May 24, 2025 • 11 mins
OUTWEIGH: In this 6th and final episode of this series on Outweigh, we end by shining a light on the deepest layer of unworthiness—the kind that doesn’t just feel like “I’m not enough”… but becomes your identity. Leanne walks you through how this kind of wiring happens, why it can be so hard to spot, and how to gently unhook from it using compassion, neuroscience, and a new vision of self-concept. You’ll leave with a renewed sense of possibility—and the tools to rewrite your inner story from the inside out.
HOST: Leanne Ellington // StresslessEating.com // @leanneellington
To learn more about re-wiring your brain to heal from the all-or-nothing diet mentality for good....but WITHOUT restricting yourself, punishing your body, (and definitely WITHOUT ever having to use words like macros, low-carb, or calorie burn) check out Leanne's FREE Stressless Eating Webinar @ www.StresslessEating.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I won't let my body out be out wait everything
that I'm made, won't spend my life trying to change.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I'm learning love who I am again. I'm strong, I
feel free, I know everybody of me it is beautiful.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
And that will always out way if you feel.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
It, but yours and here she'll some love too.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
There say good day and did you and die out way?
Happy Saturday, outweigh it's leanne here and welcome back to
Part six and the final part of our Reclaiming Your
Worthiness series. And so if you've been following along, you
know that we've been going way deeper than the typical
(00:48):
self love stuff. And so we've talked about reclaiming your
worth even if you don't accept yourself yet, like letting
yourself be there and that's okay, right. We've unraveled the
toxic pull of external validation, and we've exposed the invisible
war that women fight inside their minds and bodies, and
we've dismantled the silent rules running your life that you
(01:09):
might not know were even there. And last week, in
Part five, we gave voice to the fear of being
too much, too much of this, too much of that,
not enough of that, and so today we're talking about
something even sneakier, and it's not just a feeling of
not being enough, but how that feeling actually becomes your
identity and when this not enough idea becomes who you
(01:32):
think you are. And so let's just start here. Most
onen don't walk around saying, hi, I'm not enough. Right,
But if you really slow it down, and if you
really start to listen to your inner dialogue, you'll hear it, right.
You'll hear it sounds things like, you know, when I
finally lose the weight, then I will be worthy of love,
a better job, a relationship, whatever, right to buy new clothes,
(01:54):
whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Right.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
It might sound like if I could just stop eating this,
then maybe i'd respect myself. Or you know, other women
have more discipline and more motivation and more control than
I do.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Or it might sound like, you know what is wrong.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
With me that I can't get it together, or that
this is the one area that I can't get together,
you know, or if I was better, I wouldn't need
so much. Maybe you're calling yourself needy, And that's not
just self doubt. That is an entire self concept, that's
an identity and the reason it's so hard to shift
out of is because it becomes familiar, and it becomes safe,
(02:29):
and it becomes predictable, even if it's really really painful.
It becomes your home base. And so let's talk briefly
about the science of identity and why your brain clings
to familiar beliefs. Well, your brain just has one job,
and that job is survival.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
It's not interested in your goals or your dreams or
your gene size. It wants predictability. And so if your
brain has been marinating in beliefs like I'm not enough
and again it's a sneaky version of I'm not enough,
and it's been marinating on those thoughts for years or decades,
then guess what, Like that belief becomes a neural pathway,
(03:09):
which and then it becomes this well worn road that
your brain travels down automatically. So first it becomes a
neural pathway, but if it's traveled down a lot, then
it becomes an automatic neural pathway that happens without you
thinking about it. And even if you want to believe
something new like I am enough, your brain resists it.
And so why is that right, Well, because it's not
(03:30):
familiar enough yet right, and not enough feels very familiar
and it feels safe, and it feels like you because
again you've built a self concept and identity, and so
your brain says, let's just stick with what we know.
And that is why affirmations often don't work, because if
the belief underneath it all subconscious and really fired and wired,
(03:52):
if the belief is I'm broken, and then you're starting
to say like I'm whole, it's not gonna land right.
Your brain rejects it like oil and wine. And so
let's talk about what happens when not enoughness becomes your identity,
especially around.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Food and your body.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
And so maybe you restrict food to try to feel
in control and then spiral when your willpower runs out,
or you binge or emotionally eat and then beat yourself up,
and that just reinforces this identity of I'm a failure
or maybe you I mean this is these these are
all me, let's be honest. But like you wake up
every Monday with these like new rules. You're like, Okay, Monday,
(04:29):
I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna start that, I'm gonna
stop that. But by Wednesday you're already ashamed of yourself
for breaking them, or just like you're living in the gray,
like you're not in but you're not out right, or
you don't trust yourself around food, so you constantly outsource
your power to plans or points or programs or macros,
or maybe you feel like you're starting over every single week,
(04:50):
every single month, every single you know, Monday morning that
rolls around and it's like Groundhog's Day. And here's the
truth underneath all of that. It is not just about
the food. It is about the identity that you've attached
to the food. Because when you believe that you're not enough,
you're going to interpret every action, every mistake, every craving
(05:13):
through that lens. And so you'll say, like, see, I
knew i'd mess this up, like proof, this is proof
I just can't be trusted around food, or I can't
be trusted with whatever, or again, why even try?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
And around and round we go. That's the merry go round.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
And this is where I want to pause and say
something really clearly. This is the stuff that makes us
feel like we're broken. Okay, but you are not broken.
You're just wired, like your brain just got wired this way,
and your brain is not working against you per se.
It's doing exactly what it was wired to do, which
(05:49):
is keep you safe, keep you predictable, and keep you
in this identity that you've worked to create. Again, you
didn't know it, but it's been created, and it's been reinforced, reinforced, reinforced.
But here is the incredible part, the miraculous part, The
stuff I love about neuroscience is that just as your
brain learned this identity of not enough, it can go
(06:11):
learn something new.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
And it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
How old you are, how far gone you are. It's
not about flipping a switch. It's about building a bridge right,
one step, one thought, one experience at a time, and
again that bridge can be built no matter where you
are in your life.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
And that's why reclaiming.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Your identity and discovering who you are without the story
of not enough, this is the real work. And it's
not just about releasing the weight or fixing your food.
It's about reclaiming the truth of who you are beneath
all of that noise that got picked up. Because here
is what I know to be true. You were never
(06:52):
meant to live inside this identity of not enough, and
you were never meant to define yourself by your past,
or your your patterns, or your pain that you find
yourself in.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I was so defined by my pain.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Right, and when that story has been playing out for years,
it's understandable. It's so hard to imagine who you'd be
without it, Right, That's the part that kind of scares us.
And that's why I don't just teach food strategies or
habit change. I teach brain rewiring, and I teach self
image transformation, and I teach identity work. Because it's not
(07:26):
enough to just do different things. You have to become
a different version of you, the one that was there
all along, but it was just buried under shame and
self doubt and that old wiring that just got piled
on top. And so here's what the shift actually looks like,
moment by moment, and it really is micro choice by
micro choice and micro awareness by micro awareness. But it
(07:48):
looks like things like you pause before a binge and
you ask, like, what do I really need right now
because I'm physically not hungry, like this is emotional and
then knowing how to be emotionally available to yourself in
those moments. It's when you catch yourself inside of a
shame spiral, and you say like, this doesn't mean I'm broken,
this means I'm overwhelmed, and you can see the difference
and you know like, oh, this isn't shame, this is
(08:10):
me being overwhelmed.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Now what do I need when I'm overwhelmed?
Speaker 1 (08:13):
And we create your own recipe, right, and then you
know the difference in your bones, and then that knowingness
becomes your default.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
It looks like you know.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
You noticing yourself talk and gently saying like, that's the
old story and that is drama and I'm not living
there anymore. This is not who I am anymore. And
then you know it and believe it because you did
the work to transform it. And it shows up where
all of a sudden you look back and you're like, wow,
I'm not earning my worth.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
I'm just acting like I already have it.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
And this is identity in motion and it's not perfection
and it's not some magical transformation, but it's slow, steady
and compassionate rewiring doesn't work when you're doing punishment driven rewiring, right,
And so if you're ready to gently untangle from the
identity of no, here are some points.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
That you might want to explore.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Okay, so what were you taught directly or indirectly about
your worth growing up? Like you just want to have
an awareness about what is what are you weighing and
measuring yourself by right now?
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Right?
Speaker 1 (09:13):
And then what does your inner voice sound like when
it's in not enough mode? Like what is your version
of the drama, the story, the meaning that you're giving it?
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Right? What version are you protecting by holding on to
that identity?
Speaker 1 (09:25):
So I have a client that you know, she was like,
I my go to is anger when I'm feeling stressed.
And she learned and again it was unconscious and subconscious
that anger was the way that she protected herself when
she was stressed. And it's like, no, she was just
holding onto that and realizing like, actually, what I'm stressed,
what I really need is X, And we needed to
figure out what her anti stress version was.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
But then it's like a matter of like, okay, well
who would you become if you no longer believed that
you were broken and that you had to earn your worth?
Speaker 2 (09:53):
And so I want to leave you with this.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Remember, like, your identity is not fixed, It is not
set in stone, It is not defined by your past,
or your mistakes or your eating habits, and you are
not broken. You are becoming, or at least you can
be the version of yourself, becoming the next version of yourself,
because not enough is not.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Who you are.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
It's just a story that you learned to tell yourself.
And so here's what I want to leave you with today.
You don't need to become a new person. You just
need to return to the version of you that was
whole all along, the you that was available before the shame,
and the you before the trauma, and the you that
existed before the world told you to be less and
(10:35):
feel less and want less. And that woman she is
still in there, and she is not too much, and
she is not not enough.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
She is exactly who she is supposed to be.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
And she's probably if I'm hearing you and reading you
and intuiting you correctly, she's ready for peace. She doesn't
want to fight this battle anymore. She is ready for peace.
So that is it for today. Outweigh and if you
want to learn more about how I personally teach my
clients to turn off the part of their brain that
is obsessed with food, obsessed with their weight, and do
(11:11):
exactly what we're talking about here, rewire their self image
and identity not just for peace and freedom, but for
actually receiving their worthiness. Then head on over to stressless
eating dot com where I've literally peeled back the curtain
and walked you through the exact strategy that I teach
my own clients to go through the healing process themselves.
So head on over there to stressless eeating dot com
(11:33):
and we'll be back for more outweigh next week.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Bye.
I won't let my body out be out wait everything
that I'm made, won't spend my life trying to change.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I'm learning love who I am again. I'm strong, I
feel free, I know everybody of me it is beautiful.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
And that will always out way if you feel.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
It, but yours and here she'll some love too.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
There say good day and did you and die out way?
Happy Saturday, outweigh it's leanne here and welcome back to
Part six and the final part of our Reclaiming Your
Worthiness series. And so if you've been following along, you
know that we've been going way deeper than the typical
(00:48):
self love stuff. And so we've talked about reclaiming your
worth even if you don't accept yourself yet, like letting
yourself be there and that's okay, right. We've unraveled the
toxic pull of external validation, and we've exposed the invisible
war that women fight inside their minds and bodies, and
we've dismantled the silent rules running your life that you
(01:09):
might not know were even there. And last week, in
Part five, we gave voice to the fear of being
too much, too much of this, too much of that,
not enough of that, and so today we're talking about
something even sneakier, and it's not just a feeling of
not being enough, but how that feeling actually becomes your
identity and when this not enough idea becomes who you
(01:32):
think you are. And so let's just start here. Most
onen don't walk around saying, hi, I'm not enough. Right,
But if you really slow it down, and if you
really start to listen to your inner dialogue, you'll hear it, right.
You'll hear it sounds things like, you know, when I
finally lose the weight, then I will be worthy of love,
a better job, a relationship, whatever, right to buy new clothes,
(01:54):
whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Right.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
It might sound like if I could just stop eating this,
then maybe i'd respect myself. Or you know, other women
have more discipline and more motivation and more control than
I do.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Or it might sound like, you know what is wrong.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
With me that I can't get it together, or that
this is the one area that I can't get together,
you know, or if I was better, I wouldn't need
so much. Maybe you're calling yourself needy, And that's not
just self doubt. That is an entire self concept, that's
an identity and the reason it's so hard to shift
out of is because it becomes familiar, and it becomes safe,
(02:29):
and it becomes predictable, even if it's really really painful.
It becomes your home base. And so let's talk briefly
about the science of identity and why your brain clings
to familiar beliefs. Well, your brain just has one job,
and that job is survival.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
It's not interested in your goals or your dreams or
your gene size. It wants predictability. And so if your
brain has been marinating in beliefs like I'm not enough
and again it's a sneaky version of I'm not enough,
and it's been marinating on those thoughts for years or decades,
then guess what, Like that belief becomes a neural pathway,
(03:09):
which and then it becomes this well worn road that
your brain travels down automatically. So first it becomes a
neural pathway, but if it's traveled down a lot, then
it becomes an automatic neural pathway that happens without you
thinking about it. And even if you want to believe
something new like I am enough, your brain resists it.
And so why is that right, Well, because it's not
(03:30):
familiar enough yet right, and not enough feels very familiar
and it feels safe, and it feels like you because
again you've built a self concept and identity, and so
your brain says, let's just stick with what we know.
And that is why affirmations often don't work, because if
the belief underneath it all subconscious and really fired and wired,
(03:52):
if the belief is I'm broken, and then you're starting
to say like I'm whole, it's not gonna land right.
Your brain rejects it like oil and wine. And so
let's talk about what happens when not enoughness becomes your identity,
especially around.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Food and your body.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
And so maybe you restrict food to try to feel
in control and then spiral when your willpower runs out,
or you binge or emotionally eat and then beat yourself up,
and that just reinforces this identity of I'm a failure
or maybe you I mean this is these these are
all me, let's be honest. But like you wake up
every Monday with these like new rules. You're like, Okay, Monday,
(04:29):
I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna start that, I'm gonna
stop that. But by Wednesday you're already ashamed of yourself
for breaking them, or just like you're living in the gray,
like you're not in but you're not out right, or
you don't trust yourself around food, so you constantly outsource
your power to plans or points or programs or macros,
or maybe you feel like you're starting over every single week,
(04:50):
every single month, every single you know, Monday morning that
rolls around and it's like Groundhog's Day. And here's the
truth underneath all of that. It is not just about
the food. It is about the identity that you've attached
to the food. Because when you believe that you're not enough,
you're going to interpret every action, every mistake, every craving
(05:13):
through that lens. And so you'll say, like, see, I
knew i'd mess this up, like proof, this is proof
I just can't be trusted around food, or I can't
be trusted with whatever, or again, why even try?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
And around and round we go. That's the merry go round.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
And this is where I want to pause and say
something really clearly. This is the stuff that makes us
feel like we're broken. Okay, but you are not broken.
You're just wired, like your brain just got wired this way,
and your brain is not working against you per se.
It's doing exactly what it was wired to do, which
(05:49):
is keep you safe, keep you predictable, and keep you
in this identity that you've worked to create. Again, you
didn't know it, but it's been created, and it's been reinforced, reinforced, reinforced.
But here is the incredible part, the miraculous part, The
stuff I love about neuroscience is that just as your
brain learned this identity of not enough, it can go
(06:11):
learn something new.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
And it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
How old you are, how far gone you are. It's
not about flipping a switch. It's about building a bridge right,
one step, one thought, one experience at a time, and
again that bridge can be built no matter where you
are in your life.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
And that's why reclaiming.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Your identity and discovering who you are without the story
of not enough, this is the real work. And it's
not just about releasing the weight or fixing your food.
It's about reclaiming the truth of who you are beneath
all of that noise that got picked up. Because here
is what I know to be true. You were never
(06:52):
meant to live inside this identity of not enough, and
you were never meant to define yourself by your past,
or your your patterns, or your pain that you find
yourself in.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I was so defined by my pain.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Right, and when that story has been playing out for years,
it's understandable. It's so hard to imagine who you'd be
without it, Right, That's the part that kind of scares us.
And that's why I don't just teach food strategies or
habit change. I teach brain rewiring, and I teach self
image transformation, and I teach identity work. Because it's not
(07:26):
enough to just do different things. You have to become
a different version of you, the one that was there
all along, but it was just buried under shame and
self doubt and that old wiring that just got piled
on top. And so here's what the shift actually looks like,
moment by moment, and it really is micro choice by
micro choice and micro awareness by micro awareness. But it
(07:48):
looks like things like you pause before a binge and
you ask, like, what do I really need right now
because I'm physically not hungry, like this is emotional and
then knowing how to be emotionally available to yourself in
those moments. It's when you catch yourself inside of a
shame spiral, and you say like, this doesn't mean I'm broken,
this means I'm overwhelmed, and you can see the difference
and you know like, oh, this isn't shame, this is
(08:10):
me being overwhelmed.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Now what do I need when I'm overwhelmed?
Speaker 1 (08:13):
And we create your own recipe, right, and then you
know the difference in your bones, and then that knowingness
becomes your default.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
It looks like you know.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
You noticing yourself talk and gently saying like, that's the
old story and that is drama and I'm not living
there anymore. This is not who I am anymore. And
then you know it and believe it because you did
the work to transform it. And it shows up where
all of a sudden you look back and you're like, wow,
I'm not earning my worth.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
I'm just acting like I already have it.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
And this is identity in motion and it's not perfection
and it's not some magical transformation, but it's slow, steady
and compassionate rewiring doesn't work when you're doing punishment driven rewiring, right,
And so if you're ready to gently untangle from the
identity of no, here are some points.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
That you might want to explore.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Okay, so what were you taught directly or indirectly about
your worth growing up? Like you just want to have
an awareness about what is what are you weighing and
measuring yourself by right now?
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Right?
Speaker 1 (09:13):
And then what does your inner voice sound like when
it's in not enough mode? Like what is your version
of the drama, the story, the meaning that you're giving it?
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Right? What version are you protecting by holding on to
that identity?
Speaker 1 (09:25):
So I have a client that you know, she was like,
I my go to is anger when I'm feeling stressed.
And she learned and again it was unconscious and subconscious
that anger was the way that she protected herself when
she was stressed. And it's like, no, she was just
holding onto that and realizing like, actually, what I'm stressed,
what I really need is X, And we needed to
figure out what her anti stress version was.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
But then it's like a matter of like, okay, well
who would you become if you no longer believed that
you were broken and that you had to earn your worth?
Speaker 2 (09:53):
And so I want to leave you with this.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Remember, like, your identity is not fixed, It is not
set in stone, It is not defined by your past,
or your mistakes or your eating habits, and you are
not broken. You are becoming, or at least you can
be the version of yourself, becoming the next version of yourself,
because not enough is not.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Who you are.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
It's just a story that you learned to tell yourself.
And so here's what I want to leave you with today.
You don't need to become a new person. You just
need to return to the version of you that was
whole all along, the you that was available before the shame,
and the you before the trauma, and the you that
existed before the world told you to be less and
(10:35):
feel less and want less. And that woman she is
still in there, and she is not too much, and
she is not not enough.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
She is exactly who she is supposed to be.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
And she's probably if I'm hearing you and reading you
and intuiting you correctly, she's ready for peace. She doesn't
want to fight this battle anymore. She is ready for peace.
So that is it for today. Outweigh and if you
want to learn more about how I personally teach my
clients to turn off the part of their brain that
is obsessed with food, obsessed with their weight, and do
(11:11):
exactly what we're talking about here, rewire their self image
and identity not just for peace and freedom, but for
actually receiving their worthiness. Then head on over to stressless
eating dot com where I've literally peeled back the curtain
and walked you through the exact strategy that I teach
my own clients to go through the healing process themselves.
So head on over there to stressless eeating dot com
(11:33):
and we'll be back for more outweigh next week.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Bye.
Hosts And Creators
Amy Brown
Leanne Ellington
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