Transforming Body and Mind: Christina Hathaway's Journey from Therapy to Coaching

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 339. Today, Beverly Simpson is talking to Christina Hathaway about the journey from therapy to coaching and transforming the body of mind. Are you ready? Let's get started.

Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance in movement, package and position their products and services, and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast.

Welcome back to the PT Profit Podcast. My name is Chris and sometimes I give the intros here for the podcast podcast. So for today's episode, Beverly sits down with Christina Hathaway. She is a licensed associate marriage and family therapist, certified personal trainer and nutrition coach, and Christina is the owner of Mindset of Matter Coaching and the co host of the Mindset Mirror Connection podcast. She has a unique approach to coaching, integrating her extensive experience into in eating disorder care with her passion for fitness and nutrition. You'll hear Christina discuss the critical differences between disordered eating and eating disorders, her five step method to help clients transform their relationships with their bodies and food, and the importance of recognizing and meeting unmet emotional needs. This episode will have takeaways for you. Whether you are an experienced coach, whether you're brand new to the industry, you're bound to have something that will help you in how you work with people as a fitness and wellness or health professional. And if you do in fact enjoy this episode, we ask that you share it on social media. Tag Beverly Simpson Fitness on Instagram. You can also rate five stars on whichever platform you listen to because we like to think that if you go to leave a review, that's going to be a good one and and in fact, on Apple podcasts, you can leave a written review which we'll be able to see when we check our charts on chartable. Com. With that said, let's waste no more time and roll that episode.

What's up, Christina? How are you? Thank you so much for joining me on the show today. How are you doing?

I'm good. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to chat with you today.

I cannot wait to dive in. What you do is very different than the traditional ways of coaching, so I'm really excited to dive in today. So for those of you who are tuning in and are not familiar with your work, can you please share with us a little bit about who you are who you serve and how you got there.

Absolutely. So again, my name is Christina Hathaway. I'm a licensed associate marriage and family therapist with specialized training in food and body obsession, as well as a certified personal trainer and nutrition coach. And I'm the owner of the Mindset A Matter coaching program as well as a co host on the Mindset Mirror Connection podcast. The reason my company came about is because I worked in various levels of eating disorder care, inpatient, intensive, outpatient and outpatient. And at the same time, I was teaching a variety of different fitness classes. And after my classes I saw and spoke to my members and they oftentimes would tell me very similar stories in regards to their struggles with body image or emotional eating or just managing the stress in their lives. However, they didn't have a place to go to, to process because they didn't meet the requirements of your traditional, you know, body dysmorphia or eating disorders. And so I created the Mindset of Matter as a place to be that intersection for them of science and psychology. And we are geared towards women who oftentimes are very high achieving in regards to, they do very well in a variety of areas of their lives, but oftentimes that is at the expense of themselves. And they will put their self care on the back burner and not just by choice, but by demand. Meaning they feel like they have to constantly be perfect or hustle. They're all or nothing thinkers. They're, you know, these people who've always put their worth into achievements and they do that again at the expense of themselves. And so the Mindset method, which is the method that we utilize, helps them go through each step to begin to recreate their relationships with their bodies, food, and more importantly, their self worth and self care. We are online and we work with women all over the world.

Okay, so this is amazing. I have a lot of questions that I want to ask. And so I'll be honest with you. It is my habit to ask a million questions and then at once. So I'll do my best to make it.

I'll take notes.

But we. A couple things came up for me when you were talking. Number one, can you kind of unpack.

The difference between disordered eating and eating disorders?

That's number one. Because I think that, you know, with the, you know, with the inundation of information and diet culture and social media really bringing that to light, I think that there are, and this is my opinion, but from what I see, see from influencers, and I put that in quote they too, practice disordered eating without even realizing it. And so it just kind of perpetuates this vicious cycle. So I'm curious, from your perspective, can you unpack the differences between disordered eating and eating disorders? And then I'd love for you to walk through your process in terms of.

How you've helped these people. Absolutely. And I agree with you. You know, it's been interesting to see the word binge eating be so kind of easily used when a binge is very different than someone who's emotionally eating.

Right.

So I don't want to necessarily walk through every single diagnosis of the eating disorder. But an eating disorder, there are very specific guidelines. And the. The obsession around, you know, the body and food gets so extreme that it's affecting every part of this person's lives, as well as their health. There are other aspects to it, like anorexia, losing your period, which, yes, you're right. There are influencers out there who get to this restrictive place, but they think that it's not an eating disorder because they do it out of the lens of this is healthy. I'm being healthy. I'm, you know, a fitness influencer. Whereas again, you have diagnoses like orthorexia, which is a eating disorder not otherwise specified, which is basically an eating disorder, that we don't have these specific criterias, but it's close enough that we're going to diagnose it. And orthorexia is actually what I do see a lot of in the industry. That is someone who is a clean eater who glorifies themselves or puts themselves on a pedestal for what they eat, but also gets a lot of anxiety around eating thing. Outside of this clean food, they very much utilize exercise as a ways to. As a way to purge rather than a way to be strong. And I see a lot of that. So, again, an eating disorder is going to impact all aspects of your life. There's also gonna be physiological issues that come along with it. And every disorder obviously has their own criteria to meet. Disordered eating, on the other hand, there is a very fine line between the two. But in disordered eating, we are using food outside of the way that it needs to be used, which is to nourish ourselves. But also there is an aspect of pleasure we get from our food. We are using food to soothe for our emotions, meet unmet needs that we don't realize we're not meeting. We just know that we don't want to sit through discomfort. We're using food as a way to manipulate our bodies. Obviously in restrictive ways. Now there's a difference between restricting in a calorie deficit and even doing that in, I would say even somewhat extreme measures. There's a difference between that and what someone who's anorexic would do. Correct. There's a difference between I overindulge on chips at the end of the night cuz I've had a stressful day compared to trigger warning the person who binges a whole sheet cake and dissociates while doing it. But they can again, these lines can get very blurred in regards to where a person lives. And that's really for, you know, in my program I have the expertise to be able to say whoa. And we, we have had to suggest people go to a higher level of care than what we can provide in our program itself. But I would say for the person listening, you know, disordered eating is utilizing food in a way to meet unmet needs and, or to manipulate your body, but not in such an extreme way that it's affecting all aspects of your life, social, emotional, career, you know, relational. It's not impacting all aspects of your life. And you also are not necessarily getting to these really unhealthy places with it. So that's that for your second question. Our method is very focused on changing. And you say this all the time, you know, changing the beliefs that create the behaviors that create the outcomes you don't desire. So our method is five steps, no name notice, nurture. And through doing all four of those, you're also creating norms. And so knowing is making the unconscious conscious. We can't change what we don't know. There's a lot of people walking around with the things I just described. They're ending up in the pantry at the end of the day, you know, eating a bunch of food and they just think that's who they are, that's what they've learned, that's what they've done for the past 20 years. Not until we say, hey, have you ever thought about what that food is providing you? Have you ever thought about like why this has become a pattern? Then they become conscious of what they're doing. Just because something's someone's conscious of it doesn't necessarily mean they're ready to change it. And so we go into naming it, naming the, in the inner critic, I actually have clients name it, I have them give it a character. But also I have them name their beliefs, right? What are those self defeating beliefs that that inner critic is saying to you? And then we take it a Step further and have them name the unmet needs that this may be the first time in their lives that they've been able to do that.

You bring up two things and I think that you're in your method, you'll, you'll also address this. But like people are walking, are unconsciously competent all the time, right? We don't 95% of what we do and perceive is on automation, which is a good thing because once you can rew or the brain to automate what you want, then you're going to be locked in and solid. But so many people aren't even conscious to the truth about what it is that they are going through and experiencing because the brain is a wild thing. But what I'm curious about, like even in what you were talking about the nuances of, of some of these lines because we can point them out in extreme very easily. Oh, I'm not like that because of blah blah, blah blah blah blah. I'm not extreme like that. I'm not going to eat a whole sheet cake and I'm not going to continue to eat and I'm hurting. But there's nuances here. So I'm curious how. I'm sure you'll unpack this as you continue to go. But how do your clients get present to the nuances of where they fall when it comes to their eating behaviors?

That's a great question. So a part of what we do is I've created a psychological curriculum which we call reflections. And the first portion of the no is education.

Right.

So when people walk into our program, they oftentimes think things like I just am not trying hard enough, I don't have motivation, I lack willpower. Those are what they believe they're conscious to. It's not until we educate them. And one of the things that stands out to me that really solidifies this to them is our reflection called your rules and expectations. And we walk them through a variety of different behaviors. Around food that are all disordered, around exercise that are all disordered, and around self worth rules that they have for themselves. And it's a very much an aha moment. We also do that in our family dynamics reflection where we say, how were you seen and heard as a child? What were you criticized for? What were you praised for? And through these types of reflections they are getting better understanding of, oh, those are the nuanced things. Those are the things that I just did subconsciously and never realized. Okay, this is, this is actually something I do struggle with and I was doing it out of the name, in the name of health for some of the clients. Because not all of our clients are people coming in with like binge eating or emotional eating. A good portion of our clients are those, those influencers or people who previously competed, people who are coaches themselves who really struggle with having a healthy relationship with food. And so through the reflections is where they get a lot of that. They have those aha moments like, it's me, Hi, I'm the problem, it's me. I think you've told me that.

But you know what too? Like, it's always, it comes down to the high achievers, right? You know, we hear this cliche, this cliche often of, you know, how you do one thing is how you do everything. But that's actually not always true in all facets of our life. Like, I get why that's cliche and I know that, you know, the identity of who you are is going to transcend in all of your actions. But I can't tell you how many times people have been super successful in their health and fitness that then struggled with their business or vice versa, where they've been really successful in the realms of selling other people's stuff and in their work, but then struggled with health and fitness. And when you are innately a high achiever, that can be really hard to face.

Absolutely. For in my experience, our clientele are really successful and they've, they've been the high achievers. They've done, you know, they're, they're magnum summa cum laude in college. They get the best jobs in very high positions, lawyers, judges, physicians, executives. And the way I explain it to them is like you've always grind and hustle to get to where you're at. And you take that same idea of grinding, hustling, perfectionism, and you're putting it towards your body. And the problem about the body is if you don't give the body a break, the body will break down on you, whether that is physically or mentally. And for the high achiever, what are they going to do? They're going to think, I need to grind, hustle, do more. I need to be perfect, I'm failing. And that sense of failure can bring a lot of those unmet needs up, a lot of those self defeating beliefs up. And then we just turn to what we know, which is exactly what I just said, grind, grind, grind until they get to me and they're just, just exhausted. They're exhausted, they don't know what to do. They feel like a complete failure. And our job Is to help them understand how they got there and then work through our, you know, the rest of the method to help them reframe, as you had mentioned, recreate the relationship about themselves that they don't always have to grind, hustle, and be perfect to be worthy. They're worthy because they exist, and getting them to trust and believe that in themselves.

So good. So good. So now, something else you said that I'm curious about.

Okay.

You were talking about the emotional behavior around eating in terms of, you know.

People will eat to sue.

I also think that there's a lot of context here in terms of emotional eating in the sense of, you know, it's not when it comes to eating, just in our culture as it, you know, the cultural experience of eating is more emotional than it is, you know, eating to fuel.

Right, right.

So how do. So. So, of course, naturally, we have associated feelings and experiences around the action and habit of eating. So how do you navigate. How do you see your clients navigate the differences between behavior that is, you know, borderline going opposite direction versus experiencing the emotional life of food?

Food. That's a great question. So one thing that I get my clients to understand is there's a difference between being intentional with your food and being out of control. There's a very big difference. When I have a client that says to me, I am going to go to my child's party and I'm going to have cake and I'm going to have pizza, and I'm going to enjoy it. Great, do that. You set an intention to do it. It's when we get lost in the food, when we do not intend. We are almost, you know, numb. I don't want to say numb, because again, there's a dissociative factor in binge eating disorder that is very different. But there is a sense of freeze in the fight, flight and freeze part of the nervous system that I see a lot of people getting caught in when they're emotionally eating. So that being intentional with your food. I say to my clients all the time, there is a steakhouse here in Phoenix that my husband and I absolutely love. When we go there, we get two appetizers. We get. We have the bread, we have an entree, we share a dessert. I know in that moment, I am going to overly eat because it's enjoyable to me, and that is an experience for my husband and I. I intend to do it right. What I'm not going to do is shame myself for it. I'm not going to put a bunch of guilt on myself for it because I intended to do it and I did what I intended to do. When I do that, I am trusting myself, that I am in control. I also am just going to come back to whatever, you know, my high protein breakfast and maybe do a walk the next day. I'm not doing it to negate or, you know, like I said before, purge in some fact, in some fashion. I'm just doing it because I enjoy having balance in my life. The other thing that I teach them is sustainable eating. And this is something that's not common in the industry. This is actually something we teach in more therapeutic means or therapeutic approaches to binge eating disorder. And it goes like this. There's four quadrants to sustainable eating. You have foods that are both nourishing and pleasurable. Okay? So nourishing means it serves my body physically. I get the nutrients, the minerals, all the things that I need. Pleasurable being exactly what you're talking about. That emotional connection, that feeling of warmth that, ooh, this tastes good, right? And my body loves it. So we have quadrant run is foods in your life that are both pleasurable and nourishing. Quadrant 2 are foods that are only pleasurable and not nourishing. Quadrant three is only nourishing and not pleasurable. And quadrant four is not nourishing nor pleasurable. So the way I teach my clients on how to utilize this sustainable eating quadrant is we want to eat as many foods as we can that are in quadrant one both pleasurable and nourishing. And for each person, that's going to be different. For me, that's things like avocado, salmon, eggs. I really enjoy berries, pineapple, Right. And I have my clients list these things out. Then in quadrant two, the pleasurable foods that are not nourishing, I help them understand the portions of those foods that, that hit that pleasurable point in their brain and says, yes, that was great, that was lovely, I enjoyed it. But I'm not leaving feeling overly full, nor am I leaving feeling guilt or shame.

Right.

I'm eating it in a way that is very connected to experiencing the emotional aspect of it.

How would you define foods? How would you define foods that would go in that category that are not considered nourishing? How would you define that?

So again, for each, I mean, for me it would be something like a piece of cake. Now could we deconstruct cake and say, yeah, there's some carbs in it, it's going to be used for energy. You know, these are foods that diet culture has considered, like, bad, Right? So Your cakes, your cookies, your ice cream, even something alcohol. Absolutely alcohol. Something even like potato chips. Those. The reason I say something like that is that's actually in my non pleasurable, non nourishing list. So you can see on the list, the list can be different for different people, right? Some people like a regular Coca Cola, you know, and for some people like me, I don't like it. So that's in my non pleasurable, non nourishing list. So it's those foods. And, and, and let's take it a step further. It may not be. For me, honestly, Beverly, it's refried beans. Cause I'm half, I'm Hispanic. And my. When I went to my grandmother's house, she always had refried beans and rice on the stove. So for me, like, that's not only a food that, I mean, that could technically go in quadrant one, but refried beans, you know, they're, they could be considered not nourishing, I guess. So again, it's really up to you where you put that food and obviously educating yourself on what the food provides. So it's different for everyone. But in the case of everyone listening, cakes, cookies, you know the stuff that we said, those are your bad foods. They were on the bottom. Remember when we had the pyramid? They were the foods on the bottom of the pyramid.

Right.

Quadrant three. Okay?

Yes. So quadrant three is a nourishing foods that are not pleasurable. So for me, Again, this is 99% ground turkey, plain. I'm not going to eat that by itself.

Right.

That's going to be like kale. No one just wants to eat kale. So what we do in this quadrant is we have to make those foods pleasurable. So for 99% ground turkey, for example, I'm going to put taco seasoning on it. I'm going to mix it with a marinara, or maybe I make it into a burger.

Right.

So teaching people how to eat foods that are providing them macro and micronutrients in a way that can be more pleasurable. That doesn't mean it's gonna be like the cookies and cakes, but at least it's. You know, people think that eating healthy food is chicken, broccoli and rice. It doesn't have to be right. And for some people, they can just eat chicken, broccoli, rice. I cannot. And then quadrant four is non pleasurable, non nourishing. Those are foods you wanna eat the least amount of. I don't know how many times I'm eating something, I'm like, I don't even like this. Why am I eating this? And I put it down.

So I'm curious how often that happens because, like, if we're. For me, I would probably put ice cream in there. Or like, one of those things that, like. Except when I was pregnant, which was really interesting. My husband, he was like, wait, who are you? Because that is the thing I can pass. Like, I don't want it, I don't crave it, I don't want it.

And I don't.

Like, even when we go to ice cream shops with the kids, I'm. I'm always like, I just. It's not enough and it's not pleasurable for me. So why. So if I find myself eating it, it's usually because the kids, you know, it's like the cone dripping from their, you know, mommy, I don't fix anymore. And I'm like, okay, the only place to put this is my mouth, right?

But you're like, I know I don't like this, but I'm doing this for myself. But I.

It does cause me to, like, pause. Like, how often do people actually eat out of that quadrant? And would they?

I think. I mean, again, I can speak for my clients. A lot of my clients really struggle with food being in front of them. They've been conditioned through the, you know, clean plate club, some of them, culturally, I mean, again, I'm half Hispanic, half Italian. In both cultures, food is family, food is push. And if you don't eat the food that you don't like, the person. So culturally, like, you've had to eat foods. I remember having to, like, sit over a piece of liver because my. My Italian grandfather made it, and if I didn't finish it, he would give you more. Like, that's the. That we've gone through, I think, in our culture. I mean, in our generation, right. So, you know, we have to. And with my clients is teaching them to be mindful, like, sitting. I tell people all the time, do you know your taste buds are in your mouth? Slow down, eat it. Do you like it? Does it provide you, again, some sort of emotional something, or is this a food that you can make that is, you know, a nourishing food that you can make? Tastes better? For me, liver is not going to be that food. Gross. Disgusting. I don't want it. Put it over here. Same thing with birthday cake. I will absolutely walk away from a slice of birthday cake. I was at my best friend's wedding, did not have a piece of cake. It's not my thing. I'll put it over there, you know, but to answer your question, we do it. We're conditioned. Almost, at least my clientele is conditioned, where they just eat because it's in front of them or because they don't want to hurt someone's feelings or they want to. They don't want to feel like the odd man out because everyone else is eating the food or simply they had to clean their plate. So going back to the knowing and naming of the method, that's where we can actually get them to realize what they're doing. And they're doing it at a condition out of a conditioned response rather than out of, I intentionally want to eat that thing because it provides me one of the two nourishing or pleasurable aspects that we experience from food.

Okay. And I do wanna go back to the method. But real quick, if we're hanging out in quadrant three, I'm curious about this because I sometimes I notice this in myself.

Right?

We're. And.

And our mind is tricky in the sense that we think, oh, yeah, yeah, I've handled it, I've handled it. Or, oh, yeah, I think this is, you know, I know what to do. But then you don't do it. And it goes back to, like, being present to the knowing and naming.

Right.

So I'm curious if your clients, at least when they first start they're hanging out in quadrant two. Let's just say, like, the majority is like quadrant two and maybe even quadrant four. There is a learning curve in terms of taste buds, like, when it comes to vegetables or high, high foods and fiber and foods that are, like, just traditionally not pleasurable in eating. In terms of taste, is there a learning curve in the acquired taste? Like, is there a way? Like, how do you. How long does it usually take people to want to crave quadrant three?

You know, for our clients, the nice thing that we provide for them is actually a lot of examples of how to make quadrant three better for them. But, yes, absolutely. It takes people, I would say, you know, two to three months, especially someone who has only hung out in two and four, to figure out what they like to eat.

Right.

And, you know, creating recipes that we provide for them and. Or sharing resources. Like, there's some really wonderful people on Instagram, for example, that make really cool things, and people are amazed. They're like, oh, like, I didn't realize I could swap, you know, and this is just one example. Sour cream for Greek yogurt to get a little bit more protein into my meal.

Right.

And they begin to, you know, figure out what it is that they like and I would say it takes about two to three months. The interesting thing though there, Beverly, is a lot of our clients have already been through a lot of coaching. A lot of coaching. So their defaults is quadrant two and four. But they white knuckled their way through quadrant three a lot. And so, yeah, so, so we're trying to make it a bit more easy for them to have those nourishing foods because no one's ever said, have you ever considered making that nourishing food pleasurable? And they're like, what? Yeah, I have it.

It's a little bit of like what I mean, right, you, you're dealing a lot with people who know it's usually not a case of like, you know, I don't have the right strategy. Usually it's a case of like they dread it or they don't. You know, it's a lot of unlearning that. Like it doesn't.

People think all the time, I've got to prep all my meals. Again, it has to be chicken, rice and broccoli. We go to so far with our clients, I'm like, look, I have what we call the easy to prepare list of foods. It goes, and this is for our clients in the States. It goes by store and it's foods that are frozen. There's a lot of frozen food in there. There's a lot of pre made proteins like those Kevin's meals, the real good food, chicken tenders, frozen veggies. Like that's, that's what we're saying. Like we mean our clients so much where they're at. I'm like, if you don't have time to meal prep, I don't meal prep. But what I do is I have meals that I can make under 10 minutes and I teach them also how to do that, you know, so a lot of people have this misconception and, or they've been in coaching programs where it's been meal prep, clean, clean, clean. And people are like, I don't want to eat that way. So then their default is I'm just going to eat whatever I want. And then they don't enjoy the outcome of that either. So we're teaching them that middle ground of I can eat the foods that I love, do it in a portion that makes sense for me and my goals, but also feed my body in the way that it needs to be fed because I need vitamins and minerals and all the things. Especially because our clients are usually over the age. We have some clients that are outliers, but around the age of 35 and over, majority of them living in the 40s and 50s. And so their bodies are already changing. They have issues with fatigue, they're having issues with sleep. And so teaching them too, and educating them on how to feed their bodies, you know, using those nourishing foods so that we can also help with some of the symptoms that they're going through in changing bodies. So, yeah, it is, it's, it is a lot of unlearning and then re. Educating the self. And that takes time. Yeah. Okay.

So something else I'm curious about, and then I do want to go back because I know we're still kind of like in the knowing, the noticing and being a phase in the method, but I'm, I'm curious, you know, what are some of the biggest obstacles when it comes to unlearning and reprogramming that your clients face, Especially knowing what to do already.

Yeah, the biggest obstacles become their beliefs. Honestly, if they get into, and I'm just going to name a few of them, this all or nothing, perfect fail type of thinking. So they believe, well, if I don't, I've been taught to eat this way, and if I'm not eating this way, I'm bad. They make it very. They have a lot of shame about this action of eating. And that then puts them back in a pattern of, well, then if I can't do it perfectly, I might as well not do it at all. And then they start to, you know, eat whatever they want. We won't call it a binge, but they'll, they'll emotionally eat or overindulge and then they get to a point where their body feels like shit or maybe they've put on some weight and then they repeat the pattern.

Right?

And so they know we can Google how to do this stuff. We can Google how to eat in a calorie deficit. We can google proteins, we can google exercises. What we can't google is how to change our beliefs around our worth and how we, we connect that worth to what we put in our mouths and, or what we do in regards to exercise. Until that is changed, none of that shit matters. Until I change my beliefs about myself, my worth being a people pleaser, you know, the high achiever, the perfect, you know, perfectionist person, the person who puts everyone before themselves.

Right.

Till I change those things, I'm just gonna get stuck in that pattern because again, my worth is based outside of my internal self. It's based on external validation and also there's some sort of connection to food, what my body looks like, and movement that is affected by that belief. So that's what I personally think is the biggest barrier.

So good. Okay, keep going. So now we've noticed. We're naming.

So we know name, then notice. So once I. You know, the naming part is really important because we're characterizing it and we're saying, this isn't something you are. This is something you struggle with. And so the noticing part is beginning to notice exactly what we just talked about. When those beliefs, like, oh, I had the food, like, I'm feeling a lot of shame. Instead of. Excuse me, of reacting like we normally would, we have to take a step back and respond.

Right.

We have to take a step back and name it. And some of the names we have, literally, people name them. Ursula, Brittany, the mold.

Right.

The choir, the gospel choir. When the gospel choir is there screaming at you that you're a failure because you just had a Reese's peanut butter cup, you have to take that step back, recognize the emotions you're feeling. Okay, I'm starting to feel anxiety and starting to feel shame. We have our clients anticipate this happening, because if I can anticipate something happening, I can have a plan for it. And then that plan, by noticing it, helps me then go to the last step, which is nurture it. I take in evidence. Well, number one, I need to sit through the emotion first. I'm not pushing the emotion away. I'm also not holding onto it. I'm going to allow it to naturally work through my body. Emotions are transient unless we keep them around.

Right.

So I allow that to naturally happen. Then I utilize facts instead of feelings or fantasy as the way I teach it. Facts are, if I eat this one Reese's peanut butter cup, am I going to get fat? No. That is a fact. If you eat maybe 25,000, eat them into a, you know, calorie surplus.

Yes.

Then maybe you may gain some weight. Why I say not feelings or fantasy is in the beginning, the feelings are still connected to the old narrative.

Right.

So I simply need to use facts. In the way we explain it to our clients is evidence you can take to court. Right. Then also, once I sit through the uncomfortable emotion, that in itself is a huge step. Just being able to say, I'm gonna walk through it.

Right.

Instead of walk around it or avoid it, I'm walking through it. They realize it's not that scary. The thing that they've been avoiding for so long is a natural part of their Existence. And when they actually naturally let it happen, it's very, it's easy to get through. I shouldn't say easy. It's not as scary as they thought it would be. Then I reframe the thinking, right, and say I can have a Reese's peanut butter cup. I enjoyed it, I ate it mindfully, I'm moving on. And that's one of the messages I get from my clients all the time. It's like, yeah, I had this thing and then I felt, you know, Brittany kind of come up and I was like, no, I can have this. I enjoyed it and I'm not gonna allow it to affect anything I do. This point forward, it's awesome. Then they self care, right? Then they do something good for themselves. Because we have to also remember there's a need still not being met there. So maybe they need a hug connection to soothe in another way. That's not the food. We still have that unmet need that we have to, to go towards. And so that's the nurture aspect of it. And then while we're teaching the entire method, we're also teaching norms. And what I say are norms are helping people find sustainable health habits based on what they can do. And the way I explain it is, is on their worst week, when they have a deadline, their husband or their partner is out of town on business, their kids are homesick, and the dog is throwing up something green on the ground. What can you do in that week, right? What can you do? Can you get maybe a 10 minute watch? Can you maybe have a vegetable at each meal? You know, can you drink a glass of water? Great, that's where we start. Those are the norms. And then we build on those norms. So that's the method.

That's amazing. Okay, so I have two questions that came up for me. One is how do you identify self care? Because I usually get so heated where I'm like, yo, mom, taking a shower is personal hygiene. That's not self care. So I'm curious how you identify self care. 1 and then 2. Or identify health care and then 2. I'm also curious about, about the. I was gonna say norms, but that's not the right word. I'm curious about how present people are to, you know, being able to identify the unmet need.

Good. Yeah. So, so the funny thing about self care is when you were saying that, I was thinking there's some like surgeons that I have that I'm like, we are only focusing on you getting sleep. Oh my God. That is your self care. Because again, there's some forms of self care that if we're not doing them, everything else is, is effed up.

Right.

So for it's for me, self care depends on the person.

Right.

If it's the, the mom, like you said this, I have a client who is a stay at home mom. Three kids under, I think four.

Yeah.

Plus a photographer.

Right.

And in our goal was for her to get dressed like because she, she had a lot of social anxiety about like having to get dressed and go out. So we practiced it at home, like taking a shower, doing your hair and putting on a nice shirt.

Right.

And that made her feel good.

Right.

So it really for us is based on each individual. So that's the answer of how we, you know, focus on self care. In regards to the unmet needs. A part of naming it is learning what our unmet needs are. And I wouldn't say naming it, even knowing the knowing portion of the program is, wow, I just wanted to be told I was good. Not that I had to meet these high expectations or look a certain way. I just wanted to be told I'm okay. And in those moments where Brittany's there, the inner critic voice is loud. We're feeling shame with that. That part of you is your ego. And your ego protects that wounded part of the self. The wounded part of the self is where that need needs to be met. And so we teach a lot about that. The Britneys, the, you know, the self defeating beliefs are the ego, the ego's there to protect, quote, unquote, protect the wounded part of the self. And that wounded child is saying, someone just tell me I'm okay. So in the moment they'll say I. And we do an exercise. I'm like, do you have a picture of yourself as a child that you like to see? I do. Like, I have this picture of me that I see. Like when I think of myself as a child, I'm like, I want you to think about her in that moment. What does she need right now? And it'll just. Their head will tell them something. She needs a hug. All right, give her a hug. And then they cry. And then we all cry. And so it takes a lot of time though. It takes getting to the nurture part takes time. I mean, our method is over a four month period. But even in that four months, we're really just creating a foundation. Our clients continue on. Majority of our clients continue on with us for the rest of the year, maybe even two years, because they really want to. They, they know that life's gonna get lifey. And they wanna make sure that they're prepared to handle any of life's. I would just say any of life's challenges, but at least a few, right. Feel a little bit confident in using this method in every single challenge that they go through, because it really can. Can help you no matter what the challenge is, no matter what area or what your body's going through, if you follow through with this method, you can. You really get through a lot of really challenging things. So good. So what are.

What are some of the tools that you use for your clients that, you know, to help them work through the nuanced conversation around the difference between, you know, rigidity and flexible discipline is what.

I like to call like, oh, yeah.

Sometimes you don't feel like doing it, but when you're dealing with people who are used to pushing through, how do you navigate, you know, listening to that, relearning those cues like you do?

This is such a great question, and I'm gonna just explain it to you. The way I explain it to my clients is what we are teaching. So let me take a step back. There is this, you know, dichotomy, this, this, these extremes of, you know, pushing through when I shouldn't, going to the gym all the time, you know, excessive training, you know, eating in these, you know, excessive calorie deficits. And then there's this other camp on the other side that's like, you know, we, you know, food is not the enemy. Diet culture is the enemy. You don't need to work out, like, you know, health at every size. And the way I explain it is right here in the middle. And I say, I want you to always be working from a place of self respect, okay? So if I'm respecting my body, I'm resting when it needs to rest. Also, if I'm respecting my body, I need to also move it, right? And for each client, that's gonna look a bit different. I have some clients who are very happy working out four to five days a week. That's the most we will ever do for their training. We usually stick around three to four days of training and strength training. The rest of the days we're walking. But for some clients, moving two days is them respecting their bodies, right? Because they would normally just be on the couch. They don't want to do it. So we know that respecting our bodies, our bodies need to move, but our bodies also need to rest. And for each client, again, finding that middle gray area that's between the two extremes, the Same is true through rigid eating. And we've already talked about this with the quadrant is I have, you know, to feed my body certain foods so that I, you know, in, in really firing on all cylinders, like I'm, I'm feeling well, but also I can allow my body to eat foods that again we talked about, bring me emotional pleasure and both are respecting me. So if we always come from a place of self respect, we're not punishing.

Right.

And we're not restricting or meeting in that middle ground. And again, in our program, every client has their own coach they meet with weekly. So these are conversations that are, we're having and we're building on. And the client, you know, I really do think that touch point of meeting weekly is so important because not only can the client again build on it, but they can celebrate it. They're like, oh, I have this realization, you know, and so that's just to come back to the question, that's how I handle the extremes.

How long does it take for people to get present to their, their own cues?

Which cues?

When I say cues, like in this context, like sometimes people like for example, I'll, I'll give you an example that.

I use with my children.

I don't know if this is right, but this is what I use for my children. If we have something like a cheer practice or we have like softball on that day and they wake up in the morning and they're like, I don't want to deal with that. I don't want to go to cheer, I don't want to go to dance, I don't want to do the thing, whatever the thing is. Usually start with. Well, we're just going to start. Why don't we just go and we're just going to get there and we're going to go for about 10 minutes and if after 10 minutes you want to go, then we'll go. Yep, that's usually what I do.

Yeah.

Also start listening to them. Like if they're complaining about dance or cheer on Monday and dancer cheers on Thursday and Friday, then maybe we've got. There's something more there. Maybe it's not about like, I just don't feel like it. Maybe they really are not enjoying the activity and I'm going to listen. That's usually how I navigate the differences between not feeling like it versus like really not enjoying that activity.

Yes. So no, I'm very much the. Okay, let's. I did this with a client recently who her accused was like, I can't do it. I can't, I can't go to the gym now. This is someone who had been working out before. She loves it, you know, and she had some things go on and it really took her to a bad place. And then she started working with me. And all we did was start with, well, let's just put your gym bag together at the, the night before.

Right.

And then it was doing that consistently and then it was, okay, let's put on the gym outfit. If you don't want to go to the gym, you can still work out at home.

Right.

And if you only want to. I just. If you just go to the workout room in your house for two minutes and you don't want to be there, you can turn around.

Right.

It's. It's exactly what. And it's all like the atomic habits, like two minute rule. I think it's what it's called there. Yeah. Where you just build on it. But, you know, understanding what is behind not wanting to go.

Right.

And is that, does that warrant a change? Right. So in the case of, if I'm talking about on Monday and it's not until Friday, then we've not set this client up correctly. We've given. There is a, an aspect of, what do I call a threshold of change that. And everyone's threshold for change is different. So if I've made the change too uncomfortable and that client's like, no, I'm not gonna do that, then I've gotta pull back.

Right.

Whereas for some people, I can make it a bit more uncomfortable. And they're like, yes, you know, I can do this. And this goes back to the norms, what we also call minimums.

Right.

Find your floor. I can start at the bottom of what I know that person can do. So that person does 3,000 steps a day. Their new challenge is 3,500.

Right.

I'm just bringing that threshold of change up slightly and they're like 3, 500. Well, I'm already out here. I'm going to do 5,000.

Great.

They do 5,000 consistently over two weeks. Hey, I noticed you did 5,000 consistently over two weeks. Seems like that's actually something you feel comfortable in doing. Do you want to make that your new goal? Actually, no. Can we do it six? Sure. And that's how it works, you know, finding the minimum. So if they're, if they do. We're always looking at patterns with our clients. It's never a, why aren't you doing this? Let's understand what's going on. Do we actually need to Pull back or do we need to set up a process to get you going? Because you actually know you can do to do this thing, and it's not outside of the threshold for change.

This is so good. And honestly, I have to be. And I want to be mindful of your time, so that's one thing. Okay. But something I am curious about, and this will be the last question, because I notice this a lot in my own client, and I. And I have had to learn this the hard way multiple times, unfortunately, which is that sometimes there's a mismanaged expectation of work that is required to get to the goal. And because the way that I think I am so big picture that I literally. You could tell me any goal if it's in my expertise. I know exactly what to do and what it's going to take to get there. And so I can. Sometimes I run the risk of overwhelm, of creating overwhelm, because it's like, here's Mount Everest. It doesn't have to be Mount Everest. Let's just get excited about Summit One. Right, Right. But people don't want to go to Summit One. They want to go to the top of Mount Everest. So how have you navigated mismanaged expectations of what is required to actually get the goal?

So one of the things that's really important to us is making sure our clients are celebrating the small wins along the way and teaching them what those are. Initially, they don't know. But when I say, oh, my gosh, I looked at your. Your workouts last month, you only did two on average per week, or. No, it was four. I'm thinking one client was four over the course of the month. This month you did six. Like, how are you able to do that? Or wow. Like, I noticed that, you know, going back to the steps you on Saturdays are crushing it. Like, let's, you know, what. What are you doing on Saturday? So going through each of their lists. Look at you. You're a different person this week because you're stronger. Because last week you were doing eight reps times 30 pounds. And this week we're doing nine reps and three sets at 30 pounds, you are stronger. That to me, that is more important than Everest. But also, I teach them. It's not until you learn how you get to Everest, to the summit.

Right.

Not until you learn and appreciate every step, that once you get there, that's not even gonna matter because you have celebrated yourself every step of the way. And that's hard for people. We are not a company. We Try not to have weight goals now. A lot of people do and we can get them there, but we wanna get you. You've probably seen this in your line of work is people get to their weight goal and they're like, I was expecting to feel confident and I was expecting to feel happier. Where the process is, where all of that is created. Look at you. Doing the hard thing, walking through the hard thing, doing it every day, being consistent with it, doing it even when you feel like you. You can't. Doing it when it's not perfect, doing it when life gets lifey and coming out and being like, I get right back to climbing the mountain, right? I tell people all the time, staircases are small steps for a reason, because they'll be very challenging if we had to jump from step to step, right? And do these leaps, they're tiny little steps. And a part of my process is stepping one step at a time. And this is. These are conversations we have in the beginning of our time together. So. Oh, my gosh.

So good. Okay, so for. Thank you so much for pouring into me to us. I really appreciate it. This is amazing. So for those of you who want to connect with you more, go deeper, have these conversations. What are some of the best places I can send.

I would definitely send them to our website, themindsetofmatter.com you can also find me on Instagram at Mindset of Matter coaching. If you want to hear a little bit more about our experience in longer form, we have our podcast, the Mindset Mirror Connection. Yes. And also you can email me directly at the Mindset of matter@gmail.com.

Okay, cool. This has been amazing. I'll be sure to link all of those up in the show notes. So thank you so much for.

I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me.

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