Hi and welcome to the mindful shape podcast. I’m Paula Parker and I’m a weight and life coach. I help women learn the mindset and skillset they need to release extra weight and keep it off without having food drama.


For those of  you who aren't as familiar with coaching, the Basis of Coaching is learning how to manage our minds. So I’ve spent a small fortune over the last 15 years on different coaches and so I learned that I wasn’t my thoughts. You may have hear this common expression - you are not your thoughts. And in coaching we learn how to notice our thoughts, be curious about them and see that they aren’t always serving us. And honestly, I wasn’t all that great at doing this most of the time. And I dont’ think I’m alone in that, because so much of our thinking is coming from our brains wanting to be safe at all costs. So it’s constantly looking for danger I.E. negative thinking. Ever notice that? We have to really work with ourselves to not think the worst is going to happen or about ourselves. Self love seems to be a skill most of us need to relearn, not one that we’ve held on to since we were an infant and knew we were inherently loveable. My son Tristan is 4 and a half months old now, and I’m certain he knows how loveable he is.


So much of what we think about the world and about ourselves is based on how our nervous system is built and impacted by our experiences since birth, especially in those early childhood years. 


Not only that, so much of this is running like a program in the background without our awareness. We’ve had some of our thinking for so long that we just take it for granted as truth and until we have someone else point it out and help us question it, it’s the default setting for our lives.


So after years of coaching, conceptually I understood this all really well and maybe this isn’t new to you either, but what do we do with all this good info? How can we use it in a really practical way to change our lives? 


I’ve talked about the Mind Inquiry Model before on this podcast, but since working with it, I’ve totally expanded my usage of it and I think explaining it in a new in- depth way, using this really specific example of losing 10lbs, I’ll convince you to give it a try for yourself. Because remember, our brains are not designed to retain information they are designed to process information. Listening to this podcast without doing the work won’t do you much good. Be on to your brain that wants to conserve energy and NOT do the work. Because I promise you, this is the most effective tool I’ve found for managing my mind. And when we manage our mind, our brain is the best resource we have at our disposal for losing weight.  And I say this from experience because I went months and months knowing about the model but not doing the exercises. It’s no wonder to me now why I wasn’t seeing the results I wanted. Since I’ve been doing it every day in my 15 minutes of thoughtwork, I’ve felt more capable and more motivated than ever before.


So I talked about this in episode 6 - Mindful Inquiry Model, but here’s a refresher: Imagine I’m writing a column of these letters on a piece of paper. C at the top for Circumstance, then T underneath for Thought. Under that is F for Feeling, A for action and R for result at the bottom. 


Circumstances in your life are all neutral, we create thoughts about them, then we get to decide if we want to keep those thoughts.  We don’t have control over the circumstance, but we have 100% control over the T line.


We don’t respond to what happens  - we respond to our perception of what happens which is created by our programming and unintentional thoughts. This includes trauma, memories, experiences, cultural influences, our brain’s evolutionary impulses to seek safety, avoid pain and exert the least amount of energy.


Here’s How we use it to lose 10lbs. 
- For 6 weeks, every day I want you to carve out 15 minutes to do your daily thoughtwork. I call this the Daily 15. During this time, you’ll do this 4 step process.


Step 1 is a Thought download . This is basically journaling. As a fun project I’m writing a thriller novel. I have no experience whatsoever so I’m learning as I go and one thing I’ve learned is this concept called “Dirty Draft” which is where you simply tell yourself the story essentially. You just write the first draft to get the story out, knowing you’ll edit it multiple times later. So you can think of this as your dirty draft journal exercise. You write out all your thoughts with no self-editing. 


So let’s say you’re going to take this on and a few days go by and you get on the scale and you haven’t lost any weight. You would put this in your thought download.


Then in Step 2 you would choose a thought to pull out for the model. So let’s use this as an example.  The thought is “I weighed myself and I haven’t lost weight”


Scale Example 

C = Number on the scale
T = That’s bad, I didn’t lose weight
F = Defeated, discouraged, hopeless, ashamed 
A = Quit, go off our protocol
R = Don’t lose weight 


What does this show us? It shows us that there is a direct relationship with the T & R. The thought and the result. This is what is meant by your thoughts create your life. When we put our thoughts into the model and examine them, it’s crystal clear why we have the life we have. Why we have the results we have. Now, when you do this, especially in the beginning, you might be horrified at how negative your thoughts are. So we need to be kind to ourselves in this process. Honest and kind. 


In Step 3 we ask the Observer Questions

  1. Who’s bullshit is this? This refers to the space between our circumstance - the fact and our thoughts about it. Often we’re running a thought program that we picked up from a parent or from something someone from highschool said one time. For example, maybe you heard you should be losing 2lbs a week and now that’s in your brain making you think if you didn’t, then it’s not working, when sometimes we’ll go a week without losing weight then drop 3lbs in 2 days. We need to ask if it’s even OUR thought to begin with.
  2. Where is my brain trying to protect me (and keep me safe?) It’s your brain’s job to keep you alive but unfortunately it hasn’t yet evolved to see that you won’t die if you feel embarrassed, uncomfortable or lonely. It’s job is to keep you safe and often it’s at the expense of our dreams. When you spot this you can thank your brain for doing it’s job and reassure it that it’s all going to be okay.
  3. Where am I resisting loving myself? Where in the model are you withholding love from yourself? Most likely it will be throughout the entire thing. Don't beat yourself up about that. Be kind to yourself that this model is going on for you. Imagine if your best friend had this model. What would you say to her?
  4. Where can I be on my own  side? Now you can see that this way of thinking hasn’t been serving you. How can you have compassion for yourself knowing this is what’s been going on in your brain. Can you have your own back and own your mistakes? “Yup, that didn’t work, good information to have, I am still 100% worthy, loveable and capable- moving on.”


Okay, so now we’re getting to the really fun part. There are two types of models: Unintentional which we just did - in which we pulled a thought from your thought download. And then there are Intentional Models in which we reverse engineer the model to create what we DO want in life. 


This is step four.


Step 4: Intentional Model


This time we start with the Result and work our way backwards. So if our goal is to release 10lbs, our model may look something like this.


C = Number on the scale
T = (It’s possible for me to lose weight)(Of course I’ll lose weight)
F = (Determined)
A = (follow our protocol)
R = Release 10lbs 


So What does working with the Intentional model show us? It shows us some cool relationships.


First the C & T. Circumstance and Thought. Just like in the unintentional model, the space between the neutral circumstance and our thought is completely irrational. This bodes really well for creating what we want because we can put any thought there that we want. And we know the power of our thoughts on the result. Now I know you’re thinking, well I can’t just put any thought in like, I’m at goal weight and it becomes true. No. Your thoughts must be believable to you. So let’s say you put the thought, “It’s possible for me to reach my goal weight” and there are days where you just don’t believe it no matter how hard you try. You can hold the opposite belief at the same time. For example, if you’ve been believing (thinking this thought over and over) that you’ll just never reach your goal weight, then you can tell yourself, Right now I believe that I’ll never reach my goal weight, but I know there’s a possibility I’m wrong about that. I know it’s also possible that I will in fact reach my goal weight eventually. This is how you can hold two beliefs at the same time. 


I like to use a plant analogy when it comes to forming new beliefs, because that’s something I’m personally working a lot on. So, we recently bought 5 bamboo plants for our front yard to give us more privacy from the street. And all 5 plants have a couple of pretty big shoots already, but they don’t really offer a lot of privacy yet. The new shoots are coming in but they are really small right now. Eventually though, those newer shoots will actually be much bigger and stronger than the old shoots. So think of the old shoots as your old beliefs. They’re sturdy and strong right now, and the new beliefs are smaller and growing up right alongside the old ones, but eventually the new beliefs will outgrow the old ones completely.


Also notice the relationship between T and F. Thought and Feeling. This pair creates embodied energy. In other words, it generates motivation. Notice I didn’t say it generates joy or happiness. It could, but it’s not necessary. It’s not necessary for you to feel good to take action. Feeling a more neutral emotion is all you need. Examples of these types of feelings are:




And lastly I’d like to address some common missteps that happen using the model that I think will really help you out if you know them in advance.


Here’s where I went wrong. When I first started using the model I would have a bad day and use it as a way to try and change what I was feeling. We do NOT use the model to feel better in the moment. That’s not the best use of the model, although it does often happen. The main point is to see what’s going on. When you’re in a more neutral feeling place, then you can go ahead and create an intentional model in which you do insert the thoughts you want to have to feel how you need to feel in order to take the action you want. But we need to allow for our feelings and get skilled at processing them. We do this by bringing in awareness and feeling in our bodies everything that comes up, no matter how painful and then letting that pass. This isn’t an exercise to paper over tough emotions. It’s going to help you get clear on WHAT emotions you’re having so you can consciously process them, or if they are indulgent emotions like defeat, confusion, overwhelm - emotions that don’t serve us, we can use the model to shift them. But feelings like grief, sadness, anger, disappointment are all part of the human experience and living an authentic life. This level of authenticity is the foundation for our connection to ourselves - it’s through our feelings.


One of the reasons we gain weight is overdesire. Instead of feeling boredom, loneliness, disappointment and other so called negative feelings, we turn to food to numb that emotional pain and discomfort, never meeting the true emotional needs. When we do this over and over, we increase the overdesire for food because our brain learns it will feel better this way. At least temporarily.


To manage this overdesire we need to increase our capacity for negative emotion. If you decide to be someone who is willing to feel any emotion without turning to food, you will lose weight simply by doing this one thing.


This tool, the model, helps us figure out what those unmet emotional needs are so we can process our feelings and shine a light on the areas of our lives that need attention. This is how we OWN our emotions rather than them owning US. It’s how we fully accept ourselves WITH negative emotions and take 100% responsibility for our lives.


We think our thoughts are true. You might notice yourself putting a thought into the circumstance line as if it’s fact, when it’s really a thought. The circumstance must be something that you could prove in court - that EVERYONE agrees on. Facts only. This isn’t our fault that we do this. Our brains are wired to adapt & survive, not to decipher truth with a capital T. 


Some of you may have seen the pixar movie, Inside Out and there’s this great part where they’re on the train of thought and boxes of cargo labeled opinions and facts topple over and one of the characters says something about how they’re getting all mixed up and another is like, don’t worry that happens all the time. I know it came out a few years back but If you haven’t watched that movie yet, I would recommend it. 


Another common thing is that you’ll find yourself coming up with a whole list of feelings about a particular thought. Choose only one - the strongest.


And lastly if you're having trouble finding thoughts for your Intentional model. Like you know the result you want, the action you need to take and the feeling that will get you to do the action, but you can’t find the thought you need to think on purpose to feel that way, try imagining yourself having already achieved the goal and ask her what SHE would think. You can use that future self exercise for any line in the intentional model. 


Releasing weight requires the right mindset and the right skillset.  Using the model helps us with both. My job isn’t to teach you exactly what to eat, how much and when to eat. No. No one knows your body better than you. No one can make decisions for your body better than you.


My job is to give you the information you need and teach you how to make the right decisions for yourself without your safety brain getting in your way. That’s why when I work with clients,  I call it a “Personalized” protocol. I don't create it, my client does with my support. 


So let’s get specific on the skills you’re building by using the model. 


Skills:

  1. Observation. Observing what’s really creating your life (you are not your life - your thoughts, feelings and actions are creating your life)
  2. Cultivating self intimacy (getting to know you and your wants) If I were to ask you what you want out of life, how would you answer? How specific could you be? Oftentimes people say, I just want to be happy. Of course happiness means different things for all of us, but it doesn’t happen accidentally. 
  3. Cleaning up our thinking (to achieve the life we want) Again, we are humans, with human nervous systems which have been impacted by our experiences in the world and our brains have made up stories about ourselves and the world that don't serve us. If we don’t clean up our thinking, by intentionally thinking in a way that DOES serve us, we’ll only continue to create more of the same. When you can clean up your thinking, the best resource you will have at your disposal to lose weight is your BRAIN and your HEART. Together these will help guide you to what’s in your highest interest.



Okay, let’s review the four steps and why we use this tool. 


We use it to

1.Observe what’s really creating your life (you are not your life - your thoughts, feelings and actions are creating your life)

2. Cultivate self intimacy (getting to know you and your wants)

3. Clean up our thinking (to achieve the life we want)


The four steps for using the 2 models - the unintentional and the intentional model. 

  1. Do a thought download
  2. Pull one thought per model
  3. Ask yourself the 3 observing questions
  4. Who’s bullshit is this? C&T
  5. Where is my brain trying to protect me (and keep me safe)
  6. Where am I resisting loving myself?
  7. Where can I be on my own side?
  8. Do an intentional model starting with the result you want. 


Do this every day for 6 weeks and see what happens. If you do a model and you’re not sure about it, feel free to send it to me and I’ll give you some notes. Just send it to paula@mindfulshape.com and I’ll be happy to help.