Struggling with your self-image or feeling shackled by the 'never good enough' syndrome?
My conversation with mindset coach Risa Hasbrook shares how a shift in perspective can liberate you from these constraints, fostering a celebration of your body as it is, and as it can be.
Risa, with her journey from South Africa to the U.S., provides powerful insights into appreciating ourselves without being fixated on the scale.
We tackle the myths surrounding food, exercise, and body image, and the cultural entrapment in the 'no pain, no gain' philosophy, illustrating how developing a healthier mindset is the key to sustainable life changes.
This episode full of gold --Risa shares personal stories and transformative experiences, highlighting the power of coaching across all life areas.
From the positive impact of mindset shifts on relationships and time management to sustainable weight management, we weave through the narrative of growth and wellness.
Risa and I explore how redefining daily activities as exercise, inspired by Dr. Krum's research, can lead to tangible health benefits, and how adopting a more fulfilling approach can turn the mundane into a catalyst for wellness.
Our discussion rounds off with actionable tips for shifting your mindset and thought patterns towards a more positive body image.
We explore the nuance of self-talk, the impact of adding "yet" to our critical inner dialogue, and the importance of quantifying and recognizing moments of body appreciation.
Do you sometimes feel selfish for taking time for yourself?
Tired of doing things that only lead to short term changes?
Want to feel MORE like yourself again?
if that's you, click the link to book a call to learn more about the power of the non-diet approach to help you feel and look better all while juggling motherhood and work.
BOOK A CALL
Struggling with your self-image or feeling shackled by the 'never good enough' syndrome?
My conversation with mindset coach Risa Hasbrook shares how a shift in perspective can liberate you from these constraints, fostering a celebration of your body as it is, and as it can be.
Risa, with her journey from South Africa to the U.S., provides powerful insights into appreciating ourselves without being fixated on the scale.
We tackle the myths surrounding food, exercise, and body image, and the cultural entrapment in the 'no pain, no gain' philosophy, illustrating how developing a healthier mindset is the key to sustainable life changes.
This episode full of gold --Risa shares personal stories and transformative experiences, highlighting the power of coaching across all life areas.
From the positive impact of mindset shifts on relationships and time management to sustainable weight management, we weave through the narrative of growth and wellness.
Risa and I explore how redefining daily activities as exercise, inspired by Dr. Krum's research, can lead to tangible health benefits, and how adopting a more fulfilling approach can turn the mundane into a catalyst for wellness.
Our discussion rounds off with actionable tips for shifting your mindset and thought patterns towards a more positive body image.
We explore the nuance of self-talk, the impact of adding "yet" to our critical inner dialogue, and the importance of quantifying and recognizing moments of body appreciation.
Do you sometimes feel selfish for taking time for yourself?
Tired of doing things that only lead to short term changes?
Want to feel MORE like yourself again?
if that's you, click the link to book a call to learn more about the power of the non-diet approach to help you feel and look better all while juggling motherhood and work.
BOOK A CALL
Hey, welcome back to the Strong Her Way to Eat, move and Live. Here we talk all things food, freedom, fitness and life transformation, helping you heal your relationship to food, exercise your body and yourself. This is the last episode of 2022. It's hard to believe that this year is almost over, but we do have a special treat for you today.
Speaker 1:Today, we are doing a guest interview with Risa Hasbrook.
Speaker 1:She hails from South Africa, but her and her family have been living here in the US for the last eight years.
Speaker 1:Learning how to manage her mind has helped her go from working 60 hours a week on her online business to working only six hours a week and making double the money. Three years ago, she got certified as a life coach so that she could teach other people how to change their lives too. Risa says the secret of her mindset coaching is that you can intentionally decide how you want to think and feel about your life. It's a skill that you can use with anything your relationships, how to raise your kids, your money, how you think about your body, which is exactly what we talk about today. On this episode, risa and I talk about ways that you can use your mind and your thinking to change the way that you feel about your body, so that you can enjoy living in the body that you have right now, while also potentially working on whatever fitness or health goals that you have for yourself. So, without further ado, I hope that you enjoy this conversation.
Speaker 2:All right, you guys, today I have a very special guest with you, or for you with me today. Her name is Risa Haasbrook. She is also a mindset coach. We actually have some similar background or training and different things like that. But it's always great, I think, to have another resource, somebody with some different experience, that can come and kind of contribute to the conversation.
Speaker 2:So today we are going to be talking about intentionally changing your thoughts, especially when it comes to the scale and your body and how you're really thinking about that and ultimately, how you end up feeling about that. So I'm really excited about that. I think it's something that we can all definitely kind of learn from, because we have really been taught that the scale, or what our body looks like, is ultimately kind of the indication of how we get to think and feel about our body. But, as we know, with mindset work, really it does start with the thought and the feeling and then the action, which ultimately then kind of creates the relationship that you have or how you start to feel about your body. You don't have to wait until the scale says that ideal, perfect number for you. So, risa, thank you so much for spending some time with us today.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me. I'm so excited about this talking to your people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's going to be awesome. So can you just give us a little bit of a backstory of how you got into doing the work that you do?
Speaker 3:Okay, as you can hear from the accent and me mangling the grammar from time to time, I'm not from the US.
Speaker 3:I'm from South Africa and in 2015, my husband got this amazing job offer in the US and my kids were 15 and 17 at the time. I was homeschooling them and we decided this would be a life enhancing experience for them to live in a different country. At the beginning, the idea was not for us to stay permanently. We didn't thought it would be possible, so it was just like going to be temporary and good experience for them. And then, after a few months here, it became apparent that we will be able to get green cards like or permanent residency pretty easily. So we got that and my kids were like saying we want to stay. There are more. There are so many opportunities in the US. We want to stay here. And the problem then was like my husband, he looked at our finances and we are older, so we don't have so much time left and he said we can't afford to retire yet. You do realize that. So if the kids say we are going back and we will have that heartbreaking experience of them living on one continent and we live in 24 hours away and it's very expensive the traveling to do it back and forth, and I didn't want that. I was like no, no.
Speaker 3:But at the time, like I said, I was a homeschool mom, I was a stay at home mom, but they were getting older. So I decided now I am, I want to contribute to the finances, but I didn't feel good enough. I was, I have, you know, I've been at home for 17 years. At that point, what kind of skills do I have to offer to a employer? And in my second language, which is more so, I felt I was not good enough. So, okay, let's go for an online business. But even there I don't know how to do this. But I decided I'm going to give it a go. So I started, like so many of us do, with something I already know how to do.
Speaker 3:I created an online course, a language course, for homeschooling moms in South Africa, because I knew how to do that. I knew I know the language part about it, but I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't know how to create the course, I didn't know how to do Facebook lives, make web and ask the marketing, the emails. But I did it anyway, and soon, and I think this is a trap that many women fall in. Soon I was working 60 hours a week, making $1,000 a month. Okay, because it's I was working. I was wearing hard work like a badge, a badge of honor. This is the way to do it. I will work myself there and I will work myself to death doing that and contributing to my family's finances.
Speaker 3:But it's a strange thing is you start on this journey I want to make more money and then you become someone else, and that I always tell people never, never, be ashamed of your desires. They are the pathways to who you need to become. So I bought this course by Amy Porterfield. She's like a big guru on online courses and she had a podcast, just like we are doing now, and she interviewed someone you will know, asks you to contact them. She had Brooker still on one day and Brook was making millions of dollars and went for this working three days a week and I was like I'm not doing this right. Something doesn't matter. It's like I'm not supposed to work 60 hours a week just to make that small amount of money.
Speaker 3:And that, that paradigm shift, that that new way of looking at things, I think that moment, that single conversation. Those two women had changed my life. That was like my entry to this new way of looking about adding value and how I look at myself and how I look at the world. And also, of course, I was like, oh, but that's what I want to be. I want to be a life coach. I was always interested in self-help and in psychology, so I want to be a life coach. I want to help people, open up these possibilities to people.
Speaker 3:So my plan was keep the online business, learn to work fewer hours there, obviously, use that money to pay for coach certification. But now the problem was I promise my husband I will help bring in more money. Now I was spending all the money on the coach certification. It was very expensive and I had no guarantees that it was going to work, but I had this voice inside of me this is what you need to do. This is what you want to do. Keep going. So if someone out there is listening to us today, you hear that calling. Follow it. You will become who you need to become in that process. So I did it. It was a year-long process. At the end of it, I was coaching so much better and I definitely was spending six hours a week in my business and now making $2,000 a month. Wait, I was really not at a million bucks like Brooke was promising, but I was like working so much less and definitely earning double the amount, still using that for marketing and for all the things. Sorry, you were going to say.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I mean I just want to slow you down a little bit because I feel like you really touched on some things that I feel like a lot of women, especially women that listen to this podcast can really relate to. And it's this idea, right, of like you didn't feel good enough, right, it was like who am I to step out to do this thing? And so just really having this idea of not feeling good enough and I think that that is definitely probably whether or not we identify that thought that's probably a lot of the underlying thought that we have that drives our behavior around food, around exercise, in the pursuit of weight loss or changing the way that our bodies look. And then the other thing that you said that really resonated with me and I think a lot of other women again as well, is just this idea of really wearing hard work and kind of busyness as a badge of honor, and so we oftentimes think that we have to work a lot harder in order to create the result that we're after. A lot of women listening to this podcast I would say the results that they're after are maybe health related, physique related, those kinds of things, but certainly you can take that and you can apply that same idea and principle anywhere else.
Speaker 2:I definitely noticed for myself when I I mean I realized that I was also really operating from that belief system that I have to work really hard, I have to grind, I have to hustle in order to create results, and I took that I mean that's how I approached getting my degree, that's how I approached, you know, building my business for a long time, and that was certainly the attitude and the mindset that I had when I was approaching, like fitness and health related goals and it was almost like and I think we see this mindset a lot in kind of the mainstream fitness as well right, it's like no pain, no gain.
Speaker 2:You know, did you even work out if you didn't burn you know X number of calories? You know if you can walk the next day, and so it really is kind of like unwinding this belief that it has to be hard, or like wearing that hard work as kind of this badge of honor. So those were just definitely two things that I wanted to kind of, or even that you have to starve yourself if you want to lose weight.
Speaker 3:You know it's the whole like height-love relationship that you have with food. It has to be hot, it can't be joyous, it can't be easy.
Speaker 2:It's so funny that you say that, because last week's podcast episode was actually a replay, but it was really looking at the difference between a diet and a lifestyle. And it's not necessarily a difference in the things that you're doing, like you might still do some of the same behaviors, but it's that heart set and that mindset that is fueling each right. One creates a lot of fear around food, which is kind of that deprivation and restriction, but then also kind of has you sort of like restricting and binging. And then the other one is a little bit more of what you were talking about, in that it can feel enjoyable. It can feel like something that, even though it might be hard right, like some workouts are hard, or sometimes it does feel harder in the moment to deny yourself the ice cream when you really want it it can still be an enjoyable process, right, and it's like you can decide not to have the ice cream and still not feel deprived or restricted. So I would love for you to maybe kind of unpack your thoughts on that a little bit.
Speaker 3:Okay, can I just like finish my story and like tie everything together, because I'm coming back to like you know what your people are interested in and that's like the new mindset around food. Okay, so what happened is like okay, I finished my certification, now I have to create clients and we're still using the other business to finance Facebook ads or whatever kind of training I wanted to do. But slowly but surely I could see myself changing and at the end last year I got this wonderful opportunity I was invited to an interview to coach in Russell Bronson's program you know the ClickFunnels guy and for the last year I was coaching millionaires, you know so coming, and it was an amazing opportunity for a year to be seeing these people are. Actually they are operating at such a higher level than I am. But it's always the same work over and over again. And as I became a better coach it's like you know they're saying is like we always say in the coaching book how you do one thing is how you do everything. So not only did I learn to manage my time better, I also restored to relationship with my mother, I became a better wife, I became a better mother myself and I got to my idea weight without a lot of drama, and I was able to keep it for the last three years.
Speaker 3:And I'm older right now. It's like menopause and all those excuses that we use. I don't really. I do exercise, I do love it, but not like to breaking point. I enjoy my food and the thought that is often coming up for me is I enjoy my life. I enjoy my life. That's a good one. I can be a kind of people. That's the other thing. And, like I said, if you follow this path of desire, my life feels meaningful and that's available to everyone. But I thought that your people would be interested in. Yes, it's possible, with the same tools and the same mindset, to get to the weight that you really want to be and be happy there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that, just this idea of really enjoying your life, and I feel like a lot of times when I'm talking to clients, they might initially come because they have a weight loss goal, or maybe they're not exercising as much as they want to be, or they recognize that there are some nutrition habits that are probably not the best for them. But when we really get to what's underneath of it, what's really that ultimate, why, that's kind of driving you, that's motivating you. A lot of times it is. I want to be able to do these things with my kids. I want to be able to be around and be healthy and be active as a grandma one day, or be able, like our kids are getting ready, to leave the house, and I want to be able to go on vacations with my husband and not feel winded when we're doing a day of sightseeing or something like that, and so it really is.
Speaker 2:I just want to be healthy, I want to feel good, I want to enjoy my life and I think that that is one of the biggest things that dieting the way that we typically do it, it kind of does the opposite, because it sort of sucks the fun out of exercise. Food can oftentimes feel really stressful and there's so many different decisions to make and you're kind of constantly battling maybe that inner desire to enjoy life, enjoy food, enjoy time around the table, because your mind is so preoccupied with the counting and the tracking and all of these other things. So that is beautiful. I love that thought. I just want to enjoy my life.
Speaker 3:And the other thing is I think of dieting. It's always once I'm there, I will be happy.
Speaker 3:And now you miss the present, you miss the moment here. You know, and that's because it's always like no, once I'm at that weight that I want to be, then I will be happy, I'll be happy. Now, just like that little mindset, can we talk a little bit about the hotel worker study and what you are saying. It's just like kind of a very dramatic example of the mindset around exercise and even food, how you know how that can change everything. So when you think of I've just came back from a trip and I saw these hotel workers with these heavy trolleys loaded with everything, the linens and you know all the things that they have to do, when you think of hotel workers, they work hard, they work physically hard jobs. It's up and down stairs, cleaning toilets, making beds on their own. It's like my husband was complaining all the time that they had to make the double bed on his own. It's a lot of work. It's so much better when there are two of you, but the hotel workers have to do it right, walk around and everything.
Speaker 3:So there were these researchers and I think the name of the woman was, I said, dr Krum. I think that's her name, dr Krum. She used to be an athlete so she's very much into practice, exercise and mindset. She did the study, she and her team, and they went to hotel workers. You know they did it very scientifically. There was a control group but there was the experimental group.
Speaker 3:They didn't do anything with a control group except weigh them and took the blood pressure, but then with the experimental group they just had a one-on-one conversation with each of these women, telling them, asking them how much exercise do you think you get? And most of them said not enough. I should go to the gym more often. And then they told them do you realize that? You know, I think it's the surgeon general's recommendation. You are already there, you just count the steps and you know it's kind of that heavy trolley that you have to navigate Right, just that you are actually getting a lot of exercise.
Speaker 3:And then a month later, the researchers they also took their blood pressure, weight them and asked them you know how do you feel about your body and about exercise? A month later they returned and then once again they took their blood pressure and it has dropped a lot. They felt better about themselves and used the most dramatic result they lost weight. As far as the researchers could tell they didn't change anything except the way that they frame their movement. We move around a lot. We work harder than we thought. Just changing the way the story they told themselves about their lives helped them to lose weight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that research study really just highlights, I think, the power of our mind. I mean, I feel like to some extent we've heard about it, even if it was in kind of anecdotal sayings maybe, that you know, like one that comes to mind, that my grandma used to say all the time and I'll see if I can get it correct but it was essentially the idea of what you think about, you speak about, what you speak about, you bring about, and you know. So it's like even she kind of had this wisdom before. You know, mindset was huge and really setting the power of the mind. But it really does like the results start in your mind.
Speaker 2:And it really was such a simple reframe in that particular research study where I think you're right like they didn't change anything else other than how these hotel workers were seeing all of their physical activity, so all of the walking, all of the moving around, cleaning and those kinds of things, and that alone was enough to change the internal markers like the blood pressure and things of that nature.
Speaker 2:But then also they saw their weight decrease, which was amazing too because again, they weren't adding in more, you know, quote, unquote exercise, they didn't change their diet.
Speaker 2:It was really just that simple shift of you know what.
Speaker 2:I'm actually a lot more active than I thought, like this is good for me, I'm doing something positive for my health, even though it's my work, right, like even though I'm not going to a gym. And what I see a lot of times is we really do discount all of the little bits, right. So it's like maybe you're at a place where you're kind of just starting to be physically active again and you're walking right, like your quote unquote, only walking, or you're just walking and we don't see that as like, oh well, this isn't good enough, this isn't going to do anything, and so we kind of poo, poo that effort, but really like if you could just sort of reframe, and it's like you know what I'm walking and every step I take, like every little bit that I'm doing, is going to yield positive results, right, it's going to have a net positive effect, whether that's on my blood pressure, my resting glucose levels, fasting glucose levels, those kinds of things, or even helping your body kind of find and settle into its healthy sort of natural weight range.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, but then I think the question becomes how can we deliberately change the way that we frame things? How can we think differently about things? And we kind of decided that's what we're going to talk about, because that's Brooke Castillo's like that she's famous for and you are also. You know her world, you're, it's part of your world as well. You know how a framework, so that mindset if you change the thought, you change the feeling and then you show up differently. So how can we hack into our own minds? That's the question we would like to answer today.
Speaker 2:Well, and one of the things before we dive into that, I want to go back to this idea of like. Once I'm there, like whatever there is, the number on the scale or your body looks a certain way, then I'll be happy right, then I'll feel good, then I'll feel confident. So we kind of have it backwards, right. We think once we have the result, then the result having the result is going to be what gives us the thought and the feeling. And so really what we're going to be diving into is kind of flipping. That, I guess, nor what I would say is kind of like the default paradigm for people. The result isn't what gives you the feeling right, it's what you think about. The result is what gives you right. So it's like I mean, this is getting way into it, but it so really is kind of taking that backwards approach. So it's starting with the thought, it's intentionally changing your thought. That creates the feeling that you want on purpose, before you even have the result. And that's where it can be tricky for people.
Speaker 3:It feels a little bit counterintuitive because we are almost like fishing water we swim in our thoughts. So what do you mean? It's my thoughts, that's the reality that we're talking about here, and just like the ability to see them as a frame that you're putting around, something, a story that you're telling, a narrative you're creating in your own mind, and that you can change that. But I want to start off by saying that if you are feeling very overwhelmed or very depressed, that's probably not the best time to start doing the thoughtwork. You have to process that emotion first.
Speaker 3:If you had like binge eating the night before and the next morning you are just so full to a shame. You have to deal with the shame first and I have a free tool with that. When I just like walk, it's like a little recording I have where just how people walk through it, how you can sit with an emotion and not push it away and just let it pulsate its way through your body. And once you're and that it's created by your amygdala, which is the fear part of your brain. When that is very high, you can't access your prefrontal and we want to use your prefrontal to do this kind of mindset work. So just first deal with your feelings if they are very overwhelmed.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So really quickly, I mean, how would you or how do you kind of suggest people to sort of sit with that emotion?
Speaker 2:Because for most people we really do, I mean for all humans unintentionally we try to avoid feeling any sort of uncomfortable emotion so we don't want to feel stressed, we don't want to feel overwhelmed, we don't want to feel disappointed or shame or guilt. And unfortunately, in trying to avoid feeling those feelings, we oftentimes end up engaging in behaviors that temporarily kind of take away those quote unquote negative emotions but oftentimes end up on the back end having, maybe, consequences that we don't want, like it's like creating more of the thing that we're trying to avoid in the first place. So if somebody is listening to this and they're like, okay, I'm feeling like you said, just kind of sticking with that example, I ate seven pieces of pizza last night, I'm feeling all sorts of like I'm upset with myself, maybe I'm feeling guilty because I blew my diet again, feeling just like really bad and beating myself up. Instead of them trying to avoid and like get away from that emotion, how do they actively start to kind of deal with all of those really heavy, big emotions?
Speaker 3:Okay, the first thing we're to realize that emotion is a sensation you have in your body, if you really I think that was new to me it's like realizing I'm feeling this in some part of my body and for many of us it's usually in the stomach area. You know they sometimes call the stomach actually part of the brain, so it's vibrations there. You just feel this sinking feeling in your brain. So it's just like usually it would be like closing your eyes, telling yourself I can't be overwhelmed by the emotion. I'm willing to move towards it and experience it, play around with it, become friends with it instead of pushing it away. And once you create that new relationship with emotions, they are not so scary anymore. But it's a skill. It's definitely a skill and a coach with help, but you can do it on your own. That's why I created that recording where I actually walk people through a process of just where do you feel it?
Speaker 3:How would you describe it? What is it that you are feeling? Can you just sit with it? And when you name it, what's the word you claim? No, it's not name it or claim it. There's something. It's you tame it. When you name it, you tame it. It's actually happening at a neurological level. The minute you've named it, you gave it a label, you engage your prefrontal cortex, you became an observer. That's a great place to be if you can see your emotions from the outside.
Speaker 2:Yes, I definitely talk about that a lot. It's like, okay, notice, like notice where in your body you're feeling maybe the pit like, maybe it's heavy on your chest, maybe your stomach feels hollow, maybe you're feeling flushed, like if you're feeling embarrassed about something. So it's like noticing, yes, where is this in your body, and then giving it a name and, as you were talking about that, the image of you know, like when we have, as kids, we have the fear of like the monster under the bed, or like you see a shadow of something in your room and your brain just starts to go and make up this huge scary story about what that is. But then you flick a little light on or you get the flashlight and you look under the bed and all of a sudden you realize like that big scary monster was, you know, your coat on a coat hanger, or the monster that you thought was under your bed.
Speaker 2:You know, really it was just like the noise of the heater, and so it really is just always kind of shedding a light on that emotion, right, it's like, if you can really identify, okay, I'm feeling really guilty about doing this thing, and then take kind of that compassionate, sort of curious approach right. It's like not beating yourself up, not being like oh my gosh, you're so stupid or I can't believe you did this again, and like really getting upset with yourself, but really just like, okay, let's just practice kind of like noticing the emotion, giving it a name and, you know, sitting with it, even if it's just a few seconds, like maybe you still end up like grabbing for the food or your phone or something like that. But, like you said, it's a practice in every single time. You're just kind of opening the window that you can sort of sit and tolerate that uncomfortable emotion just a little bit longer until eventually you're able to kind of identify it and then just let it really like move through your body.
Speaker 3:Well, I liked what you said about being compassionate towards yourself. It's like when one of your kids would yell in the night and say there's a monster under my bed. You would have so much compassion for them and treat them with so much kindness, and you know showing them, so you want to show up with that kind of energy for yourself as well. No, there's no. There's no shaming. There's no. You know, it's no judgment. This is, this is. Oh, that's what I'm feeling. That's why I'm doing this. This is what happens when I overeat. It's really the curiosity, the almost neutral curiosity. Let's shine a light on this, like you said, and let's discover what's going on here. So that's definitely the starting point would be the feeling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's so helpful, whenever we're kind of trying to get to know ourselves a little bit more and our behavior and things like that, to really look at it through that lens of like, if this were my child or if this were somebody that I really loved, how would I be, like trying to help them through this and then taking that same kind of approach to yourself. Right, it's like if it was your kid and they messed up or they did something. You know, for the most part we wouldn't like immediately jump to, like getting all over them and being upset and being angry, but we definitely have kind of that natural tendency to do that to ourselves.
Speaker 3:And it's not helpful. It's really not. You know, it feels because sometimes it feels I have to beat myself up to stick to my protocol or whatever. No, actually not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that actually creates the opposite result that you're looking for.
Speaker 2:We all do that, but we should stop, just stop, 100%.
Speaker 2:So if somebody is listening to this because I do get and I feel like this was kind of where I was at too, you know, some years ago it can feel so like far fetched and out of reach to start to kind of cultivate the thoughts that help you feel good and feel confident in your body when you're not yet, you know, at whatever goal you think you need to be. You know whatever weight or however you want your body to look, and sometimes it can feel a little bit forced, and I know that there's even you know it's this idea where it's not necessarily about faking it till you make it. But how does somebody kind of start to walk through? Okay, right now I feel like I cannot feel this way about my body until it's this number, but we're saying no, you have to actually start with the thought to generate the feeling that you want to feel, to then kind of help you consistently take actions towards creating that result. So how do you kind of make that a little bit more approachable for somebody?
Speaker 3:So let's make it very practical, and we are. Let's practice with one specific photo and I want to give you three techniques that anyone listening to this can start using immediately. And the first one is the easiest and I'm going to make them slightly more advanced as we continue. And just like, pick one that you resonate with and see if it works. So, for instance, say you tell yourself I don't like my body, you can imagine that's going to. Whatever the feeling is going to be, it's not going to be a positive feeling.
Speaker 3:And when you don't feel positive, you don't act in a positive way. That's going to help you get the body, or like yourself your body more. I don't like my body and sometimes this is the tiniest little shift that you need, just tiny, if you add this three little, little little word I don't like my body. Yet Do you feel a shift when I say that, alicia?
Speaker 2:Well, yet anytime that I feel like I add that right, like I'm not quite there yet or whatever, for me what that does is it kind of gives me the hope that like I might not be there yet, but maybe I'm not where I was and I'm on my way there, right like I'm figuring it out, and so I do love that right. It's just adding in your brain that little comma yet.
Speaker 3:And then it's, then it's you remind yourself this is a journey and it's okay that I'm, and I'm working on it and there's the possibility of me liking my body and accepting myself 100%. So that's the first one, is adding the yet. Now let's the second one that I thought let's start with. This is I don't like my body. That's very black or white thinking, it's just like all or nothing. But if you say I don't like my body 50% of the time, I did like my body in that beautiful new dress that I got, or, and really ask yourself what is the percentage? And even if it's like I don't like my body 90% of the time, that's okay, it's not 100%.
Speaker 3:It's just like adding that and when do you like your body better? So it's, for instance, when you understand how strong you are or that you can do things with it and you can pick things up and you can hug people. So, just like, instead of saying I don't like my body, I don't like my body xx percent of the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that what you just highlighted too in terms of well one just pointing out that there are probably times that you do like your body or that you're not, or that you're even just not thinking about how much you don't like it, right, so it's like maybe that's even where you have to start is like, well, it feels like there's probably about 10% of my day that I'm not actively thinking that I don't like my body.
Speaker 2:Awesome, like right. So it's like really focusing on that 10%. But then I also love thinking about like, what does your body right now allow you to do in your life that you do enjoy, that you do love? Right? So that might be scooping up your kids and giving them a hug, hugging your husband, you know, taking your dogs on a walk, like whatever that is like what are the activities that the body that you're in right now allow you to do that you can be grateful for that. You can be thankful for that. Maybe conjure up some of those. You know, that the hope or that love or that caring you know like, whatever those emotions are that you're after.
Speaker 3:So it's you are creating a little bit of space about that thought, and then you can oh, I can just this, I can move this and that's what we are trying to accomplish here. It's like, really, it's mindset work and seeing it as a thought, and okay, that's. That's just like I wanted to explain what we're trying to do yet. Okay, now the third one is almost the same, but it's a little bit different. It's like I don't like my body, or if, even if you want to switch it to positive I do like my body.
Speaker 3:If I tell you that statement and you have to rate it on a scale of one to 10, and 10 being the best and one being the worst, where are you? You know, if you ask yourself that question and say, for instance, you say okay, I like my body, I'm at a three, and now you ask yourself why am I at three and not at zero? And it comes back to like you, then you discover thoughts. You are already thinking about your body, that you can enhance and make stronger, and that you think that you're already believing about you and your body. And then the next question is what would it take to get it to a 10? And then you discover the thoughts that you need to practice, the ones that you need to play around with, if you can create this new relationship with you and your body.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that and that's kind of builds off of, or it's like a different way to look at the second approach that you said right, so it's like okay, on a scale of one to 10, how much do I believe the statement I like my body and whatever that number is to zero, right, so like the number and then less back to zero.
Speaker 2:That already that gives you some foundation, essentially, like there are some thoughts or there are some things that you currently think or believe about your body that has it not being a zero.
Speaker 2:And then I think, for people, like, if it feels really farfetched, like maybe you're like, okay, yeah, if I was at my goal weight, if I, you know, if my body looked the way that I wanted it to look, what are all of the things that I would be thinking or feeling? Or what would it take to get me to this belief, like I like my body, if it feels too farfetched to jump, like in your example, from a three to a 10, I would even go, you know, okay, what would it take to get me from a three to a five? What would it take to get me from a five to a seven, a seven to a nine and then to that 10?, because then it doesn't feel like that big of a jump right If we're just saying things to ourselves that we don't actually believe, like there's not even a little bit of us, and you see it and it kind of feels tight and you're like, oh no, I don't believe this, that's not going to be beneficial.
Speaker 2:Yeah stare, step your way into it. So if you are, you know, trying for this third approach that she said, that Risa has shared with us, and it feels like too big of a jump, then just stare, step, like what would it take to get me from you know here, and then one or two upright, and then those are going to be the thoughts that we're going to practice. And then, once we get there, then you can kind of slowly move yourself up that the ladder, or up that, not stream, but yeah, up that scale a little bit more.
Speaker 3:And really it's like it feels like magical thinking. But just to come back to the hotel worker study, if you change the way that you frame something, it really works. It really changes things. So it's it may feel no, some people. I think no, no, this is magic thinking. I don't know if it's your audience. They're probably used to you telling you then this all the time. But it's really worth your while to play around a little bit with these techniques.
Speaker 2:Well and this comes back to something that I wrote down, something you said reminded me of this, and I think it just bears worth repeating that you are not your thoughts and you are not your emotions, you're not your feelings. And I can think back, you know, 10 years or so ago, where I just really was stuck in this continual loop of what I now know were thoughts about my body. But it could have been like I was just telling myself the news, like I was just telling myself this is just the fact of my body.
Speaker 2:This is what I think. Of course, everybody else thinks this when they see this about me. And it wasn't until I really was like introduced to mindset work and it was on like a very light scale, that it was like, you know, like maybe this is optional, like maybe I could just decide that I'm going to look at my legs in a different way right, I'm not going to sit here and focus on the cellulite or focus on their size and that really did like start to open up a whole new relationship that I was. I was like, oh, my gosh, like okay, so it wasn't necessarily true. You know what I was thinking about my body. And it really did start to create that space of like okay, I have thoughts about my legs, I have thoughts about my body.
Speaker 2:That doesn't necessarily mean that those thoughts are true and it's not necessarily what everybody else thinks when they look at me.
Speaker 2:And you know, just kind of playing around with that and seeing that, oh wait, just because I have this thought about my body, doesn't mean that that's the truth about me.
Speaker 2:That's not true about me.
Speaker 2:I can be separate from those thoughts and so I think if you're listening to this and you really find you know that you just have these thoughts kind of on repeat inside your head about your body, or maybe it's about a specific part of your body to really just kind of start to challenge this idea that that's the truth or that's the fact, or that if everybody looked at you we would all have the same thoughts about you or your body, and really start to play around with the fact that, number one, that's not fact, it's not the news, not everybody's going to see it the same way.
Speaker 2:But, number two, you are not your thoughts about your body, you are not your emotions, and so you can kind of start to separate that a little bit. And I think for me that really was helpful in kind of wiggling some of those really deep-seated, deeply held beliefs that I had about my body. It was just saying like well, wait a minute, like maybe I could kind of play around with this, right, and so again it's kind of taking that curious sort of playful approach rather than you know, that tight grip of like oh my gosh, I have to change this thought, because that's kind of oftentimes the same way that we're approaching food and exercise as with sort of this like death grip because we're so desperate for that to create the change.
Speaker 3:What was it your grandfather said? She put intuitively right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she said you know what you think about, you speak about, what you speak about, you bring about, and so it's like, even like those subconscious thoughts that are kind of, you know, bubbling under the surface, what are you speaking constantly to yourself, what are you speaking constantly over yourself, over your body? And you know, are those words that you're speaking are they bringing life or are they bringing death, right? Like, is it kind of fueling this place of like living in love or fear, right? It's like I always think that like there's two ways that we can go we're either taking action or we're thinking from a place of fear and lack and scarcity, or, you know, from love and from abundance and those kinds of things.
Speaker 3:And possibility, yes, possibility. This is possible for everyone.
Speaker 2:Yes, well, thank you so much, risa, for your time. Thank you for sharing your expertise and just sharing your excitement. I think about this because this really is life changing Like you can get yourself to whatever goal, weight or whatever you know physical ideal that you think you're supposed to be at, and still not feel confident, still not feel good in your body, still not feel like it's good enough right. And that was where I was at, like I had reached what I thought was like well, if I was just this number, if you know my body just looked this way, then I would feel confident, then I wouldn't, you know, be comparing myself to other women, then I would feel good.
Speaker 2:And I got to those ideals and it still wasn't good enough. I still felt like I needed to lose more weight or I needed to be more toned and, if anything, like all of the insecurities were just heightened. So I've had that personal experience. I've worked with other clients that have had that experience too, where they have been at their goal weight and still felt like they needed to lose 10 more pounds. And so that's where I think, really nailing down this idea that you can start to think and look at your body differently. That's going to be huge right, because it's such a shame to get to your goal and still not be happy.
Speaker 3:I want to lay down okay, some work. You still don't like yourself.
Speaker 2:No, we don't like that, yeah, especially if you're doing it the traditional diet way, which is like cutting out all of your favorite foods, you know, counting everything that you put in your mouth and finally getting to the goal and then just being like, oh my gosh, like this still isn't enough. So, yeah, if you have any final words of encouragement or wisdom, please share.
Speaker 3:I think a quick, easy way to get back is like the gratitude. It's like just like celebrating where you are right now. Like you said, it's like think about your body and what you can do if you're amazing body right now, instead of hating on it, always coming back to what he's working. What is wonderful about my life right now?
Speaker 2:Yes, I love that. Definitely learning to celebrate along the way that was something else you had said. Right, it's like we can work so hard to get to the goal that we just kind of miss. It's like the 99% of our life that is, from one goal to the next. You know, we're just always in a hurry to get to the other goal, and so really learning, you know this goes back to learning how to enjoy our lives, enjoy the process, enjoy the journey, and, you know, part of that is being grateful. It's being thankful for what you have where you're at now and celebrating. Right, it's like celebrating all of the little steps that you're taking towards the goal and not just celebrating, you know, the results or celebrating the outcome. So that was great wisdom. Thank you again, risa.
Speaker 2:We will have Risa's links to social media, her freebie, her website, all of that. So if you're interested in checking out more about her work or the training that she talked about, be sure to check the show notes for those links. And thank you guys so much for hanging out with us today. Thank you, risa, for spending your time. This was so great.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me, alicia, I enjoyed myself. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Yes, you're welcome.