EP:220 Interview with Annie

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to the Reversing Diabetes with Delane MD Podcast. I'm Delane Vaughn, a board certified family practice doctor, a former emergency room nurse, veteran healthcare provider, and the host of this podcast. This podcast is for women who are not ready to let go of their longevity, their vitality, and their vigor. It's for women who know that life is a gift and they're not ready to start the downward spiral of letting that go with a disease like type two diabetes. S this podcast is for badass women who master hard things in many other areas of their life, but can't seem to master chocolate cake. If that's you, let's talk. Today we are going to have an interview with a listener who has agreed kindly to come onto the podcast and be interviewed while she gets coached so that you can figure out and see what coaching is about. But before we get started with that, I do want to remind you, if you are taking medications, please be careful. You have been medicated for the way you have eaten in the past, and if you change the way you eat, you are going to need to change your medications. So get a clear line of communication. Open with your medical provider, let them know what you're doing, find out how they want you to share your blood sugar readings with them, and then how they're going to share with you changes that you need to be making to your medication regimen. Please be very careful as you change the way you eat if you're on meds because you can get very sick, the kind of sick that involves hospitalization, death, all of the bad things in life. So please be really careful with that. I also want to ask you to share this podcast. Studies show that nine out of ten Americans have the same hyperinsulinemia and diseases of hyperinsulinemia that we talk about during this podcast. That means a lot of people that you know probably are also struggling with similar issues. So share the podcast. You can share it on your social media platforms. You can send it through email. If you're listening on a podcast player, you can rate and review the podcast and that gets the podcast out to more people. So share the podcast, rate, review it, help me get this message out to others so that they realize that they don't have to be sick forever. Also, you can also follow me on Instagram and Facebook and then you can join the Reversing Diabetes with Delanemd Facebook group. It's actually delanemd, reversing diabetes. If you look that up, search that on Facebook, you will find it. And then lastly, I want to remind you, if you have been trying these strategies and are struggling to get them to stick or struggling to implement them, are struggling to figure out why you can't see the results that you're looking for, why you haven't been able to. I am offering diabetes reversal assessment calls. These are 45 minutes calls where you and I hop on a call it's a zoom call and we talk about what your obstacles are. We figure out why you haven't been able to overcome them and get you some clarity on what to do going forward at that point. If you are interested in hearing about working with me in my group, awesome. We can talk about that also. But we can get you some help moving forward in this. So you can go to my website, delanemd.com, or you can go to my calendar. It's at calendly.com delanemd. And callanly is C-A-L-E-N-D-L-Y. So you can go there. You can have access to my calendar. You can sign up there. You can always send me an email at [email protected]. I'm always happy to help. So we are going to get started with the coaching podcast with Annie. All right. Hi, Annie. Welcome to the podcast. I'm so glad you're here. [00:03:30] Speaker B: Good morning. [00:03:32] Speaker A: So since the last time we talked, we talked a week or so ago some about the effort moments, right. And did some coaching around that. How have things been going? Or I guess before we jump into what's gone forward, what do you remember? What did you get from that first coaching call that we did? [00:03:56] Speaker B: That I am worth it. That's what I got from it. That I am worthy. [00:04:04] Speaker A: That. [00:04:09] Speaker B: Moment of enjoying something off plan is not worth sabotaging my long term goals for, because it is only enjoyable in that moment in time and it passes in the five minutes that you eat it. [00:04:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. So let's talk about what's gone forward then. [00:04:40] Speaker B: I am in transition of jobs, so I'm using that as my excuse to feel sorry for myself and that I deserve it, that it will make me feel better while I'm looking for a job. It fills the boredom, all the things. [00:05:07] Speaker A: Okay. Can you give me an example, a specific example? [00:05:13] Speaker B: Especially eating when I'm not hungry. So I'll spend like, an hour looking for jobs, and then I go sit and watch TV, and I eat something healthy. I start out good. I eat the same breakfast every day, which is half a plate of mixed greens with just plain balsamic vinegar on it and three eggs. I have been doing that breakfast for months, and it makes me feel good. I start out good, but then by the time, even if it's 15 minutes after eating that, I'm like, okay, now what am I going to do? I'm bored. So I'll go get some chips or I'll go get something sweet to eat, and I just don't care right now. [00:06:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Why do you think that you don't care right now? There's something behind that. What's behind that in your brain? [00:06:21] Speaker B: I don't care because, honestly, what I tell myself is that I'm a piece of shit and it doesn't matter. One more is not going to hurt. [00:06:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:39] Speaker B: I used to do the same thing with alcohol. I was the queen of just one more. And I have learned and I gave that an experiment. I didn't drink for like five months, and I let myself experiment and quickly learned that I cannot have one because one leads to ten. [00:07:00] Speaker A: Yeah. So a couple of things, right. When your brain is I don't care when your brain is in that space, my question for you right now is why is doing this important for you? [00:07:22] Speaker B: It's important to me. And I wish I could see and keep in mind the long term goal. Because why it's important to me is because I don't want to be a burden to my kids and follow in the footsteps that my mom has taken me down the road of because she chose not to take care of herself. And for ten or 15 years now, it's involved a lot of my time of taking care of her. And it's kind of like those kids who grow up with alcoholics, and they're either alcoholics or they don't drink at all. And I feel like I'm just following down the same footpath of not eating well and not taking care of myself. I'm learning. I know so much, but it's just putting that knowledge in implementing it. [00:08:19] Speaker A: Sure. So this is a common thing that we experience, and I think that even in society, we're kind of taught that it's okay to do it for somebody else. But this idea that you're trying to improve you better you take care of you so that you can dictate how somebody else's experience so you're not a burden for your kids. Right. Like, I'm trying to change me so I can orchestrate their experience. Right. There is a truth to it doesn't matter. And that's a hard I'm going to let that land for a minute. There is a truth to it doesn't matter. And the truth to that is there's nothing that you do that causes feelings or thoughts or experiences for your kids. If your kids decide you're a burden, that's going to be their thought process that decides that it truly doesn't matter what you do because that's not what creates their experience. What do you think about that. [00:09:37] Speaker B: When you say that? Are you saying it doesn't create their experience? Because they will choose which path to take in regards to caring for me. Like, they can care for me and choose to let me be a burden, or they can choose not to care for me and not be a burden. Is that like where you're who gets. [00:10:01] Speaker A: To decide what's a burden? [00:10:04] Speaker B: No. [00:10:06] Speaker A: Right. That's not a 100% consistent through all the humans experiences a burden. Right. Some people take care of their parents. I don't have any judgment to this. And not even like I'm not even I don't know, maybe I do have judgment, but whatever it is, I'm with you. I don't want to have to care for my parents long term. I don't want my parents getting shitty care either. So I would probably do it. Right. But sure, there is a trade off of my personal time in order to ensure my parents don't get crappy care, right. So if I decide to look at it as a burden, that's really heavy and I suffer with it, my parents don't suffer with it at all. I suffer with it. Right. So that idea that it's a burden is just optional. It's not right or wrong, it's just optional. And whether your children decide to look at your care as burdensome is going to be what they decide to do. Right. And some kids don't want to have to do anything because it would be a burden. And some kids don't want to have to do X number of hours a week because it's a burden. Right. What is a burden is individually decided. And what you're saying is, yes, some kids will be like, I ain't taking care of you, I'm going to put you in home and I'm going to go to the beach. Right? Sure. [00:11:40] Speaker B: Yes, they're taking care of me is not guaranteed. [00:11:43] Speaker A: Exactly. So curiously, knowing that for you, part of the issue that you're going to need to unpack at some point is that you see caring for your mother as a burden and you don't want to be that. You're not running to a life of vigor and vitality and health. You're running from being a burden to your children. Does that make sense? [00:12:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:12:14] Speaker A: Running from something scary only works until the fear is gone. Right? Like, don't utilize running from a tiger as a way to start an exercise program. Right? Because as soon as the tiger stops chasing you, you will stop running. That's not an effective long term change. Unless the fear, the thing that is pushing that you're running from is present and you're not a burden on your kids yet, which is why you're having a hard time implementing this strategy. Right. And I want to offer by the time you will be a quote unquote burden on your children, you won't be able to you're going to have to start running to what you want in life, not away from what you don't want. [00:13:07] Speaker B: That's good. [00:13:08] Speaker A: What do you think about that? How much time have you spent thinking about what you want to run to? [00:13:15] Speaker B: Not a lot. Yeah, no wonder you're having a hard. [00:13:19] Speaker A: Time implementing that, right? [00:13:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I tend to be a negative thinker instead of a positive thinker. [00:13:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:26] Speaker B: I focus on the. [00:13:30] Speaker A: So and I hear that and yeah, definitely life is going to be more positive. I saw a thing on Facebook the other day. If you focus on shitty things, you see shitty. [00:13:44] Speaker B: True. Yeah. [00:13:45] Speaker A: Right. So maybe there's some reprogramming in your brain to be done with that. Okay, fine. But again, if you're wanting it to matter, it's got to have nothing to do with your kids, right? Because it's never going to matter to them. What matters to them is in their brain. I don't know that you and I have ever talked about this whole idea of the brain being a prediction model and how that works. If you think of your brain as a machine, your brain takes in data. It takes in data through our sensory organs, right? So you have eyes, you have ears, you have a nose, you have mouth, you can taste things, you can touch things, and you take in information through your senses, and it goes to your brain. And your brain works as a prediction machine to give you models of what may or may not happen. Those models of what may or may not happen are based on what your experiences have been in the past, right? Like, it's hard to predict something that could happen if you've never even heard of it, right? So your brain creates these predictions based on the senses that come in, and it relays those predictions from the brain to the body in the form of feelings, these vibrations that we have. So if you see $100 on the ground with your eyes, brain is like, oh, $100 can buy this, right? And your brain sends that prediction. Like, I can buy this. That prediction gets sent to your body in the form of excitement. That's the way you feel it in your body. And then from that feeling, you act on those experiences, on that emotion, right? Your children seeing you need help, their brain is going to filter that based on their experiences. And because of what they've seen with you and your mom, maybe they will decide it's a burden, but it's not a requirement, right? Like, they could very well be like, yes, this happened with mom and Grandma, but I love her so much, and I love everything that my mother has done for me. I have a son that says this, and I know he's 15. He'll change his mind. But whenever he asks me for something, I'm like, well, I want you to remember this whenever you're choosing my nursing home. That's the joke. Like, you better remember Mama took care of you. Mama did what you asked, and you better remember that when you're choosing my nursing home. And what he has said for the last, like, three or four years, oh, mom, you're not going to go to a nursing home. You're going to stay with me. You're just going to stay with me. So very sweet, right? Because his experience of what it means to need help is so limited. Like, he can't even make the prediction of how horrible it could be, right? Certainly, like, every kid is going to take that information, what they hear from you, what they see of you, and they're going to make their own they're going to filter it through their own brain and give a prediction based on that. Okay. It's up to the kid to do that. There is literally nothing you can or cannot do that is going to change that. And I know that that's hard to believe, but understand some kids see, like, my I can remember my mom expected me to come to Christmas. That was a huge burden. Right. That filtering in my brain was clearly a me thing, not an every kid thing. Right. Does that make sense? Yeah. Or do you really feel like, no, if I just do it better, they won't have to deal with this. There's something that I can do that will change their opinion of me being a burden. Do you believe that? I do. [00:17:38] Speaker B: I feel like if I do my part and I do what I can to be healthier long term, then it won't be an option yet for them. [00:17:50] Speaker A: So I want you to just humor me for a minute. If you go forward in time to when you're 80 years old and you've spent the last 2030 I don't know how 30 years, how old are you now? Okay, great. 30 years. You've spent 20 to 30 years, 25 I don't know, 30 years. You've spent non diabetic. You fixed it when you were 51 and you lost weight, and you normalized your numbers, and you have been living healthy. You've been doing all the things you want to do. And at 80 years old, you don't even need them. You're off doing your own thing, and it's time to go on a vacation. And you call your kids and you're like, hey, I want you to come on vacation with me. And they're like, Mom, I just don't have time for that. That's too much of a burden. Do you think that it's possible that could happen? Absolutely. Okay. Tell me what you were thinking. [00:18:47] Speaker B: Well, expectations lead to disappointment. I have learned that with my 21 year old Marine when he has come home and I get zero time. [00:19:05] Speaker A: And it's because we expect it and it's a burden to them. And you're not where your mother is, right? [00:19:11] Speaker B: Not yet. No, not even close. Yeah, not even close. [00:19:17] Speaker A: You don't. [00:19:20] Speaker B: My mom even probably in her thirty s and forty s was insulin dependent. [00:19:27] Speaker A: Yeah, but she wasn't, like, needing things from you. She could plant her own garden if she needed to in 30s. Right? [00:19:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:41] Speaker A: And if she couldn't, I just want you to see, like, you're not at a place where you would ever consider yourself a burden on your kids right now, and still they're like, too much. You're asking too much. When I'm home for my ten day leave to hang out with your mom. [00:20:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:02] Speaker A: So recognizing that you don't get to dictate that for them, they're going to decide, and they're going to decide based on their experience, and it isn't what you're doing that creates that. And yes, I totally agree. Expectations lead to disappointment. And if you're going to have expectations, you'd better be okay with a little disappointment because you can't impose them on others, right? [00:20:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:29] Speaker A: Okay. So curiously, how long have you had this strife with your mom? [00:20:40] Speaker B: Since high school. [00:20:42] Speaker A: Okay. And can you think of an example of a similar structure? I know that we talked the last time about your mom had flowering, like, planting, like a garden had bought things to plant, and her expectation was that you would come over and do it, right? Yes. And that's like, you're like, this is the kind of stuff I don't want to have to do when I'm her age, right? [00:21:09] Speaker B: Yes. I choose to still do things even if I'm cussing under my breath. [00:21:16] Speaker A: Yes. And that's a different thing. And we get to do that, right? Like, we get to cuss under our breath and still like the reasons that we do it. Right. [00:21:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:26] Speaker A: But is that something tell me about an example when you were in high school, when you were 18 years old and your mother was, quote unquote, like this. [00:21:40] Speaker B: Well, I can remember more, even on my dad's side. I remember one time when I went off to college, he told me, boy, I'm going to really miss you because there's not going to be anyone here to clean the house. [00:21:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:53] Speaker B: I mean, the expectation was that I did those things. And the expectation when I was young was that instead of enjoying my summer, that I had to spend the summer working in the garden and picking green beans. And then when mom would come home, we had to can it all. But I thought my mom didn't have a lot of friends of her own. I don't ever remember my mom doing anything with her friends. So when I do stuff with my friends, she makes me feel guilty about it or I allow myself to feel guilty about it. [00:22:33] Speaker A: Yeah. What if all of that is your mom and not you? What I mean by that is your mother maybe imposes expectations upon you, and it's the dynamics of your relationship that you get hooked by those expectations. And there's maybe a story like, good daughters do this. This is what we do for family. I'm expected nobody else is going to help her. There's probably all sorts of stories that are optional, but that's what it is. [00:23:00] Speaker B: And you're correct on all of those. Yeah, I've heard those all. [00:23:04] Speaker A: Yeah. And you feel obligated to do it, and you do it out of obligation because you don't want to upset her. Yes. What if it has nothing to do with her diabetes? What if it's just the way she is? [00:23:19] Speaker B: It's not my fault. I can't change her. I can't control her expectations. All I can control is the way I react to them. [00:23:35] Speaker A: Absolutely. But more than that, you're trying to fix your diabetes so that you're not like your mother. But the thing that is like your mother, quote, unquote. The thing that you're not wanting to be like your mother has nothing to do with her diabetes, I'm afraid. It has to do with your mom, and it's just how she is, and it's how she's always been. [00:23:57] Speaker B: I'm the one who's decided it's because of her diabetes, because the way she chose to eat caused her diabetes, which has now caused all these long term health issues. So in my mind, I do see that diabetes was the issue. Not that that's just who she is. [00:24:20] Speaker A: But even when she was 18, she had these expectations of you. [00:24:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:27] Speaker A: And I don't think it was just once when you were 18, and then now when you're 50 and she's sick, I imagine it's been three decades and probably four or five. This is just the way she is. The thing that you are trying to outrun from your mother has far more to do with your mother's personality than it does to do with her disease state. Do you believe that? Yes, I do. So what if you never have to outrun that? What if you're never going to be the burden on your children that your mother is to you? What if that's never a possibility because you're not your mom? [00:25:14] Speaker B: That would change my why. [00:25:16] Speaker A: Right. And what I want you to see is this why hasn't been compelling enough to get you to do different things. Right? [00:25:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:23] Speaker A: So maybe it's valid to change that why. Maybe that's never a threat. Maybe you're never going to be your mom. Was your mom thinking of you today at 50 and your mom at 50? Are they the same. [00:25:42] Speaker B: A lot? Yeah. [00:25:44] Speaker A: How are you like your mom? [00:25:52] Speaker B: I would say I would say not a lot. But other people have said they have seen similar traits, and that scares me because I don't want to be seen as a selfish person. [00:26:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Do you see the similar traits? [00:26:18] Speaker B: No, I don't. I think she's a very negative, selfish person. [00:26:26] Speaker A: Yeah. And there may be some overlapping. It's going to be really hard to fall from that tree and not have some characteristics that are the same. Right. [00:26:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:35] Speaker A: But when you think of what's led your mom to being where she's at sick wise and where she's at with the expectations of you with that part, with the expectation part, where are you seeing similars similarities between where your mom was at 50? Because I'm assuming she had expectations of you when she was 50 also, and she was probably pretty open about them. Are you seeing similarities in that arena for you. [00:27:09] Speaker B: Her at 50 and me at 50? [00:27:11] Speaker A: Yes. [00:27:12] Speaker B: MMM. Yes. [00:27:21] Speaker A: Do you see a lot of them, and do you like them? [00:27:31] Speaker B: Yes and no. [00:27:33] Speaker A: Okay. [00:27:34] Speaker B: I take pride that I take such good care of my mom. I feel like a lot of times, honestly, I will use that as a way for attention. I got to go do all this for my mom. And people give me a lot of attention, like, oh, you're such a good daughter, and I get a lot of praise for it. I would never do that for my parents. [00:28:05] Speaker A: And. [00:28:08] Speaker B: That your mom expects way too much out of you. You shouldn't do it. Like, I have boundary issues. [00:28:17] Speaker A: Why is it important for you to get praised that way? [00:28:33] Speaker B: It makes me feel good. I like to be recognized for what I do yes. [00:28:41] Speaker A: By others. [00:28:43] Speaker B: Definitely. Words of affirmation are definitely my love language. [00:28:50] Speaker A: Okay, we're going to take this high for a minute above. We're going to give a perspective above for a moment. [00:28:58] Speaker B: Okay. [00:29:00] Speaker A: You don't want to put your children in the position that you're in with caring for an elder parent. And you love the affirmations that you get because of caring for an elder parent. On some level, it's going to be really hard for you not to continue in that path. Right. Because you're getting this positive or at least seeing. Right? Of course. I'm going to keep trying to recreate this for myself because there's a part of it that I'm really gleaning some feel good feelings from. [00:29:41] Speaker B: Worth, right? [00:29:42] Speaker A: Yes. If that's where your worth comes from, it's hard for you to not want that for yourself. Not want, continue to want it's. Not even that you want it. You don't see that there's a problem with it because there is this really positive pillar of your experience that's coming from it. Right. [00:30:05] Speaker B: That's messed up, isn't it? It's like, I'm fussing about it over here on one side, but then I like the attention and praise that I get from being such an awesome daughter. [00:30:16] Speaker A: Yes. How else could you get that praise? [00:30:30] Speaker B: My helping others. But then I feel like if I'm helping others, I'm not helping her. [00:30:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:36] Speaker B: I would love to volunteer more, especially, like, at my church, but I can just like this is again, what happens when you make an assumption, right? Right. You and me. Right. So I assume if I were to volunteer and do other things for other people, I'm going to hear it from her that, well, you have time for them. Why weren't you doing that for me? [00:31:02] Speaker A: When was the last time that you heard that from your mom? [00:31:06] Speaker B: I've never heard it from her. [00:31:08] Speaker A: Wow. Well, there you go. [00:31:09] Speaker B: I'm doing that to myself. [00:31:11] Speaker A: Yes. So here's the deal. You are being a mean girl to yourself and expecting others to remedy the meanness, and they just can't do it effectively. Right. It's almost like that instant gratification of the food, right? Like, you want to feel good because you're eating. Like you want to get that feel goodedness from the oreos or whatever. And you know you're going to feel good and it's going to fade, and you're going to feel horrible later. You're doing these things, these actions with your mother to get attigirals adulation from others. And, you know, as soon as that voice has stopped talking, the mean girl is going to be back. This adulation is going to fade because the mean girl lives within you. Yeah, that's the part. What do you think it would be like if there was no more mean girl inside of you talking to you? If there was no more of her, and that all of the adulation that you ever needed came from within you? [00:32:27] Speaker B: It would be amazing if I didn't depend on outside resources to reaffirm. I'm good enough. [00:32:38] Speaker A: Yeah. How would your life think of this five years from now, if five years from now, all of your positive reinforcement not all of it, but, say, 80% of your positive reinforcement was coming from within you, like you had enough to fill your cup. Let's say that right now you're relying on others, on an external source of positive reinforcement to fill your cup. [00:33:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:13] Speaker A: And then your mean girl inside of you keeps pulling the drain and draining the cup, right? [00:33:18] Speaker B: Yes. [00:33:19] Speaker A: So if you were having positive reinforcement coming from internally to fill your cup, and then others fill it a little bit, too, and it's just like icing on the cake. Not to bring cake into it, but it is just extra. I want you to imagine your life and that infiltrating your life. What would be different about you? Five years from now, I have to. [00:33:54] Speaker B: Fix this, because five years from now, mom's probably not going to be here. So I need to figure out a way to affirm myself. [00:34:06] Speaker A: Yeah. And I find it interesting. I think that the vision of this is difficult for you to get into your mind's eye. [00:34:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:20] Speaker A: Again, remember, your brain takes information out of its sensory organs and filters it through there, and it makes predictions based on that, and it tells your body what predictions we have by feelings. It's difficult for you to get a prediction and a feeling that drives action for you because you can't even get that prediction. It's no wonder that you're having this hard time. Of course, your brain's like, it doesn't matter. I don't even care. So maybe let's take some baby steps, right? Rome wasn't built in a day. Let's take some baby steps. Do you think that it's true what your inner voice says to you about your value? [00:35:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:20] Speaker A: Tell me why it's true. [00:35:30] Speaker B: Um evidence. [00:35:35] Speaker A: What evidence? [00:35:40] Speaker B: Of losing things. Losing people. [00:35:44] Speaker A: Losing them to them. Passing away or losing them? Both. [00:35:51] Speaker B: It why are you losing a friend? The friendship ended, and the ex husband leaving me for someone else, not making it. I know this is so stupid at 50, but still, that's where not being good enough came from. Was not making cheerleading in junior high for three years in a row and then losing my job after 24 years due to a downsizing. All these things. And then now, recently, my boss. Changed directions. I didn't lose my job necessarily because of performance. He changed directions and I'm no longer needed. But again, yeah. All these things, I feel like, reinforce that there's something wrong with me. [00:36:49] Speaker A: And this goes back to that concept of nothing you do creates other people's actions. And this is a hard pill for us to swallow. It was hard for me to swallow. It was like, no, you don't get it. I actually rule the world from my two shoulders. Do you not know I can do all of it? Right. When we can start to separate that there's really a levity to life that comes along. Right. When I say to somebody, I'm just going to be really off the chart rude. You're a total jerk. Because oh, when I'm driving on the road, right, like, when I'm driving on the road and somebody's driving in the passing lane and I'm like, what is wrong with these people? You're an idiot. Clearly you don't know how to drive. Your license needs to be revoked. And now, would I say this to somebody's face? Maybe not. It depends on how fiery I was. Right. But I definitely think it what causes me to have that verbal spewing in my brain or out of my mouth. What causes that? [00:37:59] Speaker B: I would say past experience. Something happened that confirmed that in your mind. And so your mind continues to replay that example over and over. [00:38:09] Speaker A: Yeah, it's not the jackass in front of me who's in the wrong lane. It is not his fault, her fault, it's all mine. Because there's lots of people who are in the same position in a car behind somebody in the passing lane, and they're not upset about it at all. In fact, I would offer there's probably more people in the world that have that experience than my fiery experience. Right. Lots of people lose friendships and maybe they aren't ready to lose the friendship, but somebody else is. What in your brain? What does your brain tells you that causes that friendship loss? When you lose a friendship and you are not ready to let it go. [00:38:56] Speaker B: There was only one, but it was very a 20 year friendship and nothing happened. I decided that I felt like I was always the one leading everything, and so I decided to sit back and wait and see if she would initiate anything. And I never heard from her again. [00:39:21] Speaker A: Yeah, and why not? What does your brain tell you? [00:39:30] Speaker B: At that time, I felt like I wasn't well off enough, money wise. She had remarried someone who had money, and I feel like she really changed a lot because of that. She no longer had to work and her circle of friends changed and. [00:40:04] Speaker A: I. [00:40:04] Speaker B: Felt like I was too blue collar. I wasn't good enough. [00:40:11] Speaker A: Right. And I hope you listen to this back on the podcast. You just gave me a list of things that happened in her life and you make it mean something about you. It's her. It's always her. And here's the other thing. I'm going to throw a value statement or a value question out to you. What do you think about people who don't hang out or can't be friends or can't associate with people who aren't on the same financial level that they are? What do you think about those kind of people? [00:40:52] Speaker B: Do I think of the people that are the lower class or the higher. [00:40:56] Speaker A: Class, the people who won't associate with others because they aren't as financially well off as they are. What do you think about those kind of people? [00:41:03] Speaker B: They're assholes. [00:41:05] Speaker A: Then why do you want to be friends with her anyway? Right? Of course. That's it. And this is the thing. This is the rudest, this is the meanest thing. This is what I want desperately to if I could fix this in every woman for them, I would. You're willing to say you're the problem because she's an asshole. That is the meanest girl thing you can ever do. And it truly like, for me, it offends me for you, where you should be offended. I'm like offended for you. Right. If I could fix this in every woman, I would. You're willing. We do this all the time. Women will do this with weight. They'll be like, oh, if I was just thinner, that guy would date me. Bitch. If that guy will only date you because you're thin, he's not worth your damn time, period. Yeah. If she is not willing to be friends with you because your financial, your tax return doesn't say a certain number, she's not worth your time. It's not you, it's her. [00:42:12] Speaker B: Even with my ex, I was pregnant, and he would tell me I was fat. [00:42:20] Speaker A: What do you think about men who tell women who are pregnant that they're fat? What do you think about them? [00:42:26] Speaker B: Asshole. [00:42:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Why are you going to let an asshole dictate your opinion of you? The fact of the matter is we can go through every single one of these, right? Like, even the cheerleading. Why didn't you get the cheerleading? Maybe your skill set. Maybe you're jump. I couldn't jump when I was in. I mean, I still can't jump. I still to this day, can't jump, right? Maybe there was a skill set that was missing. Maybe the cheer sponsor, the teacher who sponsored the cheer, maybe she was a jerk and she had opinions and blah, blah, blah. Maybe the girls were asshole, maybe the kids were assholes. Whatever it was absolutely whatever reason it was, whether I didn't have the skill to do it and I just wasn't qualified. Okay, fine. That is where I could have either invested some time and become qualified or just decided it wasn't worth whatever I would have to invest. And I'm not going to do that. Fine. Or they're turds. Whatever it is, it's a decision either that you made that it's not valuable enough to do it fine. Or they're turds and you can't override the turds. Like, the turds are going to be there in life. There being a turd doesn't mean anything about you. There's all sorts of skills that we don't have in life, right? Like, I can't fix my car. Is it because I'm so stupid that I can't fix my car? No, it's because I don't want to invest the time in learning how to fix my car. So I pay somebody to do it, right? And I've had car mechanics be like, oh, you're talk down to me because I let the oil change go too late or something. And I'm like, Listen, man, I'm not here for a lecture. He clearly had opinions about me that I was defunct. Somehow I let him keep those. It's okay for him to be wrong. It's not that I'm incapable. It's just not that important to me. I let him keep those. Same thing with the cheerleading. Maybe you were missing a skill set that you just weren't interested in developing. Maybe they had opinions about that. You don't have to borrow their shitty opinions about you. They're theirs, they're not yours. Right. [00:44:49] Speaker B: I like that. [00:44:53] Speaker A: Your work is going to be embodying that mindset. I've had a lot of people I have borrowed a lot of shitty opinions about me from others. And every time that mean girl rears her ugly head, I know it's somebody else's crappy opinion. And I'm going to start letting them keep it. I'm going to start letting them keep it. I'm going to start letting my ex husband keep his opinion because he was a turd anyway. I'm going to start letting that friendship that's lost, I'm going to let her keep those opinions because that doesn't even match my value set. [00:45:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:33] Speaker A: I'm going to just start letting them keep it. And then what is my value set? If you're not spending so much time with her and her shitty opinion, what surfaces is your value set, which is, I love people no matter what they make for money. I think all of us have value no matter what our paycheck looks like. Spending time with that thought is going to feel a whole lot better. [00:45:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:01] Speaker A: Those are the things that you can run to. Why do you want to start drowning or stop drowning yourself out with food and numbing all of these thoughts with food? The reason is because when you can figure out, am I accepting this thought that's in my brain right now? Is this truth? Is this what I'm accepting? Yes or no? When you reject it, if you say yes, you're going to want to eat the food to not feel crappy about yourself, right? But if you reject the I'm crappy, I'm not worthy. I don't have that value. If you reject that and you're not eating, what you allow to surface is what you truly believe about you. And not somebody else's. Zumpy opinion, what were you going to say? [00:46:51] Speaker B: I've never given myself an option to reject those thoughts. [00:46:58] Speaker A: I know. [00:47:00] Speaker B: Because I feel like if I'm thinking it, it must be true. [00:47:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Your brain has 60,000 at least thoughts a day that will float through it. They are not all going to be winners. I call this process taking out the trash. You look at the thought, especially the ones like if and what you're going to know. Again, you have a prediction model, right. You have a prediction machine happening. The thought is the prediction. The way it feels in your body is telling you about the prediction. If it feels shitty, it's telling you it's a shitty prediction. It's not a good prediction. I'm going to go ahead and dump that one. Take out the trash. When it feels bad, question it, right? Like fear feels bad, but, God, if there's somebody chasing me with a gun, I kind of want to feel it, right? Like it's time. So question it like, is this reality? Is this something I need to pay attention to? And if it is awesome, do the thing you need to do. Even when it doesn't feel great, that's fine. That's going to be the reality with the food. Right. Like, your brain has had neural pathways that have been run and connected and they're strong and they're tight and they run very easily. And what that means is that when you have a feeling, a crappy feeling, your brain is going to heavily motivate you to repeat a behavior that you've done in the past, which is eating. That's just the way the brain works. So you're going to have this crappy feeling and you're going to be heavily motivated to repeat a behavior. And not repeating that behavior is going to be uncomfortable because of what you know. Okay. So sometimes there's discomfort that you have to question. Like, is this discomfort I want to sit with? When you're being chased by somebody, you're feeling fear and you want to sit with the discomfort, you don't want it to go away. Don't send that one away. Run. Right. When you're feeling the discomfort of wanting to do something that you know is not good for you, sitting with that, like, oh, this is uncomfortable, but I know it's got a purpose. If you're running thoughts in your brain that there's something wrong with you, that you're defunct, that you're not right, that you need somebody else to give you an attigirl because you don't believe it, you know, like, I need to fix this before it's too late. If I don't fix this now, if I don't stop thinking these things now, I'm going to be in a pickle in 30 years. [00:49:30] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [00:49:34] Speaker A: That's a bad feeling that you're going to want to reject. You're going to want to reject the thought, the prediction that came from it. Does that make sense? Annie? [00:49:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:49:46] Speaker A: Is that. [00:49:50] Speaker B: To I need to rewire my brain that everyone else's opinion needs to be theirs and not mine. Yes. And everybody doesn't need to be my friend. [00:50:05] Speaker A: No. And you don't want everybody to be your friend. Like I don't want to be friends with Charles Manson? Not on my list of people. Yeah. And I think know sometimes and I would curiously ask yourself and maybe journal about this, what do I believe about not wanting more friends? Because some of us were taught as children, you should be friend to everybody. We always need more friends. There's no virtue many. Right. Where the fact of the matter is there are people in this world that are not aligned with our authenticity or our integrity and our values and there's no reason to continue to engage with them in a friendly manner. I mean, like, I'm not saying go out and be rude, run them over with your car. I'm not saying anything ridiculous. I'm just saying that you don't have to like them because they don't align with your values. Have you ever had that thought? [00:51:05] Speaker B: No. [00:51:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Have you ever given yourself permission to say that? No. Why not? [00:51:14] Speaker B: I don't know. I think because I put my value and my worth into whatever everyone else they think. [00:51:28] Speaker A: And if I don't like them, they're not going to like me. And then who's going to fill me? Oh, yeah. There is so much power in this for you, Annie. Just know, like, this is going to be like miracle grow to your inner being. Right. You're going to start seeing this when you get a negative feeling in your body, I want you to question what is it? And when your thought is, it's not worth it. I'm not worth it. It's not going to matter anyway. I want you to think about who might have put that in your head. And then I want you to go ahead and leave it with them. And if you can't find anybody, think of the mean girls from cheerleading. Like, think of whoever they can bear the weight of that it's not me. And sometimes it is just negative self talk, but sometimes we can't have that human in our driver's seat. It's okay. I don't know what exactly maybe that part of you is needing. Maybe it needs to be placated. It likely just needs to know that it's okay no matter. Right. Like, that's okay. No matter. But I can't have you saying these things. I can't have you the only thing in my head right now. So I'm going to have to ask you to sit down and relax a little bit. The fact of the matter we've talked about this, right? I still have lung in my air, in my lungs. I've got value enough to go through another day. And it was granted by something way bigger than me. And if there wasn't a reason that I was here, I wouldn't be here. [00:53:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:53:03] Speaker A: It's real simple. So there's enough value that all of these other beliefs, all of these other thoughts, all of these other opinions that you have borrowed from others can go ahead and stay with them. Yeah. [00:53:18] Speaker B: It's so crazy that I have some wonderful, beautiful, lifelong friends. [00:53:23] Speaker A: I know. [00:53:24] Speaker B: And that one person still hurts because. [00:53:31] Speaker A: You make that one person mean that it was you. Sometimes we do do things honestly, like, we're human. Sometimes we make mistakes and we do things that don't align with who we are. And then our onus is to remedy that as best we can. My mother once told me, all you can do is say you're sorry and that you won't do it again. You can't undo what you did. [00:53:56] Speaker B: Right. [00:53:57] Speaker A: And there was such liberation when she told me that. I was so appreciative of that because I was like, oh, it's truly I can be sorry. I can make mistakes. I can be sorry. And then I can learn from those mistakes and go forth and not do it again. That's all I can do. You take responsibility where you need to. You're taking responsibility for things, though, that aren't yours. [00:54:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:54:22] Speaker A: You're like, oh, gosh, my paycheck isn't enough. I must be horrible and I should try to change. No, she's an asshole. Right? And I laugh because you're like, I have hundreds of friends and deep friendships and meaningful friendships. I'm like, you gave me an example of losing one friendship, one ex husband, not getting voted in, chewing and losing your job. You've given me four discrete examples in your life of 50 years that has meant that you aren't valuable. [00:54:53] Speaker B: And I've not told you about the 5000 other awesome things about me. [00:55:00] Speaker A: I know they are there. This is the thing. And I think that this is the experience of the human being. We are so wrapped up in our brain and what happens. I can see it in your smile. I can see it when you talk about your kids. I can see it when you talk about your husband. I already know it's there. Everybody knows it's there. You need to know it's there. How would your health be different if you did. [00:55:32] Speaker B: Be a lot different? [00:55:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:37] Speaker B: Because I wouldn't put sand in my gas tank. [00:55:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:47] Speaker B: So why do I choose to do that to my body? The only one thing God gave me, right? [00:55:54] Speaker A: Yeah. It's because you're believing the things that other people have said and you're treating yourself in the way that others have projected an opinion of you. You're playing that out ironically. You're only playing out the dumpy ones. That's a negativity bias of the brain. Right? Like, this is just the way the brain is wired. Nothing's wrong but being aware of it, suddenly we can't unsee it. Right? Like, oh, this is just negativity bias trying to play out. Where is it coming from? Is it something I really need to pay attention to. If not, take a deep breath and let it blow into the universe. [00:56:37] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:56:38] Speaker A: Yeah. You are so welcome. I guess this is a good place to end. The podcast is really what it comes down to. So I truly appreciate you being so willing and so brave to come on to the podcast. I want to say thank you, and then I will be back next week with another podcast, and there will be other podcast recording sessions, coaching recording sessions. If anybody's interested in that, don't hesitate to email me. [email protected] thank you so much, Annie, for being with us. Thank you.