184 Becoming the Woman You Trust to Follow Through

Clients I work with want to achieve more than a number on the scale. They want to become the woman who trusts herself around food and alcohol no matter what, so she can keep the weight off for good.

You’ll learn:

• The 2 types of Breakthroughs and why focussing on one without the other leads to self-sabotage
• How to claim self-trust when you have less than an amazing track record of doing what you said you would do, when it comes to your eating 
• The 3 emotional tools to ensure you maintain your weight loss results

• Instagram: @mindful_shape
• Get the FREE Building Momentum 4 Part Video Training
• Free Self Coaching Resources
• Interested in getting coached by me? Go to my website mindfulshape.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, and welcome to the Mindful Shape Podcast. I'm Paula Parker, and my work is here to offer you specialized mind and body tools, practices, and frameworks to shift into the next version of you. One in which you feel in charge around food, great in your body, and more connected to yourself. So if you're here, you probably have some sort of body goal or you want to shift your relationship with food. Whatever it is, consider that there are two types of goals. There are the result goals, so that might be a weight loss goal, like you want to see a certain number on the scale. It's the effect of your process. And then there's a process-oriented goal. That's like something, a skill or um more intangible, something that if you were to master, it would guarantee your result. So for instance, trusting yourself around food. If you knew you could trust yourself around food, the result of that would be you'd probably eat responsibly, you might feel more calm, you might characterize your relationship with food as being healthy. So today I really want to talk about trusting yourself, and we're going to do it through the lens of breakthrough because it's really not enough to just reach your weight loss goal, right? You want to maintain it, and that requires breakthrough. So today we're going to define breakthrough as the act of removing or surpassing an obstruction or restriction. So breakthrough is simply removing that obstacle that's in your way when it comes to either your result goal or your process goal. So my job as a coach is to help you break through everything that's currently blocking you. So acting as an obstruction between you and what you want. Whether that is to show up at a party and know that you're not going to stress eat or that you're going to distract yourself with alcohol because you want to fit in, whether it's knowing that you can go to any restaurant and you're going to make the healthiest option for you, that you're always going to be choosing foods that serve you. And that might sometimes include alcohol or dessert or chips and salsa, but you can trust yourself to make the decision that is right for you and that you're going to feel okay about that afterwards, right? So it's like making that decision and then trusting yourself that you will also have your own back afterwards. What currently blocks you from trusting yourself now? If you check in, you might answer something like, Well, I don't have any evidence, so I can't trust myself because I have so much evidence that I will say I will do something. I will say that I will eat something or track or do whatever it is to make some progress, but then I know I don't do it. I can see my past and I just don't do it. Or it's something like I say I won't have a glass of wine or I won't eat candy anymore, or I won't eat a whole thing of popcorn at the movies, but then I do it. I do it every time. And I will not argue with your history because all of that may be true. Whatever it is for you, whatever evidence that your brain brings to mind for why you cannot trust yourself. But checking in now, how do you feel in your body when you think the thought, I don't trust myself. I can't trust myself around food or alcohol. I can't trust myself to follow through. That feeling is going to keep you the same. It will make you quit. It will prevent you from breaking through to live in the body that you want. So let's talk more about breakthrough. There are two types. There is creating breakthrough. That's when you are creating your goal. So you are having an idea, you want to weigh a certain number, or you want to fit into a certain size, or you want to have a certain level of fitness or mobility in your body. And then bringing that idea into physical reality. I think this really comes from an innate human drive to strive, to grow, to learn, to experience the world. And the second type of breakthrough is having breakthrough, having the capacity to hold and honor what you already have, the breakthroughs that you've already created. Having breakthrough is to appreciate, it's to receive, it's to have reverence, it's to have gratitude for your current sufficiency, for your current body, for your current skill level, when it comes to eating well, all of that. So I think there are kind of two camps when it comes to this. There are the significant and grand in scale. I recently heard about a girlfriend of mine, more of an acquaintance, really, that I used to work with, and her fiance got into a terrible accident and lost mobility from the neck down. Right? This is tragic. This is significant and grand in scale. When you hear about something like that, it makes you so grateful for your body that you can move your body, that you can use your body to live your life. Okay. And then there are also significant, but just smaller in scale. This is like the more immediate things, the more immediate things that you have in your life that you are grateful for, that you can hold and honor. I always think of my washer and dryer or my washing machine because these are things that I use on a day-to-day basis. And every time I use them, I just thank God I have them. Because there was definitely a time in my life when I was using a shared washer and dryer in an apartment building that was kind of nasty. And sometimes you would go down there and it was being used, and you just had to wait, you couldn't do your laundry when you wanted to do it, or the um dishwasher. So there was a long period of my life where I lived in an old apartment building and there was no dishwasher, and I did every dish by hand. Thankfully, that is not the case. And I can't even imagine if you have kids not having a dishwasher. Every time I use these hardworking machines, I'm so grateful. Now, this is not a body example, but I want to give you an example of something that is significant in terms of its utility, but you might just take it for granted. Okay. So when you can identify it, that is an example of having breakthrough. It's kind of a breakthrough to have achieved a level of in my life where I have these things, right? It's it seems small, but there was a point when I didn't have it. So we can consider it a breakthrough. But let's bring it back to the body. So let's just say you have a goal, you want to reach a weight range of 140 to 145. It's totally arbitrary, but let's just use real numbers. And your process goal is that you really want to trust yourself to do what you say you're going to do. So follow through when it comes to eating, to alcohol, whatever your plan is, whatever your protocol is. You will likely have creating breakthrough goals. So these are breakthrough goals that are all around creating that goal, making it happen. This is very tangible. So it might be something like you want to reduce sugar and flour. You might have a workout plan. You might be focusing on eating only meals and not grazing throughout the day, or stopping at enough, not overeating at your meals simply because it's there on your plate or it's just really delicious. Or you might be becoming more precise and you are doing more diligent planning and tracking to create awareness and to create precision. Now, having breakthrough goals, goals that are around having breakthrough, would be more like a nightly review of what went well during that day. So, how did you show up for yourself in a way that you can feel proud about? It could also be tracking your wins. So, again, what did you achieve daily or on a weekly basis? Where did you overcome that obstacle? Where did you decide, you know, I'm gonna load up on the veggies at the party and I'm just gonna have a few chips? Whereas previously you might have loaded up on the chips and had a little bit of salad, something like that, whatever those obstacles are for you. Somebody offered you a glass of wine, you turned it down. Another having breakthrough goal might be more positive self-talk or some outlet in which you can positively reflect on yourself, your life, the action that you're taking in alignment with your goal and who you want to be, how you're showing up, and really what's unique and special about you. Oftentimes we can bypass this. So is there some way that you are doing this as some sort of ritual, whether that's you're in a coaching program, whether that is a journaling practice, morning pages, something like that. That could be a having breakthrough goal. And then the last one is what I think of as like scale or mirror drama, which you let's say you get on the scale and you're so excited because you see, oh, the number went down. So you're super excited, you're super proud, and then you check yourself out in the mirror and you're thinking, hmm, I don't really see any difference.

unknown 9:53

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

And then you're thinking, oh, I have so far to go. Like this is not what I thought this number would look like. Anything along those lines, or anytime you go down the despair, the negative spiral of disappointment, or rejecting yourself when you glance, you see your reflection in the mirror, or you don't like the number on the scale. Your goal here, your having breakthrough goal, is to catch it, to notice it, and redirect the brain. So when you get on the scale and then you check yourself out in the mirror and it's not matching, you're not feeling as excited as you once were, you want to catch that and you want to have some way of redirecting your brain so that it doesn't drag you into despair and that you can hold and have capacity for that breakthrough. Yeah. So having breakthrough is a key piece of the transformation process. It's not just about creating the goal, but also the goal of having the breakthrough. If we only focus on creating and we ignore the having, we just won't appreciate it and it'll almost slip through our fingers. We will just, I think of this as success intolerance. We become intolerant to our own success. Okay. We will self-sabotage. The other morning I came back from taking the kids to preschool and they usually ride their bikes and I walk with them. And when I got home, I realized that the doors were locked, and my husband had gone on a day work trip, and I didn't have my keys and I didn't have my wallet. And at first I got so mad. I was mad at myself for not bringing my key. I was also pretty mad at him because he usually works from home and I was like, he shouldn't, he should have told me or he should have called me or something, right? And so my first thought is like, I have so much work to do and I I'm eager to get at it. I want to be productive. But I did have my phone. So I thought, well, I can still be productive. I will catch up on my emails. And literally the first email that I read was from one of my mentors. And in the email, it said, Maybe the most productive thing you can do is enjoy the life you're building. Isn't that crazy? So I was like, okay, I got the message. I decided to take a walk. It was like a beautiful day. And so think of this in terms of your body. Maybe the most strategic thing you can do is enjoy the body that you have now. Now notice if you have any resistance to that. If you're like, I can't, or it's hard, or yeah, but just notice that because that is what you want to work through. That means potentially it's a tell that you've been more focused on creating the goal and being in action and less focused, there might be opportunity here, on building up those having breakthrough goals, right? So holding capacity for your own success. The tools of having breakthrough are self-celebration, self-pride, and sufficiency and resourcefulness. So take pride in your body. The next time you see yourself in the mirror, linger. Direct your eyes intentionally. Notice what do you like? What do you like? What are the parts that you like that you can find honest reverence and appreciation for? And ask yourself why you like it. Is it tone? Is it muscle definition? Why do you like that? Does it symbolize health? Are you proud that you created it? What is it? Is it a curve that you think is feminine, that you think is sexy? Ask yourself why you like it. And watch out for a brain that stops you from having, that says you're vain, that says liking a part of your body is going to mean you're not going to continue on, that you're going to let things slide. No, watch out for that. Watch if you have a judgy brain that says it's superficial. This is like a wet blanket, okay? And it will stop you from enjoying the process. So, how good are you at feeling trust with yourself? Whether it's trusting that you will follow through, or trusting that if you don't, that you will take really good care of yourself no matter what. You will have your own back. You will pick yourself up. All right. So consider that your body has a memory of emotion. So that we have a thought. Say we have the thought I can trust myself, or I'm in a safe place. That's one for me as an anchor thought is I always think my brain is a safe place. Like I can direct that and I can make it safe. When we have that thought, neurons fire and they spray hormones, which tell the body what to do. Slower heart rate, warmth or coolness in our chest, or heaviness in our lower body, softness behind the eyes. We experience it as a sensory experience and we call it trust. Our brain-body connection, our circuitry gets really good at memorizing that sequence. So we need to start getting really good at optimizing for a brain-body connection, for an environment in which we can experience that sensation of trust, that we can cultivate it, that we can decide it's an option, that we can give ourselves permission regardless of lack of evidence. Why? Because we want to start changing that brain-body circuitry. We want to start experiencing what we most want to feel, so that it's more accessible on a daily basis, right? So you're practicing it, so you get good at feeling what that feels like. And so that when we do get there, we are in that experience of having. We're good at having it. It feels normal to trust ourselves, and we don't freak out when we've created the goal and we don't know how to have it, and then we self-sabotage. So how good are you at the breakthrough of having when you get a compliment? How quickly do you brush it off? Or instead of receiving it, you're just like Teflon, like it bounces just right back. You're just like, oh yeah, no, but your eyes are gorgeous, right? That kind of thing. Okay. How often and how quickly do you snuff out that inner light, those feelings with worry, with doubt, with judgment, criticizing yourself in a picture or in a mirror? How long do you let yourself experience that experience of joy, of liking your body, of reverence for your body, of trusting yourself before your undirected brain takes over? I really think this is a call to be audacious enough to say, no more, I'm not gonna do that anymore. I am a safe place. It's psychologically safe in here, in this brain, right? In this body. And I don't need relief from myself with food. I trust myself. I claim trust with zero to little to moderate evidence, because I know you have moderate evidence. You have some evidence, but your brain might be telling you it's just not enough. I'm giving you full permission in case you needed it. To just claim going forward, I'm going to trust myself. And if I slip up, I'm gonna have my own back. Okay, so that's what I have for you today. Focus on creating breakthrough and also on having breakthrough. I'll talk to you next time.

unknown 18:01

Bye.