Ep. 107 Showing Up For Yourself

  Hi, and welcome to the Mindful Shade Podcast. I'm Paula Parker and I am a life and weight loss coach. And I work with people who want to release the excess weight and really get out of food drama and stop thinking about food all the time. And being hyper focused on it. And they just want to be at their natural weight.

What I consider a natural weight and what. The weight that feels natural for you and to really feel in charge around food. And I am going to be doing a build momentum workshop series coming up. And so if you haven't registered for that, go ahead and do so. If you're listening to this in real time. And I thought it'd be super fun to do an episode that would really set the foundation for.

attending those workshops. And if you are listening to this outside of the period in which I'm running these workshops, just use this to apply to really your efforts, your approach to your weight loss journey in general. So what I'm really wanting to do is set up your brain so that it is receptive and ready to get the most out of the workshop.

Okay. We're going to talk about showing up. So what is showing up? I mean, you hear it all the time. Like I want to show up for myself or I'm really showing up or I'm not showing up for myself is what we hear a lot. Right. So let's talk about what that even means. I think of it as if you are really taking responsibility for who you want to become stepping into the next version of yourself.

So I think that when we have this idea of the next version of ourselves, we always think it's like better than where we are. But I, I oftentimes think it's just more of a fleshed out version of the person that we are already. So I was just coaching a client recently and we talked about, How where she is now and where she wants to be and the next version of who she is and their qualities That this next version of her has we identified those and really she has those already so it's more of a Tapping in to those qualities that she already has.

So for example So many of us want to release weight so that we will think we are attractive. It will be easy to have those thoughts and we will also have thoughts that we look good. And then because we're thinking we look good, we feel more confident or we're thinking I am somebody who's really healthy or I'm somebody who feels really in charge with food and then we feel more confident.

So as we continue to build evidence, it's easier to have those thoughts and then it's easier to feel that way. But I want to challenge you to start. So I'm going amplifying where you already feel confident. Tap into that inside of yourself. Even right now, if you, even if you can kind of check in with your body and just feel, just expand that confidence a little bit, even in this moment, just become a little bit.

More confident. You already have it in you, you're just amplifying it. Or maybe it's qualities like self control, or self compassion, whatever it is. I guarantee you, that version of you that you want to step into, she has, you have those qualities right now. And it's just about accessing them, right? And letting them shine a little bit more.

So let's talk more about showing up. So showing up is really taking the actions or making the effort when you don't feel like it. Okay. Let's talk about why it matters. It matters because there's a desire. For you to show up. There's a, you have the desire to maybe show up for the workshops, for example.

Why do you have that desire? Maybe you desire to have a perspective shift, to gain some information, to have higher level thoughts, like a higher level of thinking about things. Maybe you desire to feel something in your body. You want to reignite that, like a passion for this or a passion for feeling really good.

And you. terms of your body or feeling really good in terms of your relationship with food, feeling motivated, right? Accessing that motivation. That's a, that's an aliveness in you. That's a feeling that you're wanting to access and to have that experience. And that's why we sign up for things, right? So we sign up for coaching.

We want to make a shift. We want to have a, some sort of feeling. It's the reason why we want to release weight in the first place so that we will feel differently so that we will feel More confident, we will feel more in control, all of these things, right? So the first thing is really, whenever you sign up for anything, just decide that you will get what you came for.

So I learned this pretty early on in coaching and it has really helped me in terms of not going through any kind of training or any kind of process and then. Feeling like I didn't get what I wanted out of it or feeling like, oh, I was kind of disappointed in some way because I didn't do the work or I didn't show up in some way.

How you can get around that really is just to decide that you will get what you came for. So whatever it is, That you, the reasons that you decided to sign up, that you will ensure for yourself that you will get that. And then that you, secondly, you decide that whatever it is that you got out of it was enough.

You can just decide that that's like a decision that you can have and it creates calm and it creates peace and you remove any kind of icky ness or regret or any kind of friction when you recall, like signing up for that thing, you can just decide, you know what? I got what I needed. You can decide that when you are doing any kind of workshop series or anything like that in general, even with this podcast, I mean, there's over a hundred episodes right now, your brain can easily go into overwhelm.

It can easily go into, Oh, I'm behind. So often we have that when it comes to our work or when it comes to our never ending hot list, or you might think of it as a to do list. I call that a hot list. All the things that you have on your list to do. We will often think that we are behind. And that creates a feeling in our body that feels like discouragement or feeling like not enough ness, right?

So notice if you have that thought, oh, I'm behind. Maybe this means like you missed the first call and you're like, well, I missed the first call. Or you missed a couple of calls and you think, well, I can't catch up now. Or there's so many episodes, I can't possibly listen to them all. So like, why even bother?

Your brain will go there. It's just creating obstacles so that you don't have to, you know, Put in any effort or make any changes. So that's, that's totally fine. You have a normal, healthy brain. So just be on alert because you could decide that that doesn't matter. That you could miss all of the calls and then just watch all the replays on your own time.

That's totally possible. That's totally available for you. But to do that, you need to make another decision, which is more of an identity shift, which is deciding you are always going to be somebody who is moving themselves forward. Now, I actually think that's not probably too hard for you to identify with, because if you look at other aspects of your life, you see yourself doing that.

You see yourself taking action. You see yourself having difficult conversations, maybe moving forward, learning new things. Planning trips, planning things, right? You are moving yourself forward. No one else is doing that for you. Just like when it comes to weight loss, when it comes to food decisions, when it comes to showing up for workshops, right?

Or, or kind of forcing information into your brain when you don't really feel like getting that information in, like listening to a podcast episode that you know, will help you move forward. You are doing that for yourself. Not because you have to. Not because you have to lose weight. When we fall into that trap, it feels terrible and, and we really lose momentum.

So we want to get out of that. We want to instead decide, no, I'm choosing this because I am somebody who always moves myself forward. I'm somebody who moves myself forward in this particular way as it relates to my relationship with food and my relationship with my body. Another thing that you might notice is that your brain comes up with excuses.

Okay, so excuses why maybe this information doesn't apply to you or maybe that you can't do it. So sure, there's other people that can learn these skills or learn how to maybe tap into commitment. That's one thing I'm going to be talking about in the workshops is tapping into your commitment, but not me.

I really do need more self discipline, you know, I really do need more willpower. Like I have this like thing about me that's not enough, that's not good enough. But do you see the slight discernment there? It's not about being more disciplined, but it's about tapping into the commitment that you already have.

already possess. There are qualities within you that you already possess that we need to learn how to access so that you can use that as emotional fuel. Okay. Emotional fuel. Then you can take action from that place. You can decide to allow hunger. You can decide to stop at enough. You can decide to say no.

When your brain is saying, you know, there's chips in the cupboard, right? You use your Positive momentum. You use that emotional fuel of commitment to be able to do that rather than what we sometimes do, which sometimes works, but not all the time, which is trying to control our thoughts, which is trying to remember what's that goal again?

Like, why do I care about this? Sometimes that works, but most of the time it's not accessible. Instead, we need to learn how to tap into that positive momentum. Another thing your brain will offer up is when it comes to just weight loss in general is I've tried everything. Maybe you have tried so many things.

Maybe you have tried, you know, Noom. I've heard it all. Noom, Whole30. There's like a Octavia or I forget what that one's called. But it's like a meal planning thing where you have to buy all of their stuff. There's, you've tried intermittent fasting. You've tried high protein, low protein, low carb. You've tried removing sugar.

There are so many different ways of eating out there. And you There are just as many ways to release weight, so long as we're not overeating, and so long as we have a good strategy in terms of variability. I'm not going to go into the weeds here on that. All that to say, there are many ways to eat to be able to release weight off your body.

The thing that you probably have not tried, if you have not, to this point, been able to release the weight and keep it off, is removing all of that overdesire for food. Okay. So what I'm talking about there, when I talk about the overdesire for food is wanting more food than your body needs. So we can want food physically.

We can want more food than our body needs based on our physiology and the cravings and stuff that we have. And then we can also want food when we're not even physically hungry. And so what we want to do when we're, you know, coaching, this is what we do on my process is we remove. All that overdesire so that you don't want more food than you need.

That's what we're working at versus just trying to kind of manipulate the food and manipulate the calories and all of that. Another thing that your brain will offer up is, I know what to do, but I just can't get myself to do it. Now, how many of us can relate to that? Because I know that, you know, a lot about nutrition at this point, like there's so much information on the internet.

So why is it that you can't get yourself to do it? This is an identity. That I would offer you need to shed. Okay. I know that's a bold statement, but you can decide that you are the type of person who can get themselves to do things. even when they don't feel like it. The type of person who is on their own side, who has their own back, who figures out a way, who is also adaptable, flexible, doesn't have to do things right by the book, or has this perfectionist mindset about things.

Who makes it work for them. I've mentioned it on the podcast before, but I've recently learned more about fasting and I've been doing intermittent fasting for a long time, or I thought I was, but I was having cream in my coffee, which I have learned that that really allows me to maintain my weight, but it does not allow me to release any weight.

So quick hot tip there in case you're kind of plateauing, but. One of the things that I have learned about myself is that a major factor in my willingness to do something is what I tell myself beforehand. So I have recently started doing these longer fasts and I'm, my relationship with food is such that I'm showing up in a way that maybe 10 years ago, I would have thought would have been completely impossible.

Like I, it wouldn't have even entered the realm of possibility for me to consider doing because I just had this identity that like I couldn't do it, that like wouldn't be even possible. And so the difference has been obviously gradual over the years of, of reducing all of that over desire, both that physiological desire and also the emotional desire for food, eating more food than my body wants.

But also it's been realizing really through coaching that I can decide that I'm somebody who Makes a plan and just follows through on it. And that's a big shift, right? It requires a lot of, wow, intimacy with yourself and a lot of self reflection, right? And I would say a lot of coaching, a lot of support to be able to get to that point where you believe that about yourself.

Now, I'm not like that in every single area. Right? But when it comes to food, I know that I am because I've heavily focused. I've paid a lot of attention in this area. I've focused. I've researched. I think about it all the time. I'm thinking about my clients. I'm thinking about me. And so of course, this area I've been able to make a huge, like huge leaps in.

Here's another thing that I want you to consider and I know I'm jumping around a lot here But I think it will all kind of tie together in the end because it's all about Changing your perspective on how we show up when it comes to weight loss I want to offer that weight loss is a skill set not a personality trait We think we can't lose weight because of who we are, based on our personality.

Have you ever thought, you know, I am an all or nothing person? Have you said that aloud? I know what to do, but I don't do it. I start things, but I don't finish them. When we say stuff like that, it shows us some beliefs about That we have about ourselves, some restrictions that we've put on our personality.

So, we all know we can change our personality, but I want to just offer that when we decide that this is our personality, then we also decide that we can't follow through on our weight loss plan, and eat healthy, and eat moderately, and eat with responsibility, because it's not available. Because that's like who we are.

It's our personality. But what if it weren't a personality trait? What if it were a skill set? That you just learn, like you learn a new language. So you could learn the skills required to release the weight to be able to manage your mind so that you could make the choices that you need to make and reduce all that overdesire.

One of those skills is going to be making decisions ahead of time around food. So the specificity with which you make those decisions is going to be up to you and your personal circumstance. That is a skill. That can be helpful in terms of releasing the weight. And some of you will think, well, it's not part of my personality to be a planner.

So I want to challenge that because you don't have to be a planner, but you can still make decisions ahead of time around food. But again, you have to be flexible. You have to be adaptable. You have to remove this perfectionistic. mindset that it has to be all this way. So we're planning for you might look very different than somebody else.

We're figuring out how to make it workable for you, but telling yourself, you know, I'm not a planner, so I can't make decisions around food ahead of time. It's just a stop. It's a restriction. You're not going to move forward. And again, we, we know that about you. You're someone who moves yourself forward.

So I want to drop, plant a seed there. Okay. Another skill is feeling the negative emotion that comes up when you want to eat and you're not physically hungry. I just think of that as a skill set. It's a skill set to be aware that a negative emotion will come up if you decide that you're not going to eat.

Eat something. If you really want to eat something and you decide, no, I'm not going to, there's going to be a negative emotion that comes up there. It's a skill to be able to feel that feeling without saying, oh, screw it. I can't handle this emotion. I'm just going to eat something. So I want to offer the possibility that you really get to decide who you are, how you show up for yourself and how you put into practice what you learn, whether it's from these upcoming workshops, whether it's from this podcast or whatever, you know, YouTube rabbit hole you go down.

So, your brain will not want to do this by default. Your brain loves the idea of things. Like, I'll go back to the fasting example. My brain loves the idea of fasting. I'm like, reading the books. I'm like, reading all the health benefits. I'm like, oh, this is great. My love, my brain thrives off the idea. Not the effort required.

to do the fast, right? That does not feel so fun, right? When I'm feeling hungry, when I'm, my energy starts to dip a little bit, when, you know, I can smell food cooking and I'm in a fasting window, that's not super fun. My brain is not super, you know, jazzed about that, but that part of it. So, Same goes for you.

Your brain's going to love the idea, not the effort required to implement those ideas. That's so often, you know, the case for having a coach or having support, having some sort of group or, or just somebody who's in your corner who can really help when You are doing the effort, not just in the idea phase.

I remember working with my coach when I was struggling with first just implementing intermittent fasting. And this is even still when I was doing cream in my coffee, but it was still, I was experiencing a lot of hunger. And at the time my husband was making fried eggs and toast every morning for breakfast and like.

The smell of it, right? I was like, I'm struggling. Like, I'm feeling terrible. I'm in self pity. I can smell it. It's not fair. He's, you know, a lean guy and just eat whatever he wants. And like, that's not fair that I have to skip breakfast and all of that, right? Lots of victim mentality. But my coach didn't see that as an obstacle for me.

She saw the version of me for whom That just wasn't a big deal. Not because I didn't have the desire for the food, which actually did come eventually, eventually he was making breakfast and it was no big deal. I didn't even have the physical desire for it, but that she just saw that I was capable. of feeling that desire and not making it a problem, not making it a reason why I couldn't do what I wanted to do, which at the time was the intermittent fast.

I could be someone who wasn't dramatic about it, making it into a big problem. And this is really who I want to be when it comes to these workshops for you. So I'm calling you into that version of yourself for whom the current obstacles, The current excuses that your brain is just offering up to avoid any kind of discomfort or even pain whether that's like subtle emotional pain or really, you know, more intense emotional pain, or if it's obstacles like getting distracted, losing momentum, not feeling motivated.

This is not a reason to give up on yourself. Any of that, right? Those obstacles are not a reason to give up on yourself, but instead it's an invitation to go deeper. It's an invitation to raise the standards that you have for yourself, to step into that next version of you, to identify the qualities that you already have in the skill set that you already have likely and maybe progress that you've made just by listening to this podcast and to Amplify that and to like double down on that to really show up for yourself in a way that maybe you never have before.

So that's what I want to call forth to find within you that commitment, that temperance, that strength. That resolve when you get really good at that, that is when you will be able to create momentum on demand. So if you haven't already, be sure to sign up for that workshop series. We start on Friday, that's this week, and then we're going to be going for four weeks and you can join at any time.

So if you're listening to this later on, you can still sign up and you'll be sent the replays of the previous calls. And I really look forward to seeing you there. I think it's going to be really impactful in terms of. Teaching you what you need to be doing to get into momentum so that you can start seeing some success on the scale and also start seeing yourself as somebody who shows up for themselves.

Cause then you will live into that self fulfilling prophecy. Okay. I will see you soon. Bye.