Episode 31 - Plateaus and Self-Correcting

Transcript

Renee Stephens: Welcome to Inside Out Weight Loss. I’m your host Renee Stephens and together we’re accessing the control panel of your mind/body system, bringing ease and joy to your weight loss journey and fullness to the rest of your life. On today’s show, the final episode in our series on plateaus, what self-correcting is really all about and putting down the baggage.

Renee Stephens: I’m beginning to feel deep down that I’m so very good and kind and loving myself. I’m a slow loser, but it’s not even bothering me this time. I’m feeding my body wholesome food and lots of water, giving it regular exercise. I’m getting plenty of rest too. And I’m beginning to feel my spirit as well as my body respond to the care I’m taking with it.

Renee Stephens: We’ve been talking these past few episodes about plateaus, about the silver lining of plateaus, that they really are full of gifts for us. They’re signs of our success and opportunities to learn more, to advance to the next level. And there may also be opportunities to self-correct. Yes, a plateau may mean that we’ve become off-balance. This is a normal part of the process. It’s the trough before the wave that surges forward. It’s the winter before the spring. A plateau may mean that it’s time to self-correct.

Renee Stephens: Self-correcting is about reconnecting. Reconnecting to what? Reconnecting to our divine nature. It’s about reconnecting to spirit, the universe, God, goddess, whatever you call it. Like Michelle said in her message that I read a few moments ago, she’s reconnected, she’s plugged right in. That’s the essence of it.

Renee Stephens: So lets go ahead and set our intention for today’s episode. Drop inside and become present with you, with your physical body. Take a moment to notice it, really notice it. Lets check in with our bodies and feel them, physically, emotionally, spiritually. Go ahead and set your intent for this episode and even this day or this week in your life. Is your intent to soak it all in? To let go of what no longer serves you, as if you were lugging around two heavy suitcases with you wherever you went and had been lugging them around for years. In fact, you’ve been lugging them around so long you may no longer remember what’s in them, and they’re heavy and scuffed from their travels. And one day you realize that you can put them down for a while. You can do what we did when we visited Japan some years ago. We had our six month old daughter with us who was very sick on this particular day, and we were traveling with a baby in tow, there was a lot more luggage than we could manage. And at the train station there were no porters, no friendly bag handlers. So we actually took a few bags to the train platform and left the others unattended in the entry area to the station. Can you imagine that? Leaving bags unattended in a busy train station. We had been told that we could do it, so we did it. And guess what? They were still there when we returned. They weren’t confiscated and the bomb squad didn’t come. We simply picked them up and carried them to the platform where the bags that we had just carried waited for us also unattended. So that’s what we did. We just put down those bags and focused on what was important: our baby. It was amazing to know that we could just put those bags down and leave them. We didn’t have to worry. We could relax and trust that they’d be there when we wanted them. And often times we don’t realize that we can do that. We don’t have to unpack all our bags and sort through the dirty laundry to find the clean. No. We can just put them down. We can just let go, put those heavy bags down, and if we need them or want them, we can pick them up again. We can go get them if we have use for them. Or we can donate them to someone who can better use them. It’s so good to know that we have all sorts of choices and we can try them out to see which ones we like best. What was your intent for this episode? Mine is to help you achieve yours easily, beautifully, magically. I’d like to share with you a message that a listener named Michelle wrote. She writes, “I can feel my mind switching over. I’m beginning to feel deep down that I’m being so very good and kind and loving to myself. I’m a slow loser, but it’s not even bothering me this time. I’m feeding my body wholesome food and lots of water, giving it regular exercise. I’m getting plenty of rest too. And I’m beginning to feel my spirit as well as my body respond to the care I’m taking with it. You know, I think I’ve treated everyone else, including my doggy, better than I’ve been treating myself. This morning it took me fifteen minutes or so to chop all of the fresh veggies to make my omelet. Each fresh ingredient was prepared with care, and as I was sautéing them in the skillet, then adding the eggs, I felt loved by me. I’m evolving, and I know my body’s responding to that affection and positive attention. I’m no longer going to call myself fat or lazy or old or ugly. I truly, in my new spirit, feel my true and beautiful self-emerging, like the new grass or buds on the trees. God has all along seen my true self, but I had buried her under self-condemnation and harsh judgment. Those days are over. This is not about losing pounds now. It’s not about fitting into a smaller size. It’s about treating myself with the care and attention that I deserve. It’s honoring the gift of God’s creation: me. That feeling stayed  with me all day long through exercise, reading, food preparation, house work, etcetera. This morning I pondered it again while making breakfast, sort of checking in with myself. When I went to Fat Secret I posted this. I still feel that same self-love that I encountered yesterday morning, and I believe I’ve actually made a breakthrough in becoming friends with my body. I wish I could convey in words how differently I feel now. But I know I’ve made a mental/spiritual connection that was broken before. I really feel good about me, right here, right now. I’m not thinking the old thoughts that broke my spirit, like people are probably gagging when they see me, I’m so disgusting. I’m sure those girls are saying, ‘Oh God, I hope we don’t let ourselves go like that when we’re older’, those kinds of negative messages that have damaged my own spirit and confidence. I am loved by God, by my husband, my family and friends, and finally, by my own self. I’m not a screw up. I’m not lazy. I am loved and good and worthwhile. I’m pretty too just as I am here and now. And I’m good enough to pay attention to, good enough to treat with respect and kindness, good enough to feed wholesome well prepared food and good enough to take time to exercise and attend to. I am worth every bit of it and worth the serenity of a well-lived life. This time last year I weighed 232 pounds. I’ve lost 29 pounds on yet another diet, then stopped working at it. When I finally got the desire to weigh after listening for a couple of months the scale read 218. I’m not 206. But regardless I’m at peace with myself and feeling so one with my own spirit, mind, emotions and body, that inner alignment that Renee speaks of, so I encourage you, if you’ve entered this process half-heartedly, go back, listen again, listen in a relaxed state of mind, just being open. Let Renee speak to your spirit. It will change you.” And Michelle, your message has changed me. I’m so deeply touched by that, and by all the messages that I get from listeners telling me of how they’re now treating themselves kindly and with respect, how they’re loving themselves, focused on the present, on being healthy today for the sake of it. Thank you so much for letting me do what I do and for sharing your journey with me. We’ve been talking these past few episodes about plateaus, about the silver lining of plateaus, that they really are full of gifts for us. They’re signs of our success and opportunities to learn more, to advance to the next level, and they may also be opportunities to self-correct. Yes, a plateau may mean that we’ve become off-balance. This is a normal part of the process. It’s the trough before the wave that surges forward. It’s the winter before the spring. A plateau may mean that it’s time to self-correct. Now if you’ve listened to earlier episodes you’ll know about a key Inside Out Weight Loss concept; the concept of self-correcting. Self-correcting is about your ability to bring yourself back into balance, back to center when life throws you off. That’s where we focus. Not on being perfect always and forever. That always and forever stuff may work in Disney movies and in ad campaigns but not so much with real humans on planet Earth. What does work however is bringing ourselves back into balance when we go off, on practicing and developing our ability to rebalance, to self-correct. Lets take a break now to support our sponsors. This is Renee Stephens and you’re listening to Inside Out Weight Loss on Personal Life Media.

Renee Stephens: We’re back now. Before the break we were talking about plateaus perhaps being an opportunity and invitation to self-correct. When we talked about self-correcting in earlier episodes we talked about establishing our first, second and third lines of self-correcting defense. The first line are things that we do by ourselves to rebalance. The second line are things that we do with others. And the third line are things that we do with professional help, from a coach, a psychotherapist, a hypnotherapist, a massage therapist, whatever works for you, whatever kind of professional works for you. Just listening to this show by the way is a great way to self-correct. Many listeners tell me they listen to episodes over and over again whenever they feel that they want to go to a deeper level or need a boost to get back in balance. I wanted to share something about self-correcting, an insight that I happened upon in a recent client session. This client of mine, who’s actually a hynotherapist herself, easily goes into a deep meditative state during our sessions. It’s a wonderful resourceful state. Whatever issues she’s been grappling with become small and resolvable when she’s in it. She says that in these state she feels plugged in or connected to something much greater than her. She feels plugged in to spirit, God, the universe, whatever you might call it, but she feels plugged into it. And from this place she’s been able to not only resolve many challenges, but also to access and understand her purpose in life, what she’s meant to do, she gets increasing glimpses. The more that we do the work, the more that she progresses, she gets increasing glimpses of what she’s meant to do in this life that she’s been given. And you may know from earlier episodes, and I think I even talked about it in the prologue, why I’m so passionate about my work and it is in fact precisely this, that when we clear the clutter from our minds, when we put down the baggage we create space. I even had someone, I believe I remember someone posting on the Yahoo group that they said, “My goodness, now I have all this free time in my life, all this space in my brain that used to be filled up with self-criticism and self-hatred and what should I eat and what will I eat and what won’t I eat and what do I want to eat but I shouldn’t be eating but I’m going to eat it anyway and oh my god, I can’t seem to stop myself and when will I ever change? Yada, yada, yada.” Her mind was so full of this stuff that she barely had time to think. And isn’t it that way for so many of us? I know it was for me. My mind was so self-obsessed, with self-criticism and worry and despair, that I had no time to even begin to think about what I was meant to be doing on this planet, why I existed in the first place. I couldn’t even manage to get through my day. But that’s what’s so exciting, is that when we clear all that stuff out, when we release it, when we put down our baggage, it creates space, beautiful space, and in that space we can fill it with light, we can fill it with beginning to pursue our interests. That’s where it starts. We have curiosity, we have things that we like to do, we have fun things that attract us. Remember the guy who wanted to do something fun and he remembered swimming from his childhood? We pursue fun things, and those begin to be the clues. If you don’t already know what your life’s work is, if you don’t already know what you are meant to be doing in this lifetime, these are the clues, and going on the Inside Out Weight Loss journey will allow you to attend to them, to pursue them, to have fun, to play with them. And your life’s purpose may be big and it may be local, it may involve your family and your children or your spouse or your significant other or your dog or it may involve many more people than that. It really doesn’t matter. What matters is that you feel in alignment with you. What matters is that you create that space to enjoy your life, to be present, to experience it, to live it. That’s what excites me so much about doing this work is seeing that transformation. So if you’re beginning to see it in your own life I’d love to hear about it. Post a comment to the blog or send me an email to [email protected]. I may share your comment on the show. Okay. Back to this client. I have to confess that I love to digress, but we’re back on track here with this client who would access this state, this connected, this plugged in state. And during our last session she was wanting to self-correct. She felt that some issues in her life had come up and she was feeling kind of grumpy, unhappy, unresourceful. I’m sure you can’t relate at all to what I’m talking about. I can’t of course, never. So she wanted to get back to that place of balance, flow and ease. She wanted to self-correct. And as she did that during the session, in fact in that session we actually changed an old recording that she had running in her head of her mother saying something like, “Who do you think you are to be going forward with this stuff?” We changed that recording, she went right in to her plugged in healing state. And I realized that another way of saying ‘self-correcting’ is reconnecting. Self-correcting is about reconnecting. Reconnecting to what? Reconnecting to our divine nature. It’s about reconnecting to spirit, the universe, God, goddess, whatever you call it. Like Michelle said in her message that I read a few moments ago, she’s reconnected, she’s plugged right in. That’s the essence of it. Have you ever felt that way, truly connected to something much bigger than you? Perhaps even for a moment? When you’re in nature, for some people it occurs in church or in synagogue or mosque, perhaps when they’re listening to an especially moving wonderful piece of music, that feeling where time dissolves and we just feel this beautiful oneness. I call that state ‘plugged in’. Plugged in to something greater than ourselves, to a feeling of peace or flow. In essence, that’s what self-correcting is. It’s a way to reconnect to spirit. Now self-correcting will work for you, will work beautifully for you, even if you don’t believe in all this stuff, even if you’re an atheist or don’t believe in any kind of higher power, it will work beautifully for you because another way of thinking of it is simply coming back into balance with ourselves. That’s all we really need. And you also have the option of thinking of self-correcting as reconnecting to that source of unconditional love and acceptance. You could even pretend that it’s about reconnecting to some imaginary unconditional source of self-acceptance. What would that be like? To a source imaginary or real, of peace and forgiveness, where all is possible and your inner obstacles dissolve as the light comes in, warming your very essence, brining light to the shadows. So a plateau may be an invitation to reconnect to yourself or to spirit. If you haven’t created your list of first, second and third lines of self-correcting defense, now is a great time to do that. If you have then review them with the idea of reconnecting in mind. What self-correcting mechanisms have been working for you? What hasn’t? Do any new ones come to your mind? For example, listening to certain music can be a powerful way to self-correct. Being in nature, that’s one of my favorites. Or perhaps going to a place of worship, a church, a synagogue, a place of meditation, where other people connect because there you can connect, tap into somehow the energy of the space, the sacredness of the space. Whatever it is that renews you, I want you to make that a priority in your life, whenever you can fit it in, a priority of renewing yourself, of reconnecting. Reconnecting, perhaps you think of it as your higher self, your best self, your wonderful you, reconnecting. Or you may think of it as reconnecting to God, to spirit, to Jesus, Allah, Mohammed. Whatever it is, make that a priority in you life, because as that listener said in her message that I read earlier, it really is all about realizing, finally letting it in, the truth. The truth that you are worthy, that you are worth treating yourself beautifully, pampering yourself, taking wonderful care of yourself like you would your most precious object or the most precious person in your life or animal. Which brings me to the topic of our next show because we’re almost out of time today. On the next episode of Inside Out Weight Loss we’ll discuss who’s number one. You think we should do a chant? Who’s number one, who’s number one. Or another way of putting it is the pros and cons of putting yourself first complete with a guided journey into your future. This is your host Renee Stephens and I am on a mission to eradicate the weight struggle from the planet, replacing it with light, love and joy. Join me as we evolve the world by evolving ourselves. Take good care. And by the way, we want to know who you are so we can make sure this programming is right for you. So please go to the blog and take the listeners survey to tell us about yourself. It will allow us to attract more wonderful sponsors who are critical to the availability of this show. Give us five minutes of your time and get back your investment many, many times over with Inside Out Weight Loss and the positive ripple effects throughout your life. Plus, while you’re there at the blog, check out my latest blog post. See links to the guided journeys on my website and check out the brand new, I’m so excited about this, this was born out of a discussion on the Yahoo group, the brand new Inside Out Weight Loss butterfly logo wear, including tee shirts of all sizes from junior to plus, an Inside Out Weight Loss journal, a tote bag and more. What fun! Go to www.personallifemedia.com/renee. Have a question for me? Call 206-350-5333 and leave a message. I may play your question or comment on the air. For other shows on the Personal Life Media Network please visit our website at www.personallifemedia.com. There’s loads of great content to feed your mind, body and spirit, including a two part interview with Eckhart Tolley on Living Dialogues.