#133: Weight Loss and the Elephant

133. Weight Loss and the Elephant

Do you love and appreciate your body? If you are kind of embarrassed and ashamed to say that you don’t because it’s not the way you want it to be, well you are in the perfect place. My name is Dara Tomasson and this is episode 1 33, weight Loss and the Elephant.

Okay. Today’s episode is going to be very thought provoking, hopefully because I’m going to be asking you to think a lot, but don’t worry, I’m gonna kind of hold your hand through it. And my hope by the end of the episode is you’re gonna have a very different perspective about weight loss than you’ve ever had before, which is going to be very good because if you always do what you’ve always done, you’re always gonna get what you always got. So my job is to have you think about things differently so that you can get different results. Now, I made a promise in 2024 all the episodes I’m going to share the impact, the ripple effects of Love Yourself Thin not just to my members, but to those around them.

And this one is about a member who babysits her granddaughter, her sweet, sweet granddaughter several times a week and she really loves doing that, but she has been finding that after her babysitting, she would be often really exhausted and tired and often treating herself and just not showing up the way she wanted. And we’ve been working on this for a few, like about a month and a half or so in trying to figure this out. And basically what’s happened is so when she was a teenager, she saw how much the girls that were a little bit larger were bullied at school, and so she made a commitment to herself as a 13-year-old girl to not ever gain weight. So she had a lot of fear around weight and gaining weight. And as a 13-year-old, what is one of the things they do? Is they speak harshly to themselves. So this member, she is extremely harsh on herself. Anytime she makes any mistake, there’s zero room for allowance of change or difference. And so what she would do is she would speak harshly to herself to get her to go back into line. Like, come on, don’t do that. You’re so stupid. What were you thinking? And obviously when you speak to yourself this way, it impacts your relationship with yourself. So she was afraid of being bullied, but then it turns out that she was being a bully to herself. And so, but she didn’t even realize she was doing it. And so when I was able to point that out to her. She saw that she was actually doing it, and she was able to really look at it and make a decision that that is not how she wants to treat herself. It’s not the way she wants to speak to herself. And especially subconsciously, she didn’t even realize it. And so the impact now will be on her sweet granddaughter because like she was patient and kind with her granddaughter, don’t get me wrong, but she’s getting a healthier mentally and physically healthier grandma because she’s not as exhausted. She’s not as run down, she’s not as frustrated or flustered because she’s not speaking to herself so harshly. Okay.

It’s kind of like if you put the wrong oil in your car, your car cannot run very smoothly if it doesn’t have the proper oil, it doesn’t have the right kind of maintenance. And so if you have these negative thoughts and not being kind and allowing like this, this kindness to happen, then you won’t be able to operate properly. So it’s the same thing And I love that for her.

Okay, so I’m gonna read you a story and it’s, it’s such an interesting story and so as I’m reading it to you, I want you just to be open to what comes up to you when we talk about weight loss and your experience with it over your lifetime. There was once six blind men who stood by the roadside every day and begged from the people who passed. They had often heard of elephants, but they had never seen one for being blind how could they? It so happened one morning that an elephant was driven down the road where they stood. When they were told that the great beast was before them, they asked the driver to let him stop so they could see him. Of course, they could not see him with their eyes, but they thought that by touching him they could learn just what kind of animal he was.

The first one happened to put his hand on the elephant’s side. Well, well, he said, now I know all about this beast. He is exactly like a wall. The second felt only of the elephant’s tusk. Oh, my brother, he said, you are mistaken. He is not at all like a wall. He is round and smooth and sharp. He is more like a spear than anything else. The third happened to take hold of the elephant’s trunk. Both of you are wrong he said, anybody who knows anything can see that this elephant is like a snake. The fourth reached out his arms and grasped one of the elephant’s legs. Oh, how blind you are he said, it is very plain to me that he is round and tall like a tree. The fifth was a very tall man and he chanced to take hold of the elephant’s ear. The blindest man ought to know that this beast is not like any of the things that you name, he said he is exactly like a huge fan. The sixth was very blind indeed, and it was sometime before he could find the elephant at all. At last, he sees the elephant’s tail. Oh, foolish fellows. He cried. You surely have lost your senses. This elephant is not like a wall or spear or snake or tree. Neither is it like a fan, but any man with a particle of sense can see that he is exactly like a rope. Then the elephant moved on and the six blind man sat by the roadside all day and quarreled about him. Each believed that they knew just how the animal looked and each called the other’s hard names because they did not agree with him. People who have eyes sometimes act as foolishly.

So why do I share this story? Because how much of us approach our entire body saying if it’s good or bad, with the caveat of, or with the focus of what, how much we weigh. And when I thought of this concept, I was embarrassed. I was ashamed. I felt silly. I felt kind of dumb about it all because I thought, you know when you look at the whole body, okay, what, let’s just talk about it for a moment. We have eyes that see, and some of us don’t, and some of us who are listening to this podcast do not have eyes to see. But we have five other senses and some of us have noses to smell and you can smell the beautiful, beautiful smells. Also, there are some not so beautiful smells. Some of us who are listening to podcasts have tastes and we can taste all the different flavors. Some of us have ears to hear and we can hear. I have a friend she was born without arms and so she doesn’t have that opportunity to have hands, but she’s had two children and they’re wonderful kids. She’s raised them. She drives, she actually types faster with her toes than I do with my fingers. She’s just a very accomplished person, and when I met her when I was 23 . She came to my classroom and she did a presentation and it was incredible to watch her write on the board. And I just thought, do I appreciate my hands as much as as others, or do I just take it for granted? And I don’t do it from a place of, you know, feeling guilty that I have hands and she doesn’t. But just out of a place of, you know, we all have different strengths and abilities, but I have hands and that’s a bonus. And do I appreciate them?

So I’m curious when I read this story about if you only saw just like the six blind men on the side of the road, they only saw what they saw. And so they only had this idea of what the elephant looked like. And so many of us have been conditioned to believe that our weight, the number on the scale dictates our success, our quality as a human. So the goal of this podcast is to just really get you thinking about how do you look at your body and what impact is that making? And so what I would like you to do in the worksheet, I have several questions. So what do I love about my hands? And then I just want you to write everything you love about your hands, and then what do I love about my eyes? What do I love about my digestive organs? And, and we, we will have a few of those questions and it just kind of gets your mind going. What do I love about my sight? What do I love about my sense of smell? What do I love about my hearing? Like what do I love about that? And so your brain can now start really focusing on all the incredible things that you have.

I remember in Life Coach school training, Brooke Castillo was talking about how we love electricity, but so many people complain and say, well, I hate paying bills and I have so many bills. And she said, well, don’t you love electricity? Don’t you like having light at night? Don’t you like having power so you don’t have to go make a fire outside, you can actually just turn on a your oven. And, I think that ever since I heard that, every time I pay my bills, I’m like, I am so glad I can pay my bills. I love electricity. I am so glad I have a cell phone. And I so glad that my kids can reach me anytime. I’m so glad that I have a car and that I can pay for repairs and I can keep this car going, and I’m so glad that I have the money to pay for insurance, and I can just get in the car anytime and go places, and I can drive my kids to basketball and they can have all these different experiences because we have a car.

So I am really going to encourage you to take like five, 10 minutes and slow down long enough, stop the scrolling, stop, stop the snacking, whatever that is, and start to really embrace, what do I love about my hands? What do I love about my eyes? What do I love about my shoulders? What do I love about my hips? What do I love about my digestive system? What do I love about my blood, my red blood cells? What do I love about my lungs? What do I love about my heart? What do I love about my hair? What do I love about my car? Right? What do I love about my life? Because if I said, what do you love about your life? You’re like uh, but if you break it down and really start looking at all the impact, all the amazing things about your life, that will change so much. And when you can do that you can be less confused like the six blind men on the side of the road. And they, they fight on all day about, no, I, this is what an elephant looks like. This is what an elephant looks. It’s like, no, we’re not doing that anymore.

And you know, it’s true losing weight, it does help you with a lot of things. Let’s just brainstorm. Losing weight helps you to not worry about having a heart attack or a stroke. Losing weight reduces the risk of cancer and other diseases, high blood pressure. Losing weight makes it easier to go in and out of cars, up and down couches. Losing weight allows you to have more adventures. Like you can go on more roller coasters, you can go kayaking more. Losing weight also helps you have more clothing options in the store. It also tends to make it easier to get ready ’cause you have more clothes. Things feel just a little bit more comfortable. Losing weight can definitely make you feel more confident. Losing weight helps you build trust with yourself that you can be like a good caretaker for yourself. And I do wanna, just in conclusion to this episode, losing weight solves weight loss problems. Losing weight doesn’t solve all the world’s problems. I remember very distinctly thinking, looking at thin people and thinking their life legitimately is better than mine. Like, I am deficient. I, there’s something really wrong with me. And just feeling so jealous of them and feeling so, down and out. And so I want to emphasize that losing weight solves weight loss problems.

So, like I said, you can buy more clothes, you can feel more comfortable, you have more energy. It definitely impacts the quality of your life, but you as a person are not a better person because you have lost weight. You just have given yourself, kinda like if you pay your bills on time, you just have a better credit rating. If you pay your bills, then you have electricity. Like there’s just repercussions. There’s just side effects of what happens when you do that work. Okay? So go work on those, those worksheets. Weight loss and the Elephant, episode one thirty-three. You can just download it and be really interested to see what happens as you do that exercise. And then you start looking at yourself in the mirror and you start thinking, oh gosh, look at those eyes of mine. They do a good job even wearing glasses. Like, isn’t that awesome that I can wear glasses and I can see so much still. Or look at my hands like, I’ve made so many beautiful meals for people, or I’ve made quilts, or I’ve, you know, cleaned houses, or I’ve made a beautiful home for my family, or what, whatever that is. Okay so you’ll start changing the way you look at yourself and the way you talk to yourself.

Alright everybody, I am about to head off to the church and I’m actually recording this on December the fourth at talk about hands. I am going to go and play the piano for the Nativity and I am not great at the piano. I went and I rescued about three of my piano books that I used to play when I was a teenager, and so I’m really hoping that my hands will be able to make the connections and played the songs to make it a little bit more enjoyable for those who are coming to enjoy the cresh. So I love hearing your feedback from these episodes. You can come and talk to me over on Instagram, Dara underscore Tomasson or you can just email me Dara at daratomasson.com I would love to hear what takeaways you have from this episode. All right, everyone. Bye-Bye.