Personal Training, Self-Sabotage & The Psychology of Transformation

I started working with a personal trainer today.

But very quickly, I realised this wasn’t really about fitness.

It was about identity.
Self-trust.
Discomfort.
And the hidden negotiations that happen inside all of us when we begin stepping into a new level of life.

In this episode, I explore:

• hidden agreements
• nervous system conditioning
• why we self-sabotage
• the psychology of change
• cognitive dissonance
• neuroplasticity
• and the deeper soul-led pull toward growth and expansion

Because most people do not fail because they lack information.

They struggle because their identity, conditioning, and subconscious programming cannot yet hold the life they say they want.

This is a grounded conversation around transformation, embodiment, psychology, and becoming the version of yourself capable of holding more.

Join the Decision Activator:
https://melissa-amos.com/the-success-codes-decision-activator/ 

Memoirs of a Mystic In Training, by Melissa Amos is available on Amazon

Learn more about Melissa by visiting her website melissa-amos.com and download a free hypnotherapeutic series, Intuition Rewired. 

Follow her @themelissaamos across the platforms 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Mystic in Training Podcast with me, your host, Melissa Amos. I did something very dramatic today. Are you ready? I have started working with a personal trainer. Now, this is not something that old me would have identified with. And I think it goes to show that I have managed to get to this stage of my life before I've actually invested and showed up and am now talking about my work with a personal trainer. So when I invested, what was I thinking? Well, first of all, I was like, why would I not be, after spending so long devoted to my body and really changing the way that I'm showing up in my body, why would I not be working with somebody who has dedicated her life into understanding the inner working? She works with women over 40, she understands the nutrition, like way beyond what I know in my semi-limited access to health, nutrition, wellness, fitness. And so that's what I thought. I thought I will bring her on board. She can help me optimize what it is that I'm already doing, help me understand my body better, and essentially like give me a good hot bod. So I'm investing, I'm investing in a hot bod, right? As I showed up for the session this morning, I realized that actually there was a lot more going on there because it wasn't really fitness that I was buying. What I was really getting was guidance, of course, and optimization and accountability. But I was working with somebody so that I can stop avoiding discomfort, so that I don't negotiate with myself so much when I am at the gym going, right, what should I do? Because there's been a part of me, and maybe this is true for you as well, that when we think about training, when we think about bodies, when we think about doing crunches, it's like, oh my God, this is a punishment. In fact, somebody said that to me today, that they're pretty sure that personal trainers are sadists. And I think that we can hold this unconscious belief that discipline equals restriction. And as somebody who values freedom so much and intuition so much, you can see or feel that there's this disparity between, well, now I'm going to be disciplined, restricted, told what to do versus, yeah, I know what I'm doing. It's really interesting because all of those things showed up for me today. I've been practicing yoga for a long time and I realized more recently that um actually how strong that has made me. So when I showed up today for our preliminary session, I was I was being the good girl. I was showing up like, look how strong I am, look how much I can do, look how you know coordinated I am. I'm so good, right? Um, and there was a part of me that wanted to, I don't know, prove to her that I'm already strong, prove to her that I didn't need this, um, that I wasn't trying to change myself. It was really interesting. And yes, part of it was like because I am proud of myself of the work that I've done over the last few years, but when I was looking back, what was even more interesting is what came up for me was maybe I shouldn't have tried so hard. Maybe I shouldn't have shown her how strong I am. Maybe now she knows how strong I am. She's gonna work me even harder, and I don't want that. Like, come on, Melissa, you've invested in somebody so that you can have a more optimized body, right? And now there's a part of me who showed up in her fullness, well done me, and then got regretted it and thought maybe I should have been less keen. I remember back at school having this conversation, right? Who had the homework diary? And uh, you know, you'd start off, and the first week would just be so neat. And I remember one of my friends saying to me, No, you've got it all wrong. Like, start off like really messy, like you don't care, and then you'll improve, and then they'll be like, Oh, you've done a really good job. And I remember sitting there thinking, that is genius, she's so clever. Um, and maybe about half of me at that point went, Okay, this is good. Underestimate yourself so that you can see bigger improvements. Aren't we funny? Aren't we funny? But here I am with my personal trainer who I've paid good money for, who I'm investing my time in. And now I'm wondering actually, what does it take? Because I don't doubt that she has really good information. Um, she shared a lot of it with me today. I don't doubt that I have the physical capabilities to do it. Um, however, as showed up an hour after my session, it seems that there are still some self-limiting behaviors or self-limiting beliefs that if I don't look at them and I don't transmute them, transform them, update them is probably a better word, then they will end up sabotaging me way before I reach the burnout that I think hard work might lead to. So some of the things that have come up, and I think why I've not invested before, even today, was actually meant to be in three weeks' time because I heard myself going, oh well, this week's not a good week because the kids are off, and and then I've got this, and then she's away, and we'd arrange this for three weeks' time, but then something came over me a couple of days ago, and I was like, no, and like I need to do this now. Like, what on earth am I waiting for? And some of the things that were coming up were this discipline thing. I've always had a really weird relationship with discipline, it always feels like I'm in trouble. Um, I switched that with my body to devotion. And oh my god, I tell you the game changer of just changing that word of I'm devoted to my body rather than I'm disciplined, it made a massive difference. Some of my old beliefs that were coming up were around um not trusting myself to be in that consistency that I'll always quit at some point, that I'm actually quite lazy. That was something that was reflected back to me a lot as a child. I am somebody who definitely sees the path of least resistance. Apparently, that's one of my geniuses. But back then I've quite figured that it was because there was something wrong with me. Also, as I've shared before in many episodes, comfort has always been a really high value of mine. And something about working with a personal trainer and being told to do these very specific strength-gaining exercises in my brain goes, You are gonna be really uncomfortable. Which is why you'd have seen me on my story saying how how apprehensive I was about the session this morning. And so it got me thinking about the work that I've been doing around why will some people take this and what do I need to do? What do I need to become? Because most of us aren't failing because they lack information, especially nowadays. It's because what's happening is we are being driven by these unconscious agreements that are sitting underneath the system that's drivering and driving our behavior and filtering our experience. And what I'm really buying from my personal trainer is a new level of me, a new self-identity of me, as somebody who can hold this, as somebody who prioritizes this, as somebody who can stay consistent, who can be devoted, as well as having the skills that are gonna help me, because it collapses time. Whenever you invest in somebody who this is their life work, it collapses time into how much you don't know into how much you know. But nothing's gonna collapse the who am I now to who am I becoming if you don't do the work inside. So that is what I am currently going through. And I thought, wouldn't it be marvelous to bring this into the Mystic and Training podcast? Because then you can see what it feels like in real life to actually renegotiate with ourselves. We cannot create a different reality if we're working from the same operating system. What we so often do when we are moving into a new level of nutrition, into a new level of business, into a new relationship, and into a new whatever is we try to add on new habits based on an old identity. This can work for a little while, however, the brain will prefer familiar patterns rather than moving into the unknown. Because the brain prefers familiarity. Why? Because familiarity means that it's safe. It's like a it's like the hypothesis has been proved. I did this, I'm still alive, let's rinse and repeat. And so actually, the reason why when we're in this period of growth, that it can feel so uncomfortable and it can feel so scary, and it can feel so like I don't think I can do this, is because we're moving into something unfamiliar. Because the part of us that we are giving our authority to, the part of us that's driving us, is going, hey, hey guys, we don't know how to do this. I don't think this is safe. Let's feed her the line that discipline means that they're taking your freedom away. Then she'll listen. Let's tell her that remember that last time you went all in on the gym and then you couldn't walk the next day because you work too hard. Nobody wants that. Let's feed her the thousand stories of people who said, Oh, I injured myself whilst I was running. And the amount of times that I have replied back in all of my sarcasm, who said exercise was good for you? And guess whose brain took that on board and went, We will save that for when you try to go and improve your body, Melissa. It shows up. And so our psychology and our nervous system is going, whoop. Let's keep you safe, let's keep you familiar. That is more important than being fulfilled. My job now is to switch that. My job now is to change that. I've done that really well in my yoga practice. I remember the first few months still when I went, how it how it was a bit of a chore, how I was like, oh God, I'm gonna, once again, she's gonna get us to do this move that everyone in the class can do apart from me. But what I did then was I started anchoring how good I felt at the end of the class, how good I felt with even a minor improvement, how good I felt when I started to notice my body changing and my body aching less. And so I began to anchor through these new behaviors, and that began to then create more dissonance with who I knew myself to be. Because before I practiced yoga, my body ached a lot, my hips were hurting, my back was hurting, I was inflamed. And so I started to remember that actually this was uncomfortable and this is more uncomfortable, this is more comfortable. And so it helped me to step into this new level of identity. Who is it that I want to be? Do I want to be her who's sitting and moaning that she can't get up because she's been sitting down too long? Or does she want to be the one who can't get up because she got herself in a twist that might have been a bit too advanced for her? But you get what I mean, right? It's a path. And until we look and understand and recode what's going on underneath the surface, we're going to always go back into these old identities. It's not because there's anything wrong with you, not at all. It's because this is basic psychology. Your brain automates what it repeats, which means every time you are honoring a new standard, guess what? Your body's going, your brain's going, hey, we're in for something new. We're anchoring in this new identity. Literally every time I go and I sit on the mat, literally every time I open the app that my PT has now given me, and I go, right, I'm going to do this, it starts to rewire what it is that's going on underneath that's saying, hey, yes, this is important. And if I can get through those first few times where it feels unfamiliar, and and this is the key, this is the work that I have been doing in the background for a long time. I get more comfortable with the unfamiliar. Like that's the real change I've been making. That is really where I've been changing my capacity. How do I become more familiar with the unfamiliar? And that's a whole nother podcast. But you can see from the work that I'm doing here that there's steps that you can take in the moment from something as simple as starting a new relationship with a new coach. What I've also discovered is, you know, when you feel that sense of agitation, that sense of something needs to change here. And whether that is through your body, through your business, through your relationships, through anything really, it's this feeling that the familiar isn't enough anymore. Now, here's the here's the really exciting thing. Because what did I say? Our nervous system and our psychology are always like, let's keep things the same. And then sometimes something comes up and it goes, We need to make a radical change. Guess what voice that is? Guess where that's coming from? Because I think that real transformation, true transformation, that true alignment, not the I need to do this because I need to get abs because otherwise I'm gonna never be loved. I need to lose the weight, otherwise, you know, people are gonna judge me. I need to make the money, otherwise, I'm not gonna be able to live. I need to do this because I need to prove my status. That's your psychology talking, right? But when you're in that space of things are okay, maybe, but I want more, you can pretty much trust that that is coming from your soul. That is coming from the part of you that is so much more aligned to your expansion. Because where else has it been coming from? And what do I know? I know that my soul will never leave me wrong. How do I know that? I've proved it to myself time and time again. I started with little experiments and then I got them bigger, and then I got them even bigger. And now this is what I base my life on. Whether it is going and working with a personal trainer, which, as we're discussing, is so much more than me changing my body. I'm changing my habits, I'm changing my behavior, I'm changing my whole identity, I'm changing who I know myself to be. And I can't expect for my PT to do that for me. I have to do this, I have to do the inner work. If I'm serious about this, which I am because I've signed up for it, then I can't go back to my excuses because then what am I doing? I'm saying to myself, no, no, no, I know better than you. And that's not the life I chose to live. That's not the life that's got me here speaking to you right now. Because what I've seen is yes, we can hack the system, yes, we can recode, yes, we can we can work with all these incredible psychological tools, which I do and I love. But it's when we align them into our soul, when we align them into our growth and our evolution, which is the nature of the soul, this is where real change happens. Because now we're being powered not by fear, not by lack, not by misunderstanding, not by like all of these things, but we're powered by the eternal energy field. Nothing's gonna run out. And the stronger that our psychology is linked to the past, the stronger our psychology is linked to the smaller self-behaviors, the bigger the gap, the bigger the resistance, the bigger the growth. And we want to grow, right? At least a part of us does. And so our job becomes how do I become the person that can hold the level of growth that my soul has for me? Doesn't that reframe us from I need to be so disciplined because I've got this goal? What if I have the perfect body and the perfect circumstances and the perfect brain to be able to become the person that I'm meant to be? As a soul running through my body, not separate, not despite, not to punish myself, not because I did something bad in the past, but because I am constantly evolving and growing. And part of that challenge is how do I move through the restrictions of the past? This is where things get really interesting. This is where life really begins to widen. And yes, growth will feel like a loss before it feels like expansion because you are losing something. You're losing an old level of your identity, you're losing an old comfort. And so the sabotage comes in to protect ourselves, but it's not, it's protecting an old identity, and so the real change doesn't always come in. I'm gonna take the massive leap and do it. The real change comes in, I'm saying yes, I'm gonna do those extra reps, I'm gonna listen to what she says. I'm gonna open the app today, I'm gonna sit outside of my comfort, I'm gonna show that I don't know. I'm gonna be honest when things feel too hard or too easy for me. The real change comes in those micro decisions, in how true and honest I am in myself, and then realigning that into who am I becoming? And that journey is never gonna be easy. We can't just sit in our awareness with it. We need to become embodied, we need to do it, we need to take the action because it's when we take the action that the identity shifts. It's when we take the action that those neural pathways start to fire together. It's when we take the action that we get to the end of it and we go, hey, cool, look at that, I didn't die. We can do it again. It's when we take the action that the psychology goes, all right, it's cool. We're we're doing this every single day. Those small decisions, the moments where no one's watching us, the moments where we're either reinforcing the old identity or strengthening the new one. Growth isn't about becoming somebody else, it's about noticing the parts of you that are being loyal to something that doesn't serve you anymore, whilst choosing again and again and again this path of growth and expansion, the path of the soul. The part of you that knows that there's something more here and we're gonna be safe. And I think our job is to stop negotiating with it and start trusting it more. So I will see you on the next episode of the Mystic and Training podcast with abs and arms. I will see you next time.