The Voice in Your Head isn't Always the Real YOU.

I’m sharing a very real, behind-the-scenes look at what this work actually looks like in everyday life...especially during stressful moments, emotional situations, and unexpected circumstances. 

I am giving you a peek into my mind, and going into detail with the thoughts that are offered up to me during a very stressful 24 hours.

Thoughts that sounded completely reasonable in the moment.

“You deserve this.”
 “It’s been a hard day.”
 “It doesn’t matter today.”
 “You should just take the day off.”

And what I want to show you in this episode is how often those thoughts are simply your primitive brain trying to pull you toward comfort, pleasure, and immediate relief.

Not because something has gone wrong… but because that’s what the brain does.

This episode is really about learning how to separate yourself from those thoughts so you can stop reacting automatically and start making choices from the version of you you actually want to become.

I walk you through real examples of what this looks like in the moment, from food decisions to movement to emotional stress...and how I navigate those conversations internally without shame, perfectionism, or feeling deprived.

Because the goal isn’t to never have urges, cravings, or self-sabotaging thoughts.

The goal is to stop believing every thought you think.

Enjoy!  Courtney

I currently work with women privately to achieve their health, mindset, and body goals.  I would love to offer you a consultation HERE to discuss the changes you want to make to create more joy, health, and peace in your body and life.

Transcript

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Steve, 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. 130 and I haven't even chosen the title of this podcast episode yet. I'm gonna I'm gonna figure out the title after I record. So this is gonna be coming in hot. This is going to be unscripted more like a coffee chat. I know you guys like when I do these more unscripted ones. Some of you like when I do these more unscripted ones. I have a podcast in the works that I just have to sit down and record, and it really is going to talk about how trauma past trauma past big, hard life events, affects like how we eat day to day on a random Tuesday afternoon. And that's going to be a really powerful podcast. And I keep telling myself, I really need to record that one, but the last two episodes this one and last week, I'm coming in hot with because I feel like there's really so much value in a different way with me coming in hot and saying, I think they really need to hear this message now, so oftentimes in my life, I don't really I'm very like an odd, very honest person, if I care about you at all, and obviously I care about all of you listening to this podcast. I'm very open. I'm very willing to be vulnerable and to be honest and just say whatever it is I feel like is going on with me. But I'm not one that tells people, oh, I have a foot injury, or Oh, it's my birthday, or oh, this is, you know, happening, like with my body right now, I just, I'm not, I just don't think that there's value in necessarily venting, I guess, to all the people, my husband gets my venting, my sister gets my venting. But I don't necessarily tell all the things, like, for example, I remember I had covid, and I still showed up for all of my coaching calls, even though I had covid. Now, obviously I didn't have I mean, some people, when they had covid, they were literally not doing well. So I was well enough, even though I felt pretty bad. I was well enough to coach. But none of my clients even knew. I didn't say I have covid. But yet I'm so amazing. I'm here coaching you. I just, I just pushed through. So I'm not one to give all those details, but today, I'm giving you all the details. Today I'm really diving in. And the purpose, the value of this podcast is for you to hopefully resonate, hopefully feel seen and really understand how to do this work on a very intricate level, which means I know that I've talked so often about our primitive brain and how it speaks to us by the it gives us thoughts, and we need to get really good and practice recognizing that's My primitive brain, it's telling me to not follow through with whatever plan I've set out for myself today, and I need to stick to my plan. Allow myself to feel the urge to go off plan and go about my day. Amazing, amazing. But what I want to do is I want to go even deeper, and I want to give you the intricate thoughts that come into my head that get me to try to go off my plan. And the reason why I'm giving this is very often in my coaching with my clients, whether I coach someone privately or in my group, they will say, you know, I did really well, but Saturday was a really hard day for me because of this reason, but I was able to get back on track really quickly, and I and on Sunday, I was right back on track. And I always say, Let's go deeper. Let's figure out what really, what Ha, what really happened on Saturday that made you go off plan. And I do the work with them for them to really understand what their primitive brain said, what their primitive brain offered to them as a thought, how they were feeling, what feelings felt too hard for them to feel. And we get into the nitty gritty in my programs, but I want to give you an example of the nitty gritty now, and this is going to be interesting, because I've had so many clients tell me that they've listened to the podcast before in the car with their partners. And oftentimes their partners will look at them like, my god, this Courtney girl, even though they love the podcast too. This Courtney is really one of my clients. Said that her husband was like, wow. Courtney is, like, really struggling, and she paused the podcast, and she goes, No, this is how I feel. I have the same. Same thoughts, I have the same urges to just give up in the moment. No, this is very much how I feel. So some people might not resonate with this message. I think that because you're listening to the podcast, and clearly, if you've been listening for a while, you do resonate with the podcast, I think this is going to be really powerful for some people, maybe people that don't have food noise, people that don't feel like they have big goals, people that don't want to get better at really being more consistent. They might hear this podcast and go, What does any of this matter? But I know because you're here, it does matter. So I really, truly believe you will resonate. So let me dive in, and you're going to get more details about me and what's going on in my head than you ever have before. Again, details. I wouldn't normally dive in, but I really think it's going to help. So let's dive in. The first thing I'll tell you is, I have had a headache for like, four days now. It's not a migraine. I don't get migraines. It's a headache. It is like a low grade headache that has really not gone away, and it seems to build and build and build and get later get worse as the day goes on. Now, I'm not worried at all about this. This same exact thing happened to me last year. Unfortunately, it lasted a month, which is very frustrating, and I can't remember anything really helping, which is also frustrating. But I'm not worried. I don't feel like I need to go to the doctor. I just need to take care of myself. And I'm thinking this is allergy related, because it is in the spring. So that's the first thing, you know, when we think about life and we think about sticking with our healthy habits, the reality is, life is always happening to us. Things are happening. People are getting sick. We are feeling not great. We sprained an ankle. You know, our kids are frustrating, or what things happen, so that's the first thing that is on my plate right now. No big deal. And then my sister messaged me yesterday, and I'll just front this conversation, saying, everything is totally fine, but my sister messaged me yesterday and said, Hey, I think my mom. I think mom's having a stroke. My mom did not have a stroke, but in the moment, it was big, right? So my mom's actually going home from the hospital today, and she didn't have a stroke. She's doing wonderful. So let me just say that. But in the moment when your sister texts you, I got off a coaching call. I have plans for the night I see this text, hey, I think my mom. I think mom's having a stroke. I'm headed to the hospital. You've been in this situation, right? It's like, oh my gosh. So all of a sudden, I canceled. I had a consult with them. A gentleman. I canceled that consult with him. I threw my clothes on. I'm heading to the hospital. I'm calling my husband, doing all the things that we do when our family needs us, when a situation happens, I've already told you, she's totally fine, but now what I'm going to do is I'm going to tell you everything that happened in my head for the last 24 hours. Because, again, I want you, I want you to hear how we can manage our mind in a way to support ourselves and support our habits, and we can understand how our primitive brain works in a very detailed way in the moment. So my sister calls and says this, obviously, I'm very concerned. I'm on the way to the hospital. It's right around dinner time. But of course, dinner is not on my mind at all. We get to the hospital, and we are just all very concerned, very scared. Tests are running all the things that doctors everyone's everyone's doing a wonderful job at doing their best in the situation. And so then we get to a point where thereafter, a few hours, she's calmed down, she's stable. We're waiting for answers. So we're still very scared. We still don't know what's going on. There's a lot of stress and sadness, and my husband's calling me. My sons are calling me. They're worried about my mom. They're worried about me. All this love and stress, a lot of emotions happening, right? We've all been in the situation, right? You can think back to a situation where you've been here. So all of a sudden, I noticed that I'm getting a little hungry. I think at this point it was probably like 637 I can't even remember, but I'm getting a little hungry, and at this point there's no reason I shouldn't be eating. In fact, if anything, we're just waiting. That's something that I think is very common with all the times I've been in the hospital myself and with other people. It's a waiting game. So we're sitting around and we are waiting. And so I look at my sister and I say, are you hungry? Yes, she's hungry. And my dad says, Well, I'm gonna go down to the cafeteria. Okay, so here is where the shenanigans from my primitive brain start. If it was on a normal day, I would just be eating the leftovers I had planned to eat at my home. I could go home and eat my leftovers, but that's not what I want to do. I want to be there at the hospital with my family in this moment. So my dad says, I'm going to go down to the cafeteria. Do you want to go with me, my primitive brain says to me, you should just go to the cafeteria and eat whatever your dad's eating. Eat whatever they have. It doesn't matter what you eat right now. So I really want to slow things down and and let you know that years ago, before I started doing. Mean, this work, I would have just thought that that was me, that that was my own self, deciding that I'm going to go and whatever the cafeteria is, deciding to serve for dinner that day was a great idea for me. I would have just thought, oh, yeah, this makes so much sense. I mean, I'm at the hospital. What are my other options? My brain would have told me there's really no other options. I would have just believed it, but I know that whatever the hospital decides they want to serve for dinner is probably not what the kind of food I find acceptable for myself. Now I'm not trying to lose weight right now. I'm just trying to maintain my weight. I'm trying to gain muscle. I'm trying to be healthy. I also want to sleep good. So I eat in a certain way, like I don't really eat pasta. I don't eat like heavy cream sauces. So a lot of the things I would imagine would have been available in the cafeteria. I know all right away is not what I want to be eating. But my brain, my primitive brain, said, it doesn't matter. Just go with your dad. And I said, No. I said to myself, the real Courtney like, No, I don't want to go to the cafeteria. And then very quickly, my primitive brain says you should go be with your dad. Now I had just spent about two or three hours hugging my dad, rubbing my dad on the back, holding hands with my dad, so I took a moment to go, okay, Courtney, is that true? Should I be going and spending a half hour sitting across from a table with my dad? Is that really what the what is needed right now? And I said, No, that is really not what needs to happen. I've been love bombing him for the last few hours. Again years ago, I'm going to keep going back to what I would have done years ago. Years ago, I would have just been like, oh yeah, I have to support my dad. I should go down and be with my dad, and not like, have him be by himself. That's what I would have done years ago. That's what in years ago, I was not at the weight I wanted to be at. I was not healthy the way I wanted to be. I would go to bed a lot of nights stuffed, and I wouldn't sleep well. I have horrible acid reflux. I was not in in the health that I am in today. So my dad went off by himself, because I when those thoughts came in, I said no to those thoughts. I saw my truth of what I truly want for myself. So I thought to myself, What do I what do I want to do that is supportive? And I thought I could go home and eat my leftovers, but I'm like, that doesn't sound like a good idea, because someone needs to stay with my mom. And my sister is a nurse, so she's always the one to usually stay with anyone who's in the hospital. She's a warrior. So I thought, Okay, I need to support myself, but I also need to support my sister. So I said to my sister, hey, why don't I go to Seoul? Seoul is like a Mexican food restaurant in town that I absolutely love. It's very close to my house, and it's actually far from the hospital. But I have a thing that I get at soul it's a so if you're in Chico, I always get the soul bowl. I get it without rice, because with rice, it's just too heavy for my body, and rice sometimes upsets my stomach. I usually get the soul bowl with the ranch dressing. One ranch dressing, and it has black beans and chicken, and sometimes I get it without cheese, depending on what my goals are then at the moment. And so that's just something that I know makes me feel good, and I know my sister also likes it. So I said to my sister, why don't I get a soul bowls? And she said, that sounds great. So this is, this was a decision made from the real me, and so I said, sounds amazing. So I said, I love you to my mom, I went to my car and I want I went to call soul to put my order in. Now, as I'm dialing up the number and then placing my order, I get a thought, I should get two bags of chips. Now, normally I would get one bag of chips because their chips are delicious, and there's no chips are fine. I eat chips, tortilla chips, in my everyday life. And it's, it's part of my diet. It's totally fine and so, but my primitive brain says you should get two bags of chips. And it didn't really say this to me at the moment, but it was, it was inferred that it was like, you're going through something really hard. You deserve the chips, like you deserve a whole bag of chips, which is kind of almost like a big basket of chips by yourself. And so that was my thought, I should get two bags of chips. And I said no to that thought, we're going to get one bag of chips and we'll split it between me and my sister, and I'm sure my dad will have some. So I said no to that thought. I didn't listen to that thought. I acknowledged it. Oh, my brain's trying to tell me to get a whole bag of chips to myself, because it thinks that I'm going through a hard time and so I should get chips. No, didn't get the chips. Got one bag of chips. So I start driving on the way to pick up soul. I'm messaging my husband, messaging my best friend, telling the children, we're all good, we're stable, we're waiting for answers. And my brain tells me that I have time, because Kelly goes, Yeah, take, take all the time you need. There was no rush. So my brain says you should go to the grocery store. You need a few things anyways, and you could get. Something like a treat for yourself. You can get some chocolate, or you can get, you know, a pastry or a muffin or something like that. And I thought about it, I'm like, do I want to do that? And I said, No, I don't want to do that. Now, let me just take a little side note here and say that's not something I would normally do. I wouldn't normally it's not part of my routine or part of my history where I would randomly go to the grocery store and get chocolate. If you have a habit of when you get in the car and you're driving like from home, from home, from work, which is a big thing for a lot of people, or they're driving on maybe at least over a 20 minute drive or whatever. And you have a habit in the past of stopping off at these little stores. I coach clients all over the United States, and they'll tell me the names of the stores, like, of the names of the of the little stops, like the gas station stops, like we have one by our house. It's called PDQ. I don't even know what it stands for, but it's PDQ. It's basically a gas station you can get, you know, it's a little like gas station store where you can stop in and get a bunch of snacks. But people over the, all over the United States, have these stores. It's not the Piggly Wiggly, I think that's a grocery store. But anyways, all my clients all over the United States, they'll be like, Well, do you know what this is? And I'm like, No. And they're like, oh, it's like a gas station, but it's named this. And so, you know what your place is, a place where you'll stop, and you have a lot of experience stopping at this place and then eating something in the car that you know you don't want to do anymore. So if that is you, when your brain tells you to do that, you have a habit of listening. So this is going to be even harder for you. If you have a habit of of stopping and getting that food and then going home, it's going to be even harder. It's going to make sense to you. When your primitive brain says to do it, it's going to it's going to be you have to think of it as a neural pathway in your brain. My brain tells me to stop. I have a craving to stop, and I rationalize, and then I stop, and then I eat. I get the dopamine that is a neural pathway in your brain. It's very well worn. So lucky for me, I don't have that with the grocery store, was a completely new thought, and so when all of a sudden I thought I could go to the grocery store and get some chocolate before I go to soul I have time. I immediately saw the absurdity of that. But that's what I want you to really hear, and that's why I'm doing this podcast. Is when I say your primitive brain gives you thoughts and suggestions. I want you to recognize it as you it presents like this. Maybe I'm going to stop and go to the grocery store and get some chocolate, or I should go to the grocery store and get some chocolate. That's how your primitive brain talks to you. Your primitive brain says You deserve this. It's been a really fucking hard day, and you need to go, that's not me. That's my primitive brain. So I immediately was able to because this isn't a habit, it's not a very well worn neuropathway, I was able to go, oh, yeah, no, we're not doing that. And so I went and I picked up soul, and I picked up soul, and then I'm on the way back to the hospital. Here's another random side note I would normally never share with you that I when I get a soul bowl, I only eat half if it's a huge meal, and if I eat, my husband could eat the whole thing, no problem. But it's just it's too big. It's a really big salad, and there's black beans. And even without the rice, it's a lot of food. So I know, if I want to listen to my body, I eat half of a soul bowl, and then what I'll do is I'll put it in the fridge, and the next morning I usually have, like, a lot of the lettuce is gone. So usually the next morning it's a lot of black beans and corn and some salsa and there's a little lettuce. But so what I'll do is I'll fry up some eggs, and I'll put it on top of it and eat it. Maybe it sounds gross to you, but it's delicious to me. That's my routine. So I walked in and I gave Kelly her soul bowl. We were all kind of sharing. My dad, Kelly and I were sharing the chips, and I was getting to where I was halfway through, and then I had the thought, This is my primitive brain. But the thought came to me, Oh, I'm not really full. I should just keep I'm should just keep eating. And I even noticed Kelly finished her soul bowl. Maybe she was starving. Maybe she always finishes it. It's irrelevant what she does, right? This is another thing is our primitive brain does is it says, Oh, they're eating the whole thing. Even though you had planned to only eat, half the people around you were eating the whole thing. So you should just eat the whole thing. And another thing I really always tried to do is I try to eat to 80% full. This is something they do in Japan, in, you know, the blue zone area of Japan, I saw this on the Blue Zones documentary, is they they eat to 80% full. They even have a special word for eating to 80% full. And I think it's a brilliant idea, because, you know this, think about this. Sometimes when you eat, you eat, and then you stop eating, and you're. Like, Oh, wow, I'm kind of full. Five minutes later, you're like, Oh, what have I done? I'm really full. It takes your body time to catch up with the fullness level of what you're eating. So that's why they eat to 80% and then they say, I'm done. And so then maybe they get to 85 90% and they don't overeat. This is what I learned. I'm like, Oh, this is brilliant, because I hate that feeling of being stuffed. Normally I would eat to 80% normally I would only eat half. I was right around half. And my thought was, I should just eat the whole thing. Kelly's eating the whole thing. What does it even matter? You should probably eat the whole thing because you don't know how long you're going to be here tonight, and it doesn't matter, this has been a really hard day. Now, for a lot of people, they wouldn't associate that as their primitive brain, but I know that it is my primitive brain, because all those excuses, first of all, they're excuses, and it's all bullshit. It's been a really hard day. No, it has been. It had been a hard few hours. But what does that have to do with my food? If anything, if anything, were the truth? It's been a hard day. Like, let's say that's actually the truth. It's been a really hard day, right? It may be because I could say you've had a low grade headache. You woke up at five o'clock this morning because you had an early client. I did. I had a client at six o'clock. You know, I could say all these things, okay, let's say I actually said that this was a hard day, and you agreed with me. If it had been a hard day, why does stuffing myself and eating in a way that doesn't align with my goals? Why is that helpful? We need to get really good at seeing the ridiculousness of our primitive brain. So the thoughts you should eat the whole thing because she is ridiculous. You should eat the whole thing because it's been a hard day. Ridiculous, you should eat the whole thing because you don't know how long you're going to be here. Ridiculous, what am I going to even if I was there till 11 o'clock at night? This is dinner time. I don't need to stuff myself at dinner to make it through. So I saw all the ridiculousness in this, so I put the lid on it, and I walked it across the room, and I put it across the room, just in case my primitive brain was hammering at me and I wouldn't have it close to me. So I would have, so I would have to, even if I decided and started listening to my primitive brain, I would have to walk across the room to get the salad. So at some point in the evening, my mom is stable, so I leave for the night and I tell my sister that I'm going to be back at 6am to relieve her so she can go and sleep, because my sister was planning on staying in the hospital with my mom. She's an angel. I'm on my way home, going home. It's probably maybe about eight o'clock at night. It's not that late. It's eight o'clock at night, maybe. And I'm on the way home, and I have a thought. My thought is, you should go get some ice cream at the at the health food store, they have this delicious ice cream that I eat from time to time. It's coconut milk ice cream. And I think it's like snickerdoodle. It has, like, chunks of snickerdoodle. It's absolutely delicious. And I love this ice cream, and I get it from time to time, but if I do get this ice cream, it's, it's usually planned. It's usually not at eight o'clock at night. And I already have this headache, right? That's been building buildings so and I think to myself, Okay, Courtney, my permanent brain is telling me to go get ice cream. But you know what? Now is not the time to be eating ice cream, because, first of all, I already have a headache. I've eaten eight, eaten so well today. And really what I need to do is I need to get in, get home, relax a little bit, shower, and I need to go to bed, because I have to be up at five to be back at the hospital at six. So my brain said, You should go get some ice cream. You deserve it. It'll be your reward for a hard day. And I say no to it. I say no. So I go to bed, all good. I get up in the morning the next morning, and I'm getting ready to leave to go to the hospital, and my primitive brain says you should leave early and you should go get yourself a latte and a muffin. Now I don't normally eat at six o'clock in the morning anyways, but my primitive brain is telling me. But you know what? We don't know how long you're going to be at the hospital. You should eat right now, as if there will be no other options, as if there isn't a cafeteria that I couldn't get a banana, as if I couldn't take something with me, as if I need to eat at all, and so I said no to that, because I recognized that's not true. I shouldn't necessarily eat something I'm going it makes no sense. So I get to the hospital. I'm there for a few hours with my mom. My dad comes to relieve me. We get this amazing news that my mom did not have a stroke. She's totally fine. Not only on the mend, she is totally, totally fine. And so we are really just all breathing a sigh of relief, because, you know, there's times when things are not fine, so we really are breathing a sigh of relief. So now I'm on the way home, and I'm going home, and my brain. And tells me, You know what, you should take the rest of the day off and you should just relax on the couch, and you should watch a movie, and you shouldn't do your podcast now Fridays. Today's Friday normally, I do my podcast, and I'm working on some courses for a new new something you've been hearing me talk about new something I'm creating for all of you, which is still in the creation mode, I'm very excited about but my brain is telling me you should take the day off. Now, can I take the day off totally I only have one consultation tonight. Other than that, I don't have to do anything. I'm an entrepreneur. No one is going to first of all, no one's going to know. No one's going to care. If I told my husband I'm taking the day, he would probably say, good for you. No one's gonna know. No one's gonna care. And so on the way home, I thought to myself, I should just take the day off. I should just record the podcast tomorrow morning. I don't like recording the podcast Saturday morning. I really like to finish my work on Friday so I can enjoy my weekend. It's Mother's Day weekend. I want to enjoy my weekend so I recognize that as a primitive brain thought. Now, yes, I do have a headache, but other than that, there's no reason for me to be taken to my bed or watching a movie all day or taking work off. Now, if I was really not feeling well. If I was like my sister and I stayed at the hospital all night, it would make sense that maybe I should take some things off of my calendar for the day. But I said to myself, does it make sense that I don't do the podcast today? Does it make sense that I don't get my workout in, and I will tell you, today is my day that I was planning on lifting really heavy. I actually said, You know what? I think it's important that I don't lift heavy today. First of all, I have a headache, and lifting really heavy weights does not feel like it's going to be supportive of having a headache. I don't think that's a good idea, but I also am tired, just energetically tired from the stress of a situation that happened just last night and a little bit this morning. So what I am going to do is I said to myself, Okay, Courtney, what feels aligned? What feels not like a primitive brain thought, but what feels aligned? I think what feels more aligned is me not lifting heavy weights, but instead, I'm going to take a long walk around my neighborhood. It's going to be a beautiful day to day, and that feels like it's actually going to help my body. It's going to get me moving. It's going to get me outside doing some fresh air. It's going to just, it's just going to feel energetically Good. Can you hear how many times my primitive brain stepped in and tried to get me off track with the way I want to live an aligned life, and you can hear every time I presented these primitive brain thoughts as thoughts that just sound like me making a decision, a thought that thoughts that just sound like me kind of, quote, unquote, taking care of myself. But here is what I want you to realize, and what I want you to go, yes, that's so true is, is we have so many things happening in our life, so many opportunities for our primitive brain to step in and challenge us from living in the way that we truly want to live. Tomorrow, I'm going to this movie festival at the college because my son is in a few of the movies, and it's going to be, like, four hours long. That's a long time for me to be sitting watching a bunch of films. I'm excited to watch his films, but I'm going to be honest, I'm not excited to watch the other films. And so tomorrow, I know what's going to happen. My primitive brain is going to say you should take some candy or something in your purse, because first of all, you're going to need something to eat, because you're going to be sitting there and you're going to be bored, and so you kind of like, deserve a treat when you're watching this. On the one hand, my primitive brain is telling me this is a really hard situation. You need to support yourself and get pleasure because you're going through this situation with your mom. Well, that situation is now over, and my primitive brain is going to tell me tomorrow, the fact that I'm sitting in a movie theater for four hours is a unique situation that I need to seek pleasure in that moment. And then on Sunday, for Mother's Day, we're going to visit my in laws, so we're going to be in the car for six hours. You know what's going to happen? My primitive brain is going to tell me, Wow, this has been a really long day of travel. We're driving there. We're going to stay for two hours, and we're going to drive back. We love them. We want to see them. We my boys haven't seen them in the in a long time. So we're really, actually excited to do this, but my primitive brain is going to say, Oh, poor you. First of all, it's Mother's Day and you're in the car for six hours. And second of all, it was, you know, hard to see your in laws. They're maybe not doing well, and that was hard. And it's going to come up with all of these reasons why i. Deserve some peanut M M's on the road trip. Why I deserve some banana bread from some Starbucks on the road trip? So here is what I know to be true at every frickin moment our primitive brain is going to come up with a reason why we should live a different life than we want to live at every moment, it always finds an excuse to get you into pleasure. And then, then we have a random Tuesday afternoon. Let's say my heart my headache. I figure it out. I figure out the right cocktail of allergy medicine and Advil that now my headache goes away, and then it's a random Tuesday, and my mom's doing great. Business is great. I did my heavy workout. All is well, but it's kind of a boring day. And then what my primitive brain is going to say is, this is kind of boring. You know? What would make rooster so much better? Rooster is this new show, my husband and I both really like it's with Steve Carell, great show. And so my brain is going to say, you know, what would make rooster so much more entertaining is if you made some cookies and then you had a few at every fucking moment, our brain is going to come up with a reason why we should screw our goals. Screw the way we want to truly live and seek pleasure in the moment, and it's going to sound like you making a different choice. It's going to sound like you changing your mind. It's going to sound like you, quote, unquote, supporting yourself. It's going to sound like you, quote, unquote, living life, because life is meant to be lived. If these shenanigans, meaning our primitive brain and all the conversations, only happened when things went wrong, it would kind of be okay, because things don't go wrong that often, but it thinks everything is a problem. Oh, Courtney, you have to sit in a movie theater for four hours. I know you're excited to see your son's movies, but now you have to watch all these other random movies. You need pleasure. You're going on a long road trip. I know you're excited to go, and you feel like it's important and you're proud of yourself, but you have to be in the car in one day for six hours. Poor you. Oh, it's a random Tuesday, and I know things are going well in your life, but it sure would be better with some cookies. If it only happened when things went wrong, truly went wrong. This probably wouldn't be a problem. But it does not matter what is going on, whether something is, quote, unquote, truly going wrong, or whether something is going right, because then, of course, we need to celebrate right. If something amazing happens, let's go celebrate, and we're celebrating. So let's get dessert and let's have another cocktail. Your primitive brain at every single moment wants you to be as happy as possible in the moment and in 2026 that usually means eating and drinking and scrolling when your partner goes to the bathroom and you're at a restaurant at every moment. Oh, we can't sit here bored at the table. Let's just pick up our phone and see if Instagram has anything new it wants to any new value it wants to provide as well our our partners in the bathroom. And what I want you to know enclosure is I'm not perfect at this. I don't always say no to my primitive brain. I don't always even recognize it. It's my primitive brain. Our primitive brain is very sneaky, but I wanted you to hear a well managed mind, because my mind is well managed. I've been practicing this for a very long time. And for those of you that are in my program and working with me and you're getting good at this, I want you to hear like, this is going to be for you. This is where you're going to get to, if you continue practicing, even though you feel like you're already getting better, you're going to get to a point where you're like a ninja at all this. You're going to be like, That's my primitive brain. That's my primitive that's my primitive brain. But here's what I also want everyone to hear. I'm not tortured by any of this. I think that there is this misconception out there or this. It's a thought that people want it all to stop. They want the mental gymnastics, they want the back and forth, they want the primitive brain to stop with all of it, the negotiations. They want it to stop. But you could probably tell by me telling you all of that information that you never knew you wanted. I was not stressed out by it. I was not feeling overwhelmed by it. I was not like, Oh, my God, I don't know. I was very calm, and it's okay for me, if my primitive brain is like, you should go get ice cream. I'm not like, I need it to stop. No, I don't need it to stop, because I have practiced over and over again differentiating myself from my primitive brain. It's no big deal, and I want it to be no big deal for you, because if you're waiting for that to stop, if you're waiting for the negotiations to stop, if you're waiting for the. Minute brain to stop. If you're waiting for the haggling back and forth to stop, it's not stopping. So I want you to not wait. There is discomfort in having your brain hammer at you all these thoughts. But it gets a lot less uncomfortable when you're okay with it. I'm okay with the fact that my brain thinks that every moment I should just be eating and sleeping and not moving my body. Yeah, it's okay. It's not going away. And it gets so much easier when you're okay with it, and then it becomes background noise at the end of today, because I am choosing to work. I am choosing to go on a walk and move my body. I have a consult tonight. It should be done around 530 which I normally don't have consults on Friday night. So you know what's gonna happen. My primitive brain is gonna go, Oh, you've had a hard 24 hours, and you did your podcast and you went for a walk and you worked Friday night. You're such a good person. You really deserve a treat. And I'm not going to be like, Oh my God, I don't know what to do. I'm gonna go, yeah, that's what my primitive brain thinks. And I'm not gonna have one because I want to sleep well, and I want to maintain my weight, I want to maintain my health. I want to feel good in my body. I want to sleep well. And I also want to be an example of how to do this for you. I want to be an example for when people ask me, like, God, how do you do this? Like you say you're in control. What does that look like? This is what that looks like. Control doesn't mean your brain never offers you stupid thoughts. Control means your brain offers you a thought, and you go, doesn't sound like me. Doesn't sound like what I want for myself. You recognize it as your primitive brain, and you make the better choice most of the time, and when you don't, when you fuck it all up, and you make the bad choice afterwards, you say, Oh, interesting. I wonder why I did that. Was I just going unconscious? Was I just not recognizing that that was my primitive brain, or did I just agree? Did I just have a hard moment? Did I just let the stress of the day get to me and I felt like I just need some relief? I'll tell you what the ultimate relief is the ultimate relief is going through a hard situation and really sticking to your own plan. The reason why I think this is a great example is I've had many, many clients over the years tell me that when they have had a hospital situation, when they have had a situation where, oh, my God, we had to go the hospital because of this person or that person, or this or whatever, that is their reason that they went off protocol that day. That is their reason they didn't get their workout in. That is their reason they didn't eat the way they had planned. And if we really step back, unless you're at the hospital all day. It makes sense that if you were planning on going to the gym and you're at the hospital, that makes sense. It makes sense. But for many people, when we really dive into could you have still stayed on your protocol, or could you have made a healthier choice? They admit they actually could have, but in the moment, they just listened to their primitive brain. Their primitive brain said, Oh, you were planning on making healthy tacos for dinner tonight, but now we have to go to the hospital, so let's stop at Taco Bell. And then when I said, was there a grocery store around Taco Bell, they said, Yeah. And I said, so could you have gotten a salad or something? Yeah? And then they go, yes. I'm so mad at myself. I go, Well, let's not be mad at yourself. Let's just recognize it. So for some reason, hospital visits have been like, one of the main reasons that people are like, I had to go to the hospital. And it's it. The excuse is, it was a stressful situation. I was worried about someone I love, and I didn't have time. And we have to look at those reasons and say, but what you put in your mouth is an option. It is a choice. And at the very, very, very, very least, you can make a better choice in the hospital cafeteria. If I was really, really hungry this morning and I had to stay at the hospital and I had to eat there, I would have gone down and I would have got a banana, or maybe, I'm sure they probably had oatmeal. So I hope this podcast was helpful. I hope really hearing the intricate details of how a primitive brain works, how it sounds like us just changing our mind. I hope this was a tool for you to be able to refer back to. So next time you have a situation like this, you can go, oh, this is exactly my brain is doing, exactly what Courtney's brain did to her, and you can emulate what I did. And if you want to do this, work with me, if you want to become really the master of your mind, the controller of your body and life, then I invite you to work with me. Right now, I'm working with clients privately. One. One, and stay tuned very soon, I have another very exciting way you can work with me, and that's coming up. Details are coming soon. I hope you have a great 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 so.