98. Weight Loss and Destination Fear

Do you see all these amazing destinations and these really fun adventures and you wanna go so badly, but your fear from going is just too much and so you end up staying home scrolling and keep wishing that you would be one of those people. Well, if that’s you, don’t worry. I’ve got you. I’m Dara Tomasson, and this is Love Yourself Thin, episode 98, Weight Loss and destination fear.

Hello, welcome to this podcast episode. So today I’m gonna talk about this concept called destination fear, and I want to help work through that so that you can have the kinds of adventures, you can have a kind of life that you really wanna have. So in this podcast, I’m gonna talk about how do we overcome our fear that happens when we really want to have these new adventures. We really wanna cross off these things on our bucket list, but we’re so afraid that we just can’t quite get over that fear so that we can have the courage to press let’s go.

All right, so before we start into this podcast, I am going to share with you a win from one of my clients, which has, it’s really exciting to share what’s going on inside love yourself thin because these women were just like you. They struggled and had these challenges and it wasn’t until they learned these tools and had the support that they were able to make these changes. And as you know, it’s, beginning of June, it’s barbecue season, people are starting to have people over. The covid restrictions are lightening so much. And so even getting together can be, there’s all the fears and what if I’m awkward? What if I say something that’s wrong? What if I don’t like what they’re eating? All the things. And so this win is from one of my clients who’s been working with me for over a year now. And, it was her retirement present was to join love yourself thin. And her whole life before was working, working, working. She never had children. And so her jobs were everything, her job, and then she’d helped support her husband’s job. And so she just had two family events at her house, two days in a row. And it was just amazing to her because there were several times where she didn’t quite do something in the order that she had hoped or she had forgotten a little step, and she didn’t derail. She just was able to feel the feeling and she was able to move past it and she was able to actually have a lot of fun with her family and enjoy their time together. And she didn’t once feel frazzled. And often she would say, it’s not a big deal, they’re just family and this is possible because she’s learned these tools. So I just was really happy to see what a transformation she’s had in her life.

All right. So let’s talk about these adventures that we want to have. So going on an adventure and I wonder about you. How many times do you want to go on adventure and you start planning and you even start saving your money, but you just can’t seem to get over all the fear. You just can’t shake that discomfort that comes. And even though you know it’ll be an amazing time, it’ll be amazing, experience. You just, for some reason, The fear just is too strong and you’re not able to push through the challenge. So today I had a call with one of my newest members, and right now when you join Love Yourself Thin you write an intake form, and then once you fill in that intake form, then I walk through with you and I learn a lot about you and your history, mentally, emotionally, and socially. And so then I’m able to see you that much more clearly and I’m able to help you on the path for love yourself Thin. I’m able to say things to you like, Hey, make sure that you think of this, or, Hey, make sure you do this, and it’s a great way to guarantee your own success.

And so I was talking to this one client and helping her through some things, and one of her biggest struggles is that she has a lot of fear in general, and so this episode we’re talking about new adventures and approaching destination fear. But what’s really interesting is she grew up and she’s a 64 year old woman. She grew up in a household where everything was; you do this, you do that, you do this, you do that, you do not do anything different, you do not stray. And it was really challenging because as a parent, she would do what she knew and it was very difficult for her if someone challenged the way that she parented. So she never really learned how to ask questions, how to be curious, how to look at something and then step back and evaluate and ask herself, do I like the way that I’m doing this? Does this seem like, a loving idea? Or does this seem like something I want to edit. I want to maybe try it in a different way. So she has been fearful her whole life of deviating from the plan because she just hasn’t learned the skill of doing something, evaluating it, looking at it objectively, and then making a decision on purpose if she wants to keep it or not.

And one of the skills that you learn when you learn how to look into your brain is you you learn the skill of asking questions. It’s like the idea I talk about with the filter. So if you’re wearing red lenses, you’re going to see things in different way. If you put on blue lenses, then of course your perspective changes, and then you’re going to see something in a new way. So when I was speaking to this client, I asked her, what would it be like if you went on an airplane? And you’re really excited about going somewhere different, but what is it about the adventure that’s the scariest? And I want you to think about that for yourself. What is the scariest thing about going on a new adventure? It doesn’t even have to be an actual destination, but even taking, like joining Love yourself thin or if you’ve always wanted to reupholster furniture and taking a reupholstery class, or if you’ve always wanted to learn how to free motion quilt and you’d have to go and take a free motion quilting class. What is the scariest thing about that? So as you think about that, I want you to imagine, so you’ve really always wanted to go to Amsterdam. You’ve seen those pictures of the flowers and the windmills, and it looks so beautiful with all the water and people ride their bikes and it just is a, it just looks very appealing to you and you love the history of it. Maybe you even have like a family connection there and you’re really excited. But the idea of what would happen after you get off the airplane is just so paralyzing. You just can’t wrap your head around it.

Now imagine there’s an expert who knows Amsterdam really well, knows the language, knows the culture, and has helped hundreds of people have an amazing trip to Amsterdam. So imagine that. And they have committed to being your guide for however long you wanna be there for. And not only have they committed to be your guide, but they have arranged everything. They have arranged a place for you to stay, all of it. And you get off the airplane and they are standing there with a piece of paper and their hand with your name on it, and you’ve chatted with them a little bit beforehand, so you kind of know them and you’ve read their reputation, you’ve read reviews, and you, you know, they have a really good reputation. How would that make you feel if you knew that there was an expert there who would take care of everything while you’re there? Get you to your place, arrange all the things, and not only would they, would they be able to help you at the beginning, but they check in with you during the day. They help you with anything. You can just message them. Nope, no problem. How different would your attitude, would your feelings, would that level of fear change because you had that?

So I’m curious for you, how much is fear holding you back in your life? How often are you saying, I just don’t think I can do that. That’s just not me. I just can’t. Now I’m gonna share some stories cuz stories are always really fun. But I remember one summer, I was 10 years old and my mom thought it would be really fun for my brother and I to go to Toronto, which is a big city and hang out with our friends. And the girl was also 10 and she would take the bus and I lived on a farm. It was like almost 200 acres of land. We didn’t have any farm animals other than a dog and a few cats, but I lived rural, like 200 acres and I’ve never, I’d never taken a city bus before. We’d gone to the movies sometimes, but very seldom. And so the family that we stayed with, they had a membership to a country club that we would take a bus to, and we would take a bus to the movie theater. We even went to Swiss Chalet by ourselves and ordered dinner. I was 10 years old. And we did all of these things. We go to different people’s homes and use their pools. Like we were having all sorts of adventures. And I remember one time we went to a friend’s and we’re going swimming and she got upset about something and she left me. She just took off. So here I am in the middle of the street. Not knowing where I am, this is way, way before cell phones and GPS and all of it. And I, I just remember thinking, all right, how am I gonna get out of this? And it was interesting cuz I just let myself just sit there and I just waited and then eventually she came back. But it was such a huge learning curve for me of having these new adventures, but, I actually never imagined in my life that I could be someone that could take a city bus. I never imagined that I could go to a restaurant by myself. I never imagined I could go to a country club and and do all the things that I was doing because I never even thought it was a possibility or that it was even possible for a 10 year old to do something like that.

And so when I went on the bus and when I did all these things with her, cuz she showed me all the the different options of what it could be like to be 10 and living in the city, I had all these new adventures, and even if things went awry, like when she got mad and left, I could figure it out. I could solve it. And so again, I wanna ask you about fear and how often are you letting yourself ask questions about the fear that you have? And if there is trauma from your childhood that’s not allowing you to even feel safe about asking questions, what would it be like for you to get help? So one of the things that’s interesting about being a life coach is that I help you with your current thoughts. And remember, it’s kind of trippy. Your thoughts about your childhood are actually current because the way you think about your childhood right now in this moment is different than how you thought about your childhood even 10 years ago.

So for example, if someone was to ask me, tell me about your childhood. Let’s say they asked me about dance class. If I took dance classes when I was a child, the way that I would talk about my experience of taking dance classes now as a 49 year old would be very different of telling my story about dance class as a teenager or even if I was the 10 year old talking about the dance class from yesterday. So even the way we think about our past, Is going to be different every day because we have different perspectives. We have different ways of looking at things. So we always have our current thoughts about our past. Isn’t that trippy? It’s so fun for me to think about. So as a life coach, that’s how I help you. But if there is trauma, so if there was something that happened that causes this reaction in your body, then you do need to go and get a therapist who specializes in trauma to help you to unlock that. And, I know that there’s a big focus in where I went to life coach school about that. Where is the need for trauma and where is the need for a life coach?

And there are many life coaches who are also therapists and they put on two different hats. There’s two different roles that they perform.. Just like if you were a homeopathic doctor versus a medical doctor, they have ways of helping you. And depending on if you have an appendix that bursts, you’re going to want a medical doctor who does surgery. You’re not wanting to have a homeopathic doctor who will just read your vibe. Right? So, I want to invite you on a wonderful adventure, and this adventure is your brain. It’s the adventure of going into your brain and no longer being afraid. I often think about, I really like Harry Potter. It’s a fun adventure. You go off into this new other world and it’s fun for me to play around with Harry Potter and I gave myself a gift of going to Florida in February and I got to spend half a day hanging out with Harry and Hermoine and Ron Weasley and all the Harry Potter things. It was really wonderful. I was, It was really fun that I was able to do that for myself. But in the movie there is a scene where there is this humongous room that is full of stuff. It’s just got so much stuff, just so much stuff, and it’s full and there’s trunks full of things and there’s old crates and they have boxes and it’s very cluttered. And our brain is a lot like that. Our brain has a lot of stories and experiences.

Like one of my clients recently, she’s in her late sixties, and there was a little bit of bullying that happened at school, and the boys made fun of her because of what she was wearing, and they said something about. I can’t remember exactly but they made a, negative comment about what she was wearing and how she looked in it. And when she was at a coaching call, that negative thought came back and it kind of haunted her. And she said, oh, I don’t know why this happened. And I said, it’s because you finally have safety in your brain and in your body that you can go back to that file or that story or that experience, and you can look at it now more of objectively, and you can really start looking at it and healing from it because if you are feeling bullied and you don’t feel safe in your body, then it’s really messy. And the tendency is just to lock it up just like this messy room where the caretaker, I guess he just put all the stuff he didn’t wanna deal with in this room, like a big garage. And unless you go and you take care of it, it’s just gonna be there.

And in fact, it’s ironic that I’m telling the story because my husband today, on Saturday, With the boys they cleaned out our garage. They took loads of stuff to my mom’s, to the thrift store, to the dump. They just went and did just a bunch of stuff and they were able to clean it out and it’s not very much fun. But once you do it, it feels so satisfying. It feels so rewarding, and that is the work that I do as a life coach. That is the work that I do as a weight loss coach. That is the work that I do as I teach you tools to go create safety in your brain so that you can look at those negative experiences. You can look at the times when people said, don’t come with us. We don’t like you, and then you go to the food because you didn’t know how to take care of yourself, and now you can heal that part of you.

So I don’t want you to have destination fear anymore. I want you to create the kind of safety in your body and in your mind that it is safe for you to go into your brain and look at what is going on? Why am I overeating? Why am I struggling? Why am I having these problems? And the more that you can do that, the more that you can let yourself see things from a place of curiosity and compassion and love, that’s when you change. So let’s go back to Amsterdam. Let’s go back to you getting off the plane and you, you’ve got this bundle of nerves. You’re excited, but you’re nervous and you see me standing there. And I say, don’t worry, I got you. Look, we’re gonna go in my car. I’m gonna show you on the GPS where we’re going. I’m gonna take you to your hotel. I’m gonna spend a day with you, and I’m going to walk you here and there. These are all the things you’re really gonna need. And then tomorrow I’m gonna check in with you. I’ve got this. You’re gonna go on this one tour, and Claude is gonna pick you up and there’s this group of people, and you’re gonna do this, and you’re gonna do that. And then at the end of the day, I’m gonna check in with you. In fact, I’m gonna check in with you at noon and throughout, and then we’re gonna meet up the second day. And I’m gonna take you, we’re gonna go to this restaurant and, and I just take care of you. And of course, this is what the experience is of love yourself Thin. In Love yourself thin you get the experience of being taken care of. We all want to be managed. We all want support and help and love. We want people to support us. That is why routine is so helpful. That is why planning ahead is so helpful and, and having an itinerary feels so safe because we want to have that. There’s safety there.

And in love yourself thin there are the five pillars to permanent weight loss. So weight loss. Science is simple. Then you learn how to create your own eating plan and troubleshoot it. You then learn how to feel your feelings instead of eating them all the time. Then you learn how to take responsibility for yourself so you no longer are shaming yourself and you’re not blaming other people, but you’re doing this in a place of self-empowerment versus a place of being mean and upset with yourself. And then the last skill that you learn is how to build self-confidence, which means you trust yourself. So when you want to learn those five pillars, it’s like you want this, you want to be permanently thin, you want to never worry about your weight, but it seems so scary. But guess what? I’m standing there at the airport. I’m standing there and I have an intake meeting and you and I talk about it, and then I’m there for you three times a week meeting with you and helping you, and you can raise your hand and ask for help. I’m there when you’re not there, you can put a message on Facebook group. And there’s a whole group of other women that have gone through the same process. All these other women that have gone to Amsterdam, they’re like, yeah, we went to this place and we did this thing and we saw this thing. And when you go, don’t forget to bring this thing.

So you have this entire supportive group of people that have all experienced some level of this vacation. And then you have ask a coach where it’s one of those times where you’re so scared and you don’t wanna ask questions, and you, you just don’t even know what to do. And you’re so embarrassed about it. But when you use Ask a Coach, nobody knows who it is that’s asking, and then your questions get answered. So that is what I have for you. That is what Love yourself thin is like. It is this experience where you feel safe to go into your brain and you feel like you can change because you’re gonna have all the support that you need, and then you have the 12 modules, and you have the portal where you can track everything, where you just get to learn over and over, and all the bonus classes and all the amazing content, and it’s all there at your fingertips. I wanna invite you to Amsterdam. I want you to allow yourself to know that fear is gonna be there, but when you actually allow the fear, And then you get the help. You no longer are stuck and you no longer have to keep repeating the past.

This has been a really fun episode for me to create for you because I have such a wonderful experience on the other end of all these women now are loving Amsterdam and they’re so comfortable in Amsterdam and they feel so relaxed and they enjoy it. These women who are losing the weight and they’re taking care of things, and they’re having better relationships, and they’re feeling more connected than they ever have because they are getting the support, they’re learning the tools, and they no longer have to be afraid. It’s such a beautiful thing. All right, get rid destination fear. Let me help you with that. I love you guys so much. I’m so glad you’re here on this podcast and I can’t wait to meet and greet you in love yourself thin. Take care.