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[00:00:00] [00:01:00] All right. Hopefully you can hear me now.
And I had it all queued up and ready to share that video. All[00:02:00]
right. So today's call is the weirdest part of my body. And then we'll, um, uh, watch that and then jump back on with a quick discussion.[00:03:00]
All right. It sounds like I'm having issues with my recording. So let me try this one more time.
We'll try it one more time. If not, we might have to hop off and try to get back on. Let me see what we got here.[00:04:00]
When you look at your body, what do you see? Can you look in the mirror or do you find yourself looking away? Do you smile or do you cringe? What about when you see photos of yourself? Do you remember that moment or are you critiquing yourself and how you look? The marketing industry and social media have told us what we are supposed to look like.
We look at the magazines and the television and we believe that is what you must look like to be happy, attractive, and accepted. Those photos have usually all been manipulated. I don't even just say airbrushed anymore. There is software that can make things bigger, smaller, and even change the color of your eyes, your skin, or your hair.
It can actually take someone else's lips or ears or nose and put it on your [00:05:00] face. We look at social media of movie stars and even of our friends, but what we see is a specific moment, a specific pose that has been chosen. And even then usually a filter has been added. When we compare ourselves, many times we end up looking with a super critical eye.
The movie stars have someone for hair and makeup, lighting, editing, and even to readjust the pose ever so slightly to be just a bit more flattering. Even the people on social media channels, the influencers have shared so many of these tips and tricks that most teenagers photos look almost professional now.
Now I want you to remember your childhood. Think about someone you love dearly. Did it matter what their body looked like? Sure. Sure. You noticed what shape or size they were, but did that matter? I remember when I was a kid, [00:06:00] throwing my arms around the people that I loved in my family. And some of them, my arms did not quite touch on the other side.
But with their arms wrapped around me, that made the whole circle. I remember feeling safe, wanted, and loved. Never was I thinking about how short my arms were or how big around their middle was. I remember my son having an obsession with the silky, soft underarm skin of my mom. He asked, Mamaw, why is your skin so soft?
While rubbing her loose, saggy underarm skin between his fingers. She did not love that part of herself. When she was all snuggled up to him though, she could care less, couldn't have cared less. He loved her and she loved him. Can you imagine if you felt that kind of love for your own body? I think when you stop comparing, you can find it.
When you begin looking at the function, not just the form, you see what beauty and [00:07:00] love it creates. I teach you that you are perfect right now without ever losing another pound. You are perfect. You are beautiful and wonderful. I remember a few years ago, Dove body products started ads and commercials using normal bodies.
I remember thinking how beautiful all the colors and shapes were. All the different sizes were, they didn't hide rolls or cellulite wrinkles. They were all breathtaking. When I think of the people that I love, I remember their eyes and sometimes how their edges got all crinkly when they were smiling. I remember beautiful hair and skin or great muscles.
I remember their laughs, their voices and their warm embraces. I think about the strength that some of them had. I just remember the people that I love. I honestly have no idea if my grandmother or even my own mother had cellulite. I [00:08:00] imagine they did. My mom had a very curvy body when I was younger. I remember thinking as a young girl that I couldn't wait until my chest was as big as hers.
I wasn't looking at her stomach or her thighs. She had issues with her weight until she got sick and could barely keep a little over a hundred pounds on her frame. And then I remember wishing that she was heavier so that maybe she would also be a little healthier. It doesn't matter what kind of hair people have straight or curly, thin or thick, long or short, or even what color people always admire someone else's.
Admiring is fine, but to the point that you critique your own putting it down, Admire to appreciate, not to compare. Say theirs is beautiful too, not discounting yours or someone else's. There will always be parts of your body that you don't find as attractive, but to be critical of them is just not necessary.
I [00:09:00] think about knuckles and knees, how they are the weirdest looking parts of the body to me. Some people it's feet, but to me, it's the knuckles and the knees. All of the movement they allow is truly amazing. How much extra skin they must need to fully move into all those positions. Think about an ostrich or an elephant.
They are amazing creatures, but it could also be said that they are maybe not the most beautiful, not enough somehow. I know that sounds silly. They are animals. How else would they look but exactly like an ostrich and an elephant? That is because we expect them to look exactly like they do. We may compare them to another elephant, but it isn't in a one is better or what is worse type comparison.
We notice differences. Our brains are super inquisitive, noticing all kinds of details and differences. Can you [00:10:00] imagine if you not only accepted your body as it is, but you expected it to look exactly as it does, what would that be like? If you expected your body to look exactly how it does, would you stop putting it down?
Would you dress it for the size and shape for clothes that would fit it and show off your inner personality? If you expected your body to look however it was supposed to, Could you find yourself in all the wonderful things your body does and allows you to do? Could you find that wonderful? I love to people watch.
I'll go sit at the mall or the airport and just watch and listen. People are amazing the way they are so full of emotions, fun, loving, and caring. And anxiety, fear, and insecurities watching people, especially when they do not think anyone notices is [00:11:00] by far one of my favorite activities. I watched their body language and their expressions.
I see when they relax, not thinking anybody is watching and then how their whole demeanor changes when they think someone is, can you imagine being so okay with yourself? So accepting of yourself that you were just the nobody's watching version of you all the time when you are comparing yourself or changing for who might be watching.
What are you thinking? Are you wondering what they are thinking about you? Are you thinking that they think your body isn't good enough? Are you thinking that most people are walking around completely in their own mind? They're either trying to get noticed or to go unnoticed or so focused on something else entirely.
When I was at my heaviest, I did a lot of comparing. I thought people were noticing my weight all the time. [00:12:00] What is so funny is that now, when people who see me all the time and always have, they find pictures of me and they don't remember me ever looking like that. They remember me smiling and laughing, asking about how they are doing or what are they looking forward to.
They remember me as fun and caring. They surely saw what size I looked like, but to them, it didn't matter. It didn't matter any more to them than what color my eyes were or what, what size shoes I wore. They really saw me. And so they didn't realize how much I weighed. I was always doing things like hiking and going places.
I always had something fun going on. And so that is what they remember for the longest time. My weight didn't hold me back from those things, but in my mind, I was always thinking it was a problem for me and that my weight was a problem for everyone. For everyone else too. I [00:13:00] have grown up to have so much love and appreciation for my body since I began this weight loss journey, even for the body I had before I had lost any weight.
I have so much love and appreciation. My body is and was. I am strong and curvy and attractive. My body allows me to hold those I love and take the best adventures. I am in awe at how my body functions. How I was able to grow a baby in it. The entirety of my body entirety of my body is amazing and inspiring.
Yes, I can look at my knees and knuckles and think these folds and extra skin looks so weird, but it is beautiful and it does exactly what it was supposed to do. I look at the loose skin and the stretch marks and the start of some fine lines and wrinkles. [00:14:00] Yes. I could think they are not attractive or they should not be there.
Yeah. But I don't, I may think that I don't look like models or actresses that I see on TV. And I don't depending on who, who they are or what I'm looking at or how they've been altered. They might not even really look like that either. But when I look at the loose skin, stretch marks, the lines, I really think my body has a story to tell.
I love a good scar for the same reason. It holds an unspoken story. Something happened and it healed. And the person is still here living with the story to tell my body is here. I am living, truly living, and I have such a story to tell.
All righty.[00:15:00]
All right. If you want to share your video, you can, if you want to stay on video, you can, and, uh, however you want to do that. All righty. There you both are. And Jackie, I don't know if you want to share your audio, but your video is on and your audio is not right now. All right. So the first question I had, well, I always ask the same question.
Is there anything that grabbed at either of you?
I guess for me is, um, when you're talking about how you love your body now and how you love the former you. And you're, you know, before you lost the weight, I, that's something I, I, I guess kind of struggle with thinking about, you know, I love my body when I lose the weight, but right [00:16:00] now I'm not at that point where, you know, I feel happy or I can look at myself and think, Oh wow, I like that.
You know? Right. So there was a huge change that had to happen. Right. Right. Right. So like at some point, like you can realize that you can grow and you can change and nothing was wrong with you to start with. And so a lot of times we come to weight loss with this whole thought that something was wrong with us.
We were too overweight or. Something was not good. And so that's why we have to lose weight. And so when I'm telling you, like you are perfect, exactly as you are right now, without ever changing, it makes it very different. It's hard sometimes to believe that you can be in the same space. Like your brain can share that same space that you're perfect, exactly as you are.
And. that you still want to lose weight. Not that you [00:17:00] have to, not that you need to, but you want to totally different thought thinking. Um, what about you Jackie girl? Okay. I'm here. Okay. I feel the same way she does as far as just not there yet. It didn't come on. What?
Oh, yeah. I'm just not there yet. Yeah. I'm still in the same spot that is that Bridget? Yes. Yeah. That Bridget's in that when I look in the mirror, I don't see the person I want to see. I see that I've become and not, not that I don't like this person. I just don't like how I look. And this is not what I, I want to look like or imagine myself looking like.
Yeah. So [00:18:00] with that, Like what I would say is like, if I, if I would, um, since you're talking, let's just stick with you for a second. What is a color that you just hate? A color. What, what color do you not like? Probably black. Okay. Black. What's your favorite color? Purple. Okay. So if I had two pairs of, um, sweatshirts, let's just say sweatshirts.
Mm-Hmm. and one's black and one is purple and you put the purple one on, how do you feel? I feel good. Okay. Because it's a color. I like, it's a color. You'd like. What about the black one? Well, it's funny, the, the black just makes me, um, feel. Like I'm covering up all of this stuff. Well, they're the same size.
They're not like one's a tent and one's like perfectly fitted. They're the same shape, the same, [00:19:00] the same size. They're just different colors. One you prefer and one you don't, right? And so there was nothing wrong with the black sweatshirt. It didn't have holes in it. It, it wasn't ill fitting. It was just not your preference.
Yes, that's correct. And so when your brain, but when your brain starts kind of thinking that way, like there was nothing wrong with your body before you just have a preference, you know, it's like women who dye their hair, there was nothing wrong with their original color. They just prefer. To look a different way.
Yes. Right. It's all in our mindset. And what is a hundred percent in your mind? Yes. And so like, there's some more videos that I I've got coming up about how like social media responses are and different things like that. And like, the truth is like, there's nothing wrong. Like it, like right now you're just wearing a black [00:20:00] sweatshirt and you prefer the purple one.
Right. Does that make sense? It doesn't make perfect sense, but that's not what we've been telling ourselves. So how do you, how do you start telling yourself a different story? Um, I mean, that's what I started doing with my daily journals that is, it's like, okay, I keep in the back of my mind what you say, you know, everything that I tell myself, I'm going to look for that.
So I'm looking for telling my, myself good things instead of negative things. So it makes me feel better. Like your, I am statements. I am strong. I am confident, but why don't I act that way when it comes to my weight? Why don't you have an, I am statement? Like I am [00:21:00] beautiful or I am perfect as I am. Right.
I don't do that one. You haven't practiced. I don't feel like I'm perfect as I am. But I should, I should use that. You, you just haven't started practicing it, you know? Well, yes, I did. I started practicing this week. Oh, how's it going? It's myself is not acting. I haven't done the mirror trick though, but I, I have written myself notes in the mirror before.
And I like that. I like getting up in the morning, looking at, um, a nice Bible verse or Something that tells me that I am that person in the mirror. Yeah. Like I said, like I, I sometimes have to borrow what God thinks about me because like, um, I just, I believe [00:22:00] that he thinks those things about me. I just, and I don't think he would lie to me.
I just, it was hard for me to believe it about myself in the beginning. So what do you guys, um, either of you can answer, what do you think when you look at pictures of yourself with you in them? Well, I was looking at your picture. And I'm like, I don't remember Kara looking like that. So it's funny that you said that because that is so true.
I don't remember you looking like that. Oh, at my heaviest weight. Yeah. At your heaviest weight. I'm thinking, dang, I didn't even see you. She was at that heaviest weight. Oh, you knew me then you were coming. Yeah. When I was looking at the picture, I'm like, who is this? Yeah. Bridget, what do you think when you look at a picture of yourself?
I hate it. I try to avoid pictures, family, getting the picture taken or you avoid looking at them. Both, both. Like, do you like looking at [00:23:00] pictures of other people? Like if, if a coworker came in with like some vacation pictures, do you like to look at a couple of them or get on social media and see what other people's pictures look like?
When you look at someone else's picture, what are you looking at? I don't know. I mean, if it's Just like, you know, whatever they might've done on their trip or events or where they went, um, you know, those types of things. So when you look at them, like one of the things, kind of like what Jackie was saying, she didn't ever see my size.
She didn't see it. So like, when you look at a picture, you might notice that like, Oh, they looked at like, especially if like you work in a place where people come in pretty business professional, you know, and they're in a bikini, you're like, Oh, well, that's a different look that I'm used to, or, Oh, they got a haircut, you know?
So you're just noticing differences. Yeah. And your brain is going to say like, I like that one or, oh, [00:24:00] I don't like that one, but that doesn't make the person a better person or a worse person because you've noticed a difference. It's just that you've noticed a difference. They still look exactly like they are.
You don't expect them to like, you know, be a size of a model or like, you know, I'm trying And who's your, who's your favorite male actor? Oh God. Um, probably Kevin Costner. I'm watching Yellowstone right now. Yeah, it's a good show. So like you're, you're not expecting them to look like Rip or yeah, or you know, Kevin Costner from Yellowstone or, you know, you're, you're not looking like at a person, you're just looking at them.
And so like you, you like that person. And so when you look at a photo, you're looking at like, look how much fun they had, look in that beautiful there. And like, all of that is so exciting. And so that [00:25:00] mental block in your head, when you look at the photo, you're critiquing every part of your body. And so like I, when I wrote that lesson, I had to sit and think like, what do I think is just like my ugliest part?
And like, I haven't used that kind of language for a while. And so all I could come up with was my weirdest part. And I really think knees and knuckles are the weirdest looking thing. These like wrinkly things. It's like a, Uh, one of those Sharpay dogs or something, you know, that are just, they're so wrinkly.
They're like stinking cute little fuzz balls. And I'm like, there's really nothing ugly about my knees or knuckles. I just think they're weird. And some people think feet are weird, you know? And so like, there's nothing wrong with you. And so when you look at that picture, when you start. First of all, letting yourself be in photos, letting people take photos and letting them post them without you having to give permission or like a filter or, you know, like last approval before it [00:26:00] gets tagged to you.
Yeah. And like, everybody seems to do that, but like, just to like be like, which is part of why nobody realized I had any weight to me until they saw that I didn't have it because I was, I was very active. I was posting vacation photos. I was going hiking, doing all the things. And then they looked at my photos and they were looking at the things I was doing and the fun I was having and like the love I had with the family photos.
And that's what they saw of me. And they. They, they loved me. They liked me. And so that's what they saw in the photos. And so it wasn't until they had a different body shape to compare it to that they were like, Oh, you did have some weight on you, didn't you? And so not letting it hold you back because people are not looking at you the same way you're looking at you.
All right. What do you see when you look in the mirror? Jackie, you want to take that one since you said you're, [00:27:00] you're just starting to kind of do some of that work. Yeah, um, I wanted to say to you that I saw my Christmas picture at my family gathering, and that's what made me want to do this program, because I just didn't like what I seen, I, I haven't been feeling good.
I haven't. been feeling healthy. My knees been hurting me. They want to replace my knee and I, I'm just not ready for that. So when I look in the mirror, I just, I don't normally look in the mirror actually. Um, when I go for my, um, continuing education, um, I stay at a hotel for three days and of course they have huge, Big mirrors.
And I'm looking at myself, look at that belly you have on you. And it's like, I don't see that belly. Cause I don't have one of those mirrors at my house. So with [00:28:00] your, um, photo, your family photo, right? Yes. So, and we could totally coach on this, but I know we're going to run out of time first. So if you look at that family photo and you have a thought.
That like, it's a black sweatshirt versus a purple sweatshirt. And there was nothing wrong with the way you looked. It was exactly what you look like. You know, it's a slice of time. We're going to have a billion different slices of time and we will look a billion different ways. It's just that you notice that you happen to prefer purple sweatshirts over black sweatshirts.
Yeah. And so. It might have motivated you to do something, which is not a problem. The problem happens when you beat yourself down about looking a certain way. And so when you start practicing with like, you know what I am, and here's another one that you can try on and see how it feels. I am so [00:29:00] glad. That I saw that photo of me and because of that photo and me noticing, like, I hadn't realized what I looked like for a while.
Cause I had stopped looking. Now I look at myself. And now that I look at myself, I look at what do I want? What do I desire? What color sweatshirt do I even prefer? Yeah. What do I prefer? And so it's motivated you to take a look at what kinds of things you like. You're not just doing whatever anymore.
You're intentionally creating things. You're intentionally wearing the purple sweatshirt now. And so, um, I know that's a goofy analogy, but it's like, It separates you just enough to understand the difference. Even my husband made a comment to me yesterday, because I've only missed one day out of the 15 days of my movement.
And he goes, I cannot believe that you're doing this every day. [00:30:00] Yeah. He goes, and you've been dedicated. And I'm like, which that's so fabulous that they see that. But the thing is, I know that you were validating yourself too. So anything he says, if it aligns with what you're thinking, you think damn Skippy and like one more cherry on top.
I've already decided I've got this, but like, thanks for noticing, you know? And if he had said like, I don't know why you're doing this, you'd be like, no, it's all right. I know why I'm doing it. I'm feeling good about it. Yep. So yeah, it's that valid. And he usually does set me up. Yeah. Oh, not on purpose. It's just how he says things.
Just, um, I don't know. I mean, I don't think it's like a failure thing. It's just, he doesn't have a weight loss. I don't know if I told you this but one year I went down to New Orleans, and I told [00:31:00] it, he was talking about that he just needs to stop eating dessert, and that's, and he'll lose weight. So he's reached the age now because we're, he turned 60, and I'm going to turn 60 this year, and we, you know, with age.
You know, it's harder to take, um, take weight off and, um, but that year, this was like about 10 years ago. I said, I told him I put a voodoo curse on him to, to show him what it was like to have to lose weight because all of a sudden he couldn't lose weight. He goes, take that voodoo curse off of me. And I'm like, what are you talking about?
So I know, I know Jackie that you're kind of newer into the program. And so remind me at your next coaching session, because, um, He sets me up for failure is a thought. And that's a thing that we will talk about at that session. So just don't let me forget. Okay. So I'm going to hop off here. We have our [00:32:00] next coaching call Friday, February 4th at 9 30 AM.
And then I want one more question, but this one, you're just going to take with you and kind of think on it. So you've got the ideas about you being in the picture and what that means. You've got some mirror work, okay? Yep. The next thing I want you to do is look at your closet and your drawers. Okay? When you have clothes that are sitting in your drawers that are either too big or too small, then that is you not being okay with exactly where you are.
And it's not to say, I want you to get rid of everything. Typically, I'll tell you, if it's too big for you, just get rid of it 'cause you're never going backwards. And if there's clothes that are smaller than where you're at now. You can keep them, but I don't want you looking at them every day. So take them out of your closet so that when you go to get dressed every day, everything in your closet is gonna fit you today.
And then when you switch sizes, you switch out your wardrobe. But if you go in and you're always picking out a shirt, that's [00:33:00] too small, and it's going to set your influence for the day of what your consequence, like your circumstances are going to look like. So. Take a moment as your homework, look at your clothes, see what you have in there and see how you can make that closet, those drawers set so that everything in it is going to fit you today.
And you will love going in and getting clothes, which is the start of your day. Okay. I'll see you guys at coaching. Bye. Okay. Bye.
