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If we want to be successful in ANY endeavor it all comes down to one thing. And if we don’t have this one thing we will self-sabotage without fail EVERY SINGLE TIME.
What’s this one thing you ask? It is a rock-solid relationship with yourself. I’m sure you may have heard this before, but you probably haven’t heard it put this way.
I like to think about the relationship with ourselves as the foundation of any goal we have. And because I specialize in weight loss, let’s talk about that goal. When we have a foundation of a solid relationship with ourselves, just like a solid foundation for a house, we can lose weight and keep it off. On the other hand, if we have a weak foundation, just like a house would, our goal will inevitably fall apart.
I like to think about the relationship with ourselves this way: picture a 5-year-old version of yourself running a marathon, that marathon being life. Feel free to picture yourself as your 5-year-old version inner child or as your truest self. The truest self is the part of you that holds all of your hopes and dreams and knows your deepest fears and regrets. Now picture yourself as the fan who shows up for that inner child/truest self. The dynamic between you as the fan and your inner child/truest self defines the relationship with yourself.
For a couple of minutes, I want you to close your eyes and look back on the past few days. If you were observing yourself as the fan (as an on-looker) having a conversation with the 5-year-old version of yourself/truest self what would that conversation sound like? How would you report back regarding the dynamic of that relationship?
If we are honest with ourselves, many of us have a semi-abusive relationship with ourselves. And if we actually observed this dynamic in real life we would want to put an end to it.
The default conversation at times sounds like, “you need to be better, you need to shape up, you’re just not good enough and you will never be. Your track record is awful and you might as well just quit.” This is typically followed by feeling awful and eating to numb the awful feelings and escape our own creation. This is when self-sabotage happens. This is when we convince ourselves that it won’t matter, we can start again on Monday or that we deserve a treat.
In the race analogy, this looks like showing up for our inner child by way of throwing rotten tomatoes at them and booing or completely running away from them and telling them they aren’t good enough. Meanwhile, we are constantly wondering why we want to throw in the towel in this race (weight loss journey). Who wouldn’t want to quit if their one consistent fan was treating them this way?
But if we take a minute to ask ourselves how we would treat a 5-year-old if we were taking care of her, we would be unwilling to treat them in this manner. The majority of us would be kind and compassionate to them. We would want to feed them nutritiously and give them what they need to thrive. We would never, in our right mind, want them to feel bad or ashamed.
So, if you are currently looking for the right food program or wondering why you keep failing at your weight loss attempts, look no more. Once you build a rock-solid relationship with yourself everything else will fall into place. Once you shift the dynamic with yourself to be one of love, encouragement, guidance, and compassion, you LITERALLY will be able to achieve ANY goal.
And this is what I help my clients to do. Together, we identify where we aren’t being kind to ourselves. We build trust with ourselves and an incredible relationship that prevents self-sabotage from happening.
The relationship we have with ourselves is the only ‘home’ that we have here on earth, just as the quote from Jon Kabit-Zinn says, “Wherever you go there you are.”. Let’s make your home an amazing place to come back to each and every day.
It would be my honor to chat more with you and get you started on the only path that works to lose weight once and for all. Sign up for a discovery session here:
Jennifer Oney Coaching 