Ep #33: Creating Safety for Weight Loss

Do you feel losing weight is a never ending battle, that you don’t know why it’s still happening, you eat healthy, you hardly ever cheat but you still can’t seem to take the weight off? This episode is for you. And if you are listening to this episode with little ears around I recommend that you listen to it privately as we will be covering some sensitive material here.

I am Dara Tomasson, and this is Weight Loss for Quilters episode 33: Creating Safety for Weight Loss.

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.

Okay, so I have been thinking about this episode for quite some time and have put a lot of thought into how I want to approach this. So, as I said in the introduction we are going to be saying words like being violated, or sexually molested, sexual harassment in this episode. And we’re going to be talking about things that are very sensitive when it comes to our bodies.

And so, as you listen to this episode I want to invite you to just be open to it as you think about, especially with the news and the different women that have come out after having been molested or sexually mistreated for a long time. And just being really respectful and holding that space and no judgment. We are all women. We all have different experiences. But I do feel it’s really important when we talk about weight loss to address this issue because if we don’t feel like it’s safe to lose weight, we won’t and a lot of us don’t even know why.

And one of the reasons is our brain will try to keep us safe which is a wonderful strategy. But if we don’t allow ourselves to be open to change or open to being safe in our brains then we’re always going to stay stuck and we’re never going to see what’s really going on. So, today’s episode I’m going to be talking about when we don’t feel safe to lose weight, so I’m going to be talking through those.

I’m also going to be talking about the negative self-talk that we have had. And we have been actually programmed as a society to do a lot of negative self-talk. I mean it’s our whole school system and I taught school for 10 years, has really trained us to go to that really punitive way. And I’m going to then talk about four different ways that we can get support. And I do want to remind you that in every episode there is a handout for you. And so, there is a guide for you that will go along with this and getting you some more support.

So, today’s episode we’re going to be focusing on how we are going to create safety to lose weight and then four different ways to help you with that. And then again I have a handout with some resources that can help you to know what to do next.

And before we go into the bulk of the podcast I do want to shout out, talking about vulnerability. I have a client that just signed up. She had a very busy life. She raised kids, she worked full-time and had a very important job with so many responsibilities. And she is now working at enjoying her retired life which involves a lot of travel, which she always wanted, to go and see her grandchildren and her children in different places.

But as she’s trying to learn the weight loss, the Love Yourself Thin process she’s coming up with a lot of her stress, which was one of the main fuels that kept her going. It’s like AR, it’s just like I need to feel stress to get things done. That’s why so many of us are procrastinators because we’re like, “We’ll just wait till the last minute.” And then we get it done and we get that surge of energy and so then we can just finish it and then it’s no problem. And so, she’s approaching weight loss with that same level of stress.

And so, she raised her hand which was amazing in our group program and said, “I don’t think I can do this.” And she had just invested in the program, she’s been in for two and a half weeks. And she’s feeling really, really overwhelmed. And just the fact that she was able to say, “I’m feeling overwhelmed,” and she was able to share the thoughts like I feel like I’m behind. And so, then she felt stressed. And when she felt stressed she would start to grind things out, work really hard, go on rabbit holes, and try to cram everything in.

And of course, the result is she doesn’t really learn the process. She just does her old dieting habits and then she just keeps repeating the past. So, I was just so happy for her. And then one of my favorite things that happened in the call was that there were 15 ladies that all said, “I’ve got you. I was the same. I had the same issues.” And so, they all started sharing not only with strategies of things that she could do but just that support.

So that was just so much fun to watch that happen as the Love Yourself Thin lifetime program grows and evolves. And how it really is the way to help people lose weight and keep it off. So, I wanted to just shout that out because it was really fun to watch. Something that I had been planning for, for over a year. This is something I’ve been wanting to do ever since I started my coaching program was to offer the lifetime membership and now it’s happening. And it’s going just as I had thought. So that’s just really fun to celebrate.

Okay, so now we’re going to go into, and this is the part that’s very, very sensitive. And I really want to truly show that sensitivity. I want you to imagine where you are in a situation where you feel really scared and you feel very alone. And you have been spending a lot of time protecting yourself from this. And in my experience with coaching, when women start learning this process, the Love Yourself Thin process they start creating safety for themselves. And so, they have been able to finally use their voice and share one-on-one with me. I mean it would be safe if you felt safe.

But I definitely have never had one of my clients share this in public, where they have been violated, where they have been sexually molested, where they have been touched in inappropriate places. Where they have had their boss saying things and being a teenager, or in university experienced these levels or even with their own family member, or their own parent, or stepparent, being looked at a certain way or even being touched. There’s a whole spectrum of how we can feel violated.

And how I define it is if you feel uncomfortable with the way that someone talks about your body, looks at your body, any of that happens that is a feeling of being violated. And the other thing that can happen for women in my program or obviously outside of my program, this is very normal is that when they start to lose weight, then they get more noticed.

And even myself, I’m 48 years old as I record this podcast. I will have just random men come up to me and just start talking. And they see that I’m around kids and they will often say, “How can you have had five kids and have that kind of body and have had five kids?” And they make some sort of comment about my body which I am always uncomfortable. And that is actually the emotion that I think is perfectly acceptable when some guy who I don’t know starts talking about my body.

First of all, I’m uncomfortable, whether it’s I’m overweight or thin. But as you lose weight you gain more people, attraction, people are attracted to you, or they just assume that you’re really confident and that it’s no problem talking about your body. And so, you draw that kind of attention to you. And so, then I see women that will sabotage, self-sabotage because they don’t know how to talk about that. And so, when we lose weight it can actually be a real sense of fear and that is totally normal. I just want you to know that, it is okay.

But one of the things that we need to do is we need to create safety for ourselves. And I want you to know that if this is happening for you then going for trauma support or counseling is very important. Now, there is a difference between life coaching and counseling. I am a certified life coach but life coaches, there is no regulatory board for life coaching. For counseling or trauma support there is, and counseling goes into the past and life coaching goes to in the moment and what do you want to decide about that.

Because we always have our current thoughts about a past situation. So, if we had a past trauma when we were five, we are now having, let’s say for me example, having my current thoughts about what happened to me when I was five, or what happened to me when I was 10, or whatever it was. So, we’re always having our current thoughts, but I do want to say that counseling is definitely one of the routes that I would recommend.

And I did have a client that came to me, and we worked together. And she was able to pair, she was having such a physical response, her jaw was starting to lock. And her back, she was having problems again. So, her body was trying to protect itself. And so, she was able to – we knew, obviously if your jaw is locking you aren’t feeling safe to talk. If your back is causing you problems then there is pain that you haven’t resolved. So, she was able to then go to a trauma specialist. And she was able to use, paired with the tools that she learned in Love Yourself Thin.

And then she was able to get to a place where she was then going back to that. So, what I want to do in this episode, I’ll be going through that. But I do want to tell you that when we dig ourselves in a hole, so much is no fault of our own. So, if we have been violated or if something has really traumatic happened to us then we need to get ourselves out of that hole. So, whether that’s counseling or whatever that is, then we can now move forward in our life and we’re no longer staying stuck.

There are so many women who have kept themselves stuck because they didn’t know how to move forward. They were sexually molested in high school, and they were so ashamed, and they never talked about it. And so, they just kept eating so that they weren’t drawing attention to their body and so that would never happen again. And so, this is where I want you to get yourself unstuck. So, as you’re listening to this I encourage you, I invite you to reach out to me and I can help you with any of this as far as knowing the direction to go in.

And that’s why I have these 20 minute consults and if we need longer obviously we can take longer to get this resolved. So, I want you to get yourself unstuck and I want you to start feeling safe in your body. And part of that is the no shame or blame. So, I do have partner episodes of the shame and blame trap. And so, I invite you to go listen to that. The other thing I want you to do is to learn how to become your own advocate. So, one of the problems with when we’ve been violated in any sort of way we don’t feel we have the voice to say that.

And so, learning that you’re an adult now, that you can be your own advocate, there’s lots of supports out there that you can truly make a change. And just because you have been telling yourself that same story for so long in the way that you have, you can actually change the way that you tell that story. And you can change because your thoughts are always your current thoughts about a past situation. And you can always get the help that you need to moving forward.

And the other thing I wanted to add with that is that there are many layers to the challenges that we have. And so, I know personally after dealing with something of a sensitive nature, the more security that I have in myself the more that I feel comfortable with the tools that I use, the more safety I feel for myself. And then I’m able to find more clues on how to resolve those issues for myself.

And so, I almost think of it as we have this very scared person inside of us and we have locked up some of those really scary, scary thoughts and we don’t feel we’re capable of dealing with them. And the more safety that we create for ourselves the more closer we are to going to the real heart of the problem. And so, the more work you can do on this and opening yourselves up, and the four steps I’m going to share will be really helpful.

And then the last thing I want you to do is really learning how to get support. So, when our bodies have been violated, losing weight can cause real fear. You do need to create that safety for yourself. And you can do that by getting counseling or trauma support. You can get this resolved. Everything is figure out-able. Everything is work out-able. You can get yourself freed from the shame blame trap. You can become your own advocate by getting support.

Now, the other way that you have created this unsafety in your body is the way that you’ve talked to yourself. So, this negative self-talk and I call it the finger wagging, being really punitive and getting the stick out, like at school when they used to hit you with the rod or the leather strap. So, I want you to ask yourself, do you monitor the way you speak to yourself? So, if you were to speak to yourself the way you would speak to your, if you have a grandchild or to a best friend, would you speak to them the way you speak to yourself?

And one of the things that I find really interesting is a lot of the way that we talk to ourselves, we don’t even know how to monitor that. It’s just like this is just who we are, this is just how we talk, we’re just jerks to ourselves. That’s just normal for us. But if we were to record the way that we’re talking and put someone else’s name instead of your name, would you be mortified? Would you just think that was the worst ever?

I just want you to get curious about that because I think that if we’re really, really hard on ourselves we just think that’s normal. And I want to offer that it’s not. And if you would not speak to your grandchild or to your friend the way that you’re speaking to yourself then you just stop. That is not helping you. In fact, that’s making things much, much worse for you. And then I want you to ask yourself why do you think it’s okay to speak to yourself in such a negative way?

And as I mentioned, our school systems, I mean they’re changing now, I feel they kind of went way to the other extreme and we’re trying to find that healthy middle part. But when we went to school there was this understanding of, you need to be really mean to yourself in order for you to change. It’s like if you’re being punished by your parent, you didn’t cry, your parent would think they’re not doing a good enough job punishing you. You feel like you have to cry, you need to have really, really a lot of shame for you to change.

Which I’m just curious, if a parent said, “I’m just disappointed in how you acted,” that probably pierced me more than anything else. It’s like I’m just really disappointed that that’s what happened, or you chose to do that. So, these are just some questions that I want you to ask yourself. And I want you to know that if you’re doing this, it’s very normal, some sort of rule that you’ve picked up and just thought that that was the way it had to be.

And I catch myself constantly having to say, “Wait a minute. No, I can be nice to myself. In fact, I can be really loving to myself, and I can make a change.” And I’m just going to tell you a personal experience with this. Recently, my 15 year old son is on a basketball team. They actually just won. They’re North Islands. It’s the first time in 30 years that the junior boys team in this school has won. And my son hasn’t been playing as much as he would like. And so, he’s been really hard on himself.

And he kind of has gotten that a little bit from me because that has been my operating manual. It’s like if I really want to get something done I should be really hard on myself and just really stick it to me and then I’ll really learn. But as of course I’m learning the Love Yourself Thin process. And as I have learned with the life coaching and taking the weight off, the last 30 pounds or 20 pounds of weight just came off so effortlessly. Because for the first 30 pounds I did it with such love. I did it with such devotion. I did it with such curiosity and commitment.

So, for any of you who haven’t watched the movie, Matilda, I’d like you to go and watch it. You could just even watch some clips. So, in the movie, it’s actually a book by Roald Dahl. And there is a really mean school matron, Miss Trunchbull. And she used to be in the Olympics. And she’s terrible. And she has the chokey which is this torture chamber. And she walks around with a stick, and she tells people what to do all the time. And she uses force, and yelling.

And she at one point took one of the little girls and her ponytails and swung her around, and around, and around, and threw her in the air. And she’s awful. And she wants everyone to stay in line and everyone’s supposed to be so scared of her, which she is, she’s very scary. And she thinks that that’s what’s going to cause the best school is everyone’s going to stand in line and everyone’s going to be so afraid all the time.

And then there’s Miss Honey. And Miss Honey is lovely. And she’s so sweet. And she lives in this sweet little cabin. And she has this soft voice. And she’s just very loving. And so, I had my son watch a few minutes of Miss Trunchbull, the mean, terrible, fear based, you’d better do this, finger wagging to Miss Honey who just sits with you, and loves you, and wants the best for you. I asked him, I said, “How are you treating yourself?”

So, we have two parts to this podcast. One is the overarching theme is we need to be safe in our bodies. And I do want to acknowledge, and I really want to encourage any of you who have ever been violated to go and get the help. And the very first person you can ask is me and I will help you. And I will help direct you to whether you go to a counselor, or you go to a therapist, or a trauma, or if life coaching will be your answer. And I just offer that to you.

It is in my heart that every woman will feel comfortable being in your own very best body. And you get to decide what your best body looks like. So that’s part A.

And then part B, I think there are so many women who have been speaking to themselves like Miss Trunchbull and who have been so punitive, and unkind. And that is just so normal to them they don’t even realize that there’s an option to change. So, I’m speaking to you also. And I know that my Love Yourself Thin process is the way because when you truly learn to love and accept yourself, that’s how you’re going to make that change.

So, the four steps I talked about and there will be the handout associated with this is first get the professional help if needed, please go, and do that. It doesn’t matter how old you are. Your quality of life is so important. And if you do not get this result it’s like you’ve just got this really heavy weight that you just keep carrying around. Imagine going to Costco and getting two and a half bags of 40 pounds of flour and walking around with that all the time. So, our emotional weight, it really does literally weigh us down.

And in this case, having that extra weight on us as an armor, as a shield, is truly debilitating. It’s on our knees, it’s on our hips, it’s affecting our insulin, our physical health as well as our mental health. So, getting the professional help you need.

Number two, I really want you to monitor the way you speak to yourself because the way that you speak to yourself, the thoughts that you have, create emotions. And those emotions release hormones. So just like if I said, “I’m late,” immediately you have cortisol that will go through your body like a rush of adrenalin, that gets your heart beating so that you can move more quickly and that you won’t be late anymore. It’s the same thing. So, if you have thoughts of fear it’s going to release different hormones in your body.

Number three, commit to love as the answer. And compassion is an act of love. So just like you would do for your child, your grandchild, your neighbor, your niece, or nephew, you would speak to them kindly and compassionately, and considerately. I want you to do the same thing for yourself.

And then number four, there needs to be an acceptance that this is happening. Because once you start accepting it then you’re willing and you’re able to do something about it. Because if you’re avoiding it, resisting it, or reacting it’s just going to make the problem that much worse.

So, I’m so happy to be here to help you in any way that I can. So, although my program is a lifetime membership I provide support for any of you who have experienced any of these situations that I mentioned here. And it is a group program, but I want you to know that you can access me individually and I also have coaches on hand who can help with this as well. I am here to help you love yourself into the healthy body that you want by helping you create a healthy brain.

And if you are not allowing yourself, if you’re not monitoring your thoughts that’s going on in your brain you won’t be able to have the kind of life and the kind of body that you want. So, thank you for listening to this episode. I know it was very sensitive. I have put a lot of thought into it. And I want you to just feel my love wherever you’re at and know that you are able to overcome this, I promise. As you get the help, as you get the support you can change.

And one of the greatest honors that I’ve had as being a coach is to be able to help women heal from this, help them, make sure that they get the support that they need because it really is something that we can all overcome and that we can work towards having peace and safety in our own bodies. So, I’ll just say again, I am here to help you love yourself into a healthy body by helping you create a healthy brain and resolving any of the difficulties, the stresses, and the challenges that you’ve had so that you can truly live that kind of life.

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