January 8, 2024 • 56 mins
Today we are talking about what self-sabotage really is with Tanja Shaw. Tanja reveals the layers of self-sabotage- why when we know what to do and then don’t take action and doit. In this episode you will learn strategies to break through and finally get consistent. When we are out of alignment with who we want to be, that creates a low-grade pain point in our lives. Once we achieve greater integrity with ourselves by keeping the promises we make to ourselves, that pain point begins to diminish. As we learn to be more honest with ourselves with where we are and where we want to be, being kind and gracious then we are able to take the action we desire. Tanja encourages listeners to focus on today, one day ata time evaluate your goals and make sure they match the reality of your life. This conversation is full of great nuggets that you can use. Please grab a cuppa something wonderful and join us! https://www.tanjashaw.com/
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Episode Transcript
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(00:03):
Hi, Hi'm Jennifer. Are welcometo the Feminine Roadmap podcast a global community
of women in midlife. We gatherhere weekly over a cup of something wonderful
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please sit back and enjoy. Hello, Feminine road Meppers, Welcome back to
(00:29):
Feminine Roadmap Podcasts, the podcast thathelps you navigate the challenges and the changes
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podcast platform, please remember to subscribe, rate, and share. Today we're
(00:51):
going to be talking about self sabotage. My guest is going to talk about
these layers of self sabotage and whyis it that when we know what we
need to do, we don't doit, and how do we break through
and become more consistent. My guesttoday is Tanya Shaw. She is a
functional health and nutrition coach. Tanya, thank you so much for being here
today. Oh Gina, thanks somuch for having me. I'm excited to
(01:14):
have this conversation a topic I lovespeaking on, and I really hope that
it's going to reach yeah, youraudience. You know, it's one of
those things that's kind of a hottopic at the moment and really interested to
hear about. What is it thatdrew you to this particular topic. Oh
well, it's a good question.Long story. You know. I started
(01:38):
my health journey excuse me, whenI was in my teens and twenties.
I love the way exercise made mefeel, and it really got me into
loving the body science side of things, and eventually got my knisology degree star
working as a canislogist, and that'sour personal training. And at the time,
I thought everything was about, youknow, the best workout plans and
you know, here's how to eat, and you know, at that time,
(02:00):
it was very you know, leadinginto the low first with high carb
and low fat, the low carband all of the things. I was
really great putting together plans and protocolsand clients would get results, but they
were never really able to stick withit for the long term. And personal
training is very personal, and Igot to know my clients very very well,
and I realized that there was somethingmissing between the knowing and the doing
(02:23):
and also just our enjoyment of thewhole process. So a lot of times
we were other, you know,we had this all or nothing thinking,
we're on, we're off. Wehad a very rocky relationship with food.
We were like hating on ourselves andjudging ourselves and not happy with ourselves.
We're always pursuing the next you know, the five pounds and the last five
pounds. And at the same time, I was also struggling with my own
(02:44):
very disordered relationship with food and bodyand weight loss and exercise. I was
overdoing it. I was always onthis pursuit of you know, just getting
to beslr size and dieting and dietingdieting and being very restrictive. But then
realizing like my own own struggles withfood were not just my own, and
so many people were struggling, andI was just wanting to find that gap
(03:07):
or in fill the gap between theknowing and the doing, but also not
just white knuckling it and thinking thatit's always about willpower and you know,
pushing harder and harder because we allhave real lives and we only have so
much capacity and bandwidth to work on. You know, changing these habits.
So it was back in twenty fifteenthat I really started to reject the whole
diet model of just you know,here's a plan, here's the protocol,
(03:29):
and started really working on the mindsetside of things. And now I feel
like we all talk about mindset.However, most places don't actually teach you
how to change your mindset and howto change your thoughts. They just talk
to you about how it's important andyou know, just stick with it or
just have more, you know,more written. But and most of the
(03:49):
most people are aware that they needto get the right mindset, but they're
left with, well, how doI do this? So that's what spurred
me into this, and I justsaw a need for my own personal journey,
and then also those who worked withand I wanted to do something different.
I think it's fascinating that it reallyis a common thing that people go
through, Like even high achievers let'scall them right, they struggle as well.
(04:13):
But to your point, there isa there's a shift that we need
to make. And I'm curious,how do you help people identify its self
sabotage in a positive way? Andthen what steps do you walk people through,
to get them through it, tobreak through it, because it's so
automatic, right, it's just happeningto us. We don't even realize it
(04:34):
sometimes absolutely, and it's not everjust one thing. Yeah, And that
is where I start with, issorted with the definition of what self sabotage
actually is. Because we often say, well, self sabotage, or we
say like, I'm sabotaged. Iactually don't use those words very often except
for when I'm speaking, like youknow, in big topics like this,
(04:56):
because this is what we do,this is how we speak. We say
I'm self sabotaging. We say it'sself sabotage. But self sabotage really is
just when you're not doing the thingsyou know you could do, should do,
want to do to reach your goalsand to be more in alignment with
your future self, the future selfthat you want to be. Yeah.
(05:17):
And so for example, it couldbe you know, I said that I
was going to stop eating Africa tonight, and here I am with a
bag of chips and a glass ofwine and being like, well fit now
had done that, Adams, we'lljust go all out. We call that
self sabotage. But if we takeout the word self sabotage. All we're
doing is we are saying we're goingto do one thing and then doing something
(05:42):
different. So I don't know ifit's actually like self sabotage. I don't
think it's an accurate measure or anaccurate term, because I don't think we're
doing it because we actually want toharm ourselves. It's just that we're not
following through on our promises just forourself. I also like taking out those
words because when we say things likeI'm just so inconsistent or I just self
(06:06):
sabotage, it's really hard to solvethe problem because it's so vague and so
big, and there's no clarity asto what the problem actually is. So
without that clarity of what the problemactually is, it becomes very hard to
solve it. Same thing often wesay things like I'm just so stressed,
(06:27):
I'm just so overwhelmed. But that'salso very hard to solve because what is
it? Is it a perception?Is it the fact that you're going through
a really big part of your liferight now and you are. Is there
layers of like that not enoughness that'slayering in and self doubts like there's all
these factors that are can be veryvague when we're just talking about things like
(06:50):
stress and overwhelm or self sabotage.So I think the first step is to
get a better definition and then startto define, yeah, what it actually
is and what does it look likefor you, so you have some clarity
before you can actually solve start solvingthe problem. It's kind of like an
(07:11):
integrity issue, right, like arewe being are we showing up for ourselves?
Right? Are we holding like yousaid, are we keeping our promise
to ourselves? It feels like ahuge integrity issue. We always show up
for or we often strive to bethere for other people, even to the
(07:32):
detriment of ourselves, right, andyet we struggle to prioritize ourselves in the
same way exactly. And you saidsomething that that's really important there. That's
that integrity piece because we often talkabout the pain of like a lot a
lot of my clients come to meinitially because they want to lose weight,
and we realize it's never ever beenabout the weight loss, and it's just
(07:56):
really the byproduct of you know,taking care of yourself and having a better
relationship to yourself. But One ofthe pain points that we don't talk about
is not having that integrity with yourself, being incongruent or out of alignment with
the person you want to be.And we talk about the pain of missing
out of life because your joints aresorry, because you're carrying extra weight,
(08:18):
or because you don't want to getup and down off the floor, or
traveling is hard or whatever it is. Sometimes it's a confidence thing. But
what we don't really talk about whenit's hard to articulate, is that pain
point. And it's a low gradepain point, but it's there all the
time when you are out of alignmentwith the person that you want to be.
(08:39):
You want to be a fit,healthy, vibrant person. You want
to be that kind of person whowoman who takes care of herself, who
you know makes the better choices,who is joyfully disciplined, who's kind to
herself, and you know has thehonesty piece and everything. But yet when
we are constantly not living in alignmentlike that, it's a point. And
(09:01):
for so many women, we havea pretty bad relationship with ourselves. Not
everyone, but when we're honest andwhen we start to dig deep, there's
often a lot of negative self talk. There's a lot of putting ourselves down,
and sometimes it's really obvious, andsometimes it's just so insidious you don't
know what you're doing it. AndI wonder sometimes, like no, wonder
(09:24):
we don't like ourselves because well,for us, we're not nice to ourselves.
And then we are always breaking promptnot always, but we often break
promises to ourself. And if youhad a friend who always put you down
and never kept her word to you, you probably hopefully stop hanging out with
that person because why would you wantthat person in your life? And that's
what we do to ourselves all thetime. So you're a big part of
(09:46):
it is the integrity piece. I'vethought a lot about this myself, because
sometimes I feel like it's fear right. The thing we want is also the
thing we're the most afraid of of. It doesn't have to be as massive.
But I agree with you. Ithink when our brain sees something as
(10:07):
too vague or kind of just tooout there, it's like we want something,
but like you said that, wedon't see how that can happen.
And our habits currently, you know, they say the habits you have today
aren't going to get you to theperson you want to be tomorrow. But
I do feel very strongly that Iin agreement with you that if we know,
(10:31):
like we cognitively understand, wow,I'm really missing the mark here,
you know, whatever it is,but we have no real concept of how
to get from point A to pointB, especially if our habits are so
opposed to maybe this thing that wesay we want to do and be.
I mean, do you do youunderstand what I'm trying to communicate. It's
(10:52):
like that incongruency that you were talkingabout, that lack of alignment with Sometimes
I think the incongruency really is,to your point, that lack of knowledge.
Mm hmmm. Yeah. And sometimeswe're aware. Sometimes we're almost like
we ignore those things. Sometimes wekind of put them as like, oh,
(11:13):
it's not so bad, or I'lldeal with that later. And you
said something that's really want to goback to that. That's the fear piece,
And fear comes up a lot,and it's like sometimes we're we're afraid
of, you know, failure orafraid of success. We're afraid of the
unknown, We're afraid of uncertain forthe work we have a note, we're
afraid of we're just sort of swimmingin this sort of pool of fear that
(11:33):
we don't we don't even know whatit is. And that's actually one thing
that I when I talk more withthe layers of self sabotage or not you
know, following through and promises yourself. But consistently, a lot of times
it is the fear piece and there'slots of what ifs, and our body,
our brain is there to keep ussafe and we have these sort of
(11:54):
unknowns, and it often is thefear of successful. What if I'm success?
Well, here's when when it comesto weight loss, like what if?
Like often we have weight losses beingit's kind of like our scapegoat for
not doing the other things in ourlife because we're like, I'll do that
when or we have this idea.And it's almost hard to sometimes these fears
to even articulate because they're so deepthat it's hard to put words onto them.
(12:18):
They just exist. It's like anoperating system on your on your computer,
Like you don't see it, butit's like it's the platform that everything
runs on. Yes, and youknow you might have a problem with one
of the applications, but has nothingto do the application it's also do with
like your operating system. Yes,and it's sometimes they just they come up
right and we don't even know thatthey're Often it's because of you know,
(12:41):
past things that happened to your pastor as that you're told. It doesn't
always have to be a lot ofmy clients have had, you know,
pretty big things happened to them oftheir life traumatic events. But it doesn't
have to happen like that. Itcould just beese that so what someone said
to you, or a belief thatyou adopted. I mean, a lot
of our beliefs came up when webelieve in Santa Claus back when we're eight
years old, and then we justkeep reinforcing them, reinforcing them into your
(13:03):
adult life. But the fear oneis huge, and that one comes up
a lot, but again it's hardto work through it without starting to identify
what actually is the fear. Andthis is one of the tools that I
use a lot, and you probablyam not the first one to ever share
this, but it's Journaling is powerfulbecause you get the things onto paper and
it becomes so much more concrete andit becomes something that you can actually solve
(13:26):
versus this sort of ambiguous, vaguething that's circling in our head and we're
swimming it and it feels just feelsvery just like a big storm without having
that clarity piece. Yeah. Ilove that you talk about our standard operating
system because I have a coaching clientright now that I literally just used that
(13:48):
analogy with just last week, becausewe do have you know, I know
we're talking about this idea of nothaving integrity with ourselves, but there's an
honest, I know, honesty withourselves. Like, for example, if
our operating system is to do justthe bare minimum, or other people are
(14:13):
more important, or you know,I'm not worthy or whatever, there's a
thousand things that we could stick inthat standard operating system, but there's this
integrity piece. So we want toget in alignment, and we have this
standard operating system and in order tohave integrity, I feel like the honesty
piece with ourselves is really important,not in an aggressive like argumentative way with
(14:37):
ourselves, but being honest with ourselves. I think sometimes we hang on to
goals because we're supposed to right,and we're not accomplishing them because we don't
actually somewhere deep inside, it's nolonger in alignment, or it's maybe directed
in the wrong direction. Does thatmake sense? Like I feel like learning
(15:01):
to be honest with ourselves and say, is this what I really want?
Totally? No, it's it isimportant because we do have lots of the
shoulds, and I see that alot more as I think. I mean
the women I work where there aregenerally fifty plus I think sometimes we've had
those shoulds for so long then youstart to really ask yourself the questions.
But honesty is important, and I'mreally glad that you brought that up because
(15:24):
I think it's been a really reallyimportant piece of all of this. As
a coach to be so easy ifI could just say, like, oh,
that's right, that's wrong, You'redoing the right thing. But I
have no idea, because it reallycomes down to, like the best advice
I can give, and the bestcoaching I did do with my clients is
to help them start to seek theirown truth and to be honest with themselves,
with ourselves, with themselves, becausehonesty also comes up from sometimes where
(15:48):
we almost sometimes give ourselves up.Like let's say, we do have a
goal and this is why, likeI said, a lot of my clients
come for weight loss, but ultimatelyit's like other things that that's underneath.
But sometimes we also are not honestwith ourselves because we give ourselves like these
passes where it's like, oh,that wasn't so bad, or I'm better
than I was before, or youknow what, like I get like,
(16:11):
you know, I I that wasstill a win because of you know,
it was better than it was before, or at least I didn't do that.
Like we have these sort of statementsto kind of and while it's true
and I and I think that wewant to be like celebrating our wins and
we want to be reinforcing things thatwe're doing, but sometimes we're also not
(16:32):
also calling ourselves out when we knowthat there's a level for us that we
want and we're just sort of andit's and that's, like I said,
it's really hard to distinguish when amI being compassionate with myself and you can
always be compassionate with myself, whenam I just sort of recognizing, like
now the time to rest or notworry so much or whatever I worry about
(16:52):
the right works we want to worryabout it either way, and when is
it time to rise up and toactually challenge ourselves and to know that no,
like that is important to me becausewe sometimes also might want something,
and this is where it's so complexand so many layers. We might want
something and then we'll tell for ourselvesit's not important because we don't believe we
can have it, or because sothis is like an I know, I
(17:15):
wish I could just say, well, you know, I wish there was
this like five sep process that wecan work through, but it really comes
down to a lot of journaling andquestioning and reflecting and being honest with yourself
because it's not a straightforward process.I would say that growth is never a
(17:37):
straightforward process. It moves you forward, but in a very uh a very
up and down and around and loopedloops and everything a little bit wonky,
but you'll get there. You know. It's interesting to me how there's common
challenges that we have, Like toyour point, everybody's path is different,
(18:00):
but we're all talking. It's kindof like we're all talking about this one
topic, but we all have acompletely different map to get there. And
I think when we struggle to findour own way alone, it can be
more difficult sometimes to your point,journaling is by far one of my favorite
(18:21):
strategies for myself and for other people, because our brains are so full of
thoughts and ideas, right, andwe put stories we like a where it's
like we're building something in our brain. Right, we have an idea or
thought, and then we start buildingon it and we start creating a story.
We start creating a dialogue or anarrative around these things, and depending
(18:44):
on who we're in relationship with,that narrative could be challenged or it could
be supported. Right. So Ithink that as we are processing these things
and putting them out on paper,it's good to see what you're say thinking,
right, not just thinking, butsee what you're thinking. And then
they're having someone yes, yes,atherways I think in that in like I
(19:08):
when I think about the storm inyour brain, like that's why I think
of it. It's like then there'sclouds and then there's it's just a mix
of emotions and thoughts and pop upthoughts and past stories and you don't know
it's true, but then and thething is that you think something and then
it creates the feeling, and becauseyou create the feeling, you think it's
true. And then you just kindof or you feel something and then you
create the thoughts to you know,match the feeling, and it just becomes
(19:30):
very very yeah, very very messy. When I was just listening to it,
I think it was on Instagram orsomething, someone said that when you
have a really hard math question,what do you do? You write it
down? So why you do thesame when it comes to our you know,
our personal problems too. That's agreat analogy, like trying to do
(19:51):
math. Sometimes math in your headis a piece of cake, and other
times it's like why is this sohard? For sure? Yeah, if
it's hard, down, so toyour point, do the simple thing right,
write it down, get it out, get it out to where you
can grapple with it. Thoughts arethings, and until you make it a
thing, meaning write it down,it's kind of hard to deal with it
(20:12):
to It's like the dream when youwake up from your sleep and you almost
remember your dream, and the closeryou try to remember your dream, like,
the further way it cats. You'relike, it's like it's like that.
So no, I find it reallyhelpful to write things down, and
it's a great process. Now youmentioned that often when people come to you
for weight loss. It's very rarelyabout weight loss. Can you expand on
(20:37):
that concept, because I feel likeit's probably more broadly applicable. Yeah,
I mean a lot of people wantto lose weight and there is no shame.
I can frame that differently, butlike I want you to everyone to
have permission to wap what they wantbecause often we like are a shamed because
(21:00):
we gain weight and we were shamebecause we want to lose weight because you
know others have you know, there'sjust like there's so much shame, Like
stop we worries. Give yourself permressionto want what you want, and weight
loss can be a wonderful goal tohave, but it becomes one of many
goals. And the reason why it'simportant for that first of all, is
because we got to start to wonder, like what is weight loss going to
(21:21):
bring us? And well and makesure that we know why we want to
lose weight and we understand what theweight loss actually brings because often we think,
well, I want to be confident, I want to be you know
all these kinds of things. It'slike, well, you can lose the
weight and not be confident, oryou can lose the weight and love yourselflf
but have it be a very conditionallevel. I love myself only went out
(21:41):
of a certain size, and that'sthat you can have us. You can
meet in a smaller body, butstill have now you know, waiting for
the other shooting you're up and justkind of being and living in fear,
wanting or being afraid that you're goingto gain the weight back, or still
being anxious around food and parties andcelebrations. So it's it's a good goal.
It is one goal, but it'sone goal out of many, and
(22:03):
I think we've aw to tap thatin context. And for a lot of
my clients too, when they cometo me and they start losing some weight
everything which is great, but thentheir desire to lose weight actually goes down
a lot for a lot of womentoo because they're just like and and not
to say they still don't want tolose weight, but it's just it's not
the same. They just have somuch more of a better relationship with themselves
(22:23):
that it's not I'm not losing theweight because I now want to love myself.
I'm losing I already love myself andI just want to take care better
care of myself. So that's Ithink a big part of it. And
I look at weight loss as anatural consequence of you taking care of yourself,
and we don't actually don't know whatwe're supposed to weigh, Like who
knows. I can say I wantto lose ten pounds, but who says
(22:44):
who I can't? I could,But what is it going to cost me?
And how much of an effort isgoing to be to do that?
And is it worth it? Sowhen you go at it from a place
of like I'm actually taking care ofmy body and doing the things that are
right for me, then your body'sgoing to do what it's going to do.
Now. With that being said,this is also why I've really got
into the functional health side of things, because a lot of my clients were
really getting great mindset shifts and startingto feel a lot more calm and peaceful
(23:08):
and making better choices, but we'restill not losing weight. And I wanted
to just look under the cover asto what's happening from a you know,
a gut health, hormone, immunefunction, digestion, detoxification, all the
things, just to see how Ican best support them, because sometimes there
are physical things that are getting inthe way from your goals. Like for
(23:29):
a lot of women in their fortiesto sixties have diory dysfunction and it might
not be a diagnosed like hypothyroidism orhashimotos, but a lot of women do.
Or they have candi to overgrowth,or they have you know, the
sort of like cortical this regulation whichjust makes it harder to lose weight.
Or for a lot of women too. And I did not realize that is
(23:49):
when I first started working with themfor a lot that they were under eating
for way too long and trying togo to these fourteen hundred calorie fifteen hundred
calorie diets for for years, andthen we're wondering why they weren't losing weight.
And sometimes they're not losing weight becauseon average they were eating a lot
more because you tried to do fourtender calories. You can do it Monday
(24:10):
to Friday. Weekends are like allbets are off because you are you know,
coob. We can't sustain that lowof calories for if you're an active,
you know, full grown woman,if you need food, right,
So that side of things too,Yeah, it's looking at both the mindset
pieces and then also the body sizeside of pieces as well as well too.
(24:32):
You get to where you want togo and knowing that there's also no
there is no arriving of anywhere thatyou're going to get to. But it's
just all about yeah, continuing on. You know, as you're talking,
I'm thinking about, you know,if we're focused on that external thing,
right, the number on the scale, the dollar in the wallet, the
(24:59):
whatever. On some level, nowwe've put our worth, our value on
something else, and all of thosethings can change and be taken away,
you know what I mean. SoI think that the psychology of what you're
(25:22):
talking about in my mind is maybethe fear is born out of I can't
control that, which is true.I cannot control the job, you know,
sometimes I can't. Like menopause,our bodies do things that they didn't
do before, and I cannot controlit. I can make choices, and
(25:45):
I think maybe that would be ashift at least in my mind that could
help instead of being like a bright, like that's over there and it's
overwhelming, or I'm intimidated, orI don't think I can do it,
or whatever. The story is toyour point that's running in the background,
(26:06):
that is hindering our ability to seea way through number one, and hindering
our motivation to try because of fearnumber two. I like to ask questions
to jog the pattern right, liketo disrupt it and say, Okay,
isn't that interesting? That was aninteresting thought. That's interesting, or you
(26:30):
know, what's my next best stepthat's over there, like right now,
what do I want to feel orwhat do I want to accomplish? And
I feel like, while there's liketo your point, I understand as a
coach, I don't know what peopleare supposed to do, but I can
help them navigate whatever their journey is. But I feel like asking ourselves better
questions, or even beginning to askourselves questions. It not the ones that
(26:53):
we ask like why are you doingthat? Why are you being stupid?
Not those questions. Now ask betterquestions for sure, the ones that are
actually helpful. I love that youbrought that up. I use questions a
lot for myself and also in mycoaching because they and I think it was
John Maxwell. That's sounds like thelevel of your life is determined by the
(27:14):
level of your question. Or TonyRobbins or someone said that, yes,
this is true, it really is. And this is where again you ask
your questions. It gets you toquestions, start to bring forward your higher
thinking brain, which I love,and it gets i'll gets out of your
emotional brain of just like I wantthe temper chance terms that work can be
having sometimes and also bes a slowdown because sometimes we do just we just
(27:37):
operate on these systems that we've beenoperating on for so long. And I
think we've all had that experience youkind of just do what you've been doing
for because you've always been doing it, because you've always been doing it without
popping your head up and ask yourself, what is this all I want?
Or is this true? Is thisstill my truth? Or what else is
true? I think it's really reallygreat. You know you said they're also
about the sort of what do Ineed? And I think that's a really
(28:00):
helpful mindset too, because sometimes it'sgoing to be different from seasons to seasons.
Yeah, and you know we mightbe sometimes in a push face.
Sometimes we're in a kind of arecovery phase. It's all good and it's
all different, and we get todo a little bit of all of it.
And also what you said there aboutsometimes how it feels so overwhelming because
the thing seems so far away,and you're right, we don't have control
(28:25):
over it, and we never did. This is where I think COVID was
so hard for so many of us, because it was so in our faces
that we don't have control, andwe never did. We like to think
we do, and we can control, you know, certain things, or
you know, within our best,but for example, for weight loss,
you can't control. You can't controlthe number on the scale. You can
(28:48):
influence it, And we sometimes worryso much about what's going to happen,
you know, five ten years fromnow, next year, am I going
to stick with it? And that'sa complete waste of energy because it's a
completely irrelevant like it matters what happensfive years down the road, does not
matter at all, right, becauseall we can ever focus on right now
(29:11):
is right now and that's it.Yeah, And essentially the five years is
in that, isn't it? Right? In other words, if I'm worried
about five years from now, thequestion then is what can I do now?
What can I do right now?Because the five years is gonna come?
But then five years never gets here. Technically, every day that five
year mark just keeps moving out aday, right, Yeah, and then
(29:33):
the other side of that too,So does the five year feel so far
away that I'm not going to doanything now because I have so much time?
And that's again why it's so goodthat we start to kind of continue
to stay focused on what we cando today. They give so much more
clarity and piece because this is like, ultimately what we have the most control
over is what we can do stayand that's it. And talking about the
control piece too, I think it'sreally helpful just to recognize like like we're
(30:00):
all going to fail, We're allgoing to have fears. Like you don't
have to overcome fears to start orto take the fears can come along for
the ride. It's all good.We're not to think that we need to
be fearless or anything like that.Is I think a goal that is not
going to be achieved, So let'snot I've been worried about that is you
know, do it anyway. Andthat's why it's so great just to stay
(30:22):
focused on what can I do today. One of my favorite mantras for myself
is I'm going to do the bestI can and that's all I can do?
Is it? Because it is Ican? And the same thing for
weight loss, Like don't don't westop ourselves so often before we even start
because of the fears of the whatif so they or you know, putting
(30:42):
ourselves first for investing money or whateverit is. And it's all we can
ever do is what's happening today?That's it. You know, there's a
question that sometimes is helpful. It'slike, what's the worst thing that can
happen if I try? Like,what's the worst thing can happen? And
if I make this one little change? And maybe that's it, isn't it
(31:04):
right, Tanya, It's it's thevolume of the change, Like how big,
how loud, how disruptive is thischange in our mind? Mm hmmm?
Right? Because change back to thestandard operating system. It's got us
on. It's got us on,a good, locked and loaded system.
Right back to the safety, thecontrol, whatever we see it as.
(31:30):
But to your point, we reallydon't ever have control. We don't ever
have complete autonomy. So if wecan focus on what we can focus on
and remove the things that were maybeless controllable. I don't know what the
right word is, but it's likeremoving your plate, right, like clearing
(31:52):
your plate of the things that aresucking your energy or making you feel out
of control or triggering that self sabotage, because you know that's the word we're
using what's triggering us to avoid whatwe say we want. And I think
we were dancing around this issue,and I don't think that there's a solid
(32:14):
answer, but I do think thatthe idea of these greater things outcomes.
Like even in weight loss, Imean you can speak to this, of
course, you know, we cansay I want this number on the scale.
And for example, I got reallysick with a thyroid disease twenty something
(32:34):
years ago, and I lost somuch weight so fast because I had hyperthyroidism,
I had graves. And now froma healthy state, I look back
and go, well, now Iknow what I look like at that number
on the scale, and it washorrible. Like on a chart it could
say, oh, at your height, this is the lowest you should weigh
(32:58):
or whatever. So that number wastechnically on this chart somewhere, but I
guarantee you I looked like I wasup starving to death, you know what
I mean. So I feel likeit's a very small example but my point
is sometimes what's in our mind,what we think is going to be satisfactory,
or what we think is to yourpoint way like early on make us
(33:20):
happy. Mm hmmm, right.I love that you talk that we're talking
about happiness. Okay, happiness isone of those oh you know, like
the goes. So you you saidsomething very profound, which is this moment,
is what we have, this decision, this feeling, what do we
(33:43):
want right now? Maybe if we'renot so focused on that big, scary
whatever in the distance. That isone of the strategies to setting aside.
The other thing that you said thatI really love is the goal is not
to be fearless. I love thatthe goal is not to be fearless.
(34:06):
That's impossible, right, But ifwe can back to the integrity and honesty
piece, admit that we're afraid andjust get curious about why. You know,
what are we afraid of? Haveyou ever? That question is an
interesting ones, like what am Iafraid of? What's what's the worst thing
really that can happen? And oftenit's it's all in a boogeyman, it's
(34:30):
not a real thing that could happen. Yeah, I use that question a
lot actually as well as what I'mafraid of. And because you know,
we talk about the kind of theunderlying deeper reasons of the self sabotaged cycle,
often it is a deeper viewer.For example, is that it could
be if I lose the weight,now I no longer need to worry about
(34:52):
I have this problem. So whatam I going to do with all my
thought energy and my life energy ifI'm like I sometimes when we're like I
need to go do something profound andsomething huge with my life, like noll,
no, you don't. You canactually do nothing. It's totally fine.
Like or you know, in thepast, maybe when they were losing
weight, they were getting some mention. Yes, And you know, I
(35:13):
remember one of my clients She's like, every time when I lose the weight,
I feel like I can't say noto this one person. I'm like,
well, you can lose the weightand say no, like when.
And that's till you actually write down. It becomes like almost like it's you
can kind of think in your mind, you can argue yourself in your mind,
but when you write down and youget the truth really out, it's
really quite powerful. But I lovethat question Gina that you brought up is
(35:36):
what's the worst that can happen?And I use that question a lot,
especially when it comes to sometimes makinginvestments or you know, if you're investing
into a coaching program, and alot of people who like my my coaching
programs are an investment, I'm not. I'm not. I think it's a
wonderful deal you get so much,but it's an investment for sure. And
for a lot of people, theydon't take action, like they'll say it's
(35:58):
money and funny a continuum like andsome for absolutely it is, but often
it's not. It's the unknowns.It's like can I do it? It's
a am I worthy of it?That gets in the way because the worst
thing that happens, like, well, let's say if you lost a couple
thousand dollars, like and that wasthe worst case scenario, would you still
(36:20):
be able to retire? Would youstill be able to like put for you
like yes, like most people would. But it's often like it's or it's
the fear of failure, like Idon't know if I can handle that,
you know, with myself again,like what if I try and I really
try, and I don't succeed.Here's another one that comes up. We
kind of have ass try because we'reafraid that if we really try and it
(36:42):
doesn't work, then what then whoare we left with? Then? Who
are we? And that was areason why I didn't start my online coaching
business for years. I wanted tofor years, but I had this fear
that what if I actually really triedwith something that I wanted and it didn't
work out? And so instead ofanswering and writing down because one of the
(37:04):
things I recommend doing is like whenwe have all these what ifs, right
like, well, what if thishappens? What if that happens? What
we do is we have all thesewhat if we'd ever take the time to
answer them and to your point ofthat question, like was the worst case
stereo? Like write down all ofthe what ifs, Like well, what
if I fail? What if Ijust wasted three thousand dollars or two thousand
dollars? What if I you know, what if I lose the weight and
(37:28):
can't keep it up, what ifI start getting the weight back? What
if I go out in vacation andyou know, there's just write it all
down and then respond to it.What would you actually do, because then
it becomes less scary because you knowthat whole question, like what's the worst
case scenario? We are more afraid, I believe anyway is study on this,
but I think that we're more afraidof the unknowns than we are of
(37:51):
the worst case scenario. For peoplewho are waiting for test results back from
like so they have let's they hada biopsy on the rest or gaze,
the waiting period is so much worsethan actually even if it was the thing
like the negative diagnosis, because nowthat you take action, now there's clarity,
now there's something they can do,versus this sort of like just this
ambiguous waiting game of like well whatif, what if? What if?
(38:14):
And that often often stops us.We stop before we even start because we
have all these what ifs. Andthis is where what we think is so
important, and the journaling helps ourthoughts become reality in other words, standard
(38:37):
operating system. The thoughts we think, the beliefs we have, they're all
in there running our life, youknow, and when you write it down,
it's it becomes real to you,Like that doesn't make any sense,
right, Like now that I seeit, we're like well, that's dumb
(39:00):
the world, I know, andI want to just creatorate that there is
with all the thought work we do, and all the work that I do
and you do, and all thework that we've like my clients are done
for years working with me, thereis no place also where we never have
to do this work, where itcan be Oh my gosh, isn't that
the truth? Yeah? And Isay that like because often, like for
(39:21):
example, yesterday, I was havinga bit of a low grade intrusive thoughts
were coming up, like they weren'tlike full on there, but I could
just tell, and I could tellwith how I felt, I could tell
with how I started to become alittle bit more argumented with my Husband's so
interesting how when I'm feeling when I'mnot feeling good, I'm the first thing
(39:47):
I want to do is to pushhim away versus you know, like and
I caught it pretty quick, andwe had a really really great conversation last
night, and I brought him inclosed, and which was really good,
you know, because there's a coupleof things going on in my life and
I've had some challenges with business aswell, and there's so much even with
(40:10):
all the thought work with everything thatI do, and like, you know,
you post all like the a lotof the great things are happening,
but there's still so much self doubtand there's still so much like well what
ifs? And the thing is likewhen you think about the what ifs,
like you know, if we loseall of our income, We're still going
to be fine because I'll go withmy parents, you know, like if
(40:31):
you sometimes like what's like the worst? It's actually not that scary. But
often what we just we just get. We just swim around in the sort
of low grade fear and without evergetting clear of what it actually is.
I think for a big part fora lot of us, it's what does
it say about who we are?You know? What if? Like like
for my bit for the struggles andmy business, I'm like, you know
(40:53):
what, my my kind of mysecond business, the coaching I've been doing
has been now I'm most four years, but we have some really big challenges
and last a little bit like justthings have just changed and you foreshadow and
you catastrophize. And the biggest fearprobably is does it mean that I'm not
(41:14):
enough or I'm not successful? AndI think that's where when if we're honest,
and this is where the honesty piececomes from comes comes in a lot
of times we don't fully put ourtwo feet in and jump full into things
because we're all afraid of that whatdoes it mean about us? And this
is where I feel like there's somuch of the mindset so that goes in.
(41:36):
There's so much like the actions andeverything like that. But it's it's
real, right at least it's evenif it's not real real, it's like
it's real to us. It feelsreal. But you made a couple of
really good points. You know,what does this mean about me? Like?
Who am I? If this doesn'twork? Will I be a failure?
(42:00):
Well? How often do we actuallytake the time to really define what
what is failure? Totally? It'sright? And what is success? In
other words, success is the otherquestion and what makes it? And if
we're afraid of not being enough orwhat is enough? Yes, the questions,
it's the questions. It's like,so what I'm saying then is I'm
(42:20):
not enough? Now I will?I don't get to be enough until I
reach some certain arbitrary keyword benchmark thatI've made for myself or even an arbitrary
benchmark somebody else has made for us. Totally, what I've done is I've
forfeited the present for an unknowable futurewhen I self sabotage because I'm making a
(42:45):
decision not to do something now becauseof something that may or may not happen
in the future. Because everything thathappens in the future is based on something
I do right now. So bynot doing now, I'm a senctually making
my negative thought thing become more ofa reality. Whereas if we ask the
(43:06):
good questions and take be honest withourselves and keep evaluating, is that really
the target that I still want?Because I feel like a lot of the
times, especially the older, weget not everyone recalibrates right the what was
successful at twenty five is may lookvery different totally forty five, fifty five,
(43:29):
sixty five. What you said thereabout how we sometimes don't act now
because of the future goals, it'slike, and that's just what it's so,
even if it's not what we want, the familiarity of it is so
much more comfortable than the unknowns oflike, well, the what ifs.
So I think that was just reallythe familiarity of even the familiar with the
(43:52):
things that we don't want. Likelet's say it's you know, the emotional
eating or the stress eating or theover eating whatever, it's more that's more
familiar than yeah, the unknowns ofgoing of going forward. So what I
hear you saying is sometimes we staywith the familiar, holy even if.
(44:13):
But then that doesn't that take usback to the honesty piece? M hm?
Because what if what if we sayI actually like having fifteen oreos with
milk at midnight? What if wewere to turn and face that whatever it
is? What what's the worst thingthat can happen if you admit you like
(44:34):
to eat a bag of chips?I mean, we we know this is
not a great decision and the longhaul for your organs and your body.
But if we if we step itback and just go, what's the worst
thing that can happen if you admitthat you like it? Right? If
you just land on it and goIn this moment, I'm choosing it's a
(44:55):
choice. Nobody's holding a gun toyour head. That you're not powerless in
this situation. You're choosing process ofreally recognizing that if our habit is to
run to food or to whatever itis, we need to be honest with
ourselves that that's what we've chosen.We maybe we were taught it, but
(45:15):
now we're choosing to do X,Y, and Z, and it's really
on nobody but us. And ifwe choose to do it, why beat
ourselves up? Why don't we justtell the truth? Mm hmm. It's
not effective. I don't know ifit's ever worked for you, but it
doesn't. It doesn't work for youbecause then you stress it and you're emotionally
eat because you just beat yourself up? Or are you over restricting? Go
(45:37):
the other way too. I dolike that thought, you know, being
honest with ourself that this is yep. I've been doing this my whole life.
Don't really like the results, butI kind of like it in the
moment, And then sit with thatf for a minute. Well, you
can have two truths right, likeoften we This is why the mindset piece
is so important and the conversations ofourselves is so important, because we often
(46:00):
stop that I like that, Iwant that, and that's it, like
it's but then you're like, butI want to lose weight, and then
you beat yourself up because you thinkyou shouldn't want or shouldn't have done it.
You can. It's true that youmight like well, not you,
but you might like the fifteen oreoswith milk at nighttime. You might like
overeating. You might like numbing outwith food. You might like mindless eating
(46:23):
food by while you're eating the couch. You might like that, which is
fair. Emotional eating works like itdoes. It takes us away from yes,
it soothes us, and it couldalso be a great like for sometimes
it could be a wonderful coping mechanism, because sometimes life is just so can
be so hard. All that's true. We're not denying it. Often we
(46:47):
just start to try arguing ourselves.But what's also true is that you might
want to be taking care of itbetter carry yourself. Or what's also true
is that you were going to belearning how to make you slightly better choice.
What's also true is that if youare present with the Oreo cookies,
you can eat five and get alot of pleasure it. What's also true
(47:12):
is that you'll feel better next morningif you have one or none and go
to bed. So it's not denyingthe truth because those are truth. It's
just about starting to look for othertruths and training towards the truth that's going
to move you forward, which isn'talways our first thought. I don't know
about you, but my first thoughtsare often not the ones I want to
(47:34):
keep. Which there's room for pause, then, isn't there? Like one
of the tools that I've used islike to your point with your husband,
the example that you shared is likecatching yourself and being honest with that moment,
like, uh, why do Ifeel like doing X, Y and
z? Learning your triggers or yourpatterns and catching yourself and just pause,
(47:59):
just pause. That's where the that'sinteresting, That's where that question comes in
handy, where it's like, okay, what that was interesting? Instead just
blaming him for the things that hewas doing, which was really nothing.
I know it was all me,But it does take honesty to do that
because if we don't want to admitthose kind of things, right, well,
again to your two truths, right, yes we do and know we
(48:22):
don't. So where do we landto get to the destination that we're headed
for? So if you had threestrategies that you could share that would you
know, encourage listeners Because we've reallytalked about a lot of things. We've
skipped rocks in some ways, right, You and I both know that the
depth of MIT we could we coulddo episodes on each like leg of this
(48:43):
conversation. I agree, it isvery very deep, you know. I
think a big part it starts withclarity. If I was going to come
up with a couple of different strategies, is clarity is the first part is
like what is getting clear on whatyou want or what you don't want?
And it could be it could bealso include the weight loss side of things.
It could be like clarity, Ithink is one of our superpowers in
(49:04):
terms of getting because when we havethese vague goals, I've been like I'm
going to eat better, Like whatdoes that mean? Because it's really hard
to say to wake up the samelike I'm going to eat better today.
It's too vague. So on agranular level, clarity is really important.
So today, like what am Iactually doing today to make progress for my
goals? And what are my goalsfor the long term? And the longer
term goals can be a bit morebigue they could be more like I want
(49:27):
how you want to feel something likethat. But I think clarity is really
important and even when you define clarity, sometimes we stop ourselves because we don't
think we can get there. Wementioned that in the conversation, So questions
could be like, well, ifI believed with one hundred percent certainty that
I could do anything I wanted toand I would be successful, what would
I want? Answer? A reallygood question, because often we come up
(49:49):
with these goals and I do thisas well, and probably business health that
you make them smaller sometimes just becauseyou don't believe it's possible. And again
this is like where it's like there'stwo sides and two ways to look at
this. And they were like,well, start small, start doable,
and so I'm like, well,are we just holding ourselves down because we
(50:12):
don't believe we can do something else? And it's and that there is no
where to prognance that, and that'swhere the honesty comes in. But then
the other point too, so thatclarity pieces is really important and it doesn't
have to be an arrival point wherelike, oh, now define my goals
and I'll never have to revisit themagain. It's going to be a work
in progress, it's gonna be somethingwe're going to keep for defining. I
(50:36):
do also really really like the whatifs. And so if you're struggling with
the you know, stopping yourself beforeyou're starting, or you're investing or getting
a coach, or you know,doing that next thing, we often don't
do it because we haven't responded tothe what ifs. The what ifs are
just sort of swimming around in ourbrain and we've never actually written them down
(50:59):
and just like, well, thisis what I would do. I reach
out, get to help, Iwould you know all these things. So
the first one is clarity, thesecond one is the what ifs, and
then the third one. I mean, there's lots we can go wherever.
But I think the really important thingtoo is to just we talked about this
on the call today too, isto focus on the present and today I
(51:21):
recommend focusing on one day at atime, and for two reasons. One
is because every day is different,and your goals for today might be different
than tomorrow, because tomorrow is adifferent day, and your goals have to
match the reality of your life,because if they don't, it becomes really
hard to stick with them. Andwe wonder why we're not making progress because
we're not matching the reality of ourlife. And the reality of your life
(51:44):
isn't always just the external things.It's also where you're at in terms of
your mental state and your capacity tomake changes. Because for a lot of
people, they think it's a timething. We're not coaches will say this
all the time. We all havethe say, in twenty four hours in
the day, we all like,you know, our workouts only was it
four percent of your day or allthis like nonsense. It's true, it's
(52:07):
true, But most people don't strugglewith time, although some do. Most
people struggle with bandwidth. They strugglewith the mental capacity to make the change
because turning off food at nighttime,shutting out in the kitchen takes no more
time than snacking all night. Like, yes, maybe it takes more time
to prepare like some a whole bunchof vegetables at home and stuff like that,
(52:28):
But it's it's the bandwidth. It'sthat is the heart of the thing
that most people have, and it'snot always and sometimes the bandwidth is like
just our own mental like battling backand forth, so clarity, starting to
answer the what ifs, writing itdown, and then focusing on one day
of time, because the goals foryour day have the match reality of your
life. And then the other partis so that you focus on one day
(52:52):
at a time, because quite oftenwe just set these goals like I'm just
gonna eat better, I'm just gonnalose weight, I'm just gonna build my
business. I'm just gonna, youknow, have a better realtionship with my
my my husband or whatever it is. But there's no actions each day and
there's no focus on it every day, so that we won't want we don't
get there. It's like, wellmaybe that's why. So that's one thing
(53:12):
I do every day is I Ilike, I touch base my goals,
I set to my goals, andthen I plan my day focusing on the
one day at time. Fantastic.So, Tanya, how can people get
a hold of you? Where canthey find you? If you listen to
podcasts? The best is my podcastis called the Fit and Vibrant You Podcast.
It's on iTunes and Spotify and GooglePlay and all the places where you
(53:35):
find podcasts. And then if yougo to my website, which is Tanya
Shaw dot com t A n jA s h A w dot com.
My name is holda j that willlink to all my like my blogs and
podcasts and all my social media linksas well. Awesome. Well, Tanya,
I want to thank you so muchfor coming on the show today,
for having this powerful conversation with me, and for sharing so honestly and openly
(54:00):
the messiness of the process that we'retalking about. You know that you didn't
deliver this like a five step programand then people still feel like a failure.
So I really appreciate your honesty andintegrity in the conversation, but as
well as sharing that you also walkalong this journey so that you know you've
leveled the playing field, made itless mystical, and I really appreciate that.
(54:22):
Thank you. I'm glad that camethrough, because that was one of
the worst things we can do,is that we start comparing ourselves to this
made up place that doesn't exist ofwhat we think things that look like.
It is messy, and you're right, I am on this journey all the
time. Thank you so much forhaving me. It is my pleasure friends
(54:42):
today. If you find us onYouTube, just look down below. The
links will be right there to Tanya. If you are on a podcast platform,
you can also head to www.Dot Feminine roadmap dot com. Forward
slash episode three five two and theshow notes will be there. You know,
this conversation friends is one of thosethat doesn't go away. It feels
(55:07):
like it's a multifaceted part of ourlife, and no matter where we're at
in life, these questions, thesedoubts, these fears will rise, and
this conversation today is a reminder thatthis part of the human journey, This
is part of the human process.And so if we can learn to be
honest with ourselves, to walk inintegrity day by day with who we are,
(55:31):
question what we want, question whatwe think we want, you know,
ask better questions, evaluate a justdig in. Like Tanya said,
let the fear sit in the car, maybe move it to the backseat,
and keep moving forward. Each dayis the day we can make a difference.
(55:53):
In the difference we make today isgoing to impact the difference we want
one year to year, three years, five years from now. So I
would really encourage you to get togetherwith friends and have conversations around these things,
find the support that you need tomake the changes that you want to
make, and have some grace andgentleness with yourself, you know, don't
(56:15):
ride yourself like a horse. Justtake the journey as it comes, celebrate
your wins, and ask good questionswhen you come up against resistance. Thank
you so much for being with ustoday. We look forward to sharing more
interesting people, strategies, and conversationswith you in the weeks to come.
(56:35):
Take care of my friends. Byebye
Hi, Hi'm Jennifer. Are welcometo the Feminine Roadmap podcast a global community
of women in midlife. We gatherhere weekly over a cup of something wonderful
for real talk, life changing strategiesand a big dose of sisterhood. Now
please sit back and enjoy. Hello, Feminine road Meppers, Welcome back to
(00:29):
Feminine Roadmap Podcasts, the podcast thathelps you navigate the challenges and the changes
of midlife and helps you live amore vibrant second half. If you find
us today on YouTube, please don'tforget to subscribe and ring that bell so
you don't miss any more conversations.And if you're driving and listening on a
podcast platform, please remember to subscribe, rate, and share. Today we're
(00:51):
going to be talking about self sabotage. My guest is going to talk about
these layers of self sabotage and whyis it that when we know what we
need to do, we don't doit, and how do we break through
and become more consistent. My guesttoday is Tanya Shaw. She is a
functional health and nutrition coach. Tanya, thank you so much for being here
today. Oh Gina, thanks somuch for having me. I'm excited to
(01:14):
have this conversation a topic I lovespeaking on, and I really hope that
it's going to reach yeah, youraudience. You know, it's one of
those things that's kind of a hottopic at the moment and really interested to
hear about. What is it thatdrew you to this particular topic. Oh
well, it's a good question.Long story. You know. I started
(01:38):
my health journey excuse me, whenI was in my teens and twenties.
I love the way exercise made mefeel, and it really got me into
loving the body science side of things, and eventually got my knisology degree star
working as a canislogist, and that'sour personal training. And at the time,
I thought everything was about, youknow, the best workout plans and
you know, here's how to eat, and you know, at that time,
(02:00):
it was very you know, leadinginto the low first with high carb
and low fat, the low carband all of the things. I was
really great putting together plans and protocolsand clients would get results, but they
were never really able to stick withit for the long term. And personal
training is very personal, and Igot to know my clients very very well,
and I realized that there was somethingmissing between the knowing and the doing
(02:23):
and also just our enjoyment of thewhole process. So a lot of times
we were other, you know,we had this all or nothing thinking,
we're on, we're off. Wehad a very rocky relationship with food.
We were like hating on ourselves andjudging ourselves and not happy with ourselves.
We're always pursuing the next you know, the five pounds and the last five
pounds. And at the same time, I was also struggling with my own
(02:44):
very disordered relationship with food and bodyand weight loss and exercise. I was
overdoing it. I was always onthis pursuit of you know, just getting
to beslr size and dieting and dietingdieting and being very restrictive. But then
realizing like my own own struggles withfood were not just my own, and
so many people were struggling, andI was just wanting to find that gap
(03:07):
or in fill the gap between theknowing and the doing, but also not
just white knuckling it and thinking thatit's always about willpower and you know,
pushing harder and harder because we allhave real lives and we only have so
much capacity and bandwidth to work on. You know, changing these habits.
So it was back in twenty fifteenthat I really started to reject the whole
diet model of just you know,here's a plan, here's the protocol,
(03:29):
and started really working on the mindsetside of things. And now I feel
like we all talk about mindset.However, most places don't actually teach you
how to change your mindset and howto change your thoughts. They just talk
to you about how it's important andyou know, just stick with it or
just have more, you know,more written. But and most of the
(03:49):
most people are aware that they needto get the right mindset, but they're
left with, well, how doI do this? So that's what spurred
me into this, and I justsaw a need for my own personal journey,
and then also those who worked withand I wanted to do something different.
I think it's fascinating that it reallyis a common thing that people go
through, Like even high achievers let'scall them right, they struggle as well.
(04:13):
But to your point, there isa there's a shift that we need
to make. And I'm curious,how do you help people identify its self
sabotage in a positive way? Andthen what steps do you walk people through,
to get them through it, tobreak through it, because it's so
automatic, right, it's just happeningto us. We don't even realize it
(04:34):
sometimes absolutely, and it's not everjust one thing. Yeah, And that
is where I start with, issorted with the definition of what self sabotage
actually is. Because we often say, well, self sabotage, or we
say like, I'm sabotaged. Iactually don't use those words very often except
for when I'm speaking, like youknow, in big topics like this,
(04:56):
because this is what we do,this is how we speak. We say
I'm self sabotaging. We say it'sself sabotage. But self sabotage really is
just when you're not doing the thingsyou know you could do, should do,
want to do to reach your goalsand to be more in alignment with
your future self, the future selfthat you want to be. Yeah.
(05:17):
And so for example, it couldbe you know, I said that I
was going to stop eating Africa tonight, and here I am with a
bag of chips and a glass ofwine and being like, well fit now
had done that, Adams, we'lljust go all out. We call that
self sabotage. But if we takeout the word self sabotage. All we're
doing is we are saying we're goingto do one thing and then doing something
(05:42):
different. So I don't know ifit's actually like self sabotage. I don't
think it's an accurate measure or anaccurate term, because I don't think we're
doing it because we actually want toharm ourselves. It's just that we're not
following through on our promises just forourself. I also like taking out those
words because when we say things likeI'm just so inconsistent or I just self
(06:06):
sabotage, it's really hard to solvethe problem because it's so vague and so
big, and there's no clarity asto what the problem actually is. So
without that clarity of what the problemactually is, it becomes very hard to
solve it. Same thing often wesay things like I'm just so stressed,
(06:27):
I'm just so overwhelmed. But that'salso very hard to solve because what is
it? Is it a perception?Is it the fact that you're going through
a really big part of your liferight now and you are. Is there
layers of like that not enoughness that'slayering in and self doubts like there's all
these factors that are can be veryvague when we're just talking about things like
(06:50):
stress and overwhelm or self sabotage.So I think the first step is to
get a better definition and then startto define, yeah, what it actually
is and what does it look likefor you, so you have some clarity
before you can actually solve start solvingthe problem. It's kind of like an
(07:11):
integrity issue, right, like arewe being are we showing up for ourselves?
Right? Are we holding like yousaid, are we keeping our promise
to ourselves? It feels like ahuge integrity issue. We always show up
for or we often strive to bethere for other people, even to the
(07:32):
detriment of ourselves, right, andyet we struggle to prioritize ourselves in the
same way exactly. And you saidsomething that that's really important there. That's
that integrity piece because we often talkabout the pain of like a lot a
lot of my clients come to meinitially because they want to lose weight,
and we realize it's never ever beenabout the weight loss, and it's just
(07:56):
really the byproduct of you know,taking care of yourself and having a better
relationship to yourself. But One ofthe pain points that we don't talk about
is not having that integrity with yourself, being incongruent or out of alignment with
the person you want to be.And we talk about the pain of missing
out of life because your joints aresorry, because you're carrying extra weight,
(08:18):
or because you don't want to getup and down off the floor, or
traveling is hard or whatever it is. Sometimes it's a confidence thing. But
what we don't really talk about whenit's hard to articulate, is that pain
point. And it's a low gradepain point, but it's there all the
time when you are out of alignmentwith the person that you want to be.
(08:39):
You want to be a fit,healthy, vibrant person. You want
to be that kind of person whowoman who takes care of herself, who
you know makes the better choices,who is joyfully disciplined, who's kind to
herself, and you know has thehonesty piece and everything. But yet when
we are constantly not living in alignmentlike that, it's a point. And
(09:01):
for so many women, we havea pretty bad relationship with ourselves. Not
everyone, but when we're honest andwhen we start to dig deep, there's
often a lot of negative self talk. There's a lot of putting ourselves down,
and sometimes it's really obvious, andsometimes it's just so insidious you don't
know what you're doing it. AndI wonder sometimes, like no, wonder
(09:24):
we don't like ourselves because well,for us, we're not nice to ourselves.
And then we are always breaking promptnot always, but we often break
promises to ourself. And if youhad a friend who always put you down
and never kept her word to you, you probably hopefully stop hanging out with
that person because why would you wantthat person in your life? And that's
what we do to ourselves all thetime. So you're a big part of
(09:46):
it is the integrity piece. I'vethought a lot about this myself, because
sometimes I feel like it's fear right. The thing we want is also the
thing we're the most afraid of of. It doesn't have to be as massive.
But I agree with you. Ithink when our brain sees something as
(10:07):
too vague or kind of just tooout there, it's like we want something,
but like you said that, wedon't see how that can happen.
And our habits currently, you know, they say the habits you have today
aren't going to get you to theperson you want to be tomorrow. But
I do feel very strongly that Iin agreement with you that if we know,
(10:31):
like we cognitively understand, wow,I'm really missing the mark here,
you know, whatever it is,but we have no real concept of how
to get from point A to pointB, especially if our habits are so
opposed to maybe this thing that wesay we want to do and be.
I mean, do you do youunderstand what I'm trying to communicate. It's
(10:52):
like that incongruency that you were talkingabout, that lack of alignment with Sometimes
I think the incongruency really is,to your point, that lack of knowledge.
Mm hmmm. Yeah. And sometimeswe're aware. Sometimes we're almost like
we ignore those things. Sometimes wekind of put them as like, oh,
(11:13):
it's not so bad, or I'lldeal with that later. And you
said something that's really want to goback to that. That's the fear piece,
And fear comes up a lot,and it's like sometimes we're we're afraid
of, you know, failure orafraid of success. We're afraid of the
unknown, We're afraid of uncertain forthe work we have a note, we're
afraid of we're just sort of swimmingin this sort of pool of fear that
(11:33):
we don't we don't even know whatit is. And that's actually one thing
that I when I talk more withthe layers of self sabotage or not you
know, following through and promises yourself. But consistently, a lot of times
it is the fear piece and there'slots of what ifs, and our body,
our brain is there to keep ussafe and we have these sort of
(11:54):
unknowns, and it often is thefear of successful. What if I'm success?
Well, here's when when it comesto weight loss, like what if?
Like often we have weight losses beingit's kind of like our scapegoat for
not doing the other things in ourlife because we're like, I'll do that
when or we have this idea.And it's almost hard to sometimes these fears
to even articulate because they're so deepthat it's hard to put words onto them.
(12:18):
They just exist. It's like anoperating system on your on your computer,
Like you don't see it, butit's like it's the platform that everything
runs on. Yes, and youknow you might have a problem with one
of the applications, but has nothingto do the application it's also do with
like your operating system. Yes,and it's sometimes they just they come up
right and we don't even know thatthey're Often it's because of you know,
(12:41):
past things that happened to your pastor as that you're told. It doesn't
always have to be a lot ofmy clients have had, you know,
pretty big things happened to them oftheir life traumatic events. But it doesn't
have to happen like that. Itcould just beese that so what someone said
to you, or a belief thatyou adopted. I mean, a lot
of our beliefs came up when webelieve in Santa Claus back when we're eight
years old, and then we justkeep reinforcing them, reinforcing them into your
(13:03):
adult life. But the fear oneis huge, and that one comes up
a lot, but again it's hardto work through it without starting to identify
what actually is the fear. Andthis is one of the tools that I
use a lot, and you probablyam not the first one to ever share
this, but it's Journaling is powerfulbecause you get the things onto paper and
it becomes so much more concrete andit becomes something that you can actually solve
(13:26):
versus this sort of ambiguous, vaguething that's circling in our head and we're
swimming it and it feels just feelsvery just like a big storm without having
that clarity piece. Yeah. Ilove that you talk about our standard operating
system because I have a coaching clientright now that I literally just used that
(13:48):
analogy with just last week, becausewe do have you know, I know
we're talking about this idea of nothaving integrity with ourselves, but there's an
honest, I know, honesty withourselves. Like, for example, if
our operating system is to do justthe bare minimum, or other people are
(14:13):
more important, or you know,I'm not worthy or whatever, there's a
thousand things that we could stick inthat standard operating system, but there's this
integrity piece. So we want toget in alignment, and we have this
standard operating system and in order tohave integrity, I feel like the honesty
piece with ourselves is really important,not in an aggressive like argumentative way with
(14:37):
ourselves, but being honest with ourselves. I think sometimes we hang on to
goals because we're supposed to right,and we're not accomplishing them because we don't
actually somewhere deep inside, it's nolonger in alignment, or it's maybe directed
in the wrong direction. Does thatmake sense? Like I feel like learning
(15:01):
to be honest with ourselves and say, is this what I really want?
Totally? No, it's it isimportant because we do have lots of the
shoulds, and I see that alot more as I think. I mean
the women I work where there aregenerally fifty plus I think sometimes we've had
those shoulds for so long then youstart to really ask yourself the questions.
But honesty is important, and I'mreally glad that you brought that up because
(15:24):
I think it's been a really reallyimportant piece of all of this. As
a coach to be so easy ifI could just say, like, oh,
that's right, that's wrong, You'redoing the right thing. But I
have no idea, because it reallycomes down to, like the best advice
I can give, and the bestcoaching I did do with my clients is
to help them start to seek theirown truth and to be honest with themselves,
with ourselves, with themselves, becausehonesty also comes up from sometimes where
(15:48):
we almost sometimes give ourselves up.Like let's say, we do have a
goal and this is why, likeI said, a lot of my clients
come for weight loss, but ultimatelyit's like other things that that's underneath.
But sometimes we also are not honestwith ourselves because we give ourselves like these
passes where it's like, oh,that wasn't so bad, or I'm better
than I was before, or youknow what, like I get like,
(16:11):
you know, I I that wasstill a win because of you know,
it was better than it was before, or at least I didn't do that.
Like we have these sort of statementsto kind of and while it's true
and I and I think that wewant to be like celebrating our wins and
we want to be reinforcing things thatwe're doing, but sometimes we're also not
(16:32):
also calling ourselves out when we knowthat there's a level for us that we
want and we're just sort of andit's and that's, like I said,
it's really hard to distinguish when amI being compassionate with myself and you can
always be compassionate with myself, whenam I just sort of recognizing, like
now the time to rest or notworry so much or whatever I worry about
(16:52):
the right works we want to worryabout it either way, and when is
it time to rise up and toactually challenge ourselves and to know that no,
like that is important to me becausewe sometimes also might want something,
and this is where it's so complexand so many layers. We might want
something and then we'll tell for ourselvesit's not important because we don't believe we
can have it, or because sothis is like an I know, I
(17:15):
wish I could just say, well, you know, I wish there was
this like five sep process that wecan work through, but it really comes
down to a lot of journaling andquestioning and reflecting and being honest with yourself
because it's not a straightforward process.I would say that growth is never a
(17:37):
straightforward process. It moves you forward, but in a very uh a very
up and down and around and loopedloops and everything a little bit wonky,
but you'll get there. You know. It's interesting to me how there's common
challenges that we have, Like toyour point, everybody's path is different,
(18:00):
but we're all talking. It's kindof like we're all talking about this one
topic, but we all have acompletely different map to get there. And
I think when we struggle to findour own way alone, it can be
more difficult sometimes to your point,journaling is by far one of my favorite
(18:21):
strategies for myself and for other people, because our brains are so full of
thoughts and ideas, right, andwe put stories we like a where it's
like we're building something in our brain. Right, we have an idea or
thought, and then we start buildingon it and we start creating a story.
We start creating a dialogue or anarrative around these things, and depending
(18:44):
on who we're in relationship with,that narrative could be challenged or it could
be supported. Right. So Ithink that as we are processing these things
and putting them out on paper,it's good to see what you're say thinking,
right, not just thinking, butsee what you're thinking. And then
they're having someone yes, yes,atherways I think in that in like I
(19:08):
when I think about the storm inyour brain, like that's why I think
of it. It's like then there'sclouds and then there's it's just a mix
of emotions and thoughts and pop upthoughts and past stories and you don't know
it's true, but then and thething is that you think something and then
it creates the feeling, and becauseyou create the feeling, you think it's
true. And then you just kindof or you feel something and then you
create the thoughts to you know,match the feeling, and it just becomes
(19:30):
very very yeah, very very messy. When I was just listening to it,
I think it was on Instagram orsomething, someone said that when you
have a really hard math question,what do you do? You write it
down? So why you do thesame when it comes to our you know,
our personal problems too. That's agreat analogy, like trying to do
(19:51):
math. Sometimes math in your headis a piece of cake, and other
times it's like why is this sohard? For sure? Yeah, if
it's hard, down, so toyour point, do the simple thing right,
write it down, get it out, get it out to where you
can grapple with it. Thoughts arethings, and until you make it a
thing, meaning write it down,it's kind of hard to deal with it
(20:12):
to It's like the dream when youwake up from your sleep and you almost
remember your dream, and the closeryou try to remember your dream, like,
the further way it cats. You'relike, it's like it's like that.
So no, I find it reallyhelpful to write things down, and
it's a great process. Now youmentioned that often when people come to you
for weight loss. It's very rarelyabout weight loss. Can you expand on
(20:37):
that concept, because I feel likeit's probably more broadly applicable. Yeah,
I mean a lot of people wantto lose weight and there is no shame.
I can frame that differently, butlike I want you to everyone to
have permission to wap what they wantbecause often we like are a shamed because
(21:00):
we gain weight and we were shamebecause we want to lose weight because you
know others have you know, there'sjust like there's so much shame, Like
stop we worries. Give yourself permressionto want what you want, and weight
loss can be a wonderful goal tohave, but it becomes one of many
goals. And the reason why it'simportant for that first of all, is
because we got to start to wonder, like what is weight loss going to
(21:21):
bring us? And well and makesure that we know why we want to
lose weight and we understand what theweight loss actually brings because often we think,
well, I want to be confident, I want to be you know
all these kinds of things. It'slike, well, you can lose the
weight and not be confident, oryou can lose the weight and love yourselflf
but have it be a very conditionallevel. I love myself only went out
(21:41):
of a certain size, and that'sthat you can have us. You can
meet in a smaller body, butstill have now you know, waiting for
the other shooting you're up and justkind of being and living in fear,
wanting or being afraid that you're goingto gain the weight back, or still
being anxious around food and parties andcelebrations. So it's it's a good goal.
It is one goal, but it'sone goal out of many, and
(22:03):
I think we've aw to tap thatin context. And for a lot of
my clients too, when they cometo me and they start losing some weight
everything which is great, but thentheir desire to lose weight actually goes down
a lot for a lot of womentoo because they're just like and and not
to say they still don't want tolose weight, but it's just it's not
the same. They just have somuch more of a better relationship with themselves
(22:23):
that it's not I'm not losing theweight because I now want to love myself.
I'm losing I already love myself andI just want to take care better
care of myself. So that's Ithink a big part of it. And
I look at weight loss as anatural consequence of you taking care of yourself,
and we don't actually don't know whatwe're supposed to weigh, Like who
knows. I can say I wantto lose ten pounds, but who says
(22:44):
who I can't? I could,But what is it going to cost me?
And how much of an effort isgoing to be to do that?
And is it worth it? Sowhen you go at it from a place
of like I'm actually taking care ofmy body and doing the things that are
right for me, then your body'sgoing to do what it's going to do.
Now. With that being said,this is also why I've really got
into the functional health side of things, because a lot of my clients were
really getting great mindset shifts and startingto feel a lot more calm and peaceful
(23:08):
and making better choices, but we'restill not losing weight. And I wanted
to just look under the cover asto what's happening from a you know,
a gut health, hormone, immunefunction, digestion, detoxification, all the
things, just to see how Ican best support them, because sometimes there
are physical things that are getting inthe way from your goals. Like for
(23:29):
a lot of women in their fortiesto sixties have diory dysfunction and it might
not be a diagnosed like hypothyroidism orhashimotos, but a lot of women do.
Or they have candi to overgrowth,or they have you know, the
sort of like cortical this regulation whichjust makes it harder to lose weight.
Or for a lot of women too. And I did not realize that is
(23:49):
when I first started working with themfor a lot that they were under eating
for way too long and trying togo to these fourteen hundred calorie fifteen hundred
calorie diets for for years, andthen we're wondering why they weren't losing weight.
And sometimes they're not losing weight becauseon average they were eating a lot
more because you tried to do fourtender calories. You can do it Monday
(24:10):
to Friday. Weekends are like allbets are off because you are you know,
coob. We can't sustain that lowof calories for if you're an active,
you know, full grown woman,if you need food, right,
So that side of things too,Yeah, it's looking at both the mindset
pieces and then also the body sizeside of pieces as well as well too.
(24:32):
You get to where you want togo and knowing that there's also no
there is no arriving of anywhere thatyou're going to get to. But it's
just all about yeah, continuing on. You know, as you're talking,
I'm thinking about, you know,if we're focused on that external thing,
right, the number on the scale, the dollar in the wallet, the
(24:59):
whatever. On some level, nowwe've put our worth, our value on
something else, and all of thosethings can change and be taken away,
you know what I mean. SoI think that the psychology of what you're
(25:22):
talking about in my mind is maybethe fear is born out of I can't
control that, which is true.I cannot control the job, you know,
sometimes I can't. Like menopause,our bodies do things that they didn't
do before, and I cannot controlit. I can make choices, and
(25:45):
I think maybe that would be ashift at least in my mind that could
help instead of being like a bright, like that's over there and it's
overwhelming, or I'm intimidated, orI don't think I can do it,
or whatever. The story is toyour point that's running in the background,
(26:06):
that is hindering our ability to seea way through number one, and hindering
our motivation to try because of fearnumber two. I like to ask questions
to jog the pattern right, liketo disrupt it and say, Okay,
isn't that interesting? That was aninteresting thought. That's interesting, or you
(26:30):
know, what's my next best stepthat's over there, like right now,
what do I want to feel orwhat do I want to accomplish? And
I feel like, while there's liketo your point, I understand as a
coach, I don't know what peopleare supposed to do, but I can
help them navigate whatever their journey is. But I feel like asking ourselves better
questions, or even beginning to askourselves questions. It not the ones that
(26:53):
we ask like why are you doingthat? Why are you being stupid?
Not those questions. Now ask betterquestions for sure, the ones that are
actually helpful. I love that youbrought that up. I use questions a
lot for myself and also in mycoaching because they and I think it was
John Maxwell. That's sounds like thelevel of your life is determined by the
(27:14):
level of your question. Or TonyRobbins or someone said that, yes,
this is true, it really is. And this is where again you ask
your questions. It gets you toquestions, start to bring forward your higher
thinking brain, which I love,and it gets i'll gets out of your
emotional brain of just like I wantthe temper chance terms that work can be
having sometimes and also bes a slowdown because sometimes we do just we just
(27:37):
operate on these systems that we've beenoperating on for so long. And I
think we've all had that experience youkind of just do what you've been doing
for because you've always been doing it, because you've always been doing it without
popping your head up and ask yourself, what is this all I want?
Or is this true? Is thisstill my truth? Or what else is
true? I think it's really reallygreat. You know you said they're also
about the sort of what do Ineed? And I think that's a really
(28:00):
helpful mindset too, because sometimes it'sgoing to be different from seasons to seasons.
Yeah, and you know we mightbe sometimes in a push face.
Sometimes we're in a kind of arecovery phase. It's all good and it's
all different, and we get todo a little bit of all of it.
And also what you said there aboutsometimes how it feels so overwhelming because
the thing seems so far away,and you're right, we don't have control
(28:25):
over it, and we never did. This is where I think COVID was
so hard for so many of us, because it was so in our faces
that we don't have control, andwe never did. We like to think
we do, and we can control, you know, certain things, or
you know, within our best,but for example, for weight loss,
you can't control. You can't controlthe number on the scale. You can
(28:48):
influence it, And we sometimes worryso much about what's going to happen,
you know, five ten years fromnow, next year, am I going
to stick with it? And that'sa complete waste of energy because it's a
completely irrelevant like it matters what happensfive years down the road, does not
matter at all, right, becauseall we can ever focus on right now
(29:11):
is right now and that's it.Yeah, And essentially the five years is
in that, isn't it? Right? In other words, if I'm worried
about five years from now, thequestion then is what can I do now?
What can I do right now?Because the five years is gonna come?
But then five years never gets here. Technically, every day that five
year mark just keeps moving out aday, right, Yeah, and then
(29:33):
the other side of that too,So does the five year feel so far
away that I'm not going to doanything now because I have so much time?
And that's again why it's so goodthat we start to kind of continue
to stay focused on what we cando today. They give so much more
clarity and piece because this is like, ultimately what we have the most control
over is what we can do stayand that's it. And talking about the
control piece too, I think it'sreally helpful just to recognize like like we're
(30:00):
all going to fail, We're allgoing to have fears. Like you don't
have to overcome fears to start orto take the fears can come along for
the ride. It's all good.We're not to think that we need to
be fearless or anything like that.Is I think a goal that is not
going to be achieved, So let'snot I've been worried about that is you
know, do it anyway. Andthat's why it's so great just to stay
(30:22):
focused on what can I do today. One of my favorite mantras for myself
is I'm going to do the bestI can and that's all I can do?
Is it? Because it is Ican? And the same thing for
weight loss, Like don't don't westop ourselves so often before we even start
because of the fears of the whatif so they or you know, putting
(30:42):
ourselves first for investing money or whateverit is. And it's all we can
ever do is what's happening today?That's it. You know, there's a
question that sometimes is helpful. It'slike, what's the worst thing that can
happen if I try? Like,what's the worst thing can happen? And
if I make this one little change? And maybe that's it, isn't it
(31:04):
right, Tanya, It's it's thevolume of the change, Like how big,
how loud, how disruptive is thischange in our mind? Mm hmmm?
Right? Because change back to thestandard operating system. It's got us
on. It's got us on,a good, locked and loaded system.
Right back to the safety, thecontrol, whatever we see it as.
(31:30):
But to your point, we reallydon't ever have control. We don't ever
have complete autonomy. So if wecan focus on what we can focus on
and remove the things that were maybeless controllable. I don't know what the
right word is, but it's likeremoving your plate, right, like clearing
(31:52):
your plate of the things that aresucking your energy or making you feel out
of control or triggering that self sabotage, because you know that's the word we're
using what's triggering us to avoid whatwe say we want. And I think
we were dancing around this issue,and I don't think that there's a solid
(32:14):
answer, but I do think thatthe idea of these greater things outcomes.
Like even in weight loss, Imean you can speak to this, of
course, you know, we cansay I want this number on the scale.
And for example, I got reallysick with a thyroid disease twenty something
(32:34):
years ago, and I lost somuch weight so fast because I had hyperthyroidism,
I had graves. And now froma healthy state, I look back
and go, well, now Iknow what I look like at that number
on the scale, and it washorrible. Like on a chart it could
say, oh, at your height, this is the lowest you should weigh
(32:58):
or whatever. So that number wastechnically on this chart somewhere, but I
guarantee you I looked like I wasup starving to death, you know what
I mean. So I feel likeit's a very small example but my point
is sometimes what's in our mind,what we think is going to be satisfactory,
or what we think is to yourpoint way like early on make us
(33:20):
happy. Mm hmmm, right.I love that you talk that we're talking
about happiness. Okay, happiness isone of those oh you know, like
the goes. So you you saidsomething very profound, which is this moment,
is what we have, this decision, this feeling, what do we
(33:43):
want right now? Maybe if we'renot so focused on that big, scary
whatever in the distance. That isone of the strategies to setting aside.
The other thing that you said thatI really love is the goal is not
to be fearless. I love thatthe goal is not to be fearless.
(34:06):
That's impossible, right, But ifwe can back to the integrity and honesty
piece, admit that we're afraid andjust get curious about why. You know,
what are we afraid of? Haveyou ever? That question is an
interesting ones, like what am Iafraid of? What's what's the worst thing
really that can happen? And oftenit's it's all in a boogeyman, it's
(34:30):
not a real thing that could happen. Yeah, I use that question a
lot actually as well as what I'mafraid of. And because you know,
we talk about the kind of theunderlying deeper reasons of the self sabotaged cycle,
often it is a deeper viewer.For example, is that it could
be if I lose the weight,now I no longer need to worry about
(34:52):
I have this problem. So whatam I going to do with all my
thought energy and my life energy ifI'm like I sometimes when we're like I
need to go do something profound andsomething huge with my life, like noll,
no, you don't. You canactually do nothing. It's totally fine.
Like or you know, in thepast, maybe when they were losing
weight, they were getting some mention. Yes, And you know, I
(35:13):
remember one of my clients She's like, every time when I lose the weight,
I feel like I can't say noto this one person. I'm like,
well, you can lose the weightand say no, like when.
And that's till you actually write down. It becomes like almost like it's you
can kind of think in your mind, you can argue yourself in your mind,
but when you write down and youget the truth really out, it's
really quite powerful. But I lovethat question Gina that you brought up is
(35:36):
what's the worst that can happen?And I use that question a lot,
especially when it comes to sometimes makinginvestments or you know, if you're investing
into a coaching program, and alot of people who like my my coaching
programs are an investment, I'm not. I'm not. I think it's a
wonderful deal you get so much,but it's an investment for sure. And
for a lot of people, theydon't take action, like they'll say it's
(35:58):
money and funny a continuum like andsome for absolutely it is, but often
it's not. It's the unknowns.It's like can I do it? It's
a am I worthy of it?That gets in the way because the worst
thing that happens, like, well, let's say if you lost a couple
thousand dollars, like and that wasthe worst case scenario, would you still
(36:20):
be able to retire? Would youstill be able to like put for you
like yes, like most people would. But it's often like it's or it's
the fear of failure, like Idon't know if I can handle that,
you know, with myself again,like what if I try and I really
try, and I don't succeed.Here's another one that comes up. We
kind of have ass try because we'reafraid that if we really try and it
(36:42):
doesn't work, then what then whoare we left with? Then? Who
are we? And that was areason why I didn't start my online coaching
business for years. I wanted tofor years, but I had this fear
that what if I actually really triedwith something that I wanted and it didn't
work out? And so instead ofanswering and writing down because one of the
(37:04):
things I recommend doing is like whenwe have all these what ifs, right
like, well, what if thishappens? What if that happens? What
we do is we have all thesewhat if we'd ever take the time to
answer them and to your point ofthat question, like was the worst case
stereo? Like write down all ofthe what ifs, Like well, what
if I fail? What if Ijust wasted three thousand dollars or two thousand
dollars? What if I you know, what if I lose the weight and
(37:28):
can't keep it up, what ifI start getting the weight back? What
if I go out in vacation andyou know, there's just write it all
down and then respond to it.What would you actually do, because then
it becomes less scary because you knowthat whole question, like what's the worst
case scenario? We are more afraid, I believe anyway is study on this,
but I think that we're more afraidof the unknowns than we are of
(37:51):
the worst case scenario. For peoplewho are waiting for test results back from
like so they have let's they hada biopsy on the rest or gaze,
the waiting period is so much worsethan actually even if it was the thing
like the negative diagnosis, because nowthat you take action, now there's clarity,
now there's something they can do,versus this sort of like just this
ambiguous waiting game of like well whatif, what if? What if?
(38:14):
And that often often stops us.We stop before we even start because we
have all these what ifs. Andthis is where what we think is so
important, and the journaling helps ourthoughts become reality in other words, standard
(38:37):
operating system. The thoughts we think, the beliefs we have, they're all
in there running our life, youknow, and when you write it down,
it's it becomes real to you,Like that doesn't make any sense,
right, Like now that I seeit, we're like well, that's dumb
(39:00):
the world, I know, andI want to just creatorate that there is
with all the thought work we do, and all the work that I do
and you do, and all thework that we've like my clients are done
for years working with me, thereis no place also where we never have
to do this work, where itcan be Oh my gosh, isn't that
the truth? Yeah? And Isay that like because often, like for
(39:21):
example, yesterday, I was havinga bit of a low grade intrusive thoughts
were coming up, like they weren'tlike full on there, but I could
just tell, and I could tellwith how I felt, I could tell
with how I started to become alittle bit more argumented with my Husband's so
interesting how when I'm feeling when I'mnot feeling good, I'm the first thing
(39:47):
I want to do is to pushhim away versus you know, like and
I caught it pretty quick, andwe had a really really great conversation last
night, and I brought him inclosed, and which was really good,
you know, because there's a coupleof things going on in my life and
I've had some challenges with business aswell, and there's so much even with
(40:10):
all the thought work with everything thatI do, and like, you know,
you post all like the a lotof the great things are happening,
but there's still so much self doubtand there's still so much like well what
ifs? And the thing is likewhen you think about the what ifs,
like you know, if we loseall of our income, We're still going
to be fine because I'll go withmy parents, you know, like if
(40:31):
you sometimes like what's like the worst? It's actually not that scary. But
often what we just we just get. We just swim around in the sort
of low grade fear and without evergetting clear of what it actually is.
I think for a big part fora lot of us, it's what does
it say about who we are?You know? What if? Like like
for my bit for the struggles andmy business, I'm like, you know
(40:53):
what, my my kind of mysecond business, the coaching I've been doing
has been now I'm most four years, but we have some really big challenges
and last a little bit like justthings have just changed and you foreshadow and
you catastrophize. And the biggest fearprobably is does it mean that I'm not
(41:14):
enough or I'm not successful? AndI think that's where when if we're honest,
and this is where the honesty piececomes from comes comes in a lot
of times we don't fully put ourtwo feet in and jump full into things
because we're all afraid of that whatdoes it mean about us? And this
is where I feel like there's somuch of the mindset so that goes in.
(41:36):
There's so much like the actions andeverything like that. But it's it's
real, right at least it's evenif it's not real real, it's like
it's real to us. It feelsreal. But you made a couple of
really good points. You know,what does this mean about me? Like?
Who am I? If this doesn'twork? Will I be a failure?
(42:00):
Well? How often do we actuallytake the time to really define what
what is failure? Totally? It'sright? And what is success? In
other words, success is the otherquestion and what makes it? And if
we're afraid of not being enough orwhat is enough? Yes, the questions,
it's the questions. It's like,so what I'm saying then is I'm
(42:20):
not enough? Now I will?I don't get to be enough until I
reach some certain arbitrary keyword benchmark thatI've made for myself or even an arbitrary
benchmark somebody else has made for us. Totally, what I've done is I've
forfeited the present for an unknowable futurewhen I self sabotage because I'm making a
(42:45):
decision not to do something now becauseof something that may or may not happen
in the future. Because everything thathappens in the future is based on something
I do right now. So bynot doing now, I'm a senctually making
my negative thought thing become more ofa reality. Whereas if we ask the
(43:06):
good questions and take be honest withourselves and keep evaluating, is that really
the target that I still want?Because I feel like a lot of the
times, especially the older, weget not everyone recalibrates right the what was
successful at twenty five is may lookvery different totally forty five, fifty five,
(43:29):
sixty five. What you said thereabout how we sometimes don't act now
because of the future goals, it'slike, and that's just what it's so,
even if it's not what we want, the familiarity of it is so
much more comfortable than the unknowns oflike, well, the what ifs.
So I think that was just reallythe familiarity of even the familiar with the
(43:52):
things that we don't want. Likelet's say it's you know, the emotional
eating or the stress eating or theover eating whatever, it's more that's more
familiar than yeah, the unknowns ofgoing of going forward. So what I
hear you saying is sometimes we staywith the familiar, holy even if.
(44:13):
But then that doesn't that take usback to the honesty piece? M hm?
Because what if what if we sayI actually like having fifteen oreos with
milk at midnight? What if wewere to turn and face that whatever it
is? What what's the worst thingthat can happen if you admit you like
(44:34):
to eat a bag of chips?I mean, we we know this is
not a great decision and the longhaul for your organs and your body.
But if we if we step itback and just go, what's the worst
thing that can happen if you admitthat you like it? Right? If
you just land on it and goIn this moment, I'm choosing it's a
(44:55):
choice. Nobody's holding a gun toyour head. That you're not powerless in
this situation. You're choosing process ofreally recognizing that if our habit is to
run to food or to whatever itis, we need to be honest with
ourselves that that's what we've chosen.We maybe we were taught it, but
(45:15):
now we're choosing to do X,Y, and Z, and it's really
on nobody but us. And ifwe choose to do it, why beat
ourselves up? Why don't we justtell the truth? Mm hmm. It's
not effective. I don't know ifit's ever worked for you, but it
doesn't. It doesn't work for youbecause then you stress it and you're emotionally
eat because you just beat yourself up? Or are you over restricting? Go
(45:37):
the other way too. I dolike that thought, you know, being
honest with ourself that this is yep. I've been doing this my whole life.
Don't really like the results, butI kind of like it in the
moment, And then sit with thatf for a minute. Well, you
can have two truths right, likeoften we This is why the mindset piece
is so important and the conversations ofourselves is so important, because we often
(46:00):
stop that I like that, Iwant that, and that's it, like
it's but then you're like, butI want to lose weight, and then
you beat yourself up because you thinkyou shouldn't want or shouldn't have done it.
You can. It's true that youmight like well, not you,
but you might like the fifteen oreoswith milk at nighttime. You might like
overeating. You might like numbing outwith food. You might like mindless eating
(46:23):
food by while you're eating the couch. You might like that, which is
fair. Emotional eating works like itdoes. It takes us away from yes,
it soothes us, and it couldalso be a great like for sometimes
it could be a wonderful coping mechanism, because sometimes life is just so can
be so hard. All that's true. We're not denying it. Often we
(46:47):
just start to try arguing ourselves.But what's also true is that you might
want to be taking care of itbetter carry yourself. Or what's also true
is that you were going to belearning how to make you slightly better choice.
What's also true is that if youare present with the Oreo cookies,
you can eat five and get alot of pleasure it. What's also true
(47:12):
is that you'll feel better next morningif you have one or none and go
to bed. So it's not denyingthe truth because those are truth. It's
just about starting to look for othertruths and training towards the truth that's going
to move you forward, which isn'talways our first thought. I don't know
about you, but my first thoughtsare often not the ones I want to
(47:34):
keep. Which there's room for pause, then, isn't there? Like one
of the tools that I've used islike to your point with your husband,
the example that you shared is likecatching yourself and being honest with that moment,
like, uh, why do Ifeel like doing X, Y and
z? Learning your triggers or yourpatterns and catching yourself and just pause,
(47:59):
just pause. That's where the that'sinteresting, That's where that question comes in
handy, where it's like, okay, what that was interesting? Instead just
blaming him for the things that hewas doing, which was really nothing.
I know it was all me,But it does take honesty to do that
because if we don't want to admitthose kind of things, right, well,
again to your two truths, right, yes we do and know we
(48:22):
don't. So where do we landto get to the destination that we're headed
for? So if you had threestrategies that you could share that would you
know, encourage listeners Because we've reallytalked about a lot of things. We've
skipped rocks in some ways, right, You and I both know that the
depth of MIT we could we coulddo episodes on each like leg of this
(48:43):
conversation. I agree, it isvery very deep, you know. I
think a big part it starts withclarity. If I was going to come
up with a couple of different strategies, is clarity is the first part is
like what is getting clear on whatyou want or what you don't want?
And it could be it could bealso include the weight loss side of things.
It could be like clarity, Ithink is one of our superpowers in
(49:04):
terms of getting because when we havethese vague goals, I've been like I'm
going to eat better, Like whatdoes that mean? Because it's really hard
to say to wake up the samelike I'm going to eat better today.
It's too vague. So on agranular level, clarity is really important.
So today, like what am Iactually doing today to make progress for my
goals? And what are my goalsfor the long term? And the longer
term goals can be a bit morebigue they could be more like I want
(49:27):
how you want to feel something likethat. But I think clarity is really
important and even when you define clarity, sometimes we stop ourselves because we don't
think we can get there. Wementioned that in the conversation, So questions
could be like, well, ifI believed with one hundred percent certainty that
I could do anything I wanted toand I would be successful, what would
I want? Answer? A reallygood question, because often we come up
(49:49):
with these goals and I do thisas well, and probably business health that
you make them smaller sometimes just becauseyou don't believe it's possible. And again
this is like where it's like there'stwo sides and two ways to look at
this. And they were like,well, start small, start doable,
and so I'm like, well,are we just holding ourselves down because we
(50:12):
don't believe we can do something else? And it's and that there is no
where to prognance that, and that'swhere the honesty comes in. But then
the other point too, so thatclarity pieces is really important and it doesn't
have to be an arrival point wherelike, oh, now define my goals
and I'll never have to revisit themagain. It's going to be a work
in progress, it's gonna be somethingwe're going to keep for defining. I
(50:36):
do also really really like the whatifs. And so if you're struggling with
the you know, stopping yourself beforeyou're starting, or you're investing or getting
a coach, or you know,doing that next thing, we often don't
do it because we haven't responded tothe what ifs. The what ifs are
just sort of swimming around in ourbrain and we've never actually written them down
(50:59):
and just like, well, thisis what I would do. I reach
out, get to help, Iwould you know all these things. So
the first one is clarity, thesecond one is the what ifs, and
then the third one. I mean, there's lots we can go wherever.
But I think the really important thingtoo is to just we talked about this
on the call today too, isto focus on the present and today I
(51:21):
recommend focusing on one day at atime, and for two reasons. One
is because every day is different,and your goals for today might be different
than tomorrow, because tomorrow is adifferent day, and your goals have to
match the reality of your life,because if they don't, it becomes really
hard to stick with them. Andwe wonder why we're not making progress because
we're not matching the reality of ourlife. And the reality of your life
(51:44):
isn't always just the external things.It's also where you're at in terms of
your mental state and your capacity tomake changes. Because for a lot of
people, they think it's a timething. We're not coaches will say this
all the time. We all havethe say, in twenty four hours in
the day, we all like,you know, our workouts only was it
four percent of your day or allthis like nonsense. It's true, it's
(52:07):
true, But most people don't strugglewith time, although some do. Most
people struggle with bandwidth. They strugglewith the mental capacity to make the change
because turning off food at nighttime,shutting out in the kitchen takes no more
time than snacking all night. Like, yes, maybe it takes more time
to prepare like some a whole bunchof vegetables at home and stuff like that,
(52:28):
But it's it's the bandwidth. It'sthat is the heart of the thing
that most people have, and it'snot always and sometimes the bandwidth is like
just our own mental like battling backand forth, so clarity, starting to
answer the what ifs, writing itdown, and then focusing on one day
of time, because the goals foryour day have the match reality of your
life. And then the other partis so that you focus on one day
(52:52):
at a time, because quite oftenwe just set these goals like I'm just
gonna eat better, I'm just gonnalose weight, I'm just gonna build my
business. I'm just gonna, youknow, have a better realtionship with my
my my husband or whatever it is. But there's no actions each day and
there's no focus on it every day, so that we won't want we don't
get there. It's like, wellmaybe that's why. So that's one thing
(53:12):
I do every day is I Ilike, I touch base my goals,
I set to my goals, andthen I plan my day focusing on the
one day at time. Fantastic.So, Tanya, how can people get
a hold of you? Where canthey find you? If you listen to
podcasts? The best is my podcastis called the Fit and Vibrant You Podcast.
It's on iTunes and Spotify and GooglePlay and all the places where you
(53:35):
find podcasts. And then if yougo to my website, which is Tanya
Shaw dot com t A n jA s h A w dot com.
My name is holda j that willlink to all my like my blogs and
podcasts and all my social media linksas well. Awesome. Well, Tanya,
I want to thank you so muchfor coming on the show today,
for having this powerful conversation with me, and for sharing so honestly and openly
(54:00):
the messiness of the process that we'retalking about. You know that you didn't
deliver this like a five step programand then people still feel like a failure.
So I really appreciate your honesty andintegrity in the conversation, but as
well as sharing that you also walkalong this journey so that you know you've
leveled the playing field, made itless mystical, and I really appreciate that.
(54:22):
Thank you. I'm glad that camethrough, because that was one of
the worst things we can do,is that we start comparing ourselves to this
made up place that doesn't exist ofwhat we think things that look like.
It is messy, and you're right, I am on this journey all the
time. Thank you so much forhaving me. It is my pleasure friends
(54:42):
today. If you find us onYouTube, just look down below. The
links will be right there to Tanya. If you are on a podcast platform,
you can also head to www.Dot Feminine roadmap dot com. Forward
slash episode three five two and theshow notes will be there. You know,
this conversation friends is one of thosethat doesn't go away. It feels
(55:07):
like it's a multifaceted part of ourlife, and no matter where we're at
in life, these questions, thesedoubts, these fears will rise, and
this conversation today is a reminder thatthis part of the human journey, This
is part of the human process.And so if we can learn to be
honest with ourselves, to walk inintegrity day by day with who we are,
(55:31):
question what we want, question whatwe think we want, you know,
ask better questions, evaluate a justdig in. Like Tanya said,
let the fear sit in the car, maybe move it to the backseat,
and keep moving forward. Each dayis the day we can make a difference.
(55:53):
In the difference we make today isgoing to impact the difference we want
one year to year, three years, five years from now. So I
would really encourage you to get togetherwith friends and have conversations around these things,
find the support that you need tomake the changes that you want to
make, and have some grace andgentleness with yourself, you know, don't
(56:15):
ride yourself like a horse. Justtake the journey as it comes, celebrate
your wins, and ask good questionswhen you come up against resistance. Thank
you so much for being with ustoday. We look forward to sharing more
interesting people, strategies, and conversationswith you in the weeks to come.
(56:35):
Take care of my friends. Byebye
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