From People Pleasing To Personal Power: Healing Weight, Shame, And Identity

What if your body story isn’t about willpower, but about identity you’ve outgrown? We sit down with intuitive healer and coach Tara Wiscow, who lost 220 pounds and discovered the scale can’t measure self worth. Her three “flashbulb” moments—an early family secret, a heartbreaking park accident with her son, and a profound encounter with her higher self after her sister’s passing—reveal how abandonment, belonging, and grief shape the way we eat, the way we love, and the way we show up.

We get honest about weight as protection, people pleasing as survival, and why diets can work on your body while leaving your mind in chaos. Tara breaks down her concept of the “expired self,” those identities that once kept us safe but now keep us stuck. We talk thyroid cancer, hormones, and pregnancies to underscore that there’s never one reason for a number on the scale. Then we pivot to practical shifts: the “seven levels deep” exercise to uncover a genuine why, mindful eating practices that reconnect you to taste and satiety, and a simple baseline habit—hydration—to stabilize energy, mood, and appetite.

This conversation blends mindset, trauma-informed healing, and compassionate nutrition without shame or gimmicks. You’ll learn how to question cravings with “what’s the purpose?”, drop the good/bad food narrative, and replace self-punishment with clarity and care. Tara also shares her framework for un-becoming outdated identities so you can rebuild a life that fits: more confidence, fewer masks, and choices aligned with your values. If you’re ready to stop chasing approval and start coming home to yourself, this is your map.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Why Food Feels Fraught
• 2:10 Weight As Armor And Complex Roots Of Eating
• 2:27 Meet Tara: 220 Pounds Lost And Healing
• 3:56 Flashbulb One: Abandonment And Belonging
• 9:05 Flashbulb Two: Park Bench Mom To Rock Bottom
• 16:05 Choosing Life And Learning Self Love
• 20:21 Flashbulb Three: Sister’s Passing And Higher Self
• 26:15 Children Know And People Pleasing As Survival
• 28:55 The “Expired Self” Identity Shift
• 35:35 Finding Dad, Two Worlds, And Loss
• 42:05 Thyroid Cancer, Pregnancy, And Weight Gain
• 48:45 Weight Loss Without Inner Peace
• 52:55 Purpose Over Cupcakes: Cravings And Parts

Transcript

Tara: 0:00

It was all about external acceptance. It was about being somebody that people would look at and admire and praise and look up to and want to have in their life.

Mary: 0:18

Welcome to No Shrinking Violets. I'm your host, Mary Rothwell, licensed therapist and certified integrative mental health practitioner. I've created a space where we celebrate the intuition and power of women who want to break free from limiting narratives. We'll explore all realms of wellness, what it means to take up space unapologetically, and how your essential nature is key to living life on your terms. It's time to own your space, trust your nature, and flourish. Let's dive in. Hey Violets, welcome to the show. One of the most frustrating issues I've worked on with women is discomfort or even disgust with their bodies. We are so inundated with messages about weight and eating, much of it contradictory and confusing. And it's rarely simple. While weight is a number, it has a meaning and it has a genesis. So for example, I have worked with women who used their weight as a protective factor. They were sexually harassed and they gained weight, unconsciously trying to avoid the attention that could lead to being a target. I've had clients who dealt with rejection by driving through a fast food line at 10 p.m. and ordering three cheeseburgers, a large soda, and two large fries. I've had others who ate so little and lost so much weight that they no longer had a menstrual cycle. There is no simple story or solution when it comes to health and the way we eat. There is also not one reason for the number on the scale. Sometimes there are physiological issues of which we're unaware. Other times our mindset and our self-worth factor into our efforts to be healthy. Often, an inability to mirror the societal ideal of attractiveness is tied to shame. We can certainly hide our self-limiting or judgmental thoughts from others, but our body, especially in today's world, is something we can't hide. And it's also the part of us that other people seem to believe is the most acceptable to judge. Being that we are a full person, our body isn't separate from our mind or our spirit, physical and emotional transformation can be intertwined. I'd love to untangle some of this with my guest today. She herself lost 220 pounds and also found healing for her deep emotional wounds. Tara Wiscow is an intuitive healer, energy coach, and life reinvention expert who helps women break free from internal blocks, energetic clutter, and outdated identities so they can create the body, life, and relationships they desire. Welcome to No Shrinking Violets, Tara.

Tara: 2:54

Oh, Miss Mary, thank you so much for having me as a guest. I love your introduction. I heard myself in those three specific scenarios that you shared. I was like, yes, I've done that. Yes, I've done that. Oh, yep, done that too. Definitely beautiful introduction. I really love all that you had to say and what you opened this episode with. Oh, thank you.

Mary: 3:19

Yeah, I think we'll get to it, but you know, it's we think about eating disorders, but we almost all have disordered eating, which is different. So it's very fraught, the whole food thing. But before we dive into all of that, I would love if you would talk a little about the moments in your life. I call them like flashbulb moments, the moments where you feel like, oh, that kind of bumped me onto a different path. And I think all those things sort of culminate in where we are now. So can you talk a little about what has happened that you think were flashbulb moments and how did you end up doing what you do now?

Tara: 3:55

Yes, I'd love to. I have three flashbulb moments that I speak about. Very first one was on my eighth birthday. And I was outside playing with my sisters, my cousins. We were waiting for my birthday and Easter celebration to get started. And my aunt, she's cognitively delayed, came up to me all excited and shared with me what she didn't realize was a secret. She didn't have concepts of secrets, and said, Darolyn, I saw your dad today. And I was eight. And I said, I know he's in the house. And she said, Well, not your dad junior, silly, your dad Bruce. Now I didn't have a dad, Bruce, that I knew of. My dad was junior. And so I remember on that day asking my mom, and the experience that I got was getting yelled at, getting told to get back outside, a lot of anger. And I learned that I did indeed have a dad named Bruce, who had chosen not to be in my life when I was born. And so at that moment, Mary, when you're eight years old, and all of a sudden things start to make sense. Why my friends would ask me if I was adopted now made sense when you looked at my family picture and I have brown hair and brown eyes, and my entire family has blue, blue eyes and blonde hair. Like there's some reason why I was asked that question. I started to see how different I was. And so that flashball moment wasn't necessarily one that brought me into a good path. It was actually one that opened me up to feel a sense of fear around abandonment, rejection, needing to fit in, not being good enough, my appearance not matching. Therefore, I had to act. I had to act like everybody else so that they would love me and pick me. And then meeting my biological dad at 12, and it was like looking in the mirror. It was exact replica of one another, all the way down to our knees and our laugh. Everything was the same. And I lost them to cancer at 15. And so that whole light bulb experience, it's really one, to be honest with you, that really brought me into some deep dark disconnection of myself and looking for love in all the wrong ways. The next flashball moment would be when I was 20, 28 years old. At that point, I was deemed morbidly obese. I was 338 pounds. I had gone through a divorce and was now a single mom of three boys. And we were at the park. I was a park bench mama. That is what I was labeled by a mom who didn't know that I heard her say this. And I sat on the park bench and they uh brought my boys in and they loved them and enveloped them in their family netting there on the park. And I would just sit and watch and be lonely and sad that I wasn't able to be the one that was out there interacting with my boys. And on this day, everybody had left and they wanted me to play this favorite, favorite swing game of theirs. And I said, okay, we'll just play for a little bit and then we're going home. Any of you that are boy moms, you know that you've got to get like the code of agreement before you say yes to anything. Otherwise, you never leave the park. And so they're swinging and the game goes, they swing. And everybody that's heard this knows the game, and they're probably cringing when I when I talk about it, their memories. And you move through them as they swing, and the goal is not to get hit, right? So you're either in front of them or behind them as you move. And my boys, Trevor, Trey, Trestan, loved it. This was their favorite game, and I truly loved it too. And we're at the last stent of it. We've been playing it for about 15 minutes. And I said, All right, I'm going past Trevor, my oldest, Trestan, my youngest, and then Trey, my middle. And then we're done. And so I move past Trevor and Trestan says, Me next. He's all excited. He's two years old. And I move in front of him and I tripped. And in the falling, he came forward and the collision of his feet hitting the side of my body, he flipped backwards and he wasn't strong enough to keep his hands on the chains. And so when he landed on the ground, it actually split his head open and knocked him unconscious. And I struggled to get up. The size of my body being 338 pounds, I'm five foot four. And so I ended up just crawling over to him and was able to use the pole of the swing, holding him close, got up on my feet. And in my mind, I remember hearing somebody say, when adrenaline hits you, you could lift a 4,000-pound car. And so in my mind, I knew I was going to run like, you know, this marathon runner all the way to the van and get him, the boys in and get to the ER, and it's going to be fine. I would go maybe five feet and I'd have to stop and catch my breath. And my other boys are crying and they're begging me to hurry. And Trestan is bleeding and still unconscious. And no matter what I tried, no matter what I said, no matter how angry I was, I couldn't. I couldn't go more than five feet. By the time I got to the van, Trestan had come back to and thank God he was screaming. Those one of those moments as a mom, like you're so grateful to hear the blood curdling screams. That was one of those moments. And we get to the ER, and any nurses listening, they're like, oh, this is nothing. It's just a little bit. We'll just put some staples. He's fine. And he truly was. He was so proud of the staples. The boys got suckers when we left. And that flashball moment for me was so much shame, disgust, and anger with myself that I'd let myself go, that I'd become the woman that I was. And that I was a miserable mom in my viewpoint. And three days later, I decided that the only option that I had was to end my life. That was it. My boys deserved better. I'd been trying to lose weight for years, and it wasn't going to happen. And I couldn't continue to live the life that I was living. And so three days later, you know, divine timing. I know I locked that door, Mary. I know that I locked that door. And somehow the door creeped open and my middle son tray stood there. And he looked at the whole situation and he asked me this question Are you gonna die, mama?

Mary: 10:34

Oh boy.

Tara: 10:35

And him at five. Yeah. Having the insight to ask me that question made me realize that I had a choice. Because what I had been doing up until that moment was letting life live me. Whatever came to me, I I just thought that that was life and I had to deal with it. This is as good as it gets. There's nothing you can do about it. I had this belief that God, whoever you speak to, I speak to God, the universe, the higher power, that God made women, two kinds of them. Women that were successful, pretty, smart, talented, confident, everything of luck happened for them. Like, I mean, it just everything was roses and petals and all this stuff for them. And then there was me. It was not one of those. And I felt like I was just this woman that was supposed to be fat, depressed, miserable, ugly, and nothing. And when he asked me, Are you gonna die, mama? I realized that he was saying out loud, you have a choice. And then I heard this voice that said, the only way for you to get out of this, Tara, is for you to learn to love yourself as much as you love your boys. And that light bulb moment truly, even though all that I shared feels like a big, big, big, like bursting light bulb. It was that moment of realizing that I had to learn to love myself because that's the only thing I hadn't done to try to lose the weight. That was that moment. And the most recent happened two and a half years ago when I lost my baby sister to cancer. She's 39 years old and was diagnosed in Christmas of 23. And in June, she was gone just like that. And in losing her, I started to hear her. We would have conversations and she would talk to me about things. She would guide me to things. She would tell me to look here, look there. And what she told me I was going to find, I found it. And everything was always synchronistic of her. She was this four foot 11-foot woman. She had a bone disease. And so she was very short. She was a spitfire. And every single thing, I have full goosebumps as I say it, so I know she's here. Everything directed me to her, and I knew that she was having a conversation with me. And she led me into a meditation for identity shifting. And in that meditation, I met my higher self. I'd never been able to meditate until that day. Literally, when I was in this workshop that was three hours long, and the woman said, We're now going into a meditation. I thought, well, this really sucks because it ends here for me. I was so angry. And then that voice came to me again and said, try it. Just try it one more time. And I think I drooled through the entire meditation. I was so in the meditation. I was leaned over to my right and I was fully immersed in that meditation. And I met my higher self. And she said to me, You are a healer. You have always been a healer. And the world needs you now more than ever. And Trisha had walked down this path with me. That was my sister. And sat on this bench with me. She was on my left and my higher self presented herself on the right. And I got so excited because for the first time, Mary, like I knew there wasn't anything missing in my life. Because up until that moment, I'd always wondered. I'd talk to my husband and I'd say, like, I don't understand what's missing. Why can't I figure out my purpose? I've done all these things, I've had these businesses, I've sold businesses, I've lost 220 pounds, I've launched things. Why? Why is something still missing? Why can't I figure it out? And when I turned to look at Trisha, because I knew I'd just found it. And I wanted to tell her that I loved her. And I wanted to say thank you for bringing me home to myself. And she was gone. She was gone. And I felt abandoned again, just like I had when my dad left me. And I also knew that I hadn't been. I knew that she had guided me in the way she needed. And now I needed to find my way out of that meditation on my own because that was my final coming home. And I had to walk that path by myself, knowing that I was a healer, knowing that I'd found what I'd always thought was lost, and that that was me.

Mary: 14:53

Wow. That well, first, that's the most comprehensive flashball moment story I've ever heard from a guest. But yeah, wow, it's so many things that kind of punted you like to the next thing. But what I come back to is the first one, where as a child, you intuitively knew there's something people aren't telling me. And I think that there's a couple themes in that. And one is kids always know. We can kid ourselves and say, well, they're not aware of whatever fill in the blank. They are. And I think that for you, being someone who is an intuitive healer, that was evident when you were very young, but it was denied. And I always think about what happens in childhood and how much it informs what happens later, because we have to do at the time whatever helps us survive. So for you, at least initially at eight, it was like, okay, so everybody's like denying what I think is actually true here. So maybe I'm wrong.

Tara: 16:01

Yes, yes. That is so true. And it is survival. You know, I just actually spoke about this on my group coaching call for my program last night and talked about how we people please. And that literally is at a very young age, one of the things primarily women that I found in my experience working with women is we begin to people please because of the experiences, and it is all for the factor of, in our minds, safety. And it truly is nothing about safety and is survival. Very accurately said.

Mary: 16:37

Because later it stops working. It's what we it's we have to do it at the time. And then most people that end up in my office realize I'm not, it's not working. Like I'm doing the same thing, it nothing is is working. And it's because it was what we had to do, as you said exactly, to survive. And then later you're you don't have those things around you that are not safe or that you have to navigate. So then it's time to kind of move into something different.

Tara: 17:11

Yeah.

Mary: 17:12

And I know you talk about something called an expired self.

unknown: 17:16

Yeah.

Mary: 17:17

And I have not heard that term before. So explain to us what you mean by that.

Tara: 17:22

Oh my gosh. This is a term that I came up with as I was building out my program, She Rises. And as I the information was being channeled, I was researching. And when I say channeled, I work with my spirit guides. And my main is Kwan and also Harley. He is more my spiritual guiding teacher. And in the channeling and the research, I kept on hearing like expired identity, expired identity. And so finally I sat with it and asked myself, like, what am I trying to get? What am I trying to gather? What's the message with this? And as I started to write words down and draw pictures, I noticed that I had drawn myself in different stages of my life and I had evolved through that stage. And I started to realize that every time I had shifted, it was because the identity that I was living had already expired. It was done, it was gone. It's like a loaf of bread. I don't know why I say bread, but anyway, it's expired. It's stale, it's stagnant. That's why I'm saying loaf of bread. And it just no longer can, it just doesn't work. And so when I say that expired identity or outdated identity, sometimes I use them both. What I'm meaning is that who you have been has served its purpose. People pleasing served its purpose. There was a reason for it. And so that is an identity that you lived behind. We have these different identities that very much look like masks, and very much are like I look at it as the circus, the plate spinner at the circus. You have all these plates that you're spinning and you're trying to keep them up, and there's a reason. And this plate is for my mom, this plate is for my sisters and in-laws and friends and co-workers and you know, XYZ. It just keeps on going. And so these identities are in our life for a certain purpose that we believe has to be there. However, when we have reached the point of needing to evolve, we're needing to go into the next level of ourselves. Those identities no longer serve us. That means we have expired them. We've outgrown them. And the issue with that is that we get so complacent in our comfort zone that we feel like if we were to shift out of that identity and let that go, we're disappointing people in our life. The fear of the unknown starts to pull us back into it. We feel like it's too hard. These limiting beliefs that we have of I always fail. I'm not worthy of success. I never have good things that happen to me. Everything has to be difficult. All those limiting beliefs and negative emotions start to pelt at us. And we decide that we're fine with the identities and we stay rooted in them. And just like having a, we will go to a pound of hamburger that's outdated. If you leave a pound of hamburger in the fridge for a year outdated, you can about imagine what you've got. And it's not pretty. I don't have to paint that picture. It is the same as outdated identities. It is that volatile to ourselves. Allowing ourselves, forcing ourselves is more accurately said, to remain in this identity that is not serving us. And it starts to shut us down. We start to have agitation, irritation, depression, unhappiness. We begin to gain weight. We start to struggle with food addictions. We have a lot of things that begin to pull us into a very dark place. And it's because we're living behind these expired identities that don't serve us anymore.

Mary: 21:09

I love that. Because I, you know, it's something I work with, obviously. Let's evolve into the next thing. But thinking about it in those terms makes it very vivid. So when we think about the idea of identity, so as an eight-year-old, you had this experience where, you know, that's in a part of you, I think, was like, oh, wait a second, something's starting to make sense. However, trusted adults said no. But then four years later, you met your dad. How did that happen? Was that a lot of like courage on your part? Did doors just open a little bit? How did that come about?

Tara: 21:48

My grandma, his dad, begged and begged and begged because he'd been diagnosed with medullary thyroid cancer. And they weren't sure how long he had. And so she had asked since I was nine years old to go and meet him, go and meet him. And I was terrified. I was so scared to meet him. And so I avoided it. And for whatever reason, at the age of 12, I just felt ready. Again, that intuitive nature of me that was there, I knew I just it was time and I needed to go. And so he lived five hours away from me. So my grandma drove up from Superior, Wisconsin. I live in far north Minnesota and picked me up and we made the venture back to Wisconsin. And I'll never forget the moment when we were going over what's called the Bong Bridge. It's like a two-mile-long bridge. I'm terrified. I was terrified of bridges. I can't say that I love them now. However, I've gotten past the fear of them or the terror of them. And I remember being in the center of the bridge and I was being pulled to say, I want to turn around and go back. And I was saying, don't just drive faster and get me off of this bridge. Like that's where I was at at 12. And I just sat there in fear. And we drive up onto Broadway Avenue. And there is this light blue house and a man standing in the yard with these long white tube socks pulled all the way up to his knees. He's got no shirt. He's got these jeans, shorts, and long hair. Is a man I never in my life ever seen. Like I people like him didn't exist where I lived. And yet at the same time, I was like, I know him. I could like I looked at him. I was like, I know him. Because I've looked at that face every day that I'd looked in the mirror. I saw a picture of myself. And the essence of being with him felt so right. It's just like two pieces coming together and clicking. And it was just a perfect fit. And so that's how that happened is how it actually came in. I it was like pressure, courage, and intuition telling me you've got to go now.

Mary: 23:58

Oh my gosh. And it ended up being a positive thing. You got to know him and then you lost him, which at an age when identity is so important. So I can't even imagine how that landed.

Tara: 24:13

Yeah, no, it was it was really, really a hard experience of getting to know him and knowing that he always had loved me. I'd found out that we'd had moments together in the restaurant when my mom's parents, they were my grandparents that raised me for the first three years of my life. And so I had a very strong relationship with them. And they would take me on days to have outings, and they would secretly get me with my dad at the restaurant, and we would have interactions. And I didn't know that until he started to talk to me about it and tell me those experiences. And some of it I could recall, some of those moments I could remember when he talked about it. And then just feeling that connection of belonging. I felt like I belonged. It was difficult though. And I feel like a lot of your listeners will understand this. And so I want to share it. I felt like I lived two different lives because when I was with my dad in the times that I would visit, I had three sisters there that looked like me. Okay. And I belonged. And it was just right. Everything felt right. And then when I went home, which had always been my home, I didn't look like them, I didn't act like them. Yet all my belongings were there. And it felt like I should want to be here or I should belong here because this is where I'd always lived. And so I felt very pulled between where I was supposed to feel right and where I wasn't supposed to feel right, and who I was supposed to be here and who I was supposed to be there. I felt like I couldn't be the center person, which is the authentic person. There was no through line of identity there. There were two different people that I was living. And that was really confusing and difficult in a whole like granule way, obviously. And then my dad's sickness started to become more pronounced, and it was evident that the cancer was definitely winning. And he had told me the last time I'd saw him, he brought up a 1960Hodge cornet that he'd worked on and he gifted to me. And he brought it all the way up from Wisconsin. And every conversation we'd had over the phone, in person, was always see you later. That was his rules. We said see you later. And on that day, it was at my grandma and grandpa's when he was there and he said, Goodbye, Tara. And I remember saying, No, we don't say that. We say see you later, Dad. He said, I need you to know that this is goodbye and I need to hear you say goodbye. And I couldn't. I could not say goodbye. I wouldn't, I was so mad at him. And I remember just having my grandma hold me when he left. And still to this day, I have some, I have some guilt that I didn't give him that one thing that he needed to hear from me. And then just like that, he was gone. Oh my gosh.

Mary: 27:07

That's so hard.

Tara: 27:08

Yeah. And I lost myself more in that experience, being 15, lost myself even more in a deeper, really started to look for love in relationships with boys, looking to make sure if a boy looked at me, it must mean that, you know, I need to pursue that as a boyfriend, you know, going out back in those days. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 27:29

Yeah.

Tara: 27:30

And I needed to have their love because then that meant that I was loved. And I understood now. I was just really looking for that identity that I lived with when my dad was alive because I felt like that's what I was going to get when I was when I had a boyfriend.

Mary: 27:47

Yeah.

Tara: 27:47

Yeah.

Mary: 27:48

Okay. So at that point, you were 15. It sounds like that relationship was really positive with your dad. So then you're at that age where, yeah, let's pursue relationships. But also I want to sort of bring in the idea of overweight and weight loss and all of the stuff that goes with that because I think it's such an important topic. We're in such an interesting time with the, you know, the medications now that we can use. And we now get another type of wave of judgment from that. So when you were younger, when you were in your teenage years, were you also overweight at that point?

Tara: 28:34

I was not. So at 15, when I lost my dad, I was I was very slender and fit. And when I was 16, also was still really good. It was when I was 17. And the reason is, is I met a guy who was 21 and fell in love. And it was, you know, bells and whistles and all the great things. And at 17 and a half, I was engaged and I just lived the lifestyle he lived. He struggled with his weight, he was overweight, his eating style was not healthy. And I just followed suit. I was in love. I wanted him to love me. And so I lived his lifestyle. And I didn't know how to live any other lifestyle. I mean, that's what I'd done is live other people's lifestyle. So I was doing that. And so by the time that I was 17 and a half, I had started to put on some significant weight. I was engaged. And then I, my senior year, I went up three pant sizes in three months. And I found out that I did the day before my wedding. So at this point now, I'm getting married. So we've I've gained even more weight after that. And the weight is just going out, out of like just absolutely catastrophically coming on. And my eating habits weren't great, but something wasn't right. Again, intuition. And I'm being told, oh, it's just because you've got poor lifestyle, you're in love, you're engaged, you're just getting comfortable, all of that. And I knew something wasn't right. So I had been going through cancer testing to make sure that because they said that my dad's cancer was hereditary, we weren't certain when we did testing, we didn't find what was called the ret gene in me, but they hadn't tested it in my dad. So we didn't know for sure if it was going to be passed down. And the day before my wedding, so I'm 20 years old, and the very day before my wedding, I get the paper in the mail from Mayo Clinic that says medullary thyroid cancer positive. And so here I had been gaining weight because my thyroid had actually been infected and unhealthy, and my body had been battling medullary cancer. Thank goodness everything was contained, everything was fine. All I had to do was have my thyroid removed, and we were okay as far as cancer-wise, which then after my thyroid was gone, then I started to gain even more weight after that. So at that point, I was about 280 pounds. I went all the way up to 338 pounds after that. And I had pregnancies. So I had my first child at 21 and then 24 and then 27. So I was having, I had my three boys three years apart for each of those pregnancies, and weight was a struggle with each pregnancy, too.

Mary: 31:31

Yeah. Well, I can I can relate because I had thyroid cancer also, and I do not have a thyroid. And yeah, it's it's a thing. And then when you hit menopause, it becomes a thing again because your hormones don't work as the same as they did. So I totally get that. So, you know, it's interesting because as you're talking, and when you talked in initially about the big moments in your life, I think about like these things that happen. So you have this up and down, you get to know your dad, then you lose your dad. Then you, you know, you meet someone, which is great, but then you find out, oh, by the way, you have cancer. And then later, what happens with your sister? And I just think it would be so easy to just get lost in, you know, the negative thinking or the depression or the why me. But it sounds like what pulled you out was the emergency with your boy.

Tara: 32:33

Yeah, you know, I think it did to an extent. There was like I got very, very disciplined and determined after that. I would walk the furthest I could walk was a maybe a quarter of a mile. And we had a a cornfield right where I lived, and I'd walk to it and I'd be sick in the cornfield because of the exertion of just walking that far and then getting back, you know. But I kept on and on and on and just showed up for myself. And that was my body. What ended up happening is I was losing the weight, but my inner mind, my inner world was such chaos. The negativity was absolutely out of this world. If I went to a store and I experienced five things and four of them were the absolutely most beautiful things in the world, and one was negative, I would have never been able to recall the positive. I would have only recounted the negative over and over and over. I would feel sorry for myself. I would use that for a reason to binge eat. And then I began purging my food. So I did really struggle with the woe is me and feel sorry for myself. Even though my son gave me that very big lesson of you have a choice in this, I used that to propel me to lose the weight. And then after I'd gotten the weight loss to a point of where I was very comfortable in my body, I wasn't okay. Because I believed when I lose all this weight, I will be happy and glorious and confident. I'll become one of those women that I thought I could never be part of. And here I've got a body that is now better than some of these women, and I'm still not happy. I'm still not confident. I still don't feel like I am as lucky as those women.

Mary: 34:22

Yeah.

Tara: 34:22

So I did struggle in the depths of depression and anxiety and woe was me, feel sorry for myself. Very, very much. That dark place of living. I think another little like pocket of help. I joined this network marketing company and had this mentor that was absolutely incredible. And that company was wonderful in many ways because one, it was a weight loss product that taught me that you do not need a weight loss product to lose weight. Like I learned so much about that, which helped me step into becoming a weight loss coach, helping women to lose weight, not using a product, but using inner healing as well as food, water, and exercise. And so that was a blessing in disguise. But I had this mentor that always said to me, You are the problem. Like if you can get yourself out of your own way, you will find that you can get to the other side of it. And boy, did I hate her. I thought she was the worst person that God ever put on this earth because she was a bitch. But everything she said was so right. And then my husband were hanging out Christmas lights and it's cold. And I live in northern Minnesota, but I don't like the cold. And I was griping about it and I was complaining about it. And all of a sudden he said this to me. I can't wait until you see the good in this. I literally wanted to come off that ladder and use the ladder and show him the good that was going to come from this. But it was I was so just like, I was so amazed that he said something so ridiculous to me. But how beautifully right. Like he was so right. And again, it was another moment that made me realize wow, Tara, you sure complain about a lot of things that you really don't need to be complaining about. You really feel sorry for yourself a lot. You are losing sight of all the greatness you have and all the things you've done. Like, when are you gonna wake up and actually smell the flowers and see everything that you have to be grateful for, everything that you can be proud of yourself for, and actually begin doing the work again to create the life that you desire. And again, I was brought back to that point of having to say to myself, you are the reason why your life is the way it is. And if you want something different, you have to do the work to make it, which is where my business came, the name of it, be the change you need. That is the only way your life changes, is when you become the change you need and you make it happen.

Mary: 36:46

Yeah. And I all of that is so important because I think we do have this idea that if I can just lose the weight, if I can just get to a size six, if I can, you know, and so we put off the things that may make us happy because we have this sense of, I'm not good enough. I have to look a certain way to have happiness. But you're also talking about the opposite, that you got to the point where you got your body healthy, but your mind was still not, it hadn't caught up yet. So it this is it is one of the most heartbreaking things for me to work with when I have women who feel that that is that has become such a struggle. It's all they can see, they can't see past what they because I work with a lot of women in midlife too. So what do we deal with? Weight gain. Weight gain that doesn't typically respond in the way that it used to. So then there's the message of, well, you're doing something wrong. You're not trying hard enough. And if you only fill in the blank, you're gonna lose that weight. So for women listening that have struggled with this or are struggling with it now, what would you say to them? What is a starting point? What was really the biggest mindset shift for you that started to create that overall change?

Tara: 38:15

Yeah. For me, it was actually asking myself, why was I so concerned about how my body looked? And the what brought me to that is I'd become a bodybuilder, a figure competitor, and I'd competed in three different competitions. And that was big for me to allow myself to be in this bikini, five-inch heels, all these stretch marks, and be judged about my body. And I still like had this body that was to die for and absolutely amazing, and was really not okay with where I was and struggling so very much with my body dysmorphia. And so I had to ask myself, what is it that you're you're striving for? Like, what is it about your body that you don't like? Why are you so worried about having this body that is desirable? Is it really desirable to you? Because obviously you're not happy with it. And I started to have that dialogue with myself and get really real with myself and ask, who are you trying to create this body for? And when I ask myself that, even still, I get full goosebumps that run down the my spine, is that it was all about external acceptance. It was about being somebody that people would look at and admire and praise and look up to and want to have in their life. It was again all about not being abandoned and not and having that full on acceptance. So I realized that I was beating myself up, trying to create this body image that wasn't even for me. It wasn't what I wanted. It was for external factors only. And I encourage everybody to start looking there because when you do that, you start to pull yourself out of the Lane of doing it for everybody else. And I know that you've experienced this in the women that you work with, because I have as well. When they're coming to me to lose weight and I ask them what inspired you to decide to join this journey, every single time it is for somebody else. Every single time it's so I can be a better mom, so that I can be a better wife, so that my husband can look at me with affection, so that I can have friends that don't judge me. Every time it's about somebody else. And then when I ask them, Well, why do you want to do it for you? They'll say, Well, I just told you. I said, No, that's not for you. That's not for you, that's for everybody else. Why is it important for you to lose this weight? They have no idea. Yeah, we have to start there. As women, we have to start coming home to ourselves because we have we have left ourselves. I just did an intuitive coaching session. And in this, the woman, I saw her body before me and it was hollow. Like she had the outside, but the inside was absolutely hollow. And I saw the the woman in a cage, caged off behind her, and she was disconnected from herself. And we do that because we're living for everybody else. We're showing up in a way that we believe that we have to, where the caregivers are everybody else. We are here to make people that we love happy, and that's it. And we get to live vicariously. None of that's true. That's what we believe to be true to a stint. It goes deeper than that. And so we have to start coming home to ourselves. The only way we're going to start losing the weight, start finding that commitment to ourselves, knowing the right path for ourselves, is really asking ourselves, why is it I want to lose the weight for myself? Nobody else. We have to put ourselves on the island with a soccer ball. And we need to just be there for ourselves. That's the very first step. And that's not the step that people want to hear. Every time I say that, everybody's like, Yes, but what else? Well, yes, but what else? There's nothing else. We got to start here. And we need to get done with this, then come back, and then we're ready for the next step.

Mary: 42:14

What came together for me as you were talking is we have often this role as the uh the pleaser, right? As women, we please, tell me what to do to earn worth. So interesting that when now, this is my perception, when you're a bodybuilder, there's a lot of things that you have to do, and there's a lot of things that you have to not do, right? You had a plan, you knew exactly what was expected to earn the thing. And I think that's a lot of times, and not discounting the the people that this works for, but when you're counting calories, you're in those programs where it's all a scorecard, I feel like that might get you to the weight you want. But internally, I think that's where we find health and not just our physical body, but being able to think about. So if you're a binger, what is happening there? You know, the person that I talked about that goes through the drive-thru at 10 p.m., there was so much lost with that person, internally, very lost. And I think if you can, and I don't want to, again, I do not want to simplify this journey for people, but I think when you can sort of stand for a minute and say, I am craving three chocolate cupcakes right now. Wait a minute, like what is that about? What are you really craving? And I think that's the come when you talk about coming home to yourself, it also brings in intuition because I think instinctively we know what we need to feel good. We don't, we just don't do it because of whatever it makes it makes it's a high to eat three chocolate cupcakes, right? If you're feeling depressed, you get that instant high, the chocolate high. So that idea of mindset and being truly in your body and accepting it where you're starting, I think that is a very powerful part of this.

Tara: 44:14

It sounds like it is, it brings so much awareness in. Because, like going back to the cupcakes, it's all about the purpose. Like, what's the purpose of it? If we can understand the purpose of eating that, like go ahead and eat it, but just tell me what the purpose of it is. And if the purpose of it is, is to try to numb your emotions, is that going to actually is that going to accomplish it? The answer is no. The answer is no. And so then when we say, What's the purpose of eating that? Well, I want to numb the sadness that I feel. Okay, so eat those three cupcakes. And when you're done, is the sadness going to be gone? No. So do you really still want those cupcakes? No. Why don't you want those cupcakes? Well, because I want the sadness to be gone. And now I know that that's not going to get rid of my sadness. So then what is it that you actually want that feels harder to obtain than the three chocolate cupcakes? So when we start going there, it really gives us that ability to start gaining that awareness of what is happening internally. We start to go into our parts. Gab Gabby Bernstein talks about this, and she uses the internal family systems and she really works hard in the parts. And so I've used that for myself. I've also integrated it in different ways in my program because it we start to come home to ourselves and we really start to understand what's going on and what are the emotions, like who's really in here talking? And we listen to ourselves rather than what our husband says or what our children say or anybody else. We actually start to hear ourselves and then we start to understand what we're really needing, other than the three cupcakes. But for years, that's all we had available to ourselves. That was a quick and easy because I am the uh carpooler for my children, I'm the lunchmaker, I'm the house cleaner, I'm the worker, I'm the billpayer, I'm the grocery shopper, I don't have time for all this other riff-raff. Just give me the damn cupcake, and then I can just be happy for a second. That's how we've learned to operate. Now we're shifting out of that identity that has expired, and we're really starting to come home and become aware of what we truly need.

Mary: 46:20

Because when you have the three cupcakes to try to placate the sadness, then you end up with guilt and shame. So then, you know, it's then the cycle. And, you know, one of the things that that I always correct my clients when they say I was bad today, and they mean that because they ate something. First of all, I'm gonna eat a chocolate cupcake. Not gonna lie, I'm gonna eat the cupcake. So I think it's really you make the perfect point that it's what is the purpose of the cupcake? Is it because it's somebody's birthday? Is it because you really just want to take a minute and savor that chocolate icing? Or is it that deeper thing? And I think if we can start with after you eat, if you have a sense of shame and you have a sense of guilt, or why did I do that? Then it's time to take a pause, right?

Tara: 47:10

And look back at where did that urge start? I agree. And the other thing that is coming to me that I feel is important to share here, one of the exercises I do with my women in my other program, that's weight loss program, is I have them eat with their eyes closed. Like they put a bandana on and they eat and they, it's like you're present with it. And that really helps you savor it and you feel these emotions and your body speaks to you. And so it's different if it's salty. I have them try something salty. I have them try just bland water, I have them do sugar. If they like the hot, the the spicy, I have them try that. And I let their body speak to them because then they're they're getting this just the essences of what the body is saying to them as they're eating that, and it gives them a whole different look of what it's like to eat things versus just grabbing to fill a void. So I don't know, I went off on a tangent, but I felt like that needed to be said because I think that's a fun exercise to do, to be honest. But again, back to that purpose. It's really truly the purpose of it around why we're eating it. And I think two, you know, when I I want to say bad, there's no such thing as bad food. There really isn't. A Snicker bar is not bad. It is not bad. And there is truth that you can eat too much broccoli. I mean, there is truth that you could eat the cleanest, and I did that. I ate the cleanest intake, nutritional intake possible. It was the healthiest. I could still gain weight on that because my body's total daily energy expenditure was being surpassed by how much I was eating of healthy food. I can still gain food or gain weight there because the calories in are more than the calories out. There is no good or bad food. And sometimes that Snickers bar or that chocolate cupcake or whatever it is, it does serve a purpose. And it should come in just because you want to enjoy it, not because you're upset, not because you're sad, not because you're lonely. It should just be like, you know what? I feel like I want a freaking cupcake today. So I'm eating the damn cupcake. That should be why we eat the cupcake.

Mary: 49:32

Yeah. And we can acknowledge that wasn't the healthiest choice, but that's done. That's we're doing it with awareness. Instead of saying I was bad, I made a choice that I can't make every day because that wouldn't be healthy, but for now it's fine. So it really is, I think, the language we use. Um yeah. So wow, I can't believe like we already hit an hour. So um I want to try to wrap this up a little bit. You've shared so much. So if again, there's somebody listening, and this has been a lot because we've talked about losing weight, we've talked about mindset, we've talked about if there's one simple thing that you would say, start here. Someone has struggled to lose weight, or and and wrapped in that is this idea of I don't have worth because of what I look like. What would be one way or one simple thing just to start with? Because it can be overwhelming to think about you want to you want to lose X weight. That that can be a really tough goal. So, what's one little thing they could start with?

Tara: 50:39

The very first thing, I have so many things that are coming at me that I just want to put out there. The very first thing that is a small start is again, I think coming home to really ask yourself, why do you want to lose the weight? And it has to be about you. It has to be really important for you to understand the importance of it. And I want you to do the seven levels deep exercise. So why is it important for you to lose weight? It's important for me to lose weight so that I feel better about myself. Why is it important for you to feel better about yourself? It's important for me to feel better about myself so that I have more confidence. Why is it important for you to have more confidence? It's important for me to have more confidence because then I will go out and live life more. Why is it important for you to live life more? It's important for me to live life more because right now I feel like my life is stagnant. Why is it important for your life not to be stagnant? Because I'm afraid that I am going to live my life unhappy and I don't want that. Why is it important for you not to live your life unhappy? Because I don't want to grow up and live the life that my mom lived. I want to have more and do more. And that's when you know that you hit that, because you got to that moment of tears where it brings you into that deepest depth of knowing that is why you want to lose weight.

Mary: 51:49

Yeah.

Tara: 51:50

That's where I want you to start. And you know, sometimes it takes more than seven questions. I've used this with clients to help them to stop addictions, whatever the addiction was, not just food. It could be tobacco, it could be there were different addictions that different women have struggled with. I've used this exercise and it has helped them really get to the heart of why it's important for them. And that's where they begin to choose themselves. The very next thing that's easy that I'm going to say is start increasing your water intake. I need to ask you to drink at least four liters, one gallon of water every day. And if you drink more than that, that's fine within a reason. You can drink too much water. Do not flush your body of salt. But that four to five liters a day, working up to it, is a really great place to start. And water is so important for more than just weight loss. It's for your organs, it's for your brain, it's for your mental health, your hair, your skin, everything. Water is the absolutely most important thing that we can give to our body. Just like your vehicle cannot operate without oil, our body does not operate well without water. So those are the two things that I'm going to say are absolutely non-negotiable. And when you start to give your body and your brain the water, things, your palate starts to change, things start to shift, and you start to have this desire of wanting to do differently for yourself, especially when you have that deep, deep knowing of why it's important for you to start losing weight.

Mary: 53:20

Those are excellent because we're getting to the mindset and we're getting to something practical physiologically that we can do. And I love pulling that thread, that thread of the why, because it is, there's always something way down in there that it is coming from. And I think even as you were talking about that, I could feel that emotion of the next thing and the next thing. And I think you're right. When you start to feel your eyes prickle with tears or like your heart feels a certain way, it's like, okay, I just got there. And that insight is a great, a great way to like fuel that, fuel that goal and that next step. Absolutely. Thank you. Cool. Okay, so tell us a little bit about more about what you do and where people can find you, and then I'll link all of it in the show notes.

Tara: 54:13

Thank you. So as Mary mentioned at the start of this interview, I'm an intuitive healer and motivational speaker. And so what I do in my work is actually help women come home to their most authentic self so that they can love themselves unapologetically and live the life that they desire to live. And doing that requires us to actually heal. We have to do deep inner healing within ourselves. And when I say healing, it's actually going into our four bodies, our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual bodies. And it's releasing out limiting beliefs, negative emotions, energetic blocks, imprints, discarnate energy, stagnant energy, things that have happened from childhood traumas. And if you believe in past life and things being passed down generationally, we're also going into that level of depth to actually heal and release out things that are truly blocks, things that are pulling you out of alignment with your authenticity and not allowing you to show up as yourself. Again, masks or these beliefs that you live behind. So I work really, really diligently and with my women to help them shift out of that. I have what is called a bitchin' framework. And I will, as the eyebrow brows raise, it's B-T-C-H-Y-N and is an acronym for my business be the change you need. And so it really is a bitch in movement because in phase one, we unravel. And in the unraveling, I take women through the unbecoming, shifting out of those outdated identities. We have to unbecome who we've always been in order to become who we desire to be. And until we release these versions of ourselves that no longer serve us, we're going to remain rooted in operating from that identity, those identities. And so they're always going to be a block from letting us get to the other side and be that higher version. The second phase is where we actually go into an upgrade. Once we've cleaned your slate and it's a cleared piece of glass, we're now going to start integrating in what is very important for you in order for you to step into your authenticity. And where you can find me is on Instagram, Tara.wisco. It's very important that I say that because there is an outdated version of me on TaraWisco.

Mary: 56:31

And so it's not ironic.

Tara: 56:35

She's very confused. So come to Tara.wisco on Instagram. I'm on Facebook. I'm also on TikTok and my website, terra-whisco.com, is where you can find a lot of information. Awesome.

Mary: 56:51

And again, it will all be in the show notes. So thank you for such an honest and inspiring conversation. I have loved this.

Tara: 56:59

Oh my gosh, you are so welcome. Thank you as well. It just flew by. I am just blown that it's already over.

Mary: 57:06

It did. And I'm going to edit this out because you guys won't know, but my cat had to leave the room during this. So we had to take a break so I could let the freaking cat out of the room. Okay. So I want to thank everyone for listening. If you enjoyed this discussion, I would love if you would take a minute to scroll down on your app and leave a rating or a review. And until next time, go out into the world and be the amazing, resilient, vibrant violet that you are.