0:51

Hello everyone and welcome back to Real Brave

0:53

and Unstoppable for episode

0:56

121. As

0:59

I record this, I'm really working

1:02

hard on my

1:04

morning routine and, really

1:06

paying attention to, you

1:08

know, how I talk to myself when I look in the

1:10

mirror. And, it's been really

1:13

helpful to kind of ground

1:15

into that every morning and I wanted

1:17

to kind of share with you today some of the things

1:19

that, I've been doing. So I'm

1:21

going to start off by telling you a story, about

1:24

myself. I've always had a really

1:26

tough relationship with my body. Never

1:29

loved it, was always really mean to it.

1:31

The mirror was not my friend

1:33

for a long time. I've had an eating disorder,

1:36

earlier in my life. Totally, like, body

1:38

dysmorphia. saw in the mirror was not

1:41

what I see today in pictures.

1:44

It's like mind blowing actually. I'm

1:46

like, what was I complaining about then? But

1:48

I also really just have always had

1:50

some really critical, harsh

1:53

self talk about how I wasn't thin

1:55

enough or in shape enough. My

1:57

stomach is too flabby. My butt's too big. All

1:59

the things, right? We know about this. But

2:02

this of course filtered out into how I felt

2:04

about my intelligence and my ability to

2:06

achieve things as well. Like that classic

2:08

perfectionist mindset. Now

2:11

I have two kids. I have a daughter and a

2:13

son. And the thought

2:15

of passing this down

2:18

to either one of them, but especially her,

2:20

being a girl, is horrifying

2:23

to me. It's absolutely terrifying. So

2:25

there are a lot of things that I've been pretty mindful

2:27

of over the years to not talk about or do

2:30

when she's around. Like count calories or be

2:32

overly judgmental about my body or what I've

2:34

eaten. I make a point to like,

2:36

you know, if we're going out for ice cream, like have some

2:38

too or cake or whatever, because

2:40

I want her to see that that's normal. Like

2:42

we don't need to like cut out all

2:45

of the quote unquote bad things. Right.? And

2:47

for the most part, I think I've done a pretty good job

2:49

with that. Of course I'm not perfect, but

2:52

I've really made a, an

2:54

intentional effort. But what

2:56

goes on inside my head has been

2:58

a totally different story and it's a monster

3:01

that I still battle every day. It's

3:04

gotten a lot better, but it's

3:06

still there, that voice that

3:08

says, that's not good

3:10

enough. But one day, several

3:12

years ago, I was standing in front of

3:15

the mirror and I caught

3:17

myself and like my inner mean

3:19

girl, inner critic. Whatever

3:21

you want to call it in conversation. Well,

3:23

actually it was really her having the conversation

3:25

with me and I was totally buying into

3:27

it. Like I was in my underwear and I was like

3:30

pinching all the fat rolls on my stomach and hips

3:32

that I totally hated. My inner mean

3:34

girl was, she was talking to me,

3:36

you're so fat, disgusting, gross.

3:38

How can you even like live with yourself for looking

3:41

this way? It kind of makes

3:43

me cringe when I think about that. Cause oh my

3:45

God, so mean.

3:47

Ooh. And then I had

3:50

this moment of truth. I

3:53

was doing all the things in front of my

3:55

daughter to be like healthy and

3:57

normal, quote unquote, and

4:00

to teach her not to be unkind to herself,

4:02

but

4:04

I really wasn't in integrity with that

4:06

when it was just me and my mirror. So

4:10

I totally started crying. But I thought

4:12

about that, like if I knew they were, either one of them

4:14

was treating themselves the way I was in that moment,

4:17

I would be totally devastated, literally

4:19

devastated, because she's

4:22

beautiful. Both of my kids are beautiful and

4:24

I want them both to believe that about themselves. So

4:28

in that moment, though, I realized that setting

4:30

an example isn't really just

4:32

what you do in public or in front of people.

4:35

It's really being in integrity with that behind

4:37

closed doors. Being

4:39

in integrity with that in your mind, in your

4:41

thoughts, and in your beliefs. That's

4:44

how we grow. That's how we move forward when those

4:46

things are aligned. But also

4:48

in that moment, I told myself that I was,

4:50

I was going to commit to work on this. And

4:53

notice I said, work. For

4:57

some of you this will resonate, and for some it won't...

4:59

Um, but this is hard work. It's

5:02

hard to look in the mirror and really, truly

5:04

love what you see. Like we aren't taught this.

5:06

We live in a society of constant improvement,

5:09

being better. And then like the media,

5:12

out in the world, what do you see? Like

5:14

it's getting better, but it's still not what we need

5:16

it to be. We're taught to hate our bodies.

5:19

It can always be better. And as

5:21

women, I don't really, I can't

5:23

really speak for men, but as I know as

5:25

a woman, we're taught that our bodies

5:28

are objects, tools, and

5:30

if they don't meet a certain random standard

5:33

set by, well, I'm not even going to go there,

5:36

then they aren't valuable. Well,

5:39

fuck that, I say. And

5:41

that's why this work is super important to me. Life

5:44

is too short to be at war with myself,

5:46

and, you know, the world has way bigger

5:48

problems than whether or not I like how much

5:50

I weigh. And what if, just

5:53

what if, me committing to working on

5:55

this made a difference? A difference

5:57

in my daughter, my son, a difference in the

5:59

world, and a

6:01

difference in me. So

6:04

today I'm going to talk about the mirror, being

6:06

your friend. What if

6:08

instead of seeing what's wrong, you

6:10

looked for all the things that were right? So

6:13

I'm going to share today five things that

6:16

you can say to yourself or questions you can ask

6:18

each morning to really get your day off

6:20

to a great start. Set

6:22

the stage for your day. So

6:25

I first want to pose a question to you. How

6:28

is being unkind to yourself when you look in

6:30

the mirror serving you? There's

6:32

a hidden benefit or a false reward. Otherwise

6:34

we just wouldn't do it. So

6:37

what is that? Commonly

6:40

in my experience working with other people and

6:42

in myself, the false reward is that we think

6:44

it will motivate us. People

6:47

does that sound familiar? People

6:49

who have a hard time accepting their body or even

6:51

loving it are afraid that if they do that,

6:54

or in other words, like they drop the mean

6:57

bootcamp drill sergeant language, they'll

6:59

let themselves go or

7:01

they'll get fat or that those

7:04

harsh words are actually motivating

7:06

them to be better To

7:08

lose weight or get in shape or whatever. Well,

7:11

they're totally not. Research

7:13

shows this, but some of the consequences

7:16

of negative self talk are depression, anxiety,

7:18

increased stress, social anxiety,

7:21

reduced success, perfectionism, you

7:24

know, never being happy with yourself, limited

7:27

thinking, or a hard time believing

7:29

in yourself, relationship challenges.

7:32

It's a lot of stuff. Research has shown that

7:34

it's not helpful as a motivator, even

7:36

though we think it might be. The

7:39

research does show that positive reinforcement

7:41

makes a desired behavior more likely

7:43

to happen and can also

7:45

be used to shape behavior. So

7:48

I'm going to use, forgive me,

7:50

but I'm going to use the example of dog training

7:52

for a minute. So if you don't have a dog,

7:54

bear with me, but if you have a dog and you've

7:56

ever like worked on training a dog, you

7:59

might resonate with this. The difference between

8:02

negative reinforcement or punishment and

8:04

positive reinforcement, I'm going to talk about

8:06

here. So when you train a dog

8:09

using positive reinforcement,

8:11

they learn to want to do things

8:13

for you. If they don't know what you're asking

8:15

them to do, they'll try any behavior

8:17

they can to get the treat until they

8:20

land on the right one. The

8:22

dog is learning that you yourself

8:25

are the source of a reward, even an

8:27

intrinsic reward, like just being around

8:29

and interacting with. I had a chocolate

8:31

lab a long time ago that

8:34

we did clicker training with her. And

8:37

one of the things that we were supposed to do is just

8:39

wait for her to do the behavior, like sit,

8:41

like she saw a treat and she knew she had to do something.

8:44

And so we would wait until she sat

8:48

to click and then give the treat.

8:50

So she learned to connect the word

8:52

sit with that behavior. But

8:55

with punishment, think about this.

8:58

It's true of dogs and also like people,

9:01

where we learn pretty quickly that sticking

9:03

your neck out can get us in trouble.

9:05

So we don't want to try anything

9:07

new. So in dogs, punishment

9:10

can actually create behavior problems like

9:12

anxiety. My same

9:14

dog that I talked about with the clicker training,

9:16

we adopted her, and when we first got her,

9:18

she was really afraid of everything.

9:21

And I'm not sure of what her background was, but

9:23

definitely she was not positively

9:25

reinforced. It took a lot of training

9:28

to get her to the point where she wasn't so afraid

9:30

of punishment anymore. And

9:32

it's the same with humans. So externally,

9:34

think about kids in abusive households,

9:36

or people who have, like, tyrannical

9:38

bosses, terrible work environments.

9:41

People shrink to not create problems

9:43

or conflict, to kind of fly beneath

9:45

the radar and not get in trouble. So

9:48

think about how that negative reinforcement

9:51

or negative motivation affects you.

9:54

Motivating yourself from a place of self hatred

9:57

instead of self love. Your

10:00

higher self loves you

10:02

and wants you to be motivated from a place of

10:04

love. But if you listen to your inner

10:06

critic instead, you'll never

10:09

even sustain the accomplishments you

10:11

reach because you can't sustain the negativity

10:13

in a way that's good for you or your health.

10:17

So, what do we do here?

10:19

First I want to talk a little bit about thoughts and emotions,

10:22

and this relates a little bit to what I just shared

10:24

about motivation. So when you think

10:26

the thought, I'm fat, or I'm overweight,

10:28

or I have a flabby stomach, how do you feel?

10:32

So here's a little refresher on this, in case

10:34

you've forgotten or haven't listened to the episodes

10:36

on thoughts and feelings. But

10:39

our thoughts create our feelings. This

10:41

is a simplistic way of looking at it, but thoughts

10:43

create feelings and our feelings can fuel

10:45

our actions if we're not really intentional

10:47

about it. And most of us are not

10:50

super intentional with our thoughts all the time.

10:52

So when you think thoughts like that, you might

10:54

feel hopeless or inferior, for

10:56

example. Recognizing this

10:59

example may not resonate for everyone.

11:01

Some of you may never think these thoughts. And

11:04

what do you do or not

11:06

do when you feel hopeless or

11:08

inferior? Well,

11:12

this can take on a lot of forms

11:14

depending on the person. So here

11:16

are some examples. Sally

11:18

might skip gym workouts. Susie

11:20

might have a day where she screws up and says,

11:22

fuck it. I'll start again tomorrow.

11:25

Let me have all the cheesecake tonight or

11:27

gee, that bottle of wine looks good, especially

11:29

since it'll help me not feel all of these

11:32

despair- y feelings. On

11:34

the other hand, Jane

11:36

might go to the gym and work out extra hard and

11:39

she might end up burning out because what she's doing

11:41

is unsustainable. Or she

11:43

might overtrain leading to exhaustion

11:45

and injury, or maybe she'll even

11:47

hate working out because she's associated

11:49

it with something negative. The

11:52

end result though, is that those actions do

11:54

not lead to loving yourself. They

11:56

just keep fueling self loathing. People

12:00

think they'll be happier once they get to

12:02

a certain weight or, you know, they

12:04

have, they can see their bicep muscles

12:07

or whatever, right? They think there'll be happy then,

12:09

but most people,

12:13

most people get there and

12:15

it's still not enough. I

12:18

want to repeat that and I want you to really,

12:21

really take this in. Most people,

12:23

when they get to the goal,

12:25

they think they want to be

12:28

quote unquote better. It's

12:31

not enough. So what do you

12:33

do then? So

12:36

here's where we have to let go of

12:38

this false reward and really recognize

12:40

that it's not helping at all. So

12:42

what if we were able to just love

12:44

ourselves? Just stick with me here. What if?

12:47

Imagine a world where we were able to love ourselves

12:50

and just want to be our best selves.

12:53

What if we knew what was really important

12:55

to us and how we found meaning and purpose

12:57

and just followed that route? What

12:59

if that was possible for you? What if you

13:01

were able to feel amazing regardless

13:04

of what the scale said or what size clothes

13:06

you wore? The

13:08

thing people don't realize is that if you

13:11

actually accept your body, you won't be

13:13

beating it up when you look in the mirror because your mind

13:15

has shifted. You won't care about

13:17

letting yourself go because you love

13:20

yourself too much to let yourself go. You

13:22

focus on what's good for you. And when you

13:24

feel good, you don't focus

13:26

on stuff like being the right

13:28

shape or size or comparing yourself

13:31

to the latest cover model on Vogue.

13:34

You just won't care because you'll feel amazing.

13:37

So what if your thought was, I feel

13:39

amazing. I take care of myself.

13:42

I eat healthy. I work on being the best

13:44

version of me every day. I'm strong.

13:47

How does that feel? What actions

13:50

do you want to take when you think thoughts like that?

13:53

So this doesn't mean you can't want to get

13:55

stronger or, you know, if you

13:58

If you do need to lose weight, it doesn't mean you can't

14:00

want to do those things, but it

14:02

means you're approaching those things from a place

14:04

of love, not hate or

14:07

self loathing. If

14:09

you wanted to encourage someone that

14:11

you love, how would you do it? I

14:14

doubt you'd say mean things to them and expect

14:16

them to change. It's like the encouraging

14:18

coach versus the yelling one. For

14:21

those of you who have played sports, have you

14:23

ever had a coach who just yells when you do something

14:25

wrong? Not super motivating,

14:28

right? But if you have a coach that's like really encouraging

14:31

and, you know, points out your mistakes

14:33

or things you could do better, but also really praises

14:35

you for the things that you do well,

14:38

like how much more motivating is

14:40

that? Okay,

14:43

so here is where we talk about

14:45

how to make the mirror your friend. And

14:49

it's not going to happen overnight and you won't

14:51

always look in the mirror and go, Oh, awesome.

14:53

I love everything about this. That's okay.

14:55

Like just acknowledge that. It's all right,

14:59

but let's, you know, let's work on that

15:01

for the most part, making the mirror a friend.

15:03

Like looking in the mirror and seeing the reflection

15:06

of what's really amazing and

15:09

you know, not putting so much weight on the

15:11

things you don't think are amazing because

15:13

those are just thoughts. Each

15:17

morning, I want you, and really

15:20

want you to try this, I'll do it with you this

15:22

week. First thing in the morning,

15:24

I want you to look in the mirror. And

15:27

just look at yourself. And

15:30

first, just notice how you feel- emotionally,

15:32

physically. And just really

15:35

look at yourself lovingly, and

15:37

go through these five things. So

15:39

first, notice

15:41

how you're feeling. I notice I'm feeling

15:45

judgmental. I

15:47

notice I'm feeling calm. I notice

15:49

I'm feeling excited. And

15:52

then, my body feels... how does your body

15:54

feel? My body feels

15:57

blank. My

15:59

body feels tense. My body feels loose.

16:02

I feel flexible. I feel ready

16:05

to start the day. My body feels

16:07

like it's ready to go. Then

16:11

notice your thoughts. I notice

16:13

my thoughts are XYZ.

16:15

I notice that I'm,

16:18

I'm thinking that my butt's too big.

16:20

I notice that I'm focusing on my wrinkles.

16:22

My wrinkles are making me look old. okay.

16:26

And then you want to say to yourself, I'm

16:28

just observing what's going on in myself right now.

16:31

There's nothing to fix here. It's just an experience

16:33

I'm having my thoughts, my feelings,

16:36

physically how I feel. That's all just

16:38

an experience. No big deal.

16:40

I'm just noticing. Okay,

16:44

so next thing, number two, is

16:48

What are three things that you love and appreciate

16:50

about yourself? So stand

16:53

in the mirror and look at yourself

16:55

and say, say it out loud. I

16:57

appreciate and love these

17:00

three things about myself. Or

17:02

you can say you to yourself in

17:04

the mirror. This morning

17:07

I appreciated that I am strong.

17:11

I'm resilient. I'm

17:13

ready to dive in and do the work when I need

17:15

to. When I want to. Those

17:18

were three things. Number

17:21

three is what are you excited

17:23

about today? There's got to be something,

17:26

something, even if it's tiny. So

17:29

say it out loud. Kortney,

17:31

I'm excited about this one thing

17:34

today. Today,

17:36

I have a full day of clients. I'm

17:39

excited to see how I can help people today.

17:43

Number four. Let

17:45

yourself be a work in progress,

17:47

but also recognize you can give yourself

17:49

more credit for something today. So,

17:52

say it to yourself, Kortney,

17:55

or whatever your name is, I'm allowed to

17:57

be a work in progress, and one thing

17:59

I can give myself more credit for today

18:01

is, blank. For

18:03

me, I'm

18:06

dealing with something right now that's like

18:08

kind of hard. So it's like, okay,

18:10

I'm going to give myself a little more credit for how I'm

18:13

handling that. Cause I'm tending to go to the,

18:15

I should have done that different, but okay,

18:17

fine. But what give me, what's something

18:19

I can give myself more credit for? And

18:23

number five, just

18:25

acknowledge that today's going to be a great day.

18:27

You're going to make it a great day. So

18:29

say it out loud. I'm

18:31

going to make today a great day. If

18:34

I'm going through a tough time, it's just

18:36

like a storm. It will pass. Life

18:39

is not all great,

18:42

right? We have good and we have bad. So,

18:44

of course, every day is going to bring a little of both.

18:46

So, let's focus on like how can, and it doesn't

18:49

mean we're ignoring the things that are hard. But

18:51

we're forcing our brain to look at something.

18:53

We're forcing our brain to look at the possibility

18:56

that today can be a great day. Even

18:59

if it's not all great, it

19:01

can still be great. Okay.

19:04

So starting your day

19:06

off and a recap here, starting

19:08

your day off this way is going to help you so much.

19:11

Little steps like this will add up

19:13

to really big progress and you are

19:15

creating new neural pathways

19:18

in your brain. And that takes a little

19:20

time, but you can shift your mindset

19:22

about yourself. And it is a work

19:24

in progress. I know this, I

19:27

experienced this, but if

19:29

you practice it consistently, you'll

19:31

be able to shift that mindset. And

19:33

you'll notice gradually that your mind will go

19:36

there more often than the old negative

19:38

way. Is it easy? Simple?

19:41

Yes. Easy. Not always. So

19:43

stick with it. It'll

19:46

be worth it. Okay,

19:49

so one more thing. If this resonated

19:51

with you, I highly recommend writing

19:54

down these things on a note card or something.

19:57

Or you can create your own things to say to yourself.

19:59

You could even turn it into a journaling practice,

20:01

but I do think it's really important to do it in front

20:03

of the mirror. So some other

20:05

things that you could try on for like

20:08

saying to yourself too is like, I

20:10

believe in myself. I'm a really great

20:12

person. My confidence and my self

20:14

esteem are high. I

20:16

know my worth. I love

20:18

who I am. I am strong.

20:21

I am capable of overcoming anything.

20:24

No challenge is too great for me. My

20:27

life is abundant and fulfilling.

20:30

I'm committed to my personal growth.

20:33

I'm proud of you that... I

20:36

forgive you for blank.

20:39

I commit to you today that blank.

20:43

So before I go, I want to share two things. First,

20:46

a couple of quotes about this. Number

20:48

one, your body loves you. Love it

20:50

back. Two, your

20:52

body is a reflection of your journey. So

20:54

love and accept it for all that it is.

20:57

And I don't know who said those first two quotes, but

20:59

this next one is from, is

21:01

by Louise Hay, a

21:03

couple of really great books and she's it's

21:06

kind of known for the mirror work thing, but

21:08

her, the quote is You've been criticizing yourself

21:10

for years and it hasn't worked. So try

21:12

approving of yourself and see what happens.

21:15

Love that. So second, if you're not

21:17

already part of my community, I would love to have

21:20

you. I've dropped the link below in the show

21:22

notes so you can follow

21:24

that link and get a free workbook that will help you

21:26

create the life you want. A

21:28

life full of purpose and meaning and self love.

21:30

So hop on over there and I'll also

21:33

again drop that link in the show notes. Okay

21:36

my friends, thank you so much for joining

21:38

me today. I will see you next time.