May Week 1: Stop Being Bossy With Yourself

Welcome to May and our theme of ASK AND ALLOW. This month, we are going to really look at our support systems and focus on strengthening them. Seeking out, receiving, and giving support is a huge skill of weight mastery.

No man or woman is an island—weight management is often a huge team practice.

First there is the ”Inner Team” and the way you support (or don’t support) yourself. Then there are the people in your world, your “Outer Team”, your friends and family, your co-workers and the people you run into in your life. Even your local barista is on your team if they are offering you a croissant every day with your coffee.

How are your teams currently supporting you on your daily success with your Mastery?

This first week I would like to start by looking at how you support yourself.

3 LITTLE STEPS TO STOP BEING BOSSY WITH YOURSELF

Just this week I noticed something that reminded of what I used to do when I struggled with my weight.

I was bossing myself.

How did I know I was bossing myself? I felt stressed out and I really wanted not to do the thing that I was demanding that I should do…”sit down and write!!!”

I was doing some final edits for my new book and had made great strides but was behind because of some extra research.  My Inner Critic didn’t like that I wasn’t “on schedule” and let me know. “Come on, you are never going to finish this thing! What are you doing? You better work twice as hard today and catch up to our (very overzealous) schedule!”

I was overwhelming myself and I felt it in the pit of my stomach. In the meantime, guess who on my Inner Team started to think of ways to let myself off the hook, “It’s okay, you are working so hard already, you should just rest.”

Frankly, that is what I wanted to do -- just stop and rest, which was odd, because I was so enjoying finishing this book until I started bossing myself over it and making unreasonable demands about my writing schedule.

I had to laugh at myself and my own inner mechanisms.  It was the same Inner Critic and Rebel that caused me to struggle with my weight for twenty-five years. Only then it was demands like:

• “Pull yourself together and just be good!”
• “You better lose 10 pounds this week, missy, we need to fit into those pants for the party.”
• “You are not going to eat anything today that isn’t a vegetable or water -- that’s it!”
• “You better get out there and move your ass you lazy pig!”

According to research, when we “boss ourselves” we are actually are being incredibly counter-productive. Why? Our subconscious mind hears what we are saying in harsh tones to ourselves and interprets it as danger.  This sends Flight or Fight response hormones through our brain and actually causes the thinking rational part of our brains to freeze up, leaving us with our ingrained habits. What do our ingrained habits tell us?  To eat in response to stress!

You can see, that bossing yourself can get pretty fattening, very quickly.

So let’s begin to SHIFT out of that bossy attitude and begin to coach ourselves more effectively instead. How? Over this next week, I invite you to  try these three little “shifts” in the way you communicate with yourself.

3 Shifts from Bossy to Boss-Free

1. Check your tone: Feeling stressed? Take a breath and notice the tone with which you are internally speaking with yourself. My guess it might be a little stern. Take another Shift breath and re-say it to yourself in a kinder way.
   BTW: I am making my teenage daughter practice this with how she speaks to me “Breathe honey! Now say what you just said to me in a way that would make me want to do that for you.”
2. Shift your demand to a question instead: When we bark orders at ourselves, our unconscious mind only gets stressed and that is counter- productive. When we ask questions, our imagination is engaged — and since our imagination is in our subconscious mind — that deeper part of you is more apt to get engaged and respond.
3. Let go of the overwhelming expectations. The human mind is never satisfied! We will never be “done”. So why put in front of yourself tasks and goals that stress you out or seem unrealistic. Be kind to yourself and tackle only things that you know you can handle, even if it feels small. Once you accomplish one task you can move on to the next — feeling more confident that you will get it done.

Once you turn in the bossy you for your powerful Inner Coach, you will start feeling better about being in the moment and just being yourself. You no longer will need to hide from the Boss with food or sedate yourself after hearing all the demands.

Try these 3 simple changes this week and see how much more peaceful things become. Have a great week!