You are listening to the Weight Loss for Successful Women podcast with Shannan Christiansen episode number 116. Welcome to Weight Loss for Successful Women, a podcast for women who are ready to break the diet cycle and end their struggle with weight for good. Here’s your host, fortune 100 executive, and certified life coach, Shannan Christiansen.

Hello love. So happy to be back with you, as always. Today’s episode is, oh, I love today’s episode my love. If you need a little like inspiration, you’re going to love it too. It’s one of my favorite topics, and it’s all about how really the lack of self-love is hindering your weight loss and what to do about it. But first I want to do a listener shout out. And today’s listener shout out is from Jenn Taylor. Jenn is one of our Transform Weight Loss coaches. You know, she listens to the podcast every week too. Shout out to Jenn. I love Jenn. Jenn is a beautiful human and I love the work that she does, and I love how she serves all of our Transform Bosses. She is just an amazing human. I know, I know my shout outs lately. I just, I love these women. Oh, I can’t even, I just love them so much.

So, her review was: This podcast is full of information and tools that you can begin to apply to begin to take back control of life. For so long I thought life was just what it was, the cards I was dealt. Not that life was bad, but I was not feeling joy. I was just going through the motions. I am forever grateful for Shannan and all her work she shares with us to help us learn to love ourselves, find the joy in life, and take back control of our lives. Ooh, yes Jenn. I love all of it.

Ooh. It goes right into today’s episode too. And my love, if you’re finding what you learn here valuable, you can help other women find this show by leaving a review and rating of the show. Also subscribe so every Wednesday morning I’m in your library.

Can you believe it’s December? Love, I am like December. I mean, 2021 is almost over. And you know, I’m, I’m all about finishing it strong. We have, you know, by the time this releases, a couple more weeks left in the year and you know, we’re gonna get it done. And 2022, can’t wait for it. I have to tell you loves, I was sick for a couple of weeks. I know, I got sick around my birthday, and then it kind of lingered on and I had like a sinus infection, ear infection, chest cold, a little bronchitis. I mean, it was all the fun stuff. And you know, and I don’t get sick very often at all. I mean, I think I went to fill my antibiotic and I think it was like, you know, I don’t even know, like five, six years since I filled a prescription. Now I’m feeling so much better.

And I’m like, oh, you know when you’re sick and you’re just like, please, when I get, well again, I’m going to run a marathon. I mean, you know, ladies, I don’t like to run, but I really am like so grateful and appreciative of this beautiful body and that I am well. And because I really was not feeling good there for a few days and I am just so grateful to come out of it and to feel amazing again.

So in episode 62, I introduced the concept of self-love and why it’s important in your weight loss journey. You know, I think all of us have been told at some point in our lives, like to love ourselves, and in episode 62, I introduce, you know, like what I believe self-love is. And so if you want to listen to that episode just go back to 62. It’s a great episode and introduces you into the topic. And the two major points really are, kind of the introductory points are how to start to keep commitments to yourself that’s a way that you show yourself self-love and how you talk to yourself, how you speak inside of that beautiful brain.

But today I want to dive a little deeper into this concept, and why it is a must as you grow and evolve. When I was a little girl I was taught, probably like many of you, not to brag, don’t be boastful. These were subtle messages that I, like many of my clients, were taught. As I grew up I internalized it to mean don’t be proud of your accomplishments or capabilities. Don’t feel beautiful. Don’t be too bright and shiny. So I downplayed my accomplishments.

I would self-deprecate. I would commiserate with my friends. If I received a compliment, I would downplay it. I learned that it was better to suffer, play small, and beat myself up than to show love and appreciation for my capabilities, talents, and beauty. It was a major reason I carried over a hundred pounds and such of extra weight on my body.

I also, as I was internalizing these messages from society from, you know, all sorts of, you know, outer influences, I started to create these limits, these self-limiting thoughts and behaviors, and it was really these limits on what I could achieve or what I could be. I set these ceilings for myself. I could only be so thin. I could only be so successful. I could only make so much money. I could only have so much love. I internalized this message of don’t be too amazing to mean that I was not enough and never would be.

I also wanted to fit in. I wanted to be liked. So I thought I needed to be less. This is a problem my love. If you are a woman, most likely this is a problem you have. We were taught to be demure, proper, virgin-like, perfect. And it made us think that if we went outside of that, then we were not worthy. Not worthy of love. If we were not the perfect mother, daughter, friend, the perfect size, the perfect body, the perfect nose. If we weren’t smart enough, funny enough, lovable enough, then we were less. This is important to become aware of how this is showing up in your weight loss journey, shoot your life journey. How are you keeping yourself small? How are you putting limits on how much success and love you can have in your life? These are two really vital questions as you begin this journey to lose weight for the very last time.

Now I want to talk about arrogance for a moment, because I think this is really important. We are so scared that we would come arrogant and be running around just telling everyone how wonderful we are. But my love, that’s not what we do. It’s not what happens. Arrogance is at the expense of others. Arrogance comes from the lack of self-love.

See, when I love myself, my capacity to love others expands. I become less judgmental. I fill the room with love for all. I can love myself, be proud of my accomplishments, and love others. Be proud of their accomplishments. I compare myself to others less often. I want the best for the other humans because my capacity to love has expanded, not contracted.

When you do not love yourself, you are limited in your capacity to love and accept others. Self-love is accepting that you are worthy, enough, beautiful, capable, smart, and just plain amazing. It is you stepping into it. It’s treating yourself with all the love that you give to others. It is not okay to make yourself less. You have a purpose here on this beautiful planet of ours, and mostly it is to live the most amazing human experience, to step into it.

We keep pushing our amazingness down with cupcakes, but it leaves us feeling unfulfilled and wanting more. A cupcake will never solve your feeling of not enough. I want to say it again cause it’s so important. A cupcake will never solve your feeling of not enough. This is the beginning of the work, the beginning of the work to lose weight for the last time and step into your best life. It’s becoming aware of why you’re carrying the extra weight. Why are you buffering your feelings, stuffing down your feelings? Why are you allowing yourself to be less?

The first thing you want to do is see how you’re keeping yourself small. What areas of your life are you afraid of being too amazing, too bright, too shiny. Then start with looking at your successes. Just one a day. And then practice feeling proud. Allow yourself to feel it, to feel proud, to feel love for yourself. It takes about two minutes. Write down your success and then feel proud. Feel love for yourself. I teach my Transform Bosses how to start to find and look at their successes.

How to start to talk to themselves with love and how to step into that next version of themselves. This is an important part to losing weight for the last time. See, we have this thought that when we lose the weight, that suddenly life will be amazing, we’ll feel amazing, we’ll love ourselves. But it’s not what happens. You’ll lose the weight, and your brain is still there, and if you don’t do this work on the way down, what happens is you’ll start to hit those ceilings, those upper limits that you have, and you’ll sabotage your success. I want every woman to live their best life in a body they love. I see the beauty in all women. I can feel proud of myself, know that I am worthy, lovable and all of the things. I want that for myself and for you. I want you to step into the light my love. Step into your beauty. Only then can you live fully.

The transformational questions and actions today are one, how are you keeping yourself small? And two, how can you show love to yourself? And number three, I have a challenge for you, for the next seven days, I want you to write one success every single day that you have, and then I want you to practice feeling proud each day. Woo it’s so good my love.

And if you want to take this work deeper then take my free course, you can go to bflycoaching.com/ready. Bye for now love.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Weight Loss for Successful Women. If you love what you heard today and want to learn more, come on over to bfly.coaching.com. See you next week.