This week I’m chatting with Coach Kiah, a life coach who has lost over 100 pounds after learning the right mental tools to find self-love and take control over her thoughts. She now helps others on their own journeys to health and happiness by teaching them those same tools to cut through the negativity and create a life of joy and happiness from the inside out. We talk about her journey and the importance of cultivating the right mindset for success.
Highlights:
To learn more about Coach Kiah, visit her website or check out her podcast, Climbing with Coach Kiah.
Follow Coach Kiah on social media: Facebook and Instagram.
My new book Hungry for More: Stories and Science to Inspire Weight Loss From The Inside Out is now available! If you’d like a hardcover, personalized, autographed copy with free shipping, use the code freeship at hungryformore.net.
Check out the new 30-Day Journaling Mini-Course.
Find more inspiration, join my newsletter, or see my curated collection of supplements and protein bars at dradrienneyoudim.com.
Don’t forget to follow Dehl Nutrition on Instagram and Facebook!
Connect with Dr. Adrienne Youdim
3 Ways to Get More From Adrienne
1. Subscribe to our Newsletter. Subscribe Now and get the 5 Bites to Fasttrack your Health and Wellbeing https://dradrienneyoudim.com/newsletter/
2. Buy the Book. The current weightloss strategies have failed you. Its time to address your true hunger. Purchase 'Hungry for More' https://www.amazon.com/Hungry-More-Stories-Science-Inspire/dp/0578875632
3. Leave us a Rating and Review via Apple Podcast. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/health-bite/id1504295718
This week I’m chatting with Coach Kiah, a life coach who has lost over 100 pounds after learning the right mental tools to find self-love and take control over her thoughts. She now helps others on their own journeys to health and happiness by teaching them those same tools to cut through the negativity and create a life of joy and happiness from the inside out. We talk about her journey and the importance of cultivating the right mindset for success.
Highlights:
To learn more about Coach Kiah, visit her website or check out her podcast, Climbing with Coach Kiah.
Follow Coach Kiah on social media: Facebook and Instagram.
My new book Hungry for More: Stories and Science to Inspire Weight Loss From The Inside Out is now available! If you’d like a hardcover, personalized, autographed copy with free shipping, use the code freeship at hungryformore.net.
Check out the new 30-Day Journaling Mini-Course.
Find more inspiration, join my newsletter, or see my curated collection of supplements and protein bars at dradrienneyoudim.com.
Don’t forget to follow Dehl Nutrition on Instagram and Facebook!
Connect with Dr. Adrienne Youdim
3 Ways to Get More From Adrienne
1. Subscribe to our Newsletter. Subscribe Now and get the 5 Bites to Fasttrack your Health and Wellbeing https://dradrienneyoudim.com/newsletter/
2. Buy the Book. The current weightloss strategies have failed you. Its time to address your true hunger. Purchase 'Hungry for More' https://www.amazon.com/Hungry-More-Stories-Science-Inspire/dp/0578875632
3. Leave us a Rating and Review via Apple Podcast. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/health-bite/id1504295718
Coach Kiah and I, Dr. Adrienne Youdim, decided to do a joint podcast. We're doing something kind of new and a little different. We are going to take turns interviewing each other in a new style of podcast. I'll start by sharing that I first heard about Kiah, a little over a year ago, there was a feature of her in People Magazine. I was super intrigued by her journey and her story of having lost over 100 pounds and using that information to inspire others. Of course, as an internist who specializes in weight loss, who does this as her life's work. Someone who also has had her own journey, I was super excited to hear more about how this even happened. Coach Kiah, kindly tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started in this process.
Coach Kiah: I am someone who has struggled with my weight. For most of my life, ever since I was a really, really little girl. Both of my parents also struggle with their weight as well. My grandparents and my parents, hearing talk about diet and weight loss was a conversation that was always happening in my house and I think that that's not unique to me. I think that that's very similar for a lot of other people.
My struggle with my weight began early on, and especially my struggle with body image. I think the youngest I can remember going on a diet was when I was maybe 10 years old, perhaps even a little bit younger. I went on the Atkins diet with my parents, and it really is what started this long-term yo-yo dieting cycle for me. I'd get to a point where I hated my body enough that I would be inspired or motivated to start this new diet program or weight loss program. I'd start really strong, I go for a little while, maybe I'd see some results. Then once I lost enough weight, I'd be ready to go back to quote-unquote, normal again. The cycle would continue to repeat. I would shame myself and shame my body. I go on a diet then eventually mess up on my diet. I shame myself for messing up and console myself with food. I gained the weight back, and I'm ashamed to go on the diet. It became this vicious cycle for a really long time. I struggled all the way through elementary school, through college, and through my young professional career.
It wasn't until I had read this book that it was kind of like a wake-up call to me at a time when I was finally ready to receive the message back in. I guess it was August of 2018 that I had read this book that just kind of hit me that I wasn't taking ownership of my life. I was really playing victim in my life in a big way. I was playing victim to my genetics telling myself that I could never get healthy because I was predisposed to be this way. I played victim to my job thinking I didn't have the time or money to invest in all these fancy weight loss programs. I blamed my partner saying that if he wasn't going to hop on the dieting bandwagon with me that I couldn't get healthy. I kind of had this “aha” moment of the fact that I was giving away all of my power to everyone and everything outside of me making all of these excuses instead of taking ownership of my own choices.
What I came to realize was that every other time I had approached weight loss in the past, it was always fueled from this place of self-hate and judgment thinking I will love myself once I lose weight. I will finally be happy once I lose weight. On the other side of this is where everything is that I want. What I realized was that so many of the things I was hungry for were stuff that was already available to me because so many of the things that It was really stopping me from creating that healthy life. I wanted to be honest, Adrianne, I knew at least at some basic level. I knew how to eat healthy and I knew how to move my body. I just wasn't doing it and me not showing up for myself was more of a mental block than it was not actually having the resources or information. I needed to honor my body well, and I realized the biggest piece I was missing was really that self-love and acceptance.
While my story many people think is a weight loss story, I think it's really more of a mindset transformation story that weight loss happened to be a result. Really focusing on doing that inner work, healing my relationship with myself and focusing on small baby steps and small habits. Over time, in a year, I was able to lose over 100 pounds. And now in a wild turn of events, I have now become a life coach really helping other women all across the world, do this mindset healing work to create that healthy life that they're hungry for as well.
Dr Adrienne Youdim: I mean, I love that story. I've heard it three times now. Every time I'm like, fascinated and intrigued, and there's so many pieces of that, that I want to touch on and not lose. First and foremost, is this concept of meeting yourself where you're at with kindness and self-compassion, and yet taking ownership and not feeling victimized. I feel like sometimes holding those two things in hand is difficult to reconcile. When I tell my patients that you have to meet yourself, where you're at with self-compassion, the immediate response most of the time is, you know, if I don't bully myself, I'll never change. You know, Bernie Brown always says that you can't bully yourself into change. That's the darn truth, right? At the other end might be the idea or the concept of if you're being self-compassionate, then you're being Lexa Daesil. That's not what that means either, right? It does mean taking ownership, but self-compassion is giving yourself what you need with kindness, right? Even if that thing is difficult, and God knows, anyone who has gone through this process. Whether they had to lose 25 pounds of baby weight, or 100 pounds, or even five pounds, quite frankly, knows that it's hard work, right? It is hard work!
Coach Kiah: Yeah, absolutely! I think for me, I used to tell myself, the hard part was changing my nutrition and changing my exercise, which sure changing your habits is hard work. What I discovered was that the mindset work was the hardest work because it's a lot of unlearning and uncovering stories that I had told myself and believed for so long. That felt true, simply because I had believed them for so long. I'm doing an unlearning of those things and those lies I believed for decades, and that I think is some of the hardest work. I think recognizing that this is a never-ending journey, right? I might have lost 100 pounds, I might have really made a lot of progress. But this health journey, the self-love journey, it's an ongoing thing. And in order to keep a relationship strong, you have to continue to work at it, including the relationship you have with yourself.
Dr Adrienne Youdim: I think it reminds me of a line that I wrote in the book Hungry for More, in which I was describing a patient I called Craig. I said that nobody loses 60 pounds to the sound of blaring trumpets and confetti, right? You never like to do the work and then throw your legs up and be like, bhaam, I'm done. It is an ongoing process.
I think the other point that came out and what you said was this concept of it not being punishment, right? I think sometimes when we get into this process where it starts from something negative, self-deprecating, and hateful. Like I'll show you kind of a place then you necessarily associate all of those things that you're doing for yourself in a negative way. Instead of perceiving it as a choice, like, I have the choice to care for my body. I have the choice to take the time to prepare, cook, and obtain nourishing foods. I have the choice to take the time off to move my body. It's all seen in the light of punishment when you talk to people. The truth is eating a salad is refreshing, and I'm not saying you should just eat salads, you know that? But that's a misnomer, of course. The point is like going out and doing an activity. It's always a hurdle to get going. Most times people feel good on some level afterwards. So if we can align with that goodness, you know, that choice and how it feels to do something right for ourselves. Then you walk out of that self-limiting belief that it's punishing, or depriving, or restricting, or whatever it is, whatever terms we use to describe that.
Coach Kiah: Yeah, and I think that is really being mindful of the language. The way that we speak about it to ourselves can be really impactful. Instead of saying something like, I have to eat a salad tonight, because I have to be healthy. Or I have to go for a run tonight. Flipping that on its head and saying, I don't have to do anything. I'm a grown-ass woman. I can sit right here on the couch and eat an entire pizza if I want to. But I get to honor my body with the nourishment that it needs tonight. I'm going to make an empowered choice to have a well balanced meal that includes a salad, and I don't have to go for a run. But I am going to choose like you said, that empowered choice. I'm going to choose to go for a ride because I know how great my body feels afterwards. I think even just changing the language and the way that we think about it can be so empowering with our approach and the way that it feels. I also think that it's so crucial when it comes to creating and establishing these habits for our health to find a way to enjoy the process.
If it feels like a punishment, then you're going to quit, no one wants to sign themselves up for a lifelong punishment. But if we can create a lifestyle that allows us to actually enjoy the process, I think it makes all the difference. I think that meeting yourself, where you're at, especially at the beginning, is going to be so paramount to that. Like if you are someone who eats a box of cookies every night, and you're the expert here. But in my opinion, if you're someone that eats a bunch of cookies every night, don't remove all the cookies immediately from the get-go. If you like cookies, let's find a way to enjoy them in a more healthy way, you know. If there are things in your life that you enjoy, let's find a way to make them fit into a process that doesn't feel restrictive, or like punishment.
The other thing is, if you hate running, find a different way to honor your body with movement. It doesn't feel punishing if you really enjoy swimming instead, then swim. If that's how you like to honor your body with movement, I think finding a way to find joy in the process and make it a process that is enjoyable, can make a huge difference.
Dr Adrienne Youdim: As you were starting to talk, I was thinking to myself, if I were in a position where, let's say I had 10 pounds to lose before COVID happened, right? Then in the pandemic I gained another 10 to 20 pounds. Now I'm 30 pounds from where I want to be is something that I hear my patients say all the time, and now that number is so insurmountable.
The feeling of shame and discomfort around that is so strong. I can imagine some people like rolling their eyes back and being like, “how does that even happen?” “ How is that even possible?” That's why I want to circle back to what you said. It's so important how you start at the beginning and then go back to something you said before.
I think what people don't realize is that, people who haven't done the mindset work, the thought is not of their creation or volition, right? People over-identify with their thoughts. It was a major aha moment. For me personally, the first time somebody said to me, you don't have to believe your thoughts. I was like, well, what do you even mean? Like, if I'm thinking it, it's got to be true. So I think the very first point is to just understand and know that we have 60 to 70,000 thoughts per day. That's a known fact and that research has shown that 70% of those thoughts are negative. So whether you are the President of the United States, a coach or a doctor, a fashion model on the runway, that is a fact. Or like a regular Joe out there doing good hard work, everybody has these negative thoughts, right? So keeping them in check is really important in terms of how you feel about yourself. How you feel about yourself is really important in terms of your volition to do the work, and to see joy in doing the work. What she said in the first part is just understanding and identifying those thoughts. Creating like space between you and it's not over-identifying with that thought.
Coach Kiah: Yes, and that was a big revelation for me too. In this process, I don't have to believe every single thought that pops through my head. It seems so simple, but it changes everything. I like to think that our brain is like a mind garden. Every thought kind of represents a plant, and some of the plants are flowers, some of them are weeds. I think part of it is just being able to have the awareness to know the difference and recognize the one we don't want to give our energy to. We don't have to water the weeds, right? We can notice them, we can pluck them, then we can focus on the flowers. We don't have to give our time and energy to the weeds because the more that we do, the more energy we give those thoughts that are just optional thoughts. To believe those negative thoughts, the stronger and bigger they will grow and I think that that was really empowering to me to think. I can just observe them without having to give them any weight or energy.
I think that the big thing that I always bring up with my community, is I talk to them about compassionate curiosity. How can we, instead of looking at these thoughts, “are these my thoughts?” “ Are these my beliefs?” How can we look at our thoughts with compassionate curiosity? Like instead of saying, “Oh, my gosh, I can't believe it!” I’m thinking that I'm more like, “Oh, that's interesting that popped into my mind. I wonder where that came from.” I think it's important to recognize that the thoughts that are in our head, sometimes aren't even our own. Sometimes they're the thoughts that other people have put there that we've just been conditioned to think throughout our day. It is like removing ourselves and creating that space. Actually it’s like reading one of the chapters that you talked about one of your clients in your book. I loved it, learning the ability to sit back as an observer of your own thoughts can be so powerful.
Dr Adrienne Youdim: Talk about what book you're referencing, for those of you who don't know, the book is Hungry for More, stories in science to inspire weight loss from the inside and out. This is a book that I wrote based on 15 years of patient stories. It became apparent to me and you, that there are so many emotional and spiritual hungers that come up on the surface.
There's this desire to lose weight, like during the pandemic I've gained 20 pounds, get it off, done. But we realize that underlying that, what we think is a physiologic hunger or a hunger for food, there's an emotional hunger. Being the recipient of so many years of patient stories and seeing that there's such a threat, these stories come up over and over and over again. Not only did I see the thread between patients, but even I could relate. Not that I had 100 pounds that I've lost in the past, but I can still relate to you based on the common humanity piece.Those struggles, those challenges, those imposter syndrome, the negative thinking, they are universal. My hope and my wish with this book, is that it would take away some of the shame by just validating it through stories, and through science. All this stuff we're talking about in terms of meeting yourself where you're at, and having self-compassion at the beginning of the process is integral to habit change. And that's scientifically proven to.
Coach Kiah: I love what you shared about the common humanity piece. Your book was not what I expected in a really incredible way. The chapters are titled hungry for perfection, hungry for self-love, hungry for soothing, hungry for your routine, and it goes on and on and on. What I love so much about this is that you have really found a way to express this intersection between the head and the heart. Between the science of our physiological bodies, but also the mental health, peace, and how much they are interconnected. It is so powerful reading your stories of your clients. I hear myself and see myself in every single one of them. I think many of us struggle. I felt like this for a long time in my struggle. I felt so isolated and alone. For a long time I self-identified as I was the fat sister, I was the fat cousin, and I was the fat friend. I was the only one that got it. Nobody else understood how I was feeling.
What's so interesting now, for me in doing this work, is realizing that I am not alone. That these issues that we're dealing with aren't just reserved for people in fatter bodies. Whether you have five pounds to lose or 150 pounds to lose, the underlying issue that we're facing for a lot of us is so much the same. And now I have the opportunity to work with my own clients in my community. They are women of all sizes, shapes, and backgrounds. We are talking about the same things, and realizing so much of what we want in our life. It’s a feeling and we think that feeling comes on the other side of weight loss.So much of that healing needs to happen first in order for us to create the healthier body that we're after.
Dr Adrienne Youdim: The impetus for me to do when you're in the position that you do feel so alone. You don't recognize that everybody is experiencing almost the same thing. I've had people who are lean, and you would never know. Unfortunately, excess weight is something that you can identify with your eyes. You make assumptions about it. I see a skinny guy, and I'm like, maybe this book won't resonate. But to your point, these life lessons are things that everyone experiences, regardless. So I'm glad that that was the impact it had.
Coach Kiah: This is so powerful, and I can't wait to see the way this helps change people's lives in a big way. But I want to hear more about how you even got into this line of work. Like, tell me how you got here to this point where you're at this place to share these stories.
Dr Adrienne Youdim: I describe this in the book, it's like a very logistical story and then there's a backstory. I never intended to do kind of, quote, weight loss medicine or become a weight loss doctor. I actually was intending to do something totally different and decided to start a family, and so that took me into a different realm. I was looking to do something that was in medicine, but was kind of more preventive, more consultative, more interactive with people. I had started this program, and I was a medical director at this hospital. I was prescribing medications, and I was working with bariatric surgeons. I still prescribe medications, and I still refer for surgery when appropriate. So part of not shaming, people are allowed to utilize whatever tool and resource is available to get them to where they are. But while I was doing this stuff, the prescribing and whatever, in the back of my head I wanted to say, “can you quit that deadbeat job because that's killing you.” Like I could feel there is a hunger for autonomy or hunger to be valued. I wanted to tell people to get a divorce or go to counseling. Because they were in a relationship in which they still hunger to be seen.
These things were all popping in my mind. And meanwhile, I was experiencing my own hunger. I had my own hunger for autonomy, I had my own hunger from belonging, and I had my own hunger for creativity. I had all of these ideas that I wanted to share but I couldn't if I’m an employee. So I quit a very prestigious position.
I started seeing patients and I decided I was going to do things differently. I was just gonna sit and listen. And so I really just listened to stories. One repeat story, two repeats, that after the 10th and 20th time you get repetition of the same story, you're like, Okay, this is not just Adrian or Joe. This is a universal story. I really saw the patterns in people in terms of how I landed in weight loss. People used to always ask me this, and I was like, I don't know, but I kind of mean I had all of these reasons.I don't think I really did know, consciously, why I cared about this area so much. But of course, like 94% of women, I grew up with body image issues. And studies show that you don't actually have to be even overweight, which I was when I was a child. But you can even be underweight and have body image issues. So no one's immune from that.
Then reckoning with all the ways in which that manifested. The feeling that i’m not belong. I grew up in the Middle Eastern, United States in an immigrant family. But I was born as immigrants living in a white part of the country back in the 80s in Texas, and thinking that my belonging was dependent on my size or my body. These are just some of the examples that I experienced growing up.
Now having done this work, and especially having written the book where I really dig deep into my own stories. I can see how experiencing all these hunger myself, hunger for self-compassion, hunger for self-love and for perfection. All of these things did lead me to the work. And working through it led me to a place of understanding and meaning which is the last chapter of the book.
Coach Kiah: I love hearing your story because I think it's, it's so interesting looking back at what we experienced in our life, and hindsight is always 2020. Being able to see the way that all of those things happened for a reason. I think it's just so cool to be on the other side of a struggle or journey, and realize that all the things that we dealt with can now be our greatest strength. I feel that way and that's so true for me. I wouldn't wish my body image or weight struggles on anyone else. But now I can look back and see how that was the greatest gift because now I have this incredible opportunity to support other women that are walking through that same struggle too, and even hearing your story that sounds a lot the same. How your own body image struggles growing up now allows you this opportunity to serve women and men alike in this really incredible way. I just love hearing people's stories and how things just kind of fall in place like that.
Dr Adrienne Youdim: Hunger for belonging may not manifest as a weight issue or as a body image issue, but they are universal issues. I'm glad that you pose your comments the way you did because I know that your podcast is actionable and mine to health bite. Small bites towards actual steps towards well-being. I want to use that to shift right into, how do you use these experiences to make meaning? How do you put meaning to these negative experiences, because when we're in the thick of it, it just sucks period? It's really hard, like you said, it might be in hindsight, it's very difficult at the moment.
I'm going to share what you know, some of the strategies that I think have been helpful and what I will even prescribe. Also because you've done the heavy lifting in this work personally, I think it would be very valuable for you to share its practicality. Like, how do you get started in this process? So I will say that a practice that I have engaged in since I was six years old, was journaling. I have journals dated back to the mid 80s, early 80s. And they were things like, capturing Mary Lou Retton winning the gold medal, or the Space Shuttle Challenger blowing up.
Sometimes we think that journaling is just writing the events in your day. That's actually very effective because that’s what I call data dump helps clear the mind of ruminations.Those ruminations and difficult emotions actually do promote hunger in terms of changing hunger hormones.That's something that I do want to get across to your audience.That emotional eating is not just a character flaw, it's physiologic. Science shows that when you are stressed, or have difficult emotions, it hijacks hunger hormones so that you feel more hungry.
The first benefit, I think of journaling in this context, is having an outlet to dump. To be able to relay all of the things so that you're not reliving that conversation over and over again. You can just put it somewhere and let it go. But the second part of journaling that I think is really important is really the introspective piece. This ties back to what you said at the beginning, not just hating on yourself for having a thought, but wondering, ”where did this come from?” Who said this?, or “whose words are this, it doesn't seem like mine?” I always tell people, if you wouldn't say this thing to your best friend, then it's not your words. You shouldn't be saying it to yourself. It's coming from another place. The other part of that is being introspective in terms of what those emotions are telling you. Almost exclusively with women, we feel like we can't be angry or we shouldn't be angry. And then if we're angry, we're the B-word. But that anger is telling you something, and what is it telling you? Using the journaling activity to just explore compassionate curiosity right. To explore what those feelings are, does help you figure out why I lost my job. I'm so angry, now I'm gaining weight. How do you make meaning out of that in writing will give you the pathway.
And so to that end, I know I'd share this with you. I actually am working on some steps next for Hungry for More, because people have been inquiring and saying that they are hungry for more stuff, which is exciting. One of those things is, how to be actionable. So I am putting together a 30-day journaling activity so that people have daily prompts to consider. These are prompts that I've used myself for introspection and that I prescribed. So I'll prescribe medications. I don't feel bad about that, using that tool, but I'll also prescribe journal prompts. That's been very effective and helpful for me. I wonder what practical steps you can provide or you have to offer that were helpful for you.?
Coach Kiah: I'm really glad that you have the journaling piece, because I hate not to have another outlet. I just want to echo the power of journaling. I love that you also have the science behind it to back it up, because all I know is that it worked for me. I liked the idea of journaling even when I was younger. I bought really cute journals, and I'd write in them for a day and then I'd forget they were there. Then I come back to them in a year and write for a day. This lasted from quite some time when I started my health journey. It doesn't sound appealing to everyone, which I get, because I was like that too, saying “oh great, another chore.”
What made me start my journaling practice was with gratitude journaling. It was simple as I would write the date, then I would write five bullet points. I just wrote five things from that day that I was grateful for, and that was it. That was the only way that I started journaling. That was kind of my gateway into journaling. As I got really consistent with that, I was like, okay, it actually feels really good to do this. Then I started doing more of that introspective journaling like you mentioned. It has been one of the most powerful tools of my life. Now that's how I begin pretty much every piece of my morning.
I also want to speak about gratitude. For me, a lot of my journey was changing the conversations I'd have with myself to rebuild my relationship. I think a good place to start to shift from that place of self-judgment and hate is to really learn how to beat yourself in gratitude. Even if you're at a place where you don't. Like if you're not ready to love your body yet, and I know that some of us aren't there. If anything, let's try to be neutral with our bodies. How you are right now, whatever you look like without losing a single pound, I know there are things that you have to be grateful for in your life. If we can begin by rooting ourselves there, that was really wildly powerful for me in my mindset healing journey. So I think that's a really good place to start, if you want to explore the journaling piece.
Journaling is also really helpful to create that space between ourselves and our thoughts, kind of like you mentioned earlier. Being able to take what you're thinking and put it on paper, and just really dumping it onto the paper. Whatever is on your head or heart just throws it on the page, without any judgment and without any filtering. Having those thoughts literally on the page right in front of you will be able to create that space. Look at them from that place of compassion and curiosity to say, “What am I thinking? Do I like thinking those thoughts? How are those making me feel? Is it true? Where did this come from?” It allows you to look at it as an observer. Almost like being a third-party person looking at your own brain and that can be so powerful. A place to process however you're feeling in a really healthy way. It can be things you're struggling with. But it's also a great place to celebrate, too. Like sometimes my journal is about me having the best day or something that I'm really excited about. That's really reinforcing and powerful too. Or sometimes it's like I'm having a crappy day. This is why it's a safe space for me to process and learn how to really take those emotions that I used to numb away from with food like anger, sadness, and all those unpleasant emotions. Now all of a sudden, I have this new tool in my back pocket, my journal. I can now process them instead of feeling the need to avoid them by scarfing down a bunch of Oreos.
Dr Adrienne Youdim: There's a couple things. One is that the gratitude piece that made me think of what you’ve said earlier about the flowers. One of the aspects of gratitude journaling is that you're cultivating those positive thoughts. So, to your point, even if at the beginning, it doesn't feel right, or It feels weird, or you don't quite know what to say. You can say very easy things like hey, I woke up this morning, and that's a big deal, right? I mean, that's a big deal, given what we're experiencing right now. And the fact that a lot of people, unfortunately, have gone through so much loss. The point being that you can cultivate those flowers in mind.
I also wanted to offer something else. I will recommend people to say they're graduates of courses, and celebrate your wins. I asked people to write five prouds. That's also evidence base that if you can recognize or acknowledge the good things, then you're more apt or more likely to do it. Just think about not comparing us as humans to dogs, but think about your dog or your child. They do something good and you're like, good girl, Sammy, that's my little doggy. The dog is more likely to do it. On some level, we're the same way. So when we celebrate our wins, we are better able to continue doing those things. We're more motivated to do those things.
Then the other thing I recommend is five forgives. That speaks to the self-compassion piece. I think again, the term self-compassion, even for me, you know, sometimes I feel kind of gooey, gooey, like talking about it, you know, feels weird to say self-compassion, it makes sense to say compassion towards others. But one way to kind of get around that is just five forgives. Five things that you wished he had gone differently, or you had done differently. Now you're going to write it down, and you're going to let it go. And I think that it is kind of a backdoor way to offer yourself self-compassion.
Coach Kiah: I think it's really important to recognize that when we do things imperfectly. When we show up perfectly, then we make mistakes. When we fail, we do find ourselves thinking those negative thoughts that we're trying not to think anymore. It doesn't make us bad, wrong or broken. But it makes us human, and I like to think about it. Like if you were talking to your very best friend, someone you love, like you mentioned this earlier. If you wouldn't say it to a friend, don't say it to yourself, I think that's a great mark. Like if your friend came to you, and they had messed up, or had a really bad day, or really struggling, would you tell them, “well, you suck” “this is just another reason why you should give up”. No, of course, you wouldn't say that. So how can we change that narrative when it comes to ourselves? How can we be kind and encouraging and compassionate and saying, “Okay, maybe I didn't show up today. The way I wanted to. Maybe everything didn't go as planned. But this is what I learned from that, and this is how I'm going to show up tomorrow.” And just keep going.
Dr Adrienne Youdim: I think you and I probably, there's a lot more tools that we have that we could pull out of our toolbox. I think to the point of where we started this whole conversation, which is not so much about the macros, and how much protein to consume, and whether or not you should eat your veggies, and or move your body. I think we all know that. But I think what you have found in your work, and what I have found in my work, isn't the missing piece. Often is that mindset diet, positive self-acceptance, self-compassion, and peace.
I think to that end, you know, what a great strategy to get started. People don't know how to even approach this as a journal. Getting a journal doesn't have to be fancy, but something that you enjoy writing in and commit to something whether it's like you said, the five gratitudes, or maybe five wins, or maybe five crowds, five forgives, right? Or just a safe place to dump your thoughts. Maybe that's the one actionable bite that we can give people to take home is a journaling practice. And I'm going to have you offer where people can find you if they want to learn more about what you're doing.