About 3 months into my new job last year, I started to have a lot of negative feelings. I had thoughts around, “why did I do this?”, “can I do this?”. I was overwhelmed and confused. I wanted to be farther along in the journey than I was. I wanted to know everything about my new job, I wanted to have deep relationships with my peers and my people. I wanted the future state right then. I did not want to feel the negative emotions that come with learning and growing. We all do this all the time. We want the future right now without all the pain and negative feelings. We want the quick fix. We stay in “indulgent” emotions like overwhelm and confusion. When we are in those emotions, we do not take action. We shutdown. We buffer. We avoid.
But we can feel all those emotions. I quickly realized what my lizard brain was doing, through self-coaching and coaching from others. I felt like an alien in my new firm and that was ok. When I showed up as my true self then eventually it would all work out. It just takes time. I have great relationships with my team and peers now. But it takes time. There is no quick fix.
The same is true for weight loss. You have to go through all of the negative emotions, and it takes time. We must reprogram our brains from years of diet mentality and beating ourselves up. We must pay attention to our lizard brain and what is really going on. We have to feel uncomfortable and feel like aliens in our own skin. It is the change process. It is possible to lose weight and never gain it back. It is possible to love the body you are in, to come home to it.
