Ep #28: 10 Steps for Creating Permanent Change

Are you feeling like you’re drowning in your new year’s resolutions and you’re barely three weeks in? Listen to this episode as I throw you a life preserver.

I am Dara Tomasson, and this is Weight Loss for Quilters episode 28.

Did you know you could lose weight and keep it off for good? After 25 years of hiding behind my quilts, I have finally cracked the code for permanent weight loss, and I’ve lost 50 pounds without exercise or counting calories. I’m Dara Tomasson, professional quilter turned weight and life coach, where I help quilters just like you create a life they love by losing weight and keeping it off for good. Let’s jump into today’s episode.

Alright, happy New Year everybody. So, it’s 2022, how you feeling? I am just loving how my brain is now coming up with so many wonderful ideas for the podcast. I love getting your feedback from the podcast. And what I love to do about the podcast is share wins for my clients. And so, as my brain was thinking about all these different podcast ideas, I thought, wouldn’t it be fun for my listeners to really see what’s going on for my clients inside Love Yourself Thin.

And so, I just kind of brainstormed five clients in the last past week, of some pretty significant changes. And it’s almost like we’re having a quilt show to show the quilts after you’ve done all the work. And you can just stand back and appreciate the beauty of these quilts. And that’s actually how I feel about my clients. There’s many times during the day I catch myself just smiling because I see how the lives of my clients have changed so dramatically. And not only them but the ripple effects of how it affects other people in their lives.

And I know just for myself my kids are like, “Mom, we love this version of you as a life coach.” Because they see me in such a different way. So that’s been really fun as we celebrate each other. And in fact, at the beginning of every coaching call, I ask my clients for wins. I ask them for celebrations. And on the Facebook group we have #celebrate. And it’s something that we’ve actually really normalized. And one of the reasons why this is so important, which we will go into is that we need to rewire our brain.

So, our primitive brain is always looking for danger. So, I imagine a momma dear in the field, she’s taken her baby out. And she’s just constantly scanning. She’s just making sure that everything’s going to be okay for this little baby of hers. She has the responsibility. It is her instinct to do this. And so, our instinct is to always be scanning for danger around us. So, people can say words that can hurt our feelings. People can not show up. People can disappoint us. People can do all sorts of things. So, our brain is wired for that.

And so, what I’m going to show you in this podcast is first I’m going to share with you the five clients and their wins. I’m going to talk about the tools that they used so that they could achieve those wins. And then I’m going to show you the 10 steps on how you can create permanent change, that life can become yours. So often we look at other people’s lives, we look at their bodies and say, “Oh, I would just love to have a body like that.”

I remember even one time I did a reel on Instagram, there’s these little videos that you make. And this woman made a comment, she goes, “Well, if I had a body like yours I wouldn’t have any problem going on the scale.” I said to her, “The more that I went on the scale the more I was able to get to this weight because I changed my relationship.” So that is what you can expect in this episode.

You’ll probably want to grab a pen. If you are chain piecing or whatever, you can still be chain piecing. You can still be pressing. You can still be quilting if you want. But I do want to recommend that you have your pen and your journal nearby because these 10 steps are going to be super, super helpful. Alright, so are you ready to celebrate my clients wins? So, I have changed the names of my clients just to protect their identity.

So, client number one that we’re going to celebrate is Jane. Now, Jane signed up for the program back in April or May but didn’t officially start until July. So, she was able to come to a weekly call and had access to my bonus program. And she has lost 72 pounds. She’s in her late 60s and she has really struggled with her relationship with her body, it’s really been tied into different relationships with different people in her life. And when we were celebrating her today, I asked her, “What are the main thoughts that created such an incredible result for yourself?”

She has battled with her weight for over 35 years. And she said that when she could spend time with her future self and really imagine, this is her that is where she got her success. And so, one of the things that happens in our brains is that our brains, just like I was talking about at the beginning about safety. So, we’re creating safety in our brains. Our brains are wired for this, it’s called the motivational triad. And I’ve talked about it before in the podcast. You can look it up online. It’s very interesting.

But basically, our brain is wired to seek pleasure, so do whatever feels good, whatever food feels good just do it. If you want to have sex, just do it. It’s just seek pleasure because that’s what would keep us alive. If we were in the nature and things were very dire, so we are wired to do that. And then the second thing we are wired for is to conserve energy. So always the least amount of effort. So, teenagers, they’re growing, some are growing really fast. So, they’re trying to conserve energy. They’re always doing the least amount of effort.

And then the third part of the motivational triad is to avoid pain. So, pain means you are making a mistake, so stop. So, this is what is happening. So, the result of that is we seek pleasure, so instant gratification. We conserve energy, so minimize effort. And then when we avoid pain, we are staying safe. So don’t try new things. Don’t invite discomfort. So now we’re not really allowing ourselves to have delayed gratification or trying new things.

So, when this client of mine was able to get that perspective of we’re not going the instant gratification, we’re not doing the bare minimum. We are going to make efforts to create the results we want. Now what she’s created are habits that are just simple and easy. She knows what food she eats. She knows how to take care of herself, and things are challenging. She knows how to manage her mind. So, she’s not reacting with food, so exciting, 72 pounds down, just so exciting.

Alright, client number two, Amy has finally been able to see why she couldn’t let herself dream. At the live retreat we did an activity where we talk about what are the goals you want, why we make goals. And she had two, that’s all she could think of. And she looked around and especially the lady beside her was just writing, and writing, and writing. And dreams, and this and that. And so, Amy had such a physical reaction that her body just started sneezing, and sneezing, and sneezing.

She had to excuse herself from the table because her body just had such an aversion to even thinking about dreaming. And it was fascinating today because we’re now in module 11 where we were doing the same type of activity. And she finally felt that she could talk about it. And what happened for her was that she had something very traumatic happen 29 years ago and it was just devastating to her. And because of this devastation and because of her emotional reaction to it, she has basically been an emotion police to herself.

So, if she ever gets too emotional or if she ever wants to get too reactionary she just clamps it down. And so, what she’s realized is that she doesn’t trust herself with feelings. And especially because she was being so punitive to herself saying things like, “Come on, we’re not going to do this. You can’t be blubbering. You can’t be crying.” So even when she was at a movie she would have to be on guard because she couldn’t let herself go too far down the rabbit hole emotions.

And so, I’m just so pleased for her because the ability to learn about our feelings and to think about our feelings, and to pay attention to our bodies. And how our body is in sync with our thinking she was able to be open enough today and she felt safe enough in the coaching. And this is a group coaching, the woman that she is getting to know. But she was able to take back the layers so that she could see what was really holding her back. And so, we are all looking forward to her sharing her dreams in the group because the only limitations we have are ourselves.

So, when we get in our own way then of course we won’t be able to progress. But when we can, like I said, peel back the layers and really see what’s going on, then we can see, okay, so that is the obstacle. And when you know what the exact obstacle is then you’re able to work through it. And she has the support and help of a coach.

Alright, my next client, we’re going to call her, Mary. Mary has a medical condition and the doctor, they just moved and so she has a new specialist in this area. And she doesn’t like the doctor. And the doctor’s kind of a jerk and doesn’t really talk to her, doesn’t really take the time to answer her questions. This client of mine, she has very extensive knowledge in these areas, she’s well researched. She’s well versed. She was even somewhat in that type of industry. And then the medication he wanted to switch to caused her some concerns. He wasn’t really willing to talk to her.

And so, she brought it up earlier this week and I gave her some coaching on different things to think about. And then today she came to us and us being the group, “I’ve been thinking about it and I’m going to advocate for myself to get a different doctor that I feel comfortable with.” And this is a huge win for her because as a mother and a wife, if her children or husband had medical problems and they weren’t comfortable with the doctor she would do everything in her power, she would bend over backwards to find the right solution.

But for herself, her story has been, “Well, I don’t want to ruffle feathers and I don’t want to cause any problems. And I don’t want to have undue stress. And I can just suck it up and it’s not that big of a deal.” And this week she realized, no, I am a big deal. And my health is important. And I need to listen to myself. And this is a huge win.

And one of the things that I want to point out is that if you’re concerned about, am I a perfectionist or not, one of the signs to know if you’re a perfectionist or not is if, if you have a situation that didn’t go the way you thought, you blame yourself, you say, “I’m not good enough. And what’s wrong with me? And what was I thinking? If I could be someone like that.” That was really, you’re very punitive, you downplay yourself, you beat yourself up.

Versus a non-perfectionist who would try something new, and it didn’t work out the first time. And they say, “Oh, I just thought that was a solution, I guess it’s not, let’s keep going.” And then they would keep trying and they would just keep finding the solutions and they don’t take it personally. So that has been really fun for me as her coach to watch her truly becoming an advocate for herself and not feeling like she has to earn her worthiness or has to be a certain way first. So, a huge win for her.

Alright, my next client, we’re going to call her Lisa. And she has gone through a spouse who’s had cancer. And she walked him through all of the chemo and the ups and downs of cancer, and all the different diagnoses, the dependency on doctors. And just being that caregiver and that support for over five years. And he has now passed away and it’s been a really big struggle of course as to be expected of having a life that you thought, and it’s changed.

And one of the things that was very interesting was that she came to the group saying, “I’ve lost 25 pounds and I haven’t changed at all for three months and I feel like I am stuck.” And as we went really into it, what she realized was that she is actually happy and it’s really uncomfortable for her just to be happy and to have the stable weight, that she’s figured it out. She’s been able to keep 25 pounds off very stably for thanksgiving, for Christmas, for all of that. And she wasn’t able to see it because she was so uncomfortable.

She keeps looking over her shoulder to say, “Is this real? Can I really be happy? Can I really be happy single and widowed? Can I really be happy with all these tools I’m using? Can I really be stable in my weight loss and to do this for myself? So that was a really fun win for her. And it was really fun for the tool of your brain just needs to get used to this new version of you. It’s a little bit of an identity crisis. And it’s what we talk about is we’re building our identity. And so, we need to get practice with that new identity.

So, it was like me when I went shopping and I kept going to the size 16 or the larger sizes. And so, when I was a size 6, well, I am a size 6 now, it’s like, that’s right, I can wear these clothes. And I’ll be folding the laundry sometimes and I’ll be tired, and I’ll be folding, and I’ll think, these are my daughter’s pants. And then I’m like, no, these are my pants. Because we have to catch up to our identity. We’re not used to being a person who is just easygoing about our body because we used to have such a brain rut, our brain rut of I’m terrible, I’m awful, I’m not so smart.

So that was really fun for her to really be able to be comfortable with how amazing she really is.

Okay, and my last client, we’re going to call her Jennifer. Jennifer has just experienced empty nest. She has been a mom for 20 some years and her kids were her life. She was a huge community builder, the kids were all in sports and doing all sorts of things. She lives in a more rural place where community is huge. Also, with that, supporting her husband, he has lots of jobs, he’s very entrepreneurial and is into all sorts of things. And so, her main job was to keep everyone alive, keep everyone fed, keep everyone clean and organized.

And her whole identity was tied to how successful she was in that area. And so, we’ve been working on creating the new identity, going to your future self, and really looking at who is the most rockstar empty nest person that she can imagine and then becoming more like her. And the thing that’s been really fun to watch for her is that we had a lesson last week on everything we do in life is because we want to feel a certain way. And this is a real life example.

So, she was playing cards with her kids, she’s visiting with them, they’re all at university and everything. And it was about 10:30 at night and she thought, I’m just really cold. I’m going to go get something to eat, that’ll warm me up. And then she remembered what I had said, was that everything we do in life is because we want to feel a certain way. And the way we feel something is not from food but from our thoughts. And so, she was able to really see what was going on. And she didn’t need to turn to the food, and she was able to take care of herself. So, this is a huge win.

Alright, so where to go, clients. Now, the next part of this podcast is I’m going to talk to you about the number one tool that all of these clients have in common. And then I’m going to share with you the 10 steps of how you can create this as well.

So, they were all able to have these wins because they are taking 100% responsibility for their own lives. They no longer are saying that life happens to them, that they are now at the mercy and whim of other people, of other circumstances. They truly have embraced that they are 100% responsible for themselves. And they recognize that they aren’t living the life that they want, that they can learn the tools that I’m teaching them. They can apply the tools that I’m teaching them. And then they can change them for themselves.

So, there is a warning here. The warning is it can look messy, just like when you’re learning your first quilt, it’s kind of messy. The first time I did half square triangles, oh my goodness, they looked terrible. And you know what? To be honest I don’t really do a lot of half square triangles anymore because I’m just more interested in the free motion quilting. And I got peace with that. I’m like, I can be an amazing quilter and not be a precision piecer, not a problem. In fact, I was even smarter than that, I do quilt swaps.

So, if I want a quilt that has a lot of really fine piecing, I will offer a person that loves all that kind of stuff and say, “Hey, let’s do a swap, I’ll do some quilting for you and you just piece this for me.” It’s so brilliant. It’s also preserving my [inaudible] is coming up in a future episode.  Alright, so it can be messy. And it feels pretty bad. Taking back the onion layers, it’s a lot of work. And so, it can feel bad.

And one of the biggest problems is that the reason we get ourselves in these messes in the first place is because we don’t want to feel emotions. And so, we spend so much effort and energy avoiding them, or resisting them, or reacting to them. And in fact, this client, Amy, who was able to see why she had such an aversion to dreaming was she said today even, she said, “I remember this one kid said to me, “Well, I just do my homework right when I get home and then I have the rest of the evening to play.””

She said that she used to spend hours just sitting at the table saying, “I don’t want to do the homework.” And it’s the same thing with emotions. It’s like when we can just accept the emotions right away, yeah, there they are, uncomfortable, yeah, not feeling so good. Then you’re now open to seeing what’s really going on. And so, we don’t have to spend all that time.

I’ll give you another example. So, at my house with my kids, I give them their chores and if they don’t do the chore within a certain time limit then they get another chore, and then they get another chore. And I take the emotion out of it, and I just say, “Yeah, that’s how it goes.” So, then they learn, well, it’s easier to do the three chores that she asked me to do right at the beginning as opposed to now six or seven chores. And now I’ve spent the entire day doing this. So, very interesting.

And then the other piece in the warning is that when you commit to yourself and you put that work in, you are learning a new skill. And like I said, it’s going to be messy and it’s going to feel pretty hard. But at the beginning, especially when you go back to the motivational triad, seek pleasure, conserve energy, and stay safe. What will happen is you will now create new neural pathways. And so instead of the resistance you just do it. It just is second nature.

So, one of my clients, as soon as she finishes dinner she just goes and brushes her teeth. So now it’s just like, I’ve brushed my teeth. And so now in her brain she’s like, well, I’m not eating anything because I already brushed my teeth, I don’t want to do that twice. So now she just has these automatic habits that she doesn’t even have to think twice about, and they just become second nature. But for 30 days, 40 days it took a lot of effort to get that habit. So that’s what we’re talking about. Which brings me nicely into the 10 steps of how my clients are able to have these kinds of results.

So, the first thing they do is that they have to not hide from their problems. They have to just accept them.

The second step is that they show up to class. They prioritize themselves. This is actually very challenging for a lot of women. Because if we’re used to getting our value or our hits of joy from other people, and we’re not used to getting them from ourselves, it makes it very difficult to prioritize yourself.

The next thing is that you need to be going into the 12 modules. They need to learn the tools. Can you imagine signing up for a quilting class and not going, and not even getting out your sewing machine, not even looking at the pattern?

So then number four, they need to read about the tools. They need to study them. They need to think about them.

Step five is to do the worksheets. So, what the worksheets do is it actually uses your brain in a different way to show application of learning. It’s a way to interact with your brain and interact with the knowledge so that you are able to really start seeing how it is. So, it’s one thing to read a quilt pattern but then when you actually start cutting out the fabric, start putting it together, start pressing it, then you’re like, “Okay, I see how this all works together. This makes so much more sense.”

Number six, they ask for coaching. I need help. I’m not understanding. I am not getting it, so when they can ask for help.

And then number seven, they accept the coaching. So instead of saying, “Yeah, okay, well, maybe no, but I don’t think that works for me. I don’t think you really understand me.” What would it be like just to say, “I think you’re onto something, let me figure that out. If you’re seeing this and I’m not I’m going to get really good at looking at why.” And then they start implementing the coaching. They start really looking at, okay, where is this coming from? So, our brain is now looking for what’s going on.

And then number nine is getting help while learning this new process. And so that’s showing up for class, that’s writing Ask a Coach, that’s raising your hand in the coaching calls, all of that. Because then they’re able to get that support. So just like at a quilting class, I need help, these seams aren’t looking quite right. I’m not sure. And then they can go and ask for help. Because I remember one time I taught my friend how to crochet which was interesting because I don’t really crochet that well, but I know the basics.

And I said, “I don’t really think the way that you’re holding that crochet hook looks very good. I think that might cause you some problems.” And sure enough six months later she had to go to a physiotherapist and get some support because she had kind of messed up her wrist. So, it’s important to have someone watching you who knows what they’re doing to say, “We need to get this pattern a little bit more, you know, we need to make that sure that we’re on the right path when you’re learning it, because we don’t want to learn it the wrong way.”

And then number ten is that they’ve now created permanent change. So, you don’t live the same recycled life. It’s a beautiful path.

So that my friends is this episode. When you can learn to celebrate yourself, so just like the title, client wins, so clients win. You can now recognize your successes. And I want to give you a challenge. I want you to just even right now, just off the top of your head, what are three things that you could celebrate about yourself? And not because you’re someone’s mom, or not because you’re someone’s grandma. What could you celebrate for you?

This might be really challenging for some of you. And all I want to offer is that it’s challenging because you’ve never allowed yourself the opportunity to do it. So just like we all know the alphabet, if I said, “Tell me the alphabet backwards”, that would be very challenging because you’re not used to looking at the alphabet that way. And so, this episode I’m challenging you to look at to celebrate you. And because when you can celebrate you, you win.

So just like I said at the beginning of the podcast. We get really excited about new year’s, new year’s resolutions, fresh starts, new page. And how long is that motivation? I saw a really funny meme the other day where there was a husband and wife, and they were coming out of a quilt shop and the woman had all these bags of fabric. And it said, January 12^th, and then he said something along the lines of, “Well, last year it was January 8^th. You made it two extra days.”

And I want to tell you ladies, we’re not going to be using self-control, or fear, or self-restraint, or any of those really self-depreciating finger wagging, punitive methods. That is not the way to create a sustainable happy life. And I just love celebrating my clients. I love celebrating myself. And I love, when I use my higher brain to create the higher level of my life that I want, that’s when I know I’m going to have success. And I thank my lower brain for just making sure I’m safe. And when I feel like she’s going a little overboard, I can thank her and then I can go to my higher brain.

If this is resonating with you, and you have any questions, please go over to my website, www.daratomasson.com. And I would love to connect with you over there. And if you have any questions, [email protected] and we are there to help you. Alright, take care everyone, thank you for joining me for this episode. I can’t wait to hear about your wins. And I invite you to share any of them with me. Take care, bye bye.

Thanks for listening to Weight Loss for Quilters. If you want more info, please visit daratomasson.com. See you next week.