127. Weight Loss and Growing Pains

When you were a kid, did you have a lot of growing pains and felt a lot of discomfort, especially when you were trying to sleep? Well, if you have growing pains right now, as in you’re not really loving the life that you have, I want you to know that this is actually a really good thing. And I’m so excited that you’re at this podcast with me because I have wonderful news for you. I’m Dara Tomasson and this is Love Yourself Thin podcast, episode 127, Weight Loss and Growing Pains.

Okay, so what was the story your parents told you when you were a kid about pain? And it’s very interesting, when you get married and you marry into another family, and it’s just so fascinating to watch the way that they cope with different things and how my family of origin, how we coped with things. And then as a mother, as, as I’ve evolved with my kids and as they’ve been growing, how different I am with my youngest son now than I was with my oldest son and just being able to have different perspectives and seeing things in different ways.

And so the first question I have in this podcast is, what is your immediate reaction when you feel pain? What do you do? Do you clench up? Do you blame yourself? Do you try to avoid it as soon as possible? Do you get curious? Do you start to investigate? Are you able to be neutral? I know recently in the summer we were hosting a party with a bunch of kids and one of the kids, they were playing baseball and one, the girls, she threw the baseball bat and actually hit my kid in the forehead and he split just above his eye. And that was also very fascinating to watch how different people in the crowd reacted to it. Some were freaking out, some were, you know, running away. Some were very calm. And so I’m just interested, what is your reaction when you see pain? What is the way that you cope with it?

And we talk about having a tolerance level. Now how does this have anything to do with weight loss? Well, I’m going to tell you. So this episode is the last episode of 2023. Oh my goodness. I’m just so glad you’re here. I love doing this podcast. I love thinking about you doing your dishes or going for a walk or quilting or ironing or whatever it is you’re doing, driving in your car, doing errands, that I’m with you. That is never lost on me. I am always so incredibly grateful as I think about what this means for you, that you can listen to me share these tools and help you. I am just so grateful for technology. I’m so grateful that I can invest in an amazing podcast producer who, she edits all my pauses and my mistakes. I just had my last podcast, I was recording my husband called and there’s no way for me to like pause this. So she gets to hear some of these awkward conversations or my kids coming in. And I love that we can produce these amazing podcasts for you and these worksheets that I think a lot about and really dedicate to you because when I think about how stuck I felt with my weight and with my thoughts about myself, and when I was first introduced to life coaching, I will never forget how I felt like I was, I was a completely different person because I was able to look at my life in such a different way. And I’m eternally grateful for Jodi Moore with her podcast. It was like I couldn’t get enough of it and I am just so grateful that I can be a coach and I can help so many people.

So when you understand what you do with pain in your reaction, that’s going to be a really good indicator for you on your ability to make changes. Now, growing pains, it’s helping you to get on track for who you are, who you really are. So when I was a kid, I used to get these terrible growing pains at night. And the thing that was so frustrating to me was, I was really short and my dad was super tall and I just loved having a tall dad. I thought that was the best, especially when I was, you know, I’d be lost in a crowd and I, all I had to do was look up and I’d see him easily. My dad was like Superman. He was just so strong and it just felt so secure having such a big, tall, strong dad. And I really wanted to be like him. And so when I had these growing pains, I knew, well, maybe it means that I can be big and tall and strong like him. And eventually I did, but it took a long time for me to grow. It wasn’t, it wasn’t until I was in grade nine that I actually grew.

So the part of the growing pains means that you are on the right track because you’re seeing that you are changing. You’re not always going to that automatic pilot. You’re not going to default thinking. And you’re allowing yourself the opportunity for growth. And that is exciting news. Growing pains means that you are on the right track because you’re finally letting yourself ask questions like, is this who I want to be? Is this how I want to live the rest of my life? Is this really true? And the more that you can do that, the more open you are to yourself.

Now, when I prepared for the retreat of 2023 I based the retreat on this book called The Mountain Is You. So I’ve been talking about it a lot because I’ve been studying it a lot. And she talked about how transforming, transforming self sabotage into self mastery. Now I like the way that she describes where pain really comes from. So when we don’t examine our fear that we have about ourselves in the world, you know what happens? We recognize that we weren’t, so what is it that really causes us the problem? It’s not that our life isn’t great. It’s that we recognize that we aren’t being our best self. That’s a tough pill to swallow. Then she says you didn’t behave the way you wish you would have. Does it feel easier to blame other people? Or is it harder to take responsibility? Clearly, it’s harder when you don’t behave the way you wish you would have. It’s hard to take that responsibility. What about you weren’t what you hoped you’d be? That’s hard to say, isn’t it? If you’re in a relationship or having a conversation or if you’re, you know, volunteering or you’re at work and you say, you know what, I actually didn’t step up as much as I wish I had. It seems easier to say, you know, you co worker, you really did a terrible job instead of saying, you know what, I can see where I could have improved. that’s harder to do.

Another way that we, where the pain really comes from, is whenever we want desperately to prove someone else wrong, we’re really trying to quell our own lingering disappointment that we didn’t live up to our own expectations. That’s hard to do. It’s hard to take responsibility for us not being how good we want to be. And, So, I love what Brianna continues to say, she said, remember this, and I like how she talks about a glow up story, because in glow up, it’s not really like vocab that I usually use, but glowing up really is like your makeover, your like, this is me amazing story. So, the next time you’re trying to craft a glow up story that is compelling to others, ask yourself, why are you still waiting for their approval? The answer almost always is that you still do not have your own.

So the point of this episode and, and what I really want you to be thinking about as you prepare for 2024 is I want you to think about what is the approval you’re waiting for others to give you? Now, remember, if you don’t create your own approval, then you’ll never have their approval. Kind of like the judgment. If you’re always judging yourself, the only way you can be judged is if you’re judging yourself. So I like to give the example of when I took my 10 year old, he got a bite, And took him to the health, after the stitches and everything the hospital, they said has, does he have his tetanus and does he have all his shots updated? And I was like, I don’t, I don’t know if he has, this is my fifth kid, you guys. And we moved right with at that time. And I couldn’t remember, but it had been like five years. And so the next day I was at the health clinic and I realized that these women and one of them happened to be the wife of a coworker of my husband’s. And I realized, Oh, they could be in there judging me because here I am a mom of five kids with not even knowing if my fifth kid has had his shots. And then I just started laughing at myself because I said, the only way I can feel judged is if I’m judging myself. Because when I reflected on that time, when we first moved here and the struggles and the difficulties I was having, I actually felt so proud of myself for being the mom that I was. I took them, I played with my kids and we had cooking contests and we read Harry Potter and we went to the beach and we had adventures and I did the best I could. I didn’t put my head under the blankets and say, I’m checking out kids. I actually kept showing up for them even when I didn’t want to.

So here’s my challenge for you. I want you to think at the end of 2024, what will you be so proud of? Write it all down. I’m so proud that I, I made a commitment to finishing that one quilt, or I made a commitment to visiting each one of my children, or I made a commitment to plan my groceries and I, and I didn’t waste food, or I made, whatever that is, I made a commitment to move a certain amount or read a certain amount of books or clear out certain closets. I have a closet under my stairs that is a disaster. And I was thinking about this the other day. I thought when am I going to actually take care of this closet? I keep saying I’m gonna do it. It doesn’t actually happen. Interesting, right? So go to the end in mind, go to the end of 2024 I know that it’s the end of 2023 when I’m ,when you’re listening to this if you’re listening to it when it just came out But I want you to go to have that that distance that will help you. Okay? You have a whole year to do all these things. What in a whole 365 days are you going to be doing? And then I want you to work your way backwards. And when you do that, you can get power. And so when you have those growing pains of whatever that is. You can say, that’s okay. No problem. Growing pains are, they’re great.

In her book, I love when sHe talked about limiting beliefs might come from wanting to keep yourself safe. She says “maybe that’s why you prefer the comfort of what you’ve known to the vulnerability of what you don’t, why you prefer apathy to excitement. Think that suffering makes you more worthy or believe that for every good thing in life there must also be an accompanying bad. To truly heal you’re going to have to change the way you think you’re going to have to become very conscious of negative and false beliefs and start shifting to a mindset that actually serves you.”

So when you go to the end in mind, you start creating a more safe place inside you to change. And the previous episode to this one was talking about our nervous system and really looking at where is your breaking point of finally accepting that the problem isn’t how the world is, it’s how you are. She quoted who said, “you must find the purest, purest form of being fed up. Make it hurt. I’m not going to live like this anymore.” And so learning how to allow that rage, learning how to allow that change in inside you is going to be the most fun. Then she said, all you’re going to lose is what was built for a person you no longer are. And so the more that you can live in your future and the more that you can see, this is who I want to be. This is the legacy I want to live. This is the kind of person I want to be. The more that you can do that, the more you’re able to, you know, go through resolve all of these concerns that you have the perfectionism and not feeling your feelings and justifying and your disorganization All these stumbling blocks that you just put in your way because you think it’s better to stay safe and not change, but you’re lying to yourself. It is better to change and be who you really are and find that true joy.

And that is my wish for you. One of my favorite words is joy. And when I was a school teacher, I had twin boys in my class. I had them for three years. I loved them so much. And their uncle was a professional jewelry maker and he made me a ring that said joy on it. And I loved that ring so much because that’s what they, they thought of me. It was, I was their joy. It was a joy for them to come to school. It was a joy for them to learn. It was a joy to be in my classroom and these were rough and tumble kids and they were really awesome. And I ask myself every day, are you having joy today, Dara? Are you allowing yourself to have joy? And I think that’s why when I first discovered these life coaching tools, I had so much joy because I knew that I wasn’t fundamentally flawed. I knew that I have just only limited myself and I knew that I had these practical tools that could help me change the way that I looked at myself and that they would change the way that I showed up in the world, not only for me but for my kids and how I showed up for my husband. What kind of wife I was becoming because I finally allowed myself to be honest, and I didn’t have to stay stuck anymore. I didn’t have to stay in a box. And just because I was the third kid of six kids, or if I was this or that. And that is what I want for all of you. And I promise that when you learn these life coaching tools, and when you start to really embrace that, it’s almost like you don’t even recognize yourself. It’s so much fun. All right. If these things are resonating with you and you want more joy in your life, you know what you do, right? You come to my website. And you join Love Yourself Thin and I promise you’ll never look back. It’s so much fun. Have a wonderful 2024 and I can’t wait to provide so many more exciting and amazing podcast episodes for you. All right, take care everyone. Bye bye.