#76: Weight Loss With Yourself

76. Weight Loss With Yourself

Do you think that talking about weight loss and taking better care of yourself is selfish? Well, today’s episode is going to be such a game changer for you, I’m Dara Tomasson and this is Love Yourself Thin episode 76, Weight Loss With Yourself.

Now, originally I was gonna call this weight loss and being selfish, but I was worried that you wouldn’t come and listen to me if I did that because there’s such a negative connotation to selfish. And we have talked about this in the past podcast. When someone is selfish, they’re just always thinking about themselves, they don’t think about other people, and there’s a huge difference of thinking about yourself and thinking for yourself, being your best advocate for yourself, speaking up for what you want.

It’s a really challenging way of living because a lot of us have lived thinking that it’s selfish to think about ourselves. We should always put other people first, and especially people who have grown up in a Christian home. I know that it can feel really confusing of, what does that mean to be selfish and selfless and how much time do you spend on taking care of you versus how much time you spend taking care of others. And there’s this big debate that goes on in our head, and so then it just feels kind of challenging to approach it. So you just kind of go to what was normal for you. Like just, well, when in doubt I’ll just go serve other people or just not think about myself and help others. 

So this is a common coaching topic in Love Yourself Thin as so many of the ladies in there are moms and they’re grandmas. Especially a lot of ladies have worked their whole lives and now they have this retirement, they’ve been anticipating retirement, and so when other people are making demands of them, it feels really selfish for them to say, no I can’t help you because I plan to do some sewing  or some quilting at home, or I wanted to go out with some friends. And so learning how to navigate this is really challenging. 

So today’s episode I’m gonna give you some practical tips on how to navigate in your own brain how to resolve this. Because I know for me, this definitely has been a lot of the work that I have done. Being a mom of five kids and my husband works a lot and I have big commitments, community and church commitments and running my own business, all of that. It’s definitely something that I’ve done a lot of work on. And so I’m Gonna share a tool with you that I know is gonna be really, really helpful for you.  

And right before I share the tool, I am just gonna share a real life example of one of my clients and how when she was able to work this out, what a huge difference it has made for her. And so the first example that comes into my mind when I think about being with yourself is one of my clients who said she would compete with me on the perfectionist realm. And she just got a beautiful brand new kitchen and it was so exciting. She had all of her family for Thanksgiving dinner and she didn’t empty out the bottom drawer of her stove. She thought there wouldn’t be anything there, but apparently there was. There was the manual for the stove, and so she has all of her family, she has everything exactly lined up for the casseroles and all the food timing and everything. 

She had it all done beautifully and she put the oven on, hadn’t used it  before and had a huge fire. And it was quite the ordeal, but it was so much fun to hear her laugh about it, not beat herself up about it because she knew, she’s just a human and she doesn’t beat herself up anymore. She just rolls with it. She’s not mean to herself, she’s not berating herself, she’s with herself. 

And so let’s dive into the episode.  I really enjoyed listening to how Jodi Moore talks about friendship, and it really impacted the way that I gave myself permission to think about self-care. And so Jodi talked about how we need to be our own best friend. So some people could think that that’s really selfish if you want to be your own best friend, but this is why she said we need to; you are better off when you like yourself, you are the only one you can truly count on. Like, we can get married and we could love and trust people, but if your spouse is stuck in a snowstorm, they can’t come home. Or if their plane is delayed, or if the ferry got canceled or if work kept them later and it was a true emergency and  they could not leave.

So you can still trust people, but that doesn’t mean you can always count on them. I was taking the ferry home and it was delayed. And so, you know, my husband was hoping that I would be home at a certain time and he was relying on that. That was outta my control. And so, when you understand that you are the only one you can truly count on, take care of yourself better. If you’re the only one you can count on,  if you’re not strong or if you’re always tired by noon, then that’s a problem. You break trust with yourself. 

Number two, you can’t escape you. When you ignore you, how does it feel? You are always in your own brain, and so no matter of eating, overeating, over shopping, over surfing on the web, scrolling, over people pleasing, eventually you’re always with you and you can only escape for so long.

And number three, we actually want our own approval. When I coach my clients, and some of them are 60, 70, 80 years old, and they are still seeking their parents’ approval. Ultimately, we want our own approval. And so if we don’t learn how to do that, then we’re out of luck, aren’t we? And to take it a step further, even if we did get our parents’ approval, but we didn’t believe them, that they were sincere, then it wouldn’t matter. Because even if people say things like, if I said, you’re so beautiful, but if you don’t believe you’re beautiful, then you wouldn’t believe me when I say, oh yeah, Dara said I’m beautiful. Dara said I did a good job on my quilt. Well, if you don’t believe you did a good job on your quilt, then you’re like, yeah, she’s a liar, or whatever she says doesn’t mAtter. Okay?

So friendship or being with yourself, so I’m gonna call that friendship. It’s a mental construct. So that means that you get to decide what you consider as a best friend. And so the Urban Dictionary says that being a best friend is the relationship you have with yourself. So, what kind of relationship do you wanna have with yourself? So if you go to the worksheets, I just have a couple of simple questions. So I want you to think about who is your best friend and why, like why is that person your best friend? What are the traits, what are the characteristics? What makes that person, that relationship so special? Like, why do you love it so much?

And I would even say like, spend some time just thinking and just kind of smiling and letting yourself just relish in like; that friendship is awesome. I love that friendship and I love it because of this, this, and this. And it makes me feel safe and it makes me wanna laugh, and it makes me wanna be a better person. Like whatever that is. Okay? So I want you to ask yourself, who is my best friend? Like, who do I love spending time with? Okay?

And then I want you to ask yourself, what kind of relationship do you want to have with yourself? One of the things that helps me when I think about this is how would I want someone to treat my daughter? How would I want someone to speak to her? How would I be so pleased if that’s the kind of people she’s surrounding herself with, or my boys, right? And so I want you to ask yourself that for you. So there are some qualities like; they’re there for you no matter what, someone you can be with anytime, they will support you at any time, even when it’s hard for them. You can also say or do anything and you won’t feel judged. Those are some of the ideas that I had. 

And so when you think about being selfish, I want you to question yourself, why? And then I want you to maybe even answer it and say, well, if you think it’s selfish to like yourself or wanna be with yourself, then I guess it is selfish, and that’s okay. I’m okay with that. Because the truth of the matter is you are the only one you can truly count on. You can’t escape you. And we want our own approval. So the more that you can feel comfortable, the more that you can feel at ease and at peace with yourself, the better friendship, the better relationship you have with yourself.

And just like the Love Yourself Thin process, the more that you care about yourself, the more that you cherish yourself, the more that you think highly of yourself, the more that you admire yourself, the more you’re just gonna take care of you. And I have this exercise and I did… I feel like sometimes I’m sharing the Jodi Moore wisdom, but why not? She is brilliant and she’s been on this road longer than I have. And I just love that, you know, she was one of my main inspirations for changing my life and I am always so grateful to her. But I’ve watched her recently on an Instagram story. And she’s talked about this in the past, but she actually made the video and I was really impressed. She had a towel on in the morning and she was getting herself ready because she talks about this and I’ve shared that I do this practice and it was fun to see her doing it.

So I’m gonna just share it with you. If you want to watch, it’s on a reel and it was at the end of November, 2022. So she has a towel on and she’s got a toothbrush and she says, hey last night was kind of rough, you went to bed kind of late last night, so we’re kind of paying the price this morning. You know, I get it, I get that you wanted to do that, but it’s gonna be a little hard getting going this morning because we didn’t quite get the right amount of sleep. But I got you. We’ve got a really good day ahead of us and we’re gonna do the best we can and don’t worry, I’m not going to judge you. It’s okay. But you know, there might be some times today where we’re gonna wanna not do stuff because we’re kind of tired but I got you. It’s gonna be okay. Wasn’t that amazing to listen to?  It was so fun. 

So last night I was struggling with a task that I was doing during the day and I wasn’t getting all the things done on my list that I wanted to. There was some conflict with a phone company. I won’t even go there, it’s been the most ridiculous, ludicrous thing ever. And so I had that to deal with. And then I thought that there were some tasks that I had written down that weren’t gonna take as long. Turns out they take a little bit longer, and so I’m driving to pick up my kids after school. And I did the same thing and this is what it sounded like for me.

It’s like, Hey, so we’ve done the workday, you didn’t quite get all the things done on your schedule as you had put, and it seems to me like you keep putting off this one task and it’s not getting done. What’s going on? And so I got really curious with myself and then I said like, I really appreciate that you are doing these things. And I was very specific about some of the things that I had done. I also said, Hey, way to go not swearing at that guy on the phone. That was good. Way to keep your composure. And so I gave myself permission to say the things that I liked. I then said the things that I wasn’t really liking that was going on, I then got curious.

I’ve used compassion and curiosity as my filters quite often when I’m problem solving, say, so what’s going on? Why do you think that’s happening? Why do you think you keep putting that off? Are you not giving yourself enough time to do things?  I went from a place of compassion and curiosity, and that is a way more empowering. A lot more empowering to start solving it. So then today as I’m working and I was coming across that same kind of resistance that I had yesterday, I was able to not judge myself and say, oh, here we are again. What’s going on? What’s up, what’s happening? You got some emotions. What’s the emotion you’re resisting? Like what’s happening? From a place of love and curiosity. And I was able to process that emotion. I was able to work through it and I got that task done much sooner than I had in the past. 

So I wanna encourage you to do that. I want to encourage you to answer these questions. Who is your best friend and why? And then what kind of relationship do you wanna have with yourself? And then I wrote down the three reasons why you need to be your own best friend. And you can post that, you can print it off and put it on your fridge, you can put it on a screensaver, because I really want you to learn how to get your own back, how to be that kind and compassionate person. How to be able to talk to yourself with compassion and curiosity. It is such a game changer. 

I cannot wait to hear how your life changes because of that. So I thank Jodi for sharing it with me. I thank myself for implementing it and I want to keep that, you know, when they talk about paying it forward, I want to hear from you on how you start implementing this. 

Now, I love being social on social media, so I’d love to hear what’s going on for you with this. So you can direct message me on Instagram. I’m Dara_ Tomasson or you can email me; [email protected] and tell me how is it going with being kinder and more compassionate and curious with yourself being your own best friend? It is not selfish, my friends, because this is the truth of it, the more that you love being you, you now create your own joy within you. 

And then just like I say with marriage, you make you happy, your husband makes him happy, and then you can come together and you can have fun. Same thing with our kids. I make me happy, they make themselves happy because truthfully, the only person you can truly make happy is yourself. And then when you show up to the party or you show up in the kitchen and it’s all a mess, you got you. You take care of you. And then you can be the kind of mom or the wife or the grandma, or the employee or the citizen, or whoever person you wanna be. All right. Take care everyone. Bye.  Until next time.