to do a YouTube video, I will get my makeup on and I will create a YouTube video where I am looking good and I'm talking to the camera, and I create a version of this podcast as a YouTube video. And it's, if we're being honest, it's a huge time waste. I really need to merge the two, right? But I've been podcasting for years this way. I've been podcasting for years in my pajamas, no bra, no makeup, you know, not camera ready. And it's worked brilliantly. I do a great job at it. And then when I started this YouTube channel, creating videos, just focusing on the video, not worrying about the audio, that's how I've done this. And it's worked great. In order for me to use my time more wisely, I need to merge the two. And man, is it hard? I really don't want to do it. I look at that and I think, Oh, my God, it's hard because then I'm going to have to learn how to do something new. And it feels too much for me. But I keep saying, What if this worked? And I keep having this vision of one day a week for one hour recording as opposed to two hours recording, as opposed to an additional two hours of auditing, right? I have to audit this podcast, then I have to audit my YouTube video. It's so it's just so it's I'm wasting so much time, and I have not done it because it feels hard. And so I'm really deciding that in April, this is going to be my new thing, and I'm going to let it be a little hard, because I know I'm going to learn a new skill. But I'm also getting excited about how much more efficient, how much more space I'm creating in my life. I'm literally telling myself I'm going to be able to have more time off if I do it this way? What if this works? How exciting is that going to be? It is going to create more joy. It's going to create more confidence, because I'm going to learn a new skill, I'm going to be proud of myself. And it's definitely going to create more peace. Because right now, when I look at my week and I'm coaching so much and I'm working so much, sometimes I'm like, oh my god, this is a lot. So how can I create more joy, confidence and peace, letting it be a little hard, but telling myself, what if this worked? We're good right now. It's worked, but this would be so great, and I'm getting excited for the process. I'm getting juiced for even the process of trying, knowing that it's going to be so good when I start learning the skills, and it gets so much easier for me. So I hope you loved this podcast this week, I'm gonna go lay like broccoli and I'm gonna let my boys take care of me. I hope you have a lovely Tuesday for information on how we can work together. Head to modern body, modern life.com. To schedule a consultation with me. I'm currently coaching women privately, and I offer group coaching programs. I.