Feeling Icky

This past week I have been going through something and I feel "icky." So whenever this happens to me I always use my own tools on myself. I was trained by Martha Beck and she taught me that you have to "live it to give it," and so I have been really living it.

Here is how I have worked through my own feelings and how I work with my clients:

Name the feeling: Feeling is “icky.”

First thing I do is try to find the THOUGHTS causing icky. This is much harder than it sounds. What I really want to do is find the person or the circumstance I can blame for feeling icky. So that is where I, and most of my clients, like to go first. So I think about everything they are doing wrong and how they aren't treating me well and how they could treat me better. This feels good for a few minutes, and then I realize I still feel icky. I would really like them to call me up and apologize. I would like them to tell me that I am the best thing that ever happened to them. I would like them to send me emails praising me and my abilities. I would like them.....well you get the picture. If only other people would cooperate and follow the manual of how we would like them to behave. Life would be so much better. Right?

So after I go around with this for about two hours, two days or more, I come back to finding my thoughts that are causing the icky. I close the book on the manual for everyone else and I open myself up to taking responsibility for how I am feeling. I sit alone and write down the thoughts that I am thinking that are causing my feelings. Here is what I came up with this week:

I am not very good at this.
I am not as smart as Jenny.
They aren't going to want me.
I can't do it right.
I screwed it all up.
I am too intense.
I am too over the top.
I am over confident.
I knew if I really was myself no one would like me.
This is hopeless.


Wow. I wonder why I am feeling icky? Duh!

Ok, so next step is to evaluate these thoughts and see if they are true and stick to the facts. So here are the facts of the situation:

She says she is having a hard time implementing my idea.
I have received 5 emails of appreciation for this idea.

Here are the turn arounds on my thoughts:

I am very good at this.
I am as smart as Jenny.
They do want me.
I can do it right.
I did not screw it up.
I am not too intense.
I am not over the top.
I am confident.
I am myself, and lots of people like me
This is hopeful.

Ok, so now I read this list and I check for authenticity. I am not trying to lie to myself and say I believe the turn arounds if I don't. But I do want to see if they are equal grains of truth. I can see that I am good at what I do. I can see that Jenny is brilliant and much better at some things than I will ever be, but I am smart in my own ways. I have much evidence that they want me and like what I am doing. I have no evidence that I have screwed anything up, and I know this is just my own self-inflicted drama. Too intense for what? How can I be too intense? I am intense and that is ok. In fact, many people have told me they like my intensity. My husband is always telling my not to dilute myself. My friends tell me they don’t want "Brooke Lite." I am over the top and that is ok. Part of being over the top means I take big risks and I wouldn't have it any other way. Yes, I am confident in my abilities and I am not over-confident because I am open to feedback and listen to it very empathetically and thoughtfully. And finally, this is hopeful. I am willing to suck at it and I am willing not to be perfect. That feels good to me.

Whenever I do this work on myself-which is usually daily- I have so much admiration for my clients. This work is hard, and sometimes I feel raw and exposed and want to crawl into a bag of Doritos and hide. I know that is how they feel much of the time, and it helps that I COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY understand.

Life would be so much easier if everyone was unconditionally accepting of everything we do. But the truth is, we can only expect that of ourselves. How in the world can we expect other people to shower us with appreciation when we can't even do it for ourselves? How can we expect them to have positive thoughts about us, when our thoughts about ourselves are negative and untrue? We can't.

Even if everyone would follow our manual and behave in a way that made us feel good, we would still have to work on ourselves. There really is no way around it if we want to have joy.

So after doing this work with myself I may not be feeling joyous; but I am somewhere in between icky and joy. And that is a heck of a lot better than feeling icky and having my stomach full of Ben and Jerry's. It's progress, but not perfection.

What Can Fat Really Do?

Before I ever work with a client, I send them a six page pre-work questionnaire. One of the questions in the pre-work is, "Why are you overweight?" I am always interested to read the answer to this question in particular because it shows me time and time again how much undeserved power we give to fat.

Here are some typical summarized answers:

I am fat because it protects me from being hurt.
I am fat so I won't get male attention.
I am fat so my husband won't want to have sex with me.
I am fat so I won't be tempted to leave my husband.
I am fat so I won't be threatening to my friends.
I am fat so people won't expect too much from me.

But the truth is, fat cannot do this for us. Fat does not have emotional power. Fat is tissue. Fat just sits there.

Even if you want to make the argument that society is not as respectful to overweight people, I can give you many examples where that is just not true. Oprah is the one who consistently comes to mind. And most of us know someone personally who is overweight, who doesn't seem to notice. They have lovers and money and success. Fat hasn't "done" anything for or against them.

So if it isn't the fat holding us back, what is it?

It is what we make the fat mean. It is the thoughts we have about ourselves and our bodies that cause the feelings. Our thoughts are what have the power, not the tissue on our thighs.

We use fat as our excuse for not living fully.

But the fat is innocent.

Our negative thoughts are to blame.

Turn them around.

Be Willing to Suck at It

I received an email this week from a client who had ordered my Coach in a Box product. She told me she was getting a lot out of the product, but noticed that in my book and in my workbook I used the wrong tense often and there were too many typos.

After reading this email, I reminded myself that I really have no business being an author. Half the time I don' t know where to put a comma, what tense is appropriate and I consistently end sentences in prepositions. The only reason I know about the prepositions is that my mother (who is the one who should be an author) points this out to me regularly. Otherwise I am sure I wouldn’t even notice.

I did try to get someone to write the book for me. I really did. I hired a ghostwriter because one of my coaches told me it was very common and "everyone" does it. When I got the first chapters back, the grammar was perfect, but the content was ridiculous. This guy knew about writing, but he didn't know anything about emotional eating. So I had to write the book myself. I did hire an editor, but not even she could catch all the mistakes on the first round. It was that bad.

But here is the thing-I was willing to suck at it. When I train new coaches I have to remind them regularly to be willing to be imperfect, be willing to make mistakes, and be willing to do a terrible job. It really is the only way we can improve and get better at anything. I realize this is easier said than done. Putting yourself out there without "being perfect," automatically opens you up to all sorts of constructive and non-constructive criticism. Just reading the reviews on Amazon can send some of my fellow author/coaches into bed for days. It means someone might think less of you or lose respect for you. They may even laugh and make fun of you.

So I could have waited until I learned better grammar to write a book. I could have let the ghostwriter turn out an error free product. Or I could have obsessed about how I will never in 20 million years write a book as well as Harvard educated Dr. Martha Beck. But I didn't. I sucked at it. And if I hadn't been willing to suck at it, I wouldn't have received this email about the very same book:

Brooke,

A friend gave me your book, If I Am So Smart, Why Can't I Lose Weight? Like millions of others, my friend and I have wrestled with our weight since childhood. I've always said that no one knows more about losing weight than a fat person. I am pleased to eat (metaphorically) those words! I've been 'moved' by many things, including holding a length of hardened artery removed from my mother; but nothing has ever moved me the way your book has. You put things into a perspective I can finally grasp and call my own. I have been crying for the past couple of hours. I know I'm crying because I feel deep hurt at how I've treated me, and I'm crying because for the first time in my life I feel so much hope I can hardly handle it. Both reasons are good, and I'm so thankful you had the experiences you did so you could write this book. There's so much more I want to say, but don't have the time, as I'm at work. I keep a journal, and if you don't mind, I'd like to share my experiences with you from time to time.

God Bless You

Rondi


What gifts are you selfishly hoarding because you aren't willing to suck at it? Your "Rondi" is waiting.

The Power of One Thought

When I am coaching a client, I am always trying to help them find their thoughts and evaluate them. So many of us never take the time to think about what we are thinking. Huh? We just think by default and we believe what we are thinking because we usually don't pay enough attention. Living a conscious life is about choosing what thoughts to believe.

Here is an example from my own life of two different thoughts:

1. I have to go to the gym or I will gain weight and get fat.

2. I want to go to the gym so I can continue to feel this fit and strong.


These thoughts seem to say about the same thing, but they sure do feel different to me. When I think thought #1 I get an image of myself fat and out of shape and out of a job. I feel lethargic and lazy and full of dread. When I think thought #2 I get an image of a fit body. I feel proud and strong and capable.

This is not some positive thinking mumbo jumbo affirmation. I don’t' have to talk myself into believing thought #2. I am not consciously trying to think something I don't believe like, "I have a perfect movie star body." I could also easily believe thought #1. But what I notice, is that when I think about what I want instead of what I don't want, I feel better and I do more.

It always goes back to the model that- what you believe is what you think over and over- and what you think is how you feel-and how you feel is how you act- and how you act gives you the result. So, in this case, the action and the result may be the same either way, but I find it much more fun to function from thoughts that I consciously choose.


What are you consciously or unconsciously thinking?